Hi, welcome. This has Ben Freer director of the School of Psychology and Counseling. I look forward to seeing you here on campus and having you in our classes. There are so many great things about being in Fairleigh Dickinson Psychology and Counseling program. Two of the things that I value the most-- our student-centered perspective where we really work closely with students and interact with them in meaningful ways. The other aspect is that we have faculty who touch on psychology and counseling in so many different aspects. We have clinical psychologist, school psychologist, forensic psychologist, experimental psychologist, industrial-organizational psychologist, as well as our Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. The School of Psychology and Counseling offers a number of different programs for undergraduates, master's students, and doctoral programs. At the undergraduate level, we offer students a General Psychology major or five unique tracks to allow students to specialize in the interest that they have. In the School of Psychology and Counseling, we're happy to be one of the largest majors and minors for our students. This is because students recognize that they can go into many different career opportunities based on using a Psychology degree, because we train students to better understand research, to interact with people, to think about how those interactions with people will influence behavior and decisions. We also have a nice relationship with our education program called, "Quest." This allows students to major in Psychology while getting their certification for teaching so they can work in the K through 12 system. In the School of Psychology and Counseling, we offer many different research opportunities. This research includes students as young as freshmen all the way through their senior year. In addition, we have research opportunities for our master's students, and our doctoral students who often also do their own independent research. This research is also funded by internal and external grant funding so that students can even receive money towards their tuition, or additional stipends to be a part of that research opportunity. There are opportunities within clinical field of psychology to study how sleep is related to child development and mood disorders, in school psychology to study how psychologists can better interact with children, in forensic psychology to better understand why offenders offend and how to better treat those individuals, and many other opportunities. We can't wait for you to get involved with our research! As a student in the School of Psychology and Counseling, you'll have many opportunities for hands-on experiential learning, you'll be able to work in prison settings, in law enforcement, in school systems, in business settings, working clinical offices, and many, many more. Students can also get involved with our student-driven journal. The Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences offers students an opportunity to publish their own research, as well as review and critique other research it's submitted from around the country. This not only provides undergraduates opportunities but also our graduate students to get involved in what it means to run a journal for an academic field. We also offer Psi Chi the Honor Society for Psychology as well as our Student Alliance Club. These two organizations allow students to get involved and interact with each other in a more personal, informal way. We also bring in speakers to discuss career opportunities, and have participated in fundraisers to help our communities on both of our New Jersey campuses. For students who are interested in International Psychology. We also take visits to the United Nations, where we discuss the way that psychology interacts with Global Policy and International Politics. Some of the events at the United Nations have included International Day of the Family, Psychology Day, and the Commission on the Status of Women. There are so many possibilities for a graduate from our undergraduate programs. We've had students go into mental health services as counselors and rehabilitation specialists-- into forensic settings and prisons and law enforcement-- in educational settings as teachers and guidance counselors. We've also had students go into the business realm as sales reps, marketing agents, and also students who have sought out additional research opportunities, both as a research assistant in a lab and as graduate students and other programs as well as our own. In the School of Psychology and Counseling, we are really welcoming to our students. We have an open-door policy as faculty. So students can come by at any time to express their questions, their concerns, and get advisement both about classes they want to take, as well as career expectations and opportunities for themselves. In addition to this, we really operate under the guiding motto of empowering our students to do what they want to do with their careers. Our goal is to make sure that students know about the opportunities that they can have in their careers, and we want to empower you to get to that place. This counts for students at the undergraduate level-- at freshmen all the way from Masters working on thesis and doctoral students working on their dissertation. I can't wait to see you here at Fairleigh Dickinson University. If you have any questions you can visit us on the website fdu.edu/psychology. You can also email some of the directors, myself included, or faculty to learn more about our programs.
