¾«¶«

By Tiffany Whitfield

 

Question: Where are you from?

Answer: I’m from Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Question: What made you want to come all the way to ¾«¶«?

Answers I always knew that I wanted to be a little further away from home, and I wanted to be able to establish myself somewhere else, but I felt I needed a transition as part of my next phase in life. I loved where I grew up, and I applied to a lot of schools, but my mom suggested I apply to ¾«¶«. We came down to a campus tour and really loved the campus. There was something different that I couldn’t really explain, but it felt better for me also and I really wanted a school that had a lot of different options available to me in terms of majors.

Question: What was your major and why did you choose it?

Answer: I came in as a nursing major, but I wasn’t 100% sure about it, and I realized nursing just wasn’t for me, and I just felt like there was a different path for me. I knew I wanted to help people eventually in some capacity, and I wanted at least a degree that would set me on a path to potentially do that. So, then I changed to a biology major as kind of a placeholder, plus I did well in biology in high school. I remember sitting over the winter break during my freshman year with my parents, and I went over every major ¾«¶« offered trying to figure out which ones I was most interested in. I really wanted to have that stability in the sense of I know what I'm studying, and this is my path. I signed up for Psych 201S, and I really enjoyed the class. My parents really wanted me to do a minor to support communications, so I am a double major in Psychology and Communication Studies.

Question: What clicked for you in Psychology at ¾«¶«?

Answer: A lot of my friends had found their thing and what they’re really interested in and passionate about. I love learning, But I hadn’t found that thing for me. When I took the psychology class, I realized that I really enjoyed understanding how people think and why people think the way they do. That also leads me to communications as well, like, why people speak and the intricacies of the way they’re speaking and stuff like that. And even not just in my interpersonal life but also media and that sort of thing.

Question: How have you started to apply what you’ve learned in Psychology and Communication Studies?

Answer: I did an internship through a non-profit called Westchester Communities that Care back in Pennsylvania. They support a lot of youth in the area and do a lot of different stuff and help parents and teens. They are really directly related theories and concepts, how we think about things that also apply to communication. Psychology enriches my communications major because they both are really essential to the other. How we communicate is directly tied to how we think about things. And there’s a lot of theories that apply to psychology that also apply to communication so there’s a lot of overlap there.

Question: What was it like to study abroad?

Answers: In the beginning of this year (2023), from January until July, I studied abroad at the University of Essex in Colchester, United Kingdom, and I studied psychology there. The courses were so interesting. I took one on relationship psychology and one on brain and behavior. I also took a course on body senses in existence, and the last course was animal behavior. Each of the courses were very different and touched on different concepts. Experiencing the culture there was wonderful and really shaped how I’m going to go forward, going forward in my career. Getting to experience a different academic environment is also very interesting because there are some similarities to here in the U.S., but there are some differences too. The courses there meet only once a week, compared to back in America that meet multiple times a week. I only had one exam to take, and I had a 24-hour time frame to write essentially two medium sized essays.  Also, interacting with other people that are from across the world like from China and Australia and all these other different places was amazing because we got to experience things together. There’s a sense of community there, we’re all studying abroad and we’re all in this new place.

Question: Why is ¾«¶« special?

Answers: What really appealed to both of us was the fact that there were so many different options in terms of degrees. And they had a really strong science program, which was really important to me because I knew I wanted to do science in some capacity. I just wasn’t sure what that looked like. And then of course, the campus was really nice. But once I came here, I actually met one of my best friends in the whole world here. It was like the people that I’ve met while I’m here that are important to me that stuck it for me. And of course, the content, the courses were really interesting and stuff. But it was really the people that I’ve met here that really made it super meaningful to me.

Question: Which faculty members were impactful on your journey here?

Answer: There are two faculty members who made a difference:

• Elaine Murphy (lecturer) taught a Women’s Psychology course, and she wrote a letter of recommendation for my study abroad. It was one of the first classes that was really interactive, and I liked how she taught and factored in getting our opinions on the subject throughout the course.
• Courteny Mozo (adjunct professor) was Social Psychology professor, and I really enjoyed how her classes were setup. We had a group project and filmed a video that had social psychology concepts and that were really neat.

Question: What would you say specifically to someone who is interested in pursuing psychology as a major?

Answer: You just have to be confident in yourself and find the portions of psychology that really interest you and explore that and invest yourself in those courses.

Question: What are your plans after graduation?

Answer: I am in the process of applying to graduate school, and I'm not 100% sure what I want to do as far as a career, but I am pursuing intercultural communications and international relations.