Graduate Study of Clinical Psychology :: Graduate Admissions Essays

Graduate Study of Clinical Psychology My dedication to the field of psychology is evident in the various activities in which I am involved. I am a student affiliate of the American Psychological Association, as well as a student member of the Iowa Psychological Association. I have been actively involved in the community as a volunteer working with patients, families, and staff in the emergency room of a local hospital. I have been a devoted member of the psychology club for two years and am currently serving my first year as an officer (Vice-president of Special Events). Finally, I have been a teaching assistant under the supervision of Dr. Frank Barrios, clinical psychologist, and Dr. jack Yates, cognitive psychologist, both of the University of Northern Iowa, where I have had such responsibilities as preparing and grading exams and essays, holding office hours, working with individual students, assisting students with assignments and presentations, and answering any questions students may have about the material. Not o nly do I feel confident about my preparation in psychology, I am also working toward a minor in sociology, acquiring knowledge of the human relations that exist between the individual and the community. In addition to these activities, I have been involved in research under the supervision of Dr. Augustine Osman, clinical psychologist, University of Northern Iowa. Currently, I am working on three separate measures that will soon be submitted for publication. One is an attempt to validate a measure concerning pain and is entitled, "The Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS): Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties." The second is an effort to differentiate between anxiety and depression in a college sample. And the third is an attempt to differentiate between anxiety and depression in a clinical sample. Given Dr. Osman's excellent record of previous publications, I fully expect for these articles to be accepted for publication and for myself to be listed as co-author on all of them. Through my experience with research, I have been involved in data entry and collection, interpretation of data using SPSS, as well as scoring of the MMPI-2. To gain applied experience in the field of clinical psychology, I decided to obtain an internship. To accomplish this, I approached the program facilitator of the mental health unit at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, Iowa. I spent the summer of 1996 carrying out this voluntary internship under the supervision of Dennis Feltz, LMHC, while gaining hands-on experience working with both the adolescent and the adult populations.