Overview of the MSP Program - All Tracks

0:03Let's get started. We're gonna go over who we are as a university, but also the program details, so what to expect as a student. And then next, we're gonna go over the new concentrations and career opportunities. So in this program, there are different concentrations that you can choose from. So this is a good way for you to tailor the program to your interest and to their goals, and and we're gonna go over how this is relevant to your overall career goals or your, how you see yourself using this degree to add to your credentials. And then lastly, we're gonna talk about funding, scholarships, different ways of funding your education. We have partnerships as well. So there are different ways of reducing your tuition.

0:49Now I wanna go over first the mission of the university, and this is really our identity. So our whole mission here as a school is to integrate the social sciences with two thousand years of church teaching on the Catholic Christian understanding of human dignity. That's why we exist. And in fact, our curriculum was formed by members of the Dominican order. So there's even a sort of Aquinas lens on how we look at psychology. I had a great conversation with our program director a while back, and I've shared this with I I I share this with so many of our students. But I I asked her a while back, is it a liability for students to get a psychology degree from a faith based institution? And she's well credentialed.

1:39She knows the industry very well as a clinical psychologist. She said, no. This is not a liability. It's actually the opposite. The industry views this as a strength. And the reason why is because within the industry, while there are a lot of professionals that are very well equipped to talk about trauma and crisis and addiction and mental health, many times when the subject of faith and spirituality come up by the, by the clients, they usually have to dodge that because they're not trained in addressing these things. So the industry has been looking for more professionals to be able to touch on all those things that I mentioned, but also when the client brings up that faith or spiritual component, they're able to fill in that gap as well.

2:27So a lot of our graduates have been thriving in their field among their peers. So that's the mission of the university. Now as a university, we do have three different programs. We began under the name of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences back in 1999 where we were offering the doctoral program. This is the PsyD in Clinical Psychology. And this program is fully on campus. And then in 2016, we added this program that we're gonna be talking about, the master's in psychology, which is offered 100% online. We'll talk about the online format as well. And then in actually, excuse me. That was in 2014. But in 2016, we added the master's in counseling program, and that one is hybrid. It's primarily online, but there are residencies which you do on campus, and then there are your practicum and internship hours.

3:22So again, we're going to be addressing the master's in psychology program and what to expect and the online formatting. Now the next thing with the university is our accreditation. We're regionally accredited through SACS. That's the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, And we're approved to operate through SHEV. That's the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia. And we also have, if you see in the bottom right corner, NC SARA. Now that stands for the National Council for for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement. What this means is that while this is a degree that you're earning online, your degree is going to be recognized as coming from a regionally accredited institution regardless of where you're located.

4:15Now, also, we have, as you see in the bottom left side, American Psychological Association. This is a national accreditation found within doctoral programs. Our PsyD program is APA accredited, but we do use that same APA writing style in this program. Some of you are probably familiar with this. This writing style is also used within undergrad psychology courses. So just to reiterate, this program is 100% online. We're regionally accredited. And to apply, you don't have to take the GRE. So this is a step you won't have to worry about as we continue on. Now I'd love to hear from all of you in the chat section. Many of you are might be coming here because you you're interested in gaining your credentials.

5:16Maybe this is a way for you to, to climb the ladder in your current position, or maybe you're looking for a career change, or or to break into the into the job market. And having a master's in psychology will be beneficial for you and you have specific career goals in mind. So in the chat section, feel free to mention what interests you in getting a master's in psychology and how you would use this degree. So I'll give you a moment for that. And as you're putting that information in, I'll highlight that this program tends to bring in a litany of different types of folks. Many of them might be working in industry in, excuse me, in ministry. Many of them are consecrated, folks. Some of them are laypeople and, still working in ministry, but many people also use their degree within social and mental health services or within HR or within law enforcement.

6:15Self development, that's a that's a great reason for this degree. Community organization. Wonderful. And one day pursuing a PhD. That's that's great. This is also a very good way to establish some foundation before pursuing a doctorate. And also looking to, potentially using this degree after retirement. Very good. Yeah. This works in so many different directions. It's it's a very versatile degree to have. Yeah. Wonderful. And just just being being able to communicate with people and and counseling those that have been dealing with infertility or or post trauma. Yeah. Post abortion or miscarriage, those that have been, that have been struggling and need that healing. That's wonderful. Good.

7:10Alright. So I'm gonna continue on. I really appreciate you all all you just sharing your, your interest in this degree, but let's go right into the different concentrations. So we actually have five concentrations available, and these are leadership psychology, pre PhD, marriage and family studies, and then we have two others, which we'll go over. One is in human services counseling, and then the last one is, self design. But let's just start with leadership psychology for now. This is a concentration or rather, this concentration is especially valuable for those who are interested in in in a career in industrial and organizational positions, whether that's HR, so human resources, or organizational consulting, or public relations, or human resources.

8:09So that's very common for these folks, but, you you're not stuck in using this concentration in these fields. A lot of a lot of folks use this degree within, education as well, and we even have people in ministry because maybe they're in a leadership position, and having this sort of background will allow them to lead a little bit better with their, whether it's with their parish or with the diocese or whatever it may be. So the next one is the pre PhD. Let's dive into that one. The pre PhD concentration, is wonderful for students that are looking to one day pursue their their doctorate. One of you mentioned that you're looking to eventually go further in getting your your PhD, and the pre PhD concentration will give you an edge in better preparing you for that.

9:05So whether you're looking to go into a career that's related to research or applied psychology or clinical psychology or, going into academia, this is a great option for that. And then marriage and family studies dives deeper into understanding these dynamics for those that are looking to work with this population. So whether it's within social or mental health services or ministry or education or government positions, just having this background as you can communicate with these populations and better working with them is very useful. Now next, as I mentioned, we have Human Services Counseling. Now in the program, as a student, regardless of which concentration you choose, you're still going to learn counseling techniques.

10:00But the human services counseling concentration does hone into those those, techniques a little bit further. This is a very popular one for those that are looking to go into whether it's addiction counseling or parish counseling or working in human services, some capacity, albeit nonlicensure, but still being able to counsel individuals better recognizing mental health difficulties so you can refer them to, the next phase in their healing. And then lastly is self designed. This is sort of a bonus concentration. And the self design concentration allows you to pick different electives from different concentrations. So as a student, you'll be taking a total of 11 courses. Eight of them are core courses, but then you'll have your three electives for each one.

10:54So if you did the self design concentration, this is a hypothetical. But let's say that you were interested in the pre PhD focus as well as marriage and family studies, and you weren't sure which one would be more relevant to your goals. You could always take, for instance, two from pre PhD. So two courses, two electives from that one, and then one elective from marriage and family studies. Or maybe it's the other way around. Or maybe you wanna take one from each of those plus one from human services counseling. So this is just a great way for you to further customize the program to your interest and to your goals. And I mentioned before that, you'll be taking eight core courses, and this is just an example of these core courses that you'll be taking.

11:47The electives, again, that's gonna be based on which ones you choose, but we do have those on our website so you can look at the course descriptions and what those courses will all entail. Oh, and by the way, I didn't mention this at the beginning, and and I should have. If any questions arise as we're going through this, feel free to drop them in the chat or in the q and a section. We're still gonna go through a question and answer session at the end of this. But, I know that sometimes if you're like me, a question will pop up, and then you're gonna forget it one minute later. So, if any questions come up, you're welcome to drop them in now. So here, this is just a a layout of different purposes for why individuals will pursue their masters in psychology.

12:38As I mentioned before, a lot of you might be looking to this degree to break into a field, But many of you also might be using this as a means to advance in your career. For for others, they I speak with students so regularly, and and this is a means for them to also go into to a, earning a promotion. Many of them also wanna use this degree so that they can go into executive positions. So, again, this is a very personal degree to have. It can go into many different directions. We're gonna talk about those career opportunities, but there's also a list of many different reasons why this degree would be beneficial. So the career opportunities. We're gonna go into all the different options for this.

13:30And as you're seeing the different career positions, we also collected median salaries based on different locations in The US. It's always I I always encourage students, if that's something that you're curious about, to do your own research, as far as what the median salary would be locally to you. You know, for instance, in this first one, at the top, it has human resources management. And this is median salary is over 100,000, and that's in Alabama. But maybe you live in Los Angeles, or maybe you live in Delaware, or wherever. And so it'd be a good idea for you to do that research and see what that's gonna look like in your local area. And if you're an international student, I I do apologize.

14:20We couldn't gather that information, but we do work with international students. We have students all over the world. But within industrial and organizational positions, these are some examples. So this would be working in more of a business environment, whether it's within HR or organizational consulting or market research analytics or anything related to this, a lot of these positions value those with a master's in psychology because that degree, shows your writing skills and your communication skills. And even understanding the human mind is beneficial for working with an organization, with your colleagues, but maybe even understanding clientele. So I'm gonna continue on. And this is a I I like to use this, testimonial.

15:15This is someone who graduated from Divine Mercy, Emily Leiden, and she's now an executive director with Catholic Family Services. She graduated a few years ago, and she's been able to climb the ladder with this degree. I like to use this slide here just because it is pertaining closer to that sort of leadership psychology position. Now next is social and mental health services. This is probably most especially common for our students. Those that are going into this program, they usually wanna work within this type of field. Not every student, of course. We have a a number of different types of students, but this is the most common, I would say. And as you see, going into this field could mean working in behavioral analytics, being an executive coach, working as a rehabilitation adviser, going into case management, serving as a psychiatric technician, going into grief and loss counseling or addiction counseling.

16:25Besides those, you'll see that they are as non licensed professionals. This this program is not designed for licensure, so you wouldn't have to go through the state board. But a misconception when it comes to licensure is that I think a lot of folks think that if you're not licensed, that means that you're not marketable or there are no positions to take. But that's that's not true at all. Most careers, as you think about it, they don't require that you go through the state board. Many of them just don't require licensure. And these are examples of of careers where after earning your degree or even before earning your degree, just showing your capability and showing that you've actually been learning the content, you could easily go into these positions either right after earning the degree or while earning it.

17:16And then next, we have education. And we have a lot of educators that go into this program or those that are planning to go into education, but specifically because they wanna teach psychology. Or maybe they work within a higher education or k through 12. And having a better sense of, these younger populations and how the human how how the mind works, is very beneficial for them. So you can serve as a psychology instructor at a community college setting or teaching psychology at a high school level or working in different capacities in higher education. And then we have government and law enforcement, and, this is also very useful in these positions. Just having an understanding, again, of of how the mind works, serves well for working with law enforcement, making sure that that they are if they've experienced some sort of trauma, being able to recognize that so that they can be worked with properly.

18:23Or even better working with criminals or or victims with this degree is very common as well. So I'll continue on. And then lastly is ministry. And we have a lot of folks that do work in ministry that go into this position into this career excuse me, this degree because, again, just having that background serves well when they're working with different, parishes or if they're working with the diocese or different apostolates. For some people, they are working in seminaries, and, having a master's in psychology works well with faith formation. It also works well with pre k or a marriage preparation. And then, of course, serving as a parish counselor. So working with the parishioners and helping them with their healing.

19:22Now next, we're gonna talk about the time commitment of the program, and we're gonna talk about the cost. Now I just wanna say very quickly because you're seeing two different costs here. I'll explain why they're different. And I also wanna reiterate right now as a spoiler that we do have different, scholarships available, and we have partnerships. So there is a way to get the cost reduced, but this is just a baseline of what you're seeing. But going back to the two tracks, there are two different ways on how you can pursue your degree. One is completing it in sixteen months, which is considered an accelerated track. The other is completing it in twenty six months, and this is still considered full time.

20:05There are part time options as well. If you're doing the twenty six month track, that means that you're taking one course every term. Each term is eight weeks. On average, we've seen students commit about fifteen to eighteen hours per week when they approach it this way. And then you have, as I mentioned before, the sixteen month track, which is more of an accelerated option. On average, students are taking two courses per term, and they're usually committing between twenty five to thirty hours per week. So if you have a little bit more time in your schedule, then this could be a good option for you if you wanted to complete your degree a little bit sooner. For those that work full time, usually, they select the twenty six month track.

20:47But you know you better than anyone else, and you know how, how you do with your time management. So, so we trust that you'll be able to choose the right one. Now going to the cost, as we're looking at the twenty six month track, you'll see that it's a total of 26,818. That includes books, by the way. Books are actually not an additional expense. But the this is for thirty three credit hours, and it's $796 per credit. And there's a $50 tech fee. So, again, it's 26,818 before scholarships. Now for the sixteen month track, it's actually a little bit less because for every term that you're taking two courses, that second course is gonna be 25% less automatically. So that one comes out to 24,430, again, before scholarships.

21:49Now is grad school affordable? Yes. There there are ways of reducing your tuition. We for this program, we do actually keep our, our our tuition competitive among other schools as well. But there are ways of of, funding your education, different different means of doing this. So one common one is utilizing federal aid. So applying through FAFSA, using student loans. This is an option. This is probably the most common option for students. But then, for many other students, they might not want to use student loans, and that's fine too. And so instead, many of them will use a payment plan. So what they're doing is paying installments every term. So they're paying as they go rather than having to pay one lump sum.

22:41And then, of course, there are internal scholarships that we offer. We're gonna talk about that too. And then, if there's any sort of alternative funding, so this might be external scholarships or external loans, that's always an option. We're happy to work with those options as well. Now going into the scholarships, this is probably what a lot of you were looking forward to. We do offer 13 different scholarships. This is just an example of six of them. But as a student, you can apply up to four of them and receive up to two. And I I always tell students there's a scholarship for everyone. So if you're inclined to reduce your tuition, then by all means, apply for whatever you qualify for, and I'm sure we can find a way to reduce the tuition.

23:31And it ranges between the dollar amounts, the percentage. So it could be 2,000 to 5,000 to 10% to 25 to 35%, all the way up to 50% at the max. So, again, if this is something that you're interested in doing, I'd be happy to assist you in getting that cost reduced. And then another way of reducing tuition is through our partnerships. This is just a short list of the current partnerships that we have. And so if any of these are related to you, if you've been part of, if you're within any of these diocese or you're an alumni for some of these universities, then let me know. We can talk about how to reduce how we can get this cost reduced automatically. If these are not pertaining to you, there's always a way to to establish partnerships.

24:29So if you belong to a parish, for instance, or maybe you work with a Catholic school or you work with the diocese, we can always establish a partnership and then automatically get that cost reduced. And you can also apply I'll say this once more. You can apply for scholarships on top of any, partnerships that we have with you. So we call these MOUs, memorandum of understanding. And that brings us to the end. And, right here is my contact information. And so feel free to screenshot it or write it down, so that if you have any questions about the program, I'll be able to work with you. You're welcome to call. You're welcome to text. This number does text as well, and you're welcome to email. And in that little blue box at the bottom, if you decide to complete an application form, typically, it's $55, but we can waive the fee for you if you put in the code CCMMP1999.

25:35So with that code, you won't have to pay for your scholarship excuse me, for for your application. So that brings us to the end of the, of the program. For those of you that may be logging off, I really appreciate you being here and, allowing me to tell you about the master's in psychology. But right now, I'm gonna open up the floor to all of you for any questions that you have so we can go over that. So I think there are a couple of questions that have already started. So the first question let's see. Does practice of clinical psychology require a PhD? That's a great question. So clinical psychology, being licensed as a clinical psychologist, which happens it does happen at the doctoral level, it's up to what your state requires.

26:26Many times, they will recognize a PhD, but sometimes they're a little bit more strict, and they want you to get a PsyD in clinical psychology. Usually, they want it to be APA accredited. So I would suggest that you do your research to see what your state requires for that. But the master's in psychology is a good foundation before going into your doctorate. And then there's another question. Let's see. Sure. So the question was if we could share a recording session, I'd be happy to share this webinar with you in case you wanted to refer back to it with the information. And let's see. I believe there are more questions coming in. So one question is, when is the deadline for this spring's cohort?

27:19Right now, we're still enrolling for the spring start date. Our spring start is going to be on January 5. So even though we're less than a month away, we're still enrolling. The deadline, however, officially, is December 16 for you to submit your application form. So if you're interested in enrolling for this upcoming start date, we're still welcoming students. We still have scholarships. There's still places for you even though they're getting filled up, but I'd be happy to work with you in getting an application started. And I'm just reading this next one. Can you send a list of courses, descriptions? I'd be happy to provide the courses and the descriptions of the courses. It's on our website, actually, so you're welcome to go there now and see the curriculum and see what each course entails.

28:06But if you wanted to get in touch with me and we can talk about it and I can provide that information, I'd be more than happy to do that. And the deadline for scholarships. So, it depends on what scholarships are available. But right now, we're still, as we're still enrolling students, we still have those scholarships available. So we're gonna have those, as far as I know, available up until the start date for those that are actually completing their applications on time. And the next question, are books sent to us via post? So the books are actually going to be electronic, and so the electronic versions will be included. You won't have to pay for those. But if you're looking to use hard copy versions, that would be an expense, that's up to you.

28:53And usually, you can find these books on Amazon or on different, different platforms, and you can find used versions so you can save yourself some money. But, again, the electronic versions are included. And how do you know which books you will need? So you're gonna actually get that information early on in your orientation. You'll be working with different departments in the university after being admitted. You'll work with our student success department, with registrar, and we'll make sure that you have this information early on or as early as we can. So if you're actually admitted last minute, and there's still gonna be a gap between the admissions, or the the deadline and when the start date is, so you'll be able to get that information.

29:38You'll have the, the electronic versions readily available in case you need them right away. But, you know, again, if you wanted to get hard copy versions or audio audio versions, you can always do that outside of getting the electronic versions. Alright. Well, you know what? I really appreciate all of you taking time out of your day. Again, I'll I'll make sure to, you know, if if you wanted to get this, get this webinar sent to you so you can refer back to it, I'll make sure that all of this is sent to you. But if you're interested in getting in touch with me, again, on the screen is my contact information. I would be happy to have a one on one with each of you and just to see if this is a good option.

30:26So with that said, thank you all again for taking your time out of your day to speak with me. I wish you all a great day, and God bless. Bye bye.