MSP Webinar with guest alumni Suzi Ellington

0:07Hello. Thanks so much for coming in for all those who are here. So quick, like, little introduction about me. My name is Charice Bennett. I actually have a bachelor's in engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. And I was an oil fill oil field engineer for several years after that. I was on rigs. I was all over The US, offshore, onshore, Alaska, Louisiana, you name it. I was everywhere. And then afterwards, I had discerned, two years in a religious community with the Carmelites. And after I discerned out, I actually worked at my parish. I worked with families and kids in sacrament. I taught infant baptism, Eucharist, confirmation, RCIA. You name it, anything sacraments related, I was there.

0:56And that was where I realized I needed more help in psychology. Having a background engineering helped me being to be analytical, helped me to be logical, helped me to approach things, with a problem solving mindset. But something that I realized along the way was, one, I need more soft people skills. I need to understand my family and the kids that I work with, as well as, helping create that more warm environment for them. Sometimes I come off fairly cold, and that's something I kind of realized in my studies that in order to help other people flourish, I need to learn to flourish myself. So I learned a lot about myself during this this program, and it really just taught me to help my family be in a better position to flourish themselves.

1:42So, again, if you had just arrived, please go ahead and state in the chat where you live, what is your current occupation, and why psychology. This will help me, gauge the webinar a little bit better so I can help answer your questions as well. Feel free to put anything in the q and a down below in the Zoom. K? Miss Sue and I want to, introduce miss Susie Ellington. Again, she works on my graduating class. Miss Susie, if you'd like to give a little introduction about yourself. I'd love to. And, wow, I especially like learning about your story because I learned a few new things about you. I don't know how you managed to accomplish all of that in your young life so far, but, wow, that's incredible.

2:26What what a journey. Where do I start? Well, I'm Susie Ellington. I live in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, and I have three grown children, a husband of thirty two years, a new business. I am a Catholic life coach and a recent alum of DMU. But where this all began is when I was an undergrad, I was in finance, and I had an inkling that I just I love learning about people and what makes people tick, and I just had such an interest there. So I took a minor in psychology where that is really where my true passion was. I just didn't realize it until after college. And I was in a career, had three children, quit my job. And then at that point, I was so happy and thrilled because it's in intentional and purposeful, but had this nagging regret that I never studied psychology and my excuses piled on one on top of the other, why it wasn't even a possibility.

3:30Some of them made sense. Some of them didn't. And flash forward many years later, I was at Rosary, and it struck me. I really wanted to be a Catholic counselor, but I told myself it was too late. I was 51 years old. I've been out of college thirty years, but I thought, you know what? Let's just be curious. And before I knew it, I was talking to Greg who was like Charice. And all of my excuses started to fall away except for not believing in myself enough to do it. And I just decided to be humble and go for it, and it was really the best decision that I've made. And I just wanted one more thing. On that journey, I had discovered edicharism for encouragement, but in my mind, I created a negative impression of that.

4:28In other words, that was such a gift that was given to me, but I told myself this was my excuse for not doing things myself. This is me lifting everyone else up around me without having the courage to do what I needed to do, which was Mhmm. Not from God. And then I discovered later through my education that, in fact, this was my charism, and, DMU helped me put that to better use. In the meantime, before coming to Divine Mercy University, I have led many small groups for the last fifteen years in many different capacities. So it my whole journey kinda led me to this education. Perfect. Thank you so much, Susie. Mhmm. And I haven't actually finished the rest of my story because I realized I didn't talk about my journey to DMU.

5:18So funny enough, I actually learned about Divine Mercy University when I was a senior in college. So before I even graduated with my bachelor's, I heard about Divine Mercy. And I was like and I told I told myself I should have done psychology. I should have done it. I wanted something more people related. I wanted to help people in some form of way. And then Divine Mercy just kept coming back every couple years when I was a when I was a Oakland engineer. Even after, I was after I left, religious life, I divine mercy emailed me. So back in it god was slowly changing my heart towards really opening up, myself to a master's because I promised myself after engineering that I was never going to do graduate school.

6:07I was like, I'm done with school. I can't do school anymore. But then when you find something that you really love and enjoy learning, it was not a chore. It was actually a beautiful, time to learn not just about God, but also about myself and how I can help other people in a way that is not necessarily in a clinical setting. But thank you so much, Marissa and Carmen, for speaking up in the chat, and thank you so much, Susie, for your Mhmm. Intro. We will go ahead and get started. K? So this is Divine Mercy, a master's in psychology, which is 100% online and no GRE required. So I know that maybe some of you might be interested in a more clinical, graduate program. Master's in psychology is nonclinical.

6:56K? Well, we do have a master's in counseling, which is, to help you lead the licensure as a LPC, licensed professional counselor. The master's in psychology is really geared for those who want in, and view more of of psych, psychological sciences in their work or maybe move into a more human services related career. K? I love this program so much. I actually came back to work for Divine Mercy. So, Charice, I think it's important I add something. I intended to go into counseling. Right? Oh, right. But in that discussion and discernment process, I discovered I really want to get my master's of science instead because I was more interested in growth and helping in my as a helper. So I don't wanna lead anyone under the impression that this is the path to get your counseling degree.

7:45Right. And and yeah. So sorry about that if I misled anyone to that, but that's where I began my journey. Yes. So if you are still interested if you are interested in more of a clinical work, we again, we have our master's in counseling. You can still email me, and that'll be a different discussion from the master's in psychology. K. So a little bit of a background with Divine Mercy. We are a Catholic graduate university comprised of two schools, the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and the School of Counseling. We were founded in 1999, which means in December of this year, we have been around for twenty five years. Twenty five years. And in 2014, that was when they launched the online, masters of science in psychology, which was this program that we will talk about today.

8:35In twenty fifteen fifteen, they added the school counseling. So with two schools, we upgraded to university status. K? Divine Mercy is accredited by SACSCOC, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Same, the same, association from the Department of Education that accredits University of Texas, Auburn, University of Georgia. So, basically, it's the Southern Side of The US, and we, can award master's and doctorate degrees. What really makes our, oops. Excuse me. What really makes our program very unique? Number 100% online classes on your schedule. Susie, just because I'm curious, you know, from the pandemic, a lot of people got more used to online classes. What was your experience with the online, program?

9:34Oh, okay. Great. Well, I'm pretty tech I wouldn't say savvy, but I use Zoom for rosary. In my volunteer work, I've used the computer a lot, so that didn't intimidate me. But it's a case of I nevers, and I if you find me on Susie Ellington on Facebook, I tell the story about it. But one of them was my daughter is a high school English teacher, and she was on Canvas working with rubrics. And I looked at her this is well before DMU, and I said, wow. I'd never do that. I can't even imagine navigating through Canvas, working on a being graded by Rubric. Thank goodness. I didn't have that when I was growing up. Well, low and behold, I ended up loving Rubrics and, use Canvas and navigating that really well.

10:25Did you have a specific question for me about that? Oh, no. Or just about the online experience? Right. Usually, with the online experience, I I tend to say that, sometimes a lot of new students or prospective students feel that it is an isolating thing to do classes online. What do you think, Susie? I well, originally, that was one of the reasons why I thought, oh, maybe I can do this because in the time that I'd be traveling, I can study and read. And I did think it would be isolating, and I thought it would be kind of lesser than education, and it is not true at all. I have made friends with people from around the world, and the connections that you make are real and really supportive. Like, we supported each other.

11:10We have a group of people that all throughout our whole education, whether we were in each other's classes or not, support each other, and very fulfilling and satisfying for sure and easy to navigate and figure out. If I could figure it out twenty excuse me, thirty years out of undergrad, certainly, anybody can. Absolutely. I love to note too that the, Susie and I were started in the same cohort, but we still have our group chat from when we were students. We still talk about our lives on that group chat. We still connect. And beautiful again that we have international students as well because it is 100% online. We have that diversity, in our program. K? Thank you so much, Susie. Mhmm. Our program is also built on the integrative approach psychology.

12:02We have this wonderful, textbook called the Catholic Christian mental model of the person, the CCMMP. You can even find it on Amazon and go ahead and chapter one is available on our website as well, and it's an amazing read. I was super scared of it at first because it was, like, this thick, but it was so accessible. I really enjoyed it. Now come, secular psychology programs tend to focus more on what the symptoms are. This is what hap this is what you these are the symptoms. This is your disease. This is your treatment plan. But we don't really approach psychology in that way. We want the more holistic approach. So in this textbook, we see each person theologically, philosophically, and psychologically.

12:47We have, we each we were born and created in image and likeness of god, but we have rational thought and emotions. But then how does that play into living virtuous life? How does that play into flourishing? All of that you learn in this master program. So that way you can see the whole person, which is what DMU is always trying to teach the Catholic Christian model. The person is the DNA thread that runs through every class. Even the statistics report, which I will I found a lot more later. K? But, our program allows for a sixteen month versus a twenty six month completion option, mean meaning that you can finish the whole program in sixteen months, which is two classes at a time, or twenty six months, which is just one class at a time.

13:37Perfect for our full time, full time workers or our stay at home moms or parents that need that that can only maybe give about ten to twenty hours of work every week. We have individualized feedback from faculty. Every week, the professor emailed you with feedback from your paperwork, reaching out to you, how you were doing. I thought that was a very beautiful way to keep in contact with all your professors. Because, I mean and when I was in undergrad, most of my feedback from my professors were in grade, and then that was it. But no. You get to really learn the faculty members in this program very well. Small student to faculty ratio. We also adapt to all five learning modalities. There's books, video, there's audio books as well.

14:26There's, time to meet with your professors and actually do office hours. It's actually really great in that way, as well as experience and supportive faculty. K? So there are many benefits to the master's in psychology program. Remember, again, that this is a nonlicensure program. K? But psychology is applicable to all life, to all occupations to wherever you are. Because psychology allows you to gain a deeper understanding of yourself. Right? Not just about yourself as well, but also how to help others. And this is why we term flourishing. Very important. It's a hot DMU term. We love flourishing. If you can flourish yourself, you can help others flourish as well. Do you love this term flourishing, Susie?

15:14How many times do you I named my company after it the flourishing zone. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? What do you what is the flourishing zone? Well, first of all, I just wanna add that professionally, this has helped me, but more so personally from my understanding of the beauty of the Catholic church and the understanding of the human person with dignity and to be able to express that to other people without because people will ask me what I'm doing, what is my school about, and I can evangelize in a way that's not threatening because I'm just telling them about my education. I'm telling them about what vocation means. And as they hear my voice, they hear how excited I am because I'm learning this more fully and understanding it more fully.

15:55And you can't lie about how moved you are, about how how beautiful it is, and you wanna share it with others. So there's that part of it. I just had a conversation with my daughter who's amazing, but she's had this little tendency of kinda picking on her fiance a little bit just in joking. And I, through my education, was able to have this most beautiful conversation with her in a nonthreatening way of just the beauty of communication and how she's can you know, she's developing her faith so wonderfully. But now is a chance for her to develop her communication skills so that when she's parenting, she can parent better than I did. You know? And and and she's like, oh, you're a great parent. But I said, I've learned so much from and and you're growing in these ways too.

16:46So it just you're able to if you have young children, it it would be a lot. I'm not for me, it was, but maybe if you're younger, it won't be as much. But even if it's not now, if it's another time, it helps you to really understand understand how to communicate better and more optimistically and hopefully than just getting stuff done in that moment. You have a more intentional, broader vision of your child's development and your vocation as a mom or as a business person. And if you gave me the throne, I would just keep talking for five hours. So I better let you lead it, but I like, it there's just so much you can get out of this other than, yes, you many careers you could do training. Oh, yes.

17:32Absolutely. Things in training that I've interviewed for that I actually turned down to do my business. But there's a lot but more in human relationships and understanding how Absolutely. Relationships are so essential to growth and purpose. So yeah. Absolutely. So if you're able to understand yourself, you can help other people flourish. Right? Mhmm. And I think for me, one of the greater benefits, as I mentioned before, I used to be an engineer, and I thought analytically. I thought logically, but I needed the soft skills. There are classes where they help you develop excellence in communication. They taught you, not just like, what is the difference between sympathy and empathy? How can I tend to the person?

18:17What is my nonverbal communication like in front of other people? You're constantly reflecting on yourself. And it was, like, a beautiful moment to really be to really understand who you are, what you're able to give, your gifts, that you can offer to other people and the communities around you. So it was amazing. I also ran sacrament programs at my parish. That was a so with my master's, I was able to evaluate the programs a little bit better, create surveys to be able to understand, like, what people are really looking for and maybe improve my programs a lot more. So a lot of benefits to this Yeah. In Can I add one more thing? Yeah. I relied I felt like I had a very strong intuition about helping people, and I had my own understanding of that.

19:05And I did a lot of volunteer I still do a lot of volunteering with people that come from brokenness, and I shifted my mindset toward from before as I'm gonna help be in relationship to fix people. And my education helped me understand that my approach needed to be unbiased and from where they are in gentle and just more of a listening reflective thing as opposed to me leading, that it's really taking people where they are. You will learn so many skills even if you're amazing with people. Yeah. No. Absolutely. Mhmm. Thank you so much, Susie. Mhmm. So these are the track that we have in our master in psychology, program. If you could take the time to, to write out which track you're interested in, I will definitely focus on on those.

20:02Okay? Go ahead and write which track you're interested in. We have marriage and family, human services, leadership, CPHD, self design, and bioethics. K? So I would just like to point out to the you know, when they made this presentation oops. Sorry. When they made this presentation, look. There's Emily right here and me. Oh, that's awesome. I love it. That's great. That I graduated, but I think I'm in the present. What are you gonna tell them? We went to school together, but I wasn't in that picture. I took a little break and graduated. You took a little break. Yeah. I graduated that fall and walked to the next May. But Yes. Yeah. Okay. We got bioethics, marriage and family. K. So you can get, get a master's in leadership.

20:53You can get your thesis done, bioethics, Oops. Pre PhD or self design. Applied Bayesian analysis. Okay. Great. Thank you so much for answering. This really helps me a little bit. So within the MSC, we have 11 total courses, and these are the eight core courses. K? The introduction course, the Catholic Christian approach to psychology, developmental psychology, whether you go through each age group every week. I mean, we went from infancy all the way to elderhood, and they tell you what's happening physically, emotionally, cognitively. It was amazing. I really enjoyed this course. Psychopathology with risk and resilience where you're learning more about the abnormal psychology, you know, eating disorders, substance abuses, schizophrenia, all of those kinds of pathologies.

21:50Cognition, emotion, and motivation, which I call the brain class. How does the brain work or what do we know of how the brain works? How emotion comes out, what motivates people, how people make decisions. We have the one philosophy course, the Catholic Christian vision of flourishing based on vocations and virtues, because it's good to have all this psychological knowledge. But if you're not helping people flourish by living out their vocations and living out virtuous lives, we're missing something in terms of flourishing. K? Specific course, as you said, probably earlier, but one of my favorite courses as an engineer. The math course was was great. But don't worry. It's not heavily math. It's really more about can you interpret the data rather than doing the math itself.

22:41You can do it. It's not yes. Yeah. Agree. It's not bad. It's okay. Social psychology with groups and diversity, how do groups, act as well as how the diversity play into groups. And then the research methodology and design where you go over program assessment. And, Susie, what was your favorite class, or which one stood out to you the most? Well, when we started, we didn't really have the concentrations. Like Right. They they kinda transitioned, so I kinda got to dabble in all of them. And quite honestly, I just love them all and how they all kind of fit together for the big picture. But I really did like the cog cognition, emotion, and motivation class. But I think what drove me the most was just the whole flourishing and the history of psychology.

23:34And the progression of psychology is very amazing. So no matter what, take a look at that because it's very fascinating how psychology's evolved. Even in the secular world of positive psychology, it's very aligned even if they don't use the same language with Catholic Christian vision of the person. And as psychology has moved along these decades, it keeps moving more and more to the understanding that we're other centered. So it's that's pretty cool. And so all just all these classes, everything coming together with faith and philosophy intermixed is just it's such a unique time to get a psychology education. And in a way, I'm grateful that I never got to pursue that when I was younger because I I would have never experienced this education.

24:23I think it is the top psychology education you could ever have if you're a especially if you're a Catholic or Christian because to see the whole person from this perspective is you you have to experience, I guess, to understand what I'm talking about, but it is incredible. So yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. And then we're gonna go over the track. K? So as I as I mentioned before, we have 11 total courses. Eight of those are four courses, which everyone takes, then you have three electives to take. K? Marriage and family is really to help students, encourage couples and families towards flourishing in variety of settings, such as marriage prep, enrichment relationship, education programs, training mental couples.

25:12And these are the three electives for that. The Catholic Christian marriage and human sexuality, which is another philosophy course, and then the two psychology courses on interventions as well as systems theory. Which one did you you took one of these courses? Did you take that? Because you also you also go through folk, if they still do this. They go through focus training, and I'm focused certified. So then you leave with this yeah. So focus is your facilitator for pre marriage or marriage. It's not counseling, but you facilitate that discussion, between couples before they get married, or there's also a marriage retreat one. I don't personally do that right now, but I could pursue that if I wanted to.

25:56I have that accreditation, through the school, and the school paid for it, well, through our tuition. Yes. So that that's part of that education if it still is, Charice, I hope. It is. Because that was just this year. Okay. Yes. It is. So you can become a marriage prep facilitator. You can become a director of family life in your parish or even help out with marriage and family office. Mhmm. All of this is really all these classes are aimed to help you understand how marriage and family work and help them towards flourishing. Yeah. So I'll also offer this too if I know there's someone interested in possibly pursuing this. So also in this class, you do design your own retreat, which is not difficult, but that's part of it's pretty much the how the class moves.

26:40You go through preparing this retreat, and you also get your focus certification as part of it. So yeah. FOCUS is f o c c u s. It's one of the marriage prep, program out there. K. Awesome. So this is the human services concentration. This includes, counseling courses. And I took two of these courses. It's really intended for those who are working with with you know, in in a nonclinical setting, but probably in a clinical setting, but not actually as a clinic as a person working in clinical occupation. So, the electives for this one are relationship and intervention skills theory and application. You actually had to talk to a lot of people about like, you had to record yourself one on one interacting, and you got to really see yourself and how you interacted with this was, like, one of our early our earlier courses.

27:36I don't know if you remember, but it was I thought I learned a lot from this course. So did I. Yeah. It was good. Yes. It was really good. Personality, individual differences, and intelligence, I'll a lot of students love this course. Doctor Cusumano teaches it, and he's amazing. You go through a lot of personality theories and how personality develops, as well as group counseling and group work. I actually did this course, and I would say it was one of my hardest courses. You had to be you had to work in a group. You had to record yourself as well as do some self reflection, practice, and improve every week on counseling. It was it was so difficult. It was so good. Are you guys again, you get to really learn a lot about yourself during this course.

28:22So with this particular concentration, you can use case management. If you're an administrator or a grief and loss counselor, for example, there's a lot of human services professionals that could really benefit with this track. The leadership, concentration is really for those who lead want to lead people, programs, and organizations. A leadership cycle, this is really more for those who are in leadership or want to help others, in their leadership. K? So the these are the three electives, transformational leadership, leading people, programs, organizations, plus applied leadership skills. So we're hoping to work towards a human resources, certification with this concentration, as well as if you're maybe a career coach or an executive.

29:05We actually, surprisingly, have executives and VPs in our programs as well. They kinda give a different kind of, perspective and on leading people. I think I took leading people programs and organization or actually transfer one of them. I took one of them and it was it taught me what kind of leader I am and how I can create other leaders as well. I think that was with doctor Derby. Oh, there was k. Sorry. One more sec. The self design concentration is if you want to choose the electives that you want to take. K? So, you can choose one from marriage and family, one from, human services, or one from, the the leadership track. So the first three tracks I mentioned, you can choose an elective from each or maybe choose the three that really works best for you.

29:59K? So I think I did relationship intervention skills. Oh, transformational leadership as well as group counseling. So this is really good for those who are in ministry because maybe it's more applicable to the ministry that you're doing. If you're working for the, you know, federal government, you can really, again, work towards the track towards the classes that you would like to take, something that's more related to your profession. K? Did you see Lashana's, chat here? She has an MS in psychology. Oh, I'm just wondering if you saw it because I'm fascinated about her interest, and I was wondering myself, once you already have your masters and you want additional education, what does that look like?

30:43Okay. That's perfect. That's a great question. So the tracks are actually designed so you can actually just, apply and choose if you already have your masters in psychology, you can already just, you can chew you can do courses for credit. Choose the courses that you would like to take. Maybe take the ones that again, you're more interested in the addiction field, so maybe the more human services related courses work best for you. For those who are already graduated with our masters in psychology at Divine Mercy, you can actually already take track on your own. K? For example, I'm actually I graduated over a year ago, but I will be going back to do the pre PhD track, which I will explain here shortly.

31:28The tracks are meant to really add on to your masters in psychology. K? Hopefully, we don't have an addiction certification yet, but we are actually working towards gaining an addictions, track ourselves. So, hopefully, we will get that, fairly soon. For those who are interested in research, this is the one for you, pre PhD concentration. So our masters in psychology does not necessarily end with a thesis. Well, everyone has to do a gets to do a capstone. Brief fairly briefly. A capstone project is something that you start from your first, class and you develop it all the way through your program. And it's essentially you're identifying a need, in your community or in the work that you're doing, and you're creating a solution, you are researching solutions for that problem as well as presenting it, not as a defense, but presenting it at the end of your program.

32:30But But if you're in a pre PhD concentration, it actually culminates in a fee. Instead of the three electives, two of those are taken up with thesis writing, and then you also get one free elective to take. K? For those who want to do the pre PhD track, it's really for those who either want to move up into the PhD world or maybe want to teach psychology, perhaps in a community college or in high school. I know someone that actually became an adjunct professor at her community college local to her, and she now teaches, some counseling courses. So this is really great, again, for those who want to move up into the PhD field. Really, again, more research based. Okay? We now have also a bioethics concentration.

33:19K? As I mentioned before, you do have those three electives. Those three electives are actually taken as four modules. Very confusing. But it's, through the National Catholic Bio Bioethics Center, NCBC, where you take four modules. This is really best for those who are encountering a lot of ethical, issues, whether in their health care field, because the models are really built for those. Right? So ethical challenges at the beginning of life, at the end of life, vaccines and research, these are amazing, modules, actually, from the people I've heard talk about it, it's a it's a it opens up your eyes about the medical field and how the Catholic teaching actually fits in, in that world. K? Are there any questions about if there are any questions about tract at this point, go ahead and just write it out.

34:11I will be going back and forth and answering your question. K? So the learning experience, I know Susie mentioned it a little bit earlier with Canvas. Our, some people some people may know Blackboard or other learning management systems, but we use Canvas. And you have continuous access to this platform. You can the ability to work anywhere. So I don't know, Susie, if you remember, but one time I was on a cruise. I actually brought work with me. I was able to an access Canvas on my phone, and I was able to bring in work. Like, it was crazy, but you do get continuous access to this platform. Yeah. I don't count on doing your degree on your phone, though. It's not Yeah. Yeah. You're still doing your whole degree on your phone.

34:56But if you're traveling, you still get the ability to use Internet. Right? If you have the It is wonderful. Mhmm. Yes. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, you have five different learning way learning modalities, videos, books. You have, professor the professor sometimes teaching in a in an office hour. There are audio books. So there are different ways to learn. And, again, that weekly individualized feedback from professors. Did you find that Canvas is fairly accessible, Susie? Yes. It was great. I also felt like the professors were very ready to answer any questions. I rarely had to I rarely had to wait more than half a day, and sometimes it was just hours to ask a question and very, very helpful and accessible.

35:41Yes. Amazing. And our professors were were all great. So this is That makes me smile when I see their faces. Me too. They're so nice. This is the core faculty at Divine Mercy. I actually had a course with every professor on on this Me too. On this slide, and they were all amazing. I had a great time each one of them. When you start with the master's in psychology, you actually get assigned an academic adviser, and mine was doctor, doctor Williamson, doctor Angela. And we talked a lot about how, about improving my capstone, how I felt about the courses so far, if I had any questions or concerns. I mean, I was very surprised, again, as an online course, how accessible the professors were. Mhmm.

36:28Who was your academic advisor, Susie? Doctor Anna. Doctor Anna Pecoraro. And she helped me because I was I volunteer in the city, and I had very big ideas of one thing. And it had to do with it was just very complex. And then another with teenagers, and she didn't discourage me, but she said, you need to probably try to keep this simple because you're gonna have to flesh out and research of the aspects of this. So she was very helpful, and and then she also helped me throughout. She's also an encouragement to help me find spiritual direction. She wasn't my spiritual director, but she helped me understand how to look for spiritual directors and also suggested people she knew in my area. She's just very kind and helpful and supportive throughout my whole education there.

37:21Yes. Absolutely. And doctor Julia Clousley is our the program director, and you can email her about anything. And she can all she will always respond back to you. And about again, I've always I was very surprised by how accessible these professors Yes. Were to us. I had all of them were really great. I had great experiences with doctor Gross, who was our philosophy professor, and doctor Cusimano. She was the only extroverted professor in a sea of introverted students. So she just made the course so much more fun. The our professors are very experienced. Their biographies, I think, are on our website, and they all have experience and done research on variety of topics. So let's talk about the acceptance requirements for the MSP program.

38:12Must have a bachelor's degree. K? We need to have the official transcript sent over to Divine Mercy. Has to be recognized by the Department of Education or must be an internationally recognized institution. Applicant must have at least a 2.5 GPA to be admitted. Though we did say no GRE is required, if you have less than 2.5, a GRE score might help, your application. Two letters of recommendation, for, either an academic or professional, source. Your resume, including your current employment or any significant volunteer history, a personal statement indicating how your goals align with the goals of the program. If you are, if your bachelor's degree was from an international was from international, something outside of The US or outside of a English speaking country, then a toll court I look for might be, might be required with your application.

39:11And there's also a mandatory virtual orientation prior to starting the first course. So if, I know the big question right here is always when the rubber meets the road, can I afford grad school? K. Because we are accredited, we do participate in the in federal aid. You can, gain student loans as a graduate student. And just so you know, graduate level student loans work differently from undergrad student loans. K? So graduate, student loans are capped at a certain amount every year, but our tuition actually fits under that maximum, that the government's able to, give you for a graduate loan. You can ask your employer for any tuition reimbursement. We are actually approved for veteran funding through the GI Bill.

40:01Yeah. We are Yellow Ribbon School, etcetera. All of these scholarships and grants, which are located on our website, we have, our merit scholarship. If you do decide to do, like, let's say, a full time enrollment, you can, apply to our merit scholarship, which is up to 50% and a 25 tuition discount. Alternative financing oops. Excuse me. Which are, for example, private fund, parish, and diocesan support. I've actually had students ask their parish or their priest or their local church to support support, and they were able to give them some kind of funding. We actually match fund with, many nonprofits. So if you find any a nonprofit in your area that's able to match funds, please connect them with us.

40:50We might be able to match funds with them as well. CAC plan. So this, I thought, was very important. So I was a single person doing a master's in psychology. I actually did a third student loan, a third out of my out of pocket, and a third, through scholarships. So the ones the part that was out of pocket, through Divine Mercy University, you can set up cash plans. You can set up monthly payment plans, interest free through the school, and that's something that the school will work with you to do monthly payment plans. And that really was really helpful because then it didn't it didn't hit the wallet quite as far. K? So that was super helpful. I was able to sacrifice a little bit to save up because even a few 100 or, you know, a few $100 a a month was able to fund my my, my graduate work.

41:47So it's definitely absolutely doable to to afford grad school. So these are the direct costs, the for the program. From 2024 and 2025, the tuition is 876 per credit. As I mentioned before, 11 courses. Each course is three credit hours, comes down to thirty three credit hours. With a tech fee and a residency fee, the residency, I will talk about in a in a second. It all comes down to 29,708, but that supports an estimate a lot. The the fees I feel like that won't there aren't associated with this maybe are application fees and graduation fees. Other than that, this is a fairly, good estimate of what the whole program cost. Remember, it's not all upfront either. You we have fall shifts in grants that we usually try to find a grant for every student, and, you can do monthly payment plans as well.

42:51Oh, I apologize. There's a q and a question here. How long are the courses? Are they self paced? Okay. Sorry. I must say I didn't answer that earlier. So each course is eight weeks. We have eight week terms at BMU, and we have two in the fall, two in the spring, and one in the summertime. So if you only did one course per year, you have five courses per year. K? A lot of it is self paced, but there are weekly due dates. Outside the weekly due dates, you can really learn on your own time. And especially for those who, let's say, are going on vacation for a certain amount of time or, you know, need to miss need to move a due date here and there. You can always talk to the professors, and they are generally, fairly lenient if you tell them early.

43:41K. There was anonymous attendee who said, I have a master's of science in nursing. I've always been interested to do a field of psychology. Do I need a master's of science in psychology to obtain a PhD in psychology? Yes. Either you do need a master's in psychology or the PhD program you apply to already has a master's built in it. So either way, you need to go through master's and then PhD. So go ahead and look for PhD programs. We do have one here at DMU, but it is in person. So whether or not you're going to do let's say, as I mentioned before, we have terms. If you're gonna do one class at a time, that's all part time, enrollment, that that will take you twenty six months to complete, or you take two classes per term, and you will finish in sixteen months.

44:33K? So these are the two completion options I mentioned earlier. If you finish in sixteen months, there is a slight discount on four courses. So the total tuition is estimated around 27,000 versus the twenty six months, which is 29,000. So, Cindy, what was your main takeaway from the program? What was the best thing you learned? My goodness. I know that doesn't feel like much. I mean, I I think I I understand myself better. We had this flourishing development plans that we needed to do every term. I think that helped me grow personally and understand myself better. But just career wise, it really once you go through it and you understand yourself better and you're excited to head in this direction, so there's something drawing you here.

45:25It will come to you throughout this education. It's so comprehensive, that something will speak to you. For instance, Charisse and I had the same pretty much the same class experience, but we were, like, completely different directions. And, yeah, I I would say my favorite experience was understanding psychology, understanding vocations, and how just just how flourishing happens, and that it happens when we are called to holiness, but that we don't do that alone, that we're all interconnected and our vocations get us there. And I could like I said, there's so much richness richness to this education that it's hard to encapsulate, but it has really lit me on fire to help other people. And originally when I came in, I wanted to help people from brokenness to get to a place of being okay in this world.

46:22And then I realized that's not my calling. That's someone else's in counseling, which is now why I'm a coach because I take people that maybe won't pursue counseling that might be doing just fine, might not have to revisit the past, but need help with the future. Maybe they're stuck. They don't understand spiritual direction even though I'm not a spiritual director. God's always a part of everything. They might need to under uncover something that they've buried. For instance, like me, that I buried my desire to get a psychology education, those kind of things that help us flourish and help other people. So I think just better understanding and clarity of my own purposefulness and how I can use it.

47:06Sound perfect. Yes. Thank you so much, Judy. Mhmm. Personally, for me I mean, in terms of flourishing, sometimes people enter this program thinking, oh, I'm actually in a good place. You know? I don't why I'm I wanna help other people. But then when you con when you're constantly self reflecting and seeing how you can better yourself, there's always ways to better flourish. Right? Not not just for yourself, but you can teach others how to flourish as well, which is what I love to hear about Susie and coaching. Mhmm. I think that's amazing. I know another student that does career coaching as well, and I think that's a beautiful outcome of the math here in psychology program. So really think about your goal.

47:53What are your goals? What do you want to gain, from math and psychology? Will it fit this program? Do you feel like there's enough flexibility for you to complete this program? The sixteen month track is fairly is fairly rigorous. You're talking about maybe thirty hours a week. And then if you're just taking one class at a time, again, really perfect for our full time workers or stay at home mom, parents. For me, it was just perfect. It was maybe another twelve to fifteen hours a week of work. And it was it was just right for me as a person who was working full time. I mean, we have a lot of financial aid, options. And once I do receive, an application, I do connect with financial aid, and you can have a deeper conversation with them about what scholarships and grants are available for you.

48:45And, really, we want you to complete the program. Right? It's very important for us, that you want to be here, that you want to successfully complete it, not just take a chance and say, oh, you know, this sounds interesting. Like, no. Do you want to flourish? Do you wanna help other people? This is the right program for you. I would I would just add. So I know that worked for you, that you could zip along, and I I do think it's very doable. I think if you have other obligations, that faster pace, you wanna make sure that you are able to absorb things, that you're able to learn because it is such a gift. This education is not about getting your MS in psychology. It's it's bigger than that. And for me, it took longer than Charice, but I'm slower to comprehend things.

49:35But I also I didn't do the minimum. I I dove into and I'm not saying Charisse did. She didn't. She's just a little bit sharper than I am. But I dove into a lot, and I spent a lot of time in my writing and reflecting, and that was a gift in itself too. So depends on what you're if you want this degree or if you really wanna savor it and immerse yourself in it, I suggest a class at a time is nice unless unless you have about thirty hours to do that. Yes. Shauna Lashana said I did my MS online online working two jobs and being single mom. It's possible. Absolutely. Awesome. You go. I mean, wow. That's amazing. Definitely is. You like, definitely doable. When you love what you're learning, you don't it doesn't feel like a chore at all.

50:27No. And, actually, I I failed to mention this. But, again, I was an engineer. I had maybe one writing course in my entire life, and then I entered into a program that was heavy on writing. Yes. It is. Loved it so much that this person turned me into a writer. Yes. It's an amazing time. K? For sure. So this is my info. Go ahead and jot it down. You can always email me, call me. Now we do have our next start is coming up because August 21, but there is still about two weeks left to apply. So if you are still interested, please go ahead and email me. I'm happy to give you the code to waive the application fee as well as a potential admission scholarship, and we can discuss that once you email me for the code.

51:16K? If there are any other questions here, I'm here for, like, just maybe a few more minutes. But, Susie, any final thoughts? Are you good? No. I'm just I'm happy for all of you that you're pursuing this and really discern it because it's a great education. You'll definitely grow at this education. Absolutely. Mhmm. For any of those students, go ahead, again, email me. Thank you so much for coming tonight. And, again, I'll stay here for just maybe a few more minutes. Thank you so much for coming. Have a great evening.