MSP Webinar with Michele Drennen, Michelle Robbins and Jerome Placido

0:00So welcome everyone again, and I will leave the open floor mic to Michelle Robbins, Michele Drennen, our alumni association director, and Jerome Placido. From a historic perspective, I am the alumni, coordinator for the program, meaning that after a student graduates, I assist them in all manners. And I used to be in Michelle's role, as a master's in psychology representative, and Jerome was actually one of my very first students. So I'd like to start off by talking just a little bit or have Jerome just talk a little bit about what he did with his master's in psychology, and then we'll go into the slides. Thank you, Jerome. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Hello, everyone. Nice to have you on here tonight, and thanks for taking the time.

0:50So, yeah, my my experience overall with the, the master's, in psychology, the online program, I had approached it simply because I had became a people leader in my role. I'm normally, I studied to be a software engineer, and I found myself thrusted into a leadership position. And, you know, I had spent four years in college studying how to be a software engineer. I had spent five years in the industry, and I knew how to be a good individual contributor. But I didn't know how to lead people, at least in an effective way. Now, granted, there were some, you know, general principles that I followed. I had, you know, years of ministry experience that helped out a lot. But just trying to understand more deeply human behavior, having a stronger sense.

1:40I mean, I'm a software engineer, right? So a stronger sense of emotional intelligence, conflict resolution skills, being able to lead more effectively with empathy. And I was looking for all these things. And that's exactly what I found in that master's program that I attended at Divine Mercy University. So after the program, what I found myself doing was mentoring a lot of other managers. I actually got promoted during the program as a director. So I started managing managers as well. And I found myself coaching and mentoring a lot of these people leaders on how to lead with empathy, how to engage with your team with a little bit more of the the human side rather than just the business side, and ended up, you know, having, running programs in a big, you know, Fortune 500 company.

2:30I'm not gonna name names, but, Fortune 500 company. And I was and I was running workshops for for both people leaders but also technical staff engineers on how to lead, with some of the skills that I learned very concretely through the through the master's program. And, actually, my capstone, which I now consult for something similar, my capstone was around sort of the intersection of our faith, a good understanding of sort of human anthropology and what that looks like with good leadership in industry. And so I consult a lot around that and help people project manage and and and level up in their particular roles in different industries. Yeah. Thank you, Jerome. And when we have oftentimes had an a student who was really a potential student who's really kind of wondering what direction to go just to have a conversation with Jerome.

3:29He's also on my alumni advisory board, and we really appreciate him as alumni. And, hopefully, some of you will become alumnis. So we're gonna let Michelle Robbins, who is the master's in psychology admissions representative, go through the slides. And so if you do have any questions of Jerome or any of us while we're on there, put them in the chat, and we won't close this out until we've answered all your questions. How's that? Alright. Hi, everybody. I'm Michelle Robbins. I am one of the, admissions advisers for the masters of psychology program. My co partner, Charice Bennett, I hope I said her last name right. Bennett Bennett. Oh my goodness. She's gonna kill me when she hears this. But, she's she's away.

4:12Otherwise, she would be here, and we will both be presenting to you. So I'll leave her contact later on in the, chat as well so that you have two points of contact. And some of you may have already spoken with her. Who knows? But anyway, so, thanks for joining us, after a busy day. We appreciate that you're you're here with us. And like Michelle stated, this is definitely a very broad overview of the MSP program. I wanna let you know that if you have, more specific questions or maybe you just don't even wanna put them in the chat, you can always, reach out to, Charice or myself and we can, have a phone call with you, in private if you prefer to do it that way. We want you to feel very comfortable with the information that we're giving you and comfortable enough to ask the questions that you need, to make your very important decision.

5:13And so, like it was already said, if you have questions, just please put them in the chat. And I know Michelle's gonna help me try to keep up multitasking with the technology, like a scary thing for me. So, anyway, we will get all those answered as we go along. Alright? So here we go. I'm not gonna read everything verbatim, but I'm just going to point out a couple of things for you. First thing here is that we were founded in 1999 and we are celebrating our twenty fifth anniversary. We are super excited about that. We are accredited by SACSCOC, which is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. And basically, that just means that we meet the high educational standards and we can offer both masters and doctoral degrees.

6:09We have agreements with, CHEVE and it's a regulatory agency and they approve our programs, in Virginia, which is where our campus is located. And the NC SARA, that one's important because it allows us to offer our online, courses across state lines and we don't need to get separate approvals from every state. The mission of DMU, we were founded by a group of psychologists who wanted to, they wanted a more compassionate approach to psychology, the integrated faith and ethics. And so the goal is to make psychology, more accessible and help people flourish in their personal and professional lives. So stop me with any questions if you have though. Alright. So we're gonna move right into, what makes DMU unique.

7:13And, these are some of the highlights and, probably some of the highlights and what drew you, what drew your interest into our program in the first place. We are 100% online, so all of your classes and your books and your materials are fully accessible online. The program is designed with flexibility in mind. The integration of faith, this is a big one. We integrate psychology with the Catholic Christian understanding of the human person. The focus is on combining the mind and spirit to foster healing. Okay. Another interesting thing is that we have a small student DMU maintains the small class size to promote strong relationships with professors and, your classmates. And so it ensures, a more personalized feedback and support.

8:20Alright. Did anybody have any questions so far? Alright. Moving right along. So some of the benefits of the masters in psychology program. You can see some of these here. The deeper understanding of yourself and others. One interesting thing that I have, that I've heard, many students share with me is that the program itself was, kinda deeply cathartic for them, because it's it helps helped or is helping them work through personal challenges, or unresolved issues in their lives. And the reason this happens is because the program encourages not just academic learning, but internal you're internalizing the material on a personal level. And so it fosters both professional growth and personal healing.

9:23I think that's pretty awesome actually. There are three goals of the masters in psychology program. The first one is understanding self and others and we refer to that as psychological literacy. The second one is personal and professional development. And the third are skills to promote flourishing. And you'll you'll hear hear that word often through your program, All throughout the university that word flourishing and, healing of the whole man, those are foundational for our university, for all of our programs. Okay. On this page, we are showing you what the foundational courses are. So we have six concentrations, but regardless whatever concentration you choose, and I'll show those to you in a moment, the foundational courses are the same.

10:25The differentiator between the concentrations will be in the electives because the electives are very specific to that concentration. So these are some of the classes. On the website you can get a deeper, view of the description of these classes, if anybody wants that link. I have links for everything. All you have to do is ask. But, the core classes they're pretty interesting. Like the helping people flourish. This one will focus on understanding people through a mix of psychology, faith, and ethics to help them thrive. I think the cognition, emotion, and motivation is the one I would like the best because it looks at how we think, feel, and what drives us to act. You know, those people in our lives, we wanna figure them out and you can that'll be a class that would help you with that.

11:25So, yeah. These are interesting. Pardon me a moment. Bless you. I'm so sorry. I'm getting over the flu, and so I'm trying to stifle my, coughing here. So I'm I'm I'm really sorry about that. Okay. So, also, if it's going a little too fast, let me know. I can send you some slides of things that you may wanna look at deeper. Okay. These are your six concentrations that we talked about. Marriage and fam family, human services, leadership, pre PhD, self design, and bioethics. Alright? And we will go a little bit more in-depth with each one. And, we'll start out with marriage and family. So like I said, all of these courses have the same eight foundation and thank you for the bless you, by the way, Jerome.

12:37I have the eight foundational courses, the difference being are the electives. And you can get a really good description of the course if you go to the website. The marriage and family, track, the focus is supporting couples and families in various settings like marriage preparation, relationship, education, and family life ministries. So you can, give a shout out as well in the chat as to the ones that kind of caught your interest. We always like to know what people are are looking at and what they're thinking. Alright. Moving on to human services. So the focus on the human services track is, working in human needs settings. It focuses on one on one interactions. The three electives here, the relationship and intervention skills, theory and application, personality, individual differences and intelligence and leading and facilitating groups.

14:00We have a couple of slides down, and I know that Michelle was going to discuss career opportunities. But some of the things you'll be looking at with this one, are human services, professionals, grief counselors, support roles in social services or immigration programs. Did anybody have any questions with with this concentration? Michelle, were there any questions? Oops. I'm guessing no. Alright. So we'll move on to the leadership track. And, leadership track going on there? I'm sorry. I couldn't get unmuted. Somebody asked about what about marriage and family counselor? So it's always a good time as we go through this. We are very oriented towards making sure that you kinda have an idea of what you wanna do afterwards.

14:58Some people don't. Jerome did not expect to go the direction that he went. However, what I do find is that people are surprised with the areas they can go into. Someone else earlier had said something about counseling. So I just wanna tell you the difference real quickly. So as we're looking through this, you'll know. A counselor is usually a person who is drawn to working with very broken people every day of their lives. And it is a very intense program whereas you are not fully online, you're, hybrid. You actually do, free trips to the campus in Sterling, Virginia over the course of it. And, again, we wanna put put people in the right program that they wanna get into. So if you, after today, looking at all this, feel like you do wanna compare it to counseling, you just tell one of the admissions reps and they'll let you know.

15:46But the real difference is is with master's in psychology, you are opening up a whole venue of opportunities. I actually printed off some of the ones where I put my people. We have three bishops that have come out of the master's in psychology program, which is amazing. We do have director of family life, for the diocese of matrician, self employed. We have nurses. We have teachers. We have people who are can do counseling in a non licensure way as far as some of the hospital and behavioral health and those kinds of things. So one of the things that I do, while you're in the program, it's very important that we kinda talk about what your long term goal is. But I will tell you that I get five or six job leads a week for all of our programs.

16:32We are so unique because we do the kind of education that we do. We study not just the psychology, ladies and gentlemen. We study the whole person. And so there are employers that only wanna hire our graduates because of the way the curriculum is delivered. So, I will tell you that you'd be very surprised of things that you're, able to get into. A lot of people are high up with diocesan. Some people work with Catholic charities. But as you go through this, you're gonna see some things that jump out at you, but we always wanna make sure that we're putting you in the correct career opportunity. And one thing that I do always tell people if they're a little bit on the fence of whether they do counseling or not, I believe it's five of our classes in the masters of psychology that do transfer over to counseling, and some people have done both because it shortens their time.

17:20So that's the thought there. Okay? So I'll hush up, and we'll continue on the slides for now. Thanks, Michelle. I appreciate that. Yeah. It is more important to us that you are where your heart is leading you and where that's really gonna be the most important thing is to find your fit, find your people, so to speak. And I'll piggyback on, what Michelle said about the, the licensure, which is the masters in counseling degree versus hours is that, you can still counsel with this degree. There are there's there's a difference. You can't diagnose, mental health conditions, offer, psychotherapy or provide clinical interventions, in a licensed setting. But I mean, there's so many things that you can do with this degree and that's why you really need to stop and ask yourself where you want to be.

18:24That's gonna be an important question. You can you can work in roles like coaching and mentoring and providing guidance in nonclinical settings, faith based counseling, spiritual direction, pastoral counseling, support groups, community outreach programs. There are so many things. And like I said, a few pages down there are, just slides to describe some of the areas that you could look at that might surprise you, like Michelle noted. Alright. We left off at, let me think. Where did we leave off? We talked about marriage and counseling and human services. I think we are we were at leadership. Right? I'm gonna imagine you all are shaking your head. Yes. Okay. So leadership. That's where we left off.

19:27Okay. So, the pre PhD concentration. Now if you are looking to further your education down the road, into a PhD program, which we have to, you might wanna look at this one. It is research intense. It's it's very intense program. A thesis requirement, you have that. It's going to prepare you for research and doctoral level studies. That's what this this concentration is all about. I can talk more about this or if you want more information, more detailed information, I can send that to you if you let me know who you are, and I will send that to you in an email. Okay. Self design. This is an interesting one because you are in the driver's seat. So like I said, you have the same eight foundation courses, the difference being are the electives.

20:38So say you're torn between marriage and family and leadership, you could choose your own electives in in this concentration. So you have three of them. So there are three columns here and you can see you could pick one from each and kind of tailor it to what you really wanna study. So, you can do a little of this and a little of that. It's just a nice option if you're sort of undecided. And finally, bioethics. The bioethics concentration is, the focus on this one is, the ethical decision making in health care settings. We partner up with the National Catholic Bioethics Center for part of this concentration. And it's designed for people like health care workers, mental health professionals, chaplains, anybody who helps navigate tough ethical decisions, that's what this concentration is really about.

21:49Did anybody have any questions about that? The bioethics. Okay. So, right now, we're gonna talk about the learning experience. Whoopsie. It's very touchy. Okay. The learning experience. We already talked about that it's 100% online. We have great support for you. We have the twenty four seven tutors and librarians that are available. We have a writing center, for writing support. We have, we work with APA academic writer or academic, and so we have the the academic writer, sorry, where you upload your paper and you can get help with the citations and formatting. We use canvas as our platform. I don't know if anybody has any familiarity with, platforms, but that's what we use. It's very easy to use.

22:57Okay? Okay. If I'm going too fast, I'm sorry. Alright. Now the I promised you a couple of, pages on career opportunities and Michelle might wanna jump in. But, we just kind of wanted to show with this one the diversity of the different areas that you can get into. It's just such a broad range of areas that you could use your degree for. I will make a couple of comments. One is the the versatility of the areas that you can go on into are amazing. I guess I've been in admissions most of my life, and I love being in alumni relations. But our main goal is that when you graduate from whatever program you choose, you find something that you literally love to get out of bed and go to every day. Because the kind of education that we have, you figure out really quickly that you start to flourish and you have an opportunity not just to be about you, but all the people around you.

24:01So when you see some of these job descriptions, and I love the way this is it's a better slide than it used to be when I was in an MSP. When you look at the fact that you're from social mental health, you can do everything from being caseworker to grief and loss counselor. Again, these are not licensed, but they are very needed in hospitals and rehab places. And And then as far as the human resources, you know, we have to find good people. We have to have good training. We have so many people that work in the systems with jail and program managers in voc rehab. Ministry, obviously, is a big one for us. We do have people who work in parishes, who work for Catholic charities, who do marriage preparations, and maybe you're a catechist because the priests are so overloaded these days, they need this kind of assistance.

24:47And And a lot of times, they may even have money to help you above and beyond these scholarships that we can offer. And then from an education standpoint, a lot of people come into our program because teachers oftentimes, when they get their masters in psychology or their masters in anything, they have an opportunity to go up the ladder as far as having an opportunity to make more money. And then we have actually hired some of our graduates as admissions representatives. They they love Divine Mercy. They like the way we do things, and they liked it so well they came back and they're teaching and, and doing admissions as well. So that's a really nice quick overview of some of the opportunities plus the ones that I read for you.

25:24And, even though I'm not in admissions anymore, a lot of times I will talk to potential students, so I will always help to guide you. I've helped with resumes for students as well as is, doing some mock interviewing because you'll find that, everybody goes out of here and they either have get the job while they're in here, they get promoted, and that's what the exciting thing is about a master's degree. I'll let you take it back. Thanks, Michelle. Michelle, you're muted. Darn. I promised myself I would That's okay. I I think, it'll be the next slide. The next slide also has, more career things, I think, but you can discuss. It does. I was just wondering if anybody saw anything in any of these, groups that was a surprise to them.

26:18Like, just recently I realized the criminal profiling. I thought that was pretty darn interesting. Again, if anybody would like any of the slides, I can send that so that you can kind of look at it at your own pace if you wanted to. Alright. So here we're emphasizing careers within health care and mental health settings. Direct patient care, support and managing, social and emotional challenges. So case management, health care partnerships. Okay. And then finally, this is my final slide on career opportunities. But I wanted to highlight the corporate and organizational careers. You could use your degree even there. Say you're already working somewhere. They have opportunities and needs even within these corporations for leadership roles and marketing and communication.

27:29So there we go. Alrighty. Now we're gonna get into the nitty nitty gritty here a little bit for you. Probably what you all have been waiting for is, some of the basic information. Okay. So here are, as far as, still January 2025, our direct cost tuition and fees. So pardon me a moment. I'll let you take a peek. Okay. At the technology fee is, this will cover things like online platform access and tech support. This is tacked on, to $50 per class. It is a 33 credit program, breaks down to eleven eleven courses. You do have a residency. It is, one time. It is in the seventh week of your classes and it is online, so you don't even have to show up. It's two days and, the purpose of that is to build an online learning community and introduce the students to, DMUs, integrative approach to psychology and develop relational skills for diverse work and ministry settings.

29:02You know, basically, you will meet your cohort and your professors, and I understand it's a really lovely time. Alright. Are there any questions here? I know this is the section that people get a little nervous on, and we don't want you to be. There are ways to handle your education cost. And, DMU really does a good job of financial aid, does a good job of working with you to figure out how how to work your education. So we are an accredited college, and so we're a university, so we do have the federal student aid available. Things like you might wanna check with your employer. They may have employer tuition available. These are just some ideas. We are Yellow Ribbon School. I think Natalia had mentioned that, in the beginning.

30:06We have the GI Bill and we as, a university have our own scholarships and grants. Now they are listed, on the website. I do have an informational sheet that I put together myself because you get certain questions that that come around a lot, and that's one of them. So if anybody would like that, just, let me know in the chat, and I'll send that to you afterwards. Also, if you belong to, a diocese or a Catholic church, somebody did mention, it might have been Michelle, that you have things available to you that you may not know about. There are a lot of opportunities for, for your your Catholic church, for education purposes. And then we also have, whoopsie, our our cash plans. So these are interest free, and you can think of it like, like a car payment.

31:09So you're you're paying as you go, breaks it up. And financial aid, when you go in through the process of the I'm losing my mind here. The when you go in through the application process, you will be set up with a meeting with financial aid, and they they are really good. And they'll help you through all of the questions in that process and, put you at ease a little bit. Alright. Did anybody have any questions with this part? No? Okay. We did say that we would talk about the two different options to work through the program. There is the sixteen month and the twenty six month. The twenty six month is kind of like your scenic route. So in just over two years you could have your degree or you could maybe want to get through it because you want to use your degree.

32:16You wanna get through it and do the work right away, so that would be your fast track option. So the differences between them, obviously there's a reduction in your tuition. Secondly it's it's the work really, and this is a question another question you're gonna want to ask yourself. And you're gonna wanna ask how much time you have to devote to your coursework. And that's really what it boils down to. With the sixteen month track, you're looking at taking two classes per well, let me back up a little bit. So we start in spring, summer, and fall. Alright? And each the spring and the fall term both have two eight week periods. So in each of those eight week periods, you'll be taking two classes.

33:12So if you took the sixteen month track, that would mean you're taking four classes in that term in the spring and in the fall. The summer is an abbreviated session, so you're taking one class regardless. So you you just have to you have to figure how much time you wanna devote or that you have available to devote to coursework. The sixteen month track, you're looking at about fifteen to twenty hours, per Michelle, help me out. I'm losing my mind. My my thought process is, I think what we wanna always say is Yeah. I don't wanna confuse anybody. To have your time allotted to say, okay. If I'm the kind of person that can do this degree, I have probably make sure if I have children that my husband's gonna be able to watch them or vice versa.

34:09So I would say if you're going through the program and you're taking just one class at a time, you're probably gonna need, I would say, about fifteen to twenty hours a week. It's very much writing. It's also reading posts, all of those kinds of things. And I think Jerome will shake his head and see if that's about right. Yeah. So the fast track, you might be looking a little bit more twenty five hours a week or twenty eight hours a week. Everybody's different. Some people, you know, take longer to write a paper. Our papers are not long. They're not, like, huge, you know, many, many, many words. They're very succinct, very definitive. You do post. You talk online with other students. But you do have timelines as far as when things are due like in any other educational opportunity.

34:55But you'll find a whole lot of support. And our I think the other thing that's exciting is you have an orientation prior to starting the classes. So you kinda jump right in there and swim, and you feel very confident about using Canvas. Maybe, Jara, you can set a little bit of light on how you how you really measured your time and how you were able to do it because you were always working. You had a child. Yes. So give us a little insight into that real quick. Yeah. I mean, one of the main reasons I I I signed up was because I had sort of a plethora of spare time. But in the middle of my program, my wife and I actually found out we were pregnant. And then suddenly, I went from, like, having a plethora of spare time to taking care of a small human being and switching into a whole new role.

35:42But I I like the way that, Michelle I don't know if you're one or two. Michelle Robbins. Michelle Robbins said it definitely is the scenic route. Right? Like, there I had I had time to ingest. There's a lot of reading. We we can't ignore that. There there there was some writing, but it was the scenic route. I got to ingest a lot of the materials. I took a lot of that material with me and really, like, dove deeper into the other references. But I would say, you know, fifteen to twenty hours, Michelle, is is is a good estimation. And it's, it's doable, but it does require you know, because it's an online program, it requires a higher level of discipline. But that discipline I found reinforced by my cohort and the camaraderie that we shared together.

36:26So it was it was easy to stay on top of it. Thank you so much for for sharing that. That is super helpful. Yeah. Did anybody have any questions about this? It's really a personal choice. So I I think that's a good question. I think Paul's looking for a clarification. Like, is it, classes at night? Is it, work around like, your work hours? I don't know what's changed, so maybe you wanna Well, you know, I have this question. Time of the day, can't you, Michelle? Anytime. Anytime. No. I'm one of those people, but I'm a farm girl. I can do more from six in the morning until nine. Most people can't all day. So the nice thing is you you can go to class anywhere. I've I used to put a couple of priests in, and they had to go on retreats.

37:13Yeah. They said, how can I do this? And I said, well, are you gonna have Internet at home? Well, yeah. And so it was really funny because they were going on a, a trip, and it was a couple of his gentlemen he'd been in seminary with. And he said, you're right. It worked out just perfect because then they wanted to know about my courses. So as long as you've got Internet and you've got a computer, you can go to school anywhere you want, anytime of day. And I think if there's one thing that people really love more than anything about the way we structure the degree, it's for that. And you have holidays. You have great holidays that you get off. You know, we're in this in the factoids of, hey. You get a week, you know, many times after that eight week class is over and you could breathe and we want you to.

37:55We have nice breaks of Thanksgiving and Christmas because we celebrate, you know, the beauty of our seasons because we're faithful. And so it's one of those things that I'm not gonna say it goes fast, but it moves right along. Trish just had a question. Is the learning material mostly reading or videos or recorded lectures? It's actually a little bit of all of that. Mhmm. And Jerome mentioned a capstone, and we feel so strongly about your capstone that we actually put the title of your capstone in the graduation program. And it is just absolutely amazing, the titles to these. And it's not like a a big dissertation like you would have a a degree that's a PhD or something like that, but it's really talking about something that you have a real passion for.

38:42I'll give you one example, and I'll turn it back over to Michelle. We actually had a priest, and he still does it, in, New York, and he wrote something regarding the sacrament of baptism as his, and the importance of it to a child in his, capstone. And the whole diocese adopted the process of what he did with baptism of children. And, you know, that's just one of many stories of the the great graduates that we have out. I tried to retire, but I still love this so much that I have passion for it. So, Patrick asked how often does each class meet? You do have I'm gonna let Jerome answer that. You know how that works better than I do. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And it it just for clarity, it may may have changed.

39:26I think that, the the professors have a little bit of leeway of of when to have live courses or not or live meetings. That said, I think 99.9% of it was what I would refer to as asynchronous, right? Those the reading material, the video, the recorded lectures. And there were times that either the professor would have a sort of group discussion with everyone involved. That becomes a little tricky. For example, two or three of my cohort were in Africa, right? It's a completely different continent. One of the priests at the time was in Jerusalem, right? And so it becomes a little tricky. And that's sort of why the format is the way it is. It's asynchronous to be able to accommodate the variety of time zones that are in any given cohort.

40:14But that said, just for everyone here, there's a beauty to that. Because when I listen to the recorded lectures, Canvas does this really cool thing when you can listen to like 1.5. So I could listen to like a thirty minute lecture while I'm driving to work. Right? And it's it turned that thirty minute lecture into, like, twenty two minutes, and I would have consumed everything that I needed to so that I could write my my my, assignment for the week. So there's plenty of creative ways to sort of make sure that you do the work, that you're faithful to what you're supposed to be learning, but also having fun with it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Your insights are fantastic and probably exactly what everybody needs to hear since you've been through this.

40:57Yeah. It it works with your life. Wherever you are, your class work is. So you could be on vacation, download what you need before, you know, if you don't have Internet, you can download your work, and then get your reading done and then work on discussion boards. There are ways through it and you have an academic advisor and your cohort. You're probably most likely going to lean on your cohort a lot. You're all working through this together and you'll get a lot of tips and ideas just like Jerome was sharing. Okay. So you've made it this far and now's where I'm going to talk to you about the admissions requirements. So you should decide to move forward. A lot of people come in with the idea that you need to have a degree that's affiliated with psychology, but you don't.

41:56What you do need is a bachelor's degree and you want to make sure you have, a 2.5 GPA, that's the minimum. But if you want to be competitive, you want at least like a 2.75. A resume, so much like you would submit to a potential job opportunity, you'll need a resume. Personal statement which is 500 word, one one page. Basically you're going to, think of it like a cover letter for for your resume. You want to this is where you shine, and you talk about what brought you to this point, why you're interested in in moving through with this, and what it means to you. So, we can give you more information if you need specifics, but it's basically that. The thing that I want to highlight here are the two letters of recommendation.

43:05First of all, they are not letters of recommendation. They're I changed the wording a little bit because that sounds, sounds like a lot. But two recommendation requests basically. As you're moving through your application, you'll get to this point and it's a hyperlink. And what you're gonna do is you wanna send that to a couple of people that know you well, that can speak to your character and your work ethic and all the great things about you. And, it's basically going to be like a survey type of a thing. There are places where they can insert comments in there, but it's not it's not like a letter. So it's not overwhelming. Here's my recommendation to you though, is that you should have at least five or six people lined up.

43:58Now we have on there too. I would line up more people and here's why I've had this happen and it's crushing. You can get through your process, your application, and you're ready to go and classes are going to start. And for some reason, one of your recommenders didn't check their email or maybe they went on vacation or maybe they're just completely bombarded. And they may not get to your your, your recommendation. And so that will hold you up. And you kinda just want to you don't wanna be held up. You don't wanna get behind. So it's it is important to get those in. And so the recommendation here is to have at least five or six people lined up. And should all of your people come back with a recommendation, a glowing recommendation, we'll pick the best ones and we'll upload those into your application.

44:54You're gonna talk to you're going to want to ask, a professor or teacher previous. You can you can ask a colleague, community leader, your supervisor at work. Just people that know you well can sing your praises. Okay? So, that's important And you will not remember, I'm sure, because I I have told people this and then, it happened. They didn't get their letter of recommendation in on time, and it just creates a little bit of chaos. It's not it's not impossible, but, just to make things flow a little bit better. You just wanna make sure that you get those in. Alright? Because you sat through this presentation, and should you move forward with your application, we are going to waive the, it's $55 application fee.

45:55So I have a code, and, we can post that in chat. Alright. Please reach out. If you have any questions throughout this process, please reach out. That's what we're here for. We're here to help you. And so this brings us finally to four questions, and I know Michelle might want to say something about this. But these four questions you should, you know, consider and, really prayerfully consider them. Basically, you want to make sure if you can swing things financially, you wanna reflect within yourself how this program can help you achieve the goal that you want. You know, where do you see yourself and can this program get you there? Is this something that you can commit to? Being realistic about what time you have available to devote to it and, you know, if that's feasible for you.

47:13We very much want you to succeed in the program. We want it as much as you want it, believe it or not. I mean, you're you're you've got this mission in your life and when you go off and you have your degree, just think of the ripple effect that you create all of the people that you're going to help. And, it's such a beautiful thing, and we're so happy to be part of that. And so we just ask that you reflect on these things. And, and if you're ready, then we can get to that application. And, Michelle, did you have anything to add? I did wanna answer ask, someone had asked, you know, and I did come back to them personally. But, you know, this is often true that if you're gonna start a master's, and a lot of people do.

48:02And they've been out of school for fifteen years, and maybe their GPA wasn't quite there. So a lot of times, we can accept people conditionally. You still got a lot of wisdom that you've gained over that time. And then as long as you hold a certain grade point average that first eight weeks, you go forward. On the one slide, as far as the TOEFL or the other test, that is usually for people who maybe English is not their first language, but yet, you know, they have been predominantly speaking English, and they've taken English courses. But, again, we don't wanna put people in a program server they're gonna head where they're gonna, you know, not enjoy what they're doing. So that's very important.

48:42And sometimes if your grade point average is way, way, way low, doctor Julia Clousley, who's the head of the program, you know, she will talk with you and say, why don't we do this, see how it goes? Because, again again, when you've been out of school for a long time and sometimes from an online perspective but the good thing is the orientation kinda really gets you going like you're riding a bike, that you can have the opportunity to learn something and and really do well in it. And, I saw the bob of the head from, Jerome. He had an amazing cohort, and they all made a pact when they first started that they would never ever let anybody leave the program. They would always cheerlead them on and help them and talk to one another.

49:26And that's the joy of chats and getting to really it's amazing how close people can get in an online program. So that's all I have to say about that, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows, you know, the opportunity. And I know that Michelle's been saying things about sending slides. I don't know that we do that unless that's something new that I've done. But when, we have links that has every bit of this on our online as well. But whatever we need to make a decision, she's gonna help you do. But, we wanna make sure that, again, you're getting into the right program. That's the bottom line. That's why we do an admissions interview that's a little different than a lot of other people.

50:06So thanks again for everyone joining tonight. Alright. Thank you, Michelle. Alright. So with that, here's my contact information, and I did promise you to add, Sharif Bennett's information in the chat as well. She is my we're we're both, admissions advisers for the master's in psychology program, and we're here to help. So whatever you need, any questions that you have, this is what we do. We love what we do. And, thank you so much for taking your time and for suffering through the flu here. Alright, so I will take anybody's information that's in the chat and I'll I'll get back to you with whatever you need. Okay. Hey, Drew. Drone. Yep. Yep. Tell everybody where the four people are that were in your cohort and what they're doing for a living.

51:08This gives you idea of the diversity. Oh, gosh. I mean, they they range everywhere. We have we have someone who actually after the program, in Africa, she was promoted and she's in charge of she's the director of programs, I think, for her parish. We have a priest in New York. We have one in Virginia, who we pray for. He's currently ill. We have a physical therapist in Texas, myself in technology. We're everywhere. And we have, another one who's studying, I think, first, to become a chaplain. I don't know if he's finished yet, but he's, he's actually out near Michelle. So very close cohort. We saw some of each other at Indianapolis. We'd only seen other seen each other twice. And that second time, it's like, we didn't skip a beat.

51:55I mean, it's really, I think the advantage of of going back to school is also the connections that you that you make in your cohort. And these are lifelong friends, I really feel. That's awesome. That's why I started an alumni association because a lot of times what happens is we'll get together regionally with people. And we have a lot of people that donate to us to help us award you scholarships. So a lot of times, they'll pay for a dinner or a brunch or something, and we have the opportunity for all of acceptance rate. It's actually question. Yeah. It's pretty high simply because of the fact that we do what we do as far as making sure that the recommendations come in, making sure that you have the opportunity to test if if there's, you know, something that you feel like you're not comfortable with, and also the opportunity to get conditionally accepted.

52:51You know, if you know, I guess the only reason sometimes people don't is they don't follow through. They don't get everything done and get the opportunity to get in and get their orientation done. But you have a lot of support, but you have to have the drive as well. So Just one thing before I mean, I I wanted to mention it earlier, but recently, I I found myself looking for additional roles and additional jobs. And because of this degree, I found where normally I would just be in technology, I found the amount of amount of jobs that I could apply for were, like, wide open. Had I chosen to switch into a different career, maybe one more focused in church ministry or diocesan work, This degree has completely set me up for that, if if I so chose to pivot in that direction.

53:36So a much wider and broader sort of career path is now available to me as an MSP graduate. And Trish has a question here, which is a great question, Trish. And that is, are most students several years out of college or some new graduates? You know, we don't have as many coming directly out of a bachelor's and into a master's, but we have quite a few. And a lot of you, if you were affiliated at all with FOCUS and you're with them, as soon as you get out of school, a lot of times you do go ahead and come forward because you get a really nice, tuition reduction because of a a an arrangement we have with them. But is the average age of students spring chickens? Not necessarily. But there's a joy about that because you're you're working with people who have wisdom, you know, on legs.

54:22You know, they've had a lot of life experience, and they just make such a and and I Jerome and I both love this. We've known each other for a long time. I'm the one who helped him through the program. But I think the bottom line is you have such a passion for it because of the fact that you are mature, and you mature a great deal going through this degree. So and I'm not a spring chicken, so I'm allowed to say that. And then there is a question on the deadline to start. The next start is when, Michelle? May 21. So I think it's May 7. Don't quote me on that, but it's around there. But I think the best piece of advice that Michelle gave you and and it took me a while to learn this as an admissions person.

55:06Once you decide, just go through and get it done. Get those letters in. Get that financial aid in so you go, oh my gosh. I'm eligible for this scholarship or I'm eligible for that one. And get started on that, orientation. And then now they do have they just have something that they didn't have with your own. You actually have those, online orientations. What is it? The first or second week class that you have that, Michelle? Or the first The first week. Uh-huh. And you get to everybody in the cohort. It is usually on a Saturday. You have two choices of it that is mandatory. It's probably the only mandatory time we'd have to be there except for certain, you know, due dates. But I do believe, another question that came up is how many people are average in each core?

55:50It will range anywhere from 25 to 30, usually about 28. It's a really nice sized class. I know when I was in admissions, I would send the, bio, the first instructor, and then you get to know who all your people are. And, it it whether there's a will, there's a way because we want the right people to go through this program. Yeah. Great questions from everybody tonight. Good job. Yeah. And they honestly for the, I've learned a lot. I I came from a different section. I've been with DMU for over three years, but I came from another area. And so I'm learning as well. There are orientations and they literally will walk you through the platforms and what's expected. You're going to know exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it.

56:42And the faculty, the staff, they're amazing. They're super helpful. And that that help that Michelle is referring to is absolutely there. You're never at a loss. If you want help, you will get help. Believe me. I was, like, trying to figure out the program and and what a student needed to do and when, and I I received so much help with that. And so, there is one more honestly, we hang up, and that's Tammy asking about she's, doing something to advocate for marriage in the village, and that would be very supportive in some of these course works. And you're an RN and a BSN. I have a a very favorite graduate out in, Arizona who took the degree for some of those very same reasons, but she she was dealing things in the hospital that she didn't think she'd ever be dealing with.

57:35And, so we do see that a lot of people who are in the medical field will indeed go forward. And that's what the depth depth of the psychology really helps you to learn how to manage those kinds of situations. And I used to be in nursing admissions, so I really feel very close to people who are going on and getting additional education in nursing. It's, It's, quite a commitment, especially with all the craziness of the last few years. So that's a great question. Yeah. Alright. So anybody that left information, we have collected that and, we will return responses to you. If you would like, a particular slide that you would want to see or links to any of those things, I have those available as well.

58:23Alright. We really are so happy that you took your time and sat with us. And thanks to Jerome for sharing his great experience. It's wonderful to hear from the other side. And then Michelle with her all of her expertise over the years, she's a great asset. If you ever had very specific questions, about, you know, what what you're doing after you have your degree. Michelle is great with all of you. God bless each of you and you have a beautiful year with lots of joy and, we'd love to be part of your life if this is a good fit for you. Alright. Oh, Dawn. I was muted that whole time. So sorry. That's okay. Have a great evening, everyone. I was just saying thanks, Jerome, for all of your expertise and Michelle, you as well.

59:23He actually did hear you. Yeah. We heard you. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Technology. Thank you, everybody. Bye. See you.