Navigating Grad School: Challenges and Realities of Pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Welcome to Grad Life Grind. If you're new to this channel, thank you for checking it out, and if you're already a subscriber, thanks for being back again. My name is Arielle, and I'm a first-year PhD student in clinical psychology, and in this channel I talk about my life as a grad student and bring you information about the mental health field. If you've seen my videos before, you know that I often do recaps of what's been going on in grad school, how I'm getting through it, and some of the cool things that I'm learning along the way. And in this video, I want to talk about some of the difficulties or challenges that come with being a grad student. And I want to make sure that I don't glamorize getting a PhD because it's a stressful and long process, but it can be really gratifying if it's what you want for your career. And I want to make sure that I'm giving everyone the full picture because if you decide that you want to get a PhD, you need to be ready for what's ahead. So challenge or difficulty number one is PhDs are time consuming. So a PhD in clinical psychology ranges between 5 and 7 years long, so that's a good chunk of your life. I've done a number of videos on how time management plays in getting a PhD, so you can check those out, but that's one of the things that makes this process so difficult. So having a lot of work to do is a given, but that doesn't make it any easier or fun all the time. Because of how heavy the workload can be, time management is one of the things that I struggle with the most as a grad student, and I think that that's the case for most graduate students. And basically what that looks like is trying to find time to allocate to each of your classes, and then when you're seeing clients, allocating time to see those clients, but also do the documentation that comes with that. So writing notes is a huge part of what psychologists do on the back end. We also have to make time for research, especially if we're closer to the dissertation process or in the dissertation process, you need to make time to write. And you also have to make time for yourself, for your family, for your friends. And unfortunately, I think that when people are going through a stressful time, their self-care is the first thing to go. So if you're having a stressful day, you're gonna be like, hmm, what can I cut out? Well, I have to take that exam, I have to study, I have to work, so I'm gonna cut out that hour that I was gonna spend on myself. And that is a little bit counterintuitive because what makes us more productive is taking care of ourselves, exercising so that we have energy, eating right so that we feel good, and sleeping so that we can concentrate. But I just think that's the way that we're socialized. In American culture, being busy and being productive and always achieving something is idealized. And we forget that you can only do so much when you're not taking care of yourself. So I think that for grad students, the number one complaint is I don't have time. And everyone can tell us make time, but it is really, really difficult. It's a skill to be able to manage your time well. And everyone does time management a different way. If you have a partner, if you have children, if you have a family, it can be a lot. So one thing to think about when you're considering a PhD is do I want it bad enough to make this the focal point of my life? And we are more than just students. You are a person, you might be a daughter or a son, a husband, a wife, a friend. You may have hobbies. For me, I identify as a dancer. other people identify as athletes in other forms and it's hard to grapple with having those other identities and roles while also having the primary role of student. And PhD programs, if I haven't said this before, are full-time. Especially in clinical psychology, you cannot possibly work full-time while being a full-time student. There's just not enough hours in the day. So I think that what keeps me focused and motivated is that I know what the end goal is but it also feels really far away because five to seven years is a marathon not a sprint and that's something that our professors at least in my program tell me all the time and you just have to be ready for that and willing to adapt. And speaking of adapting the next big challenge I think that comes with being a PhD student in clinical psychology is that we wear many many hats and basically what that means is we have the role of student, but within that we also have multiple roles. Being an in-class student, it's being a student therapist or student clinician, it's being a researcher, and it's being whatever you are outside of school. So one of the difficulties that we have as graduate students in psychology is juggling all those things, spinning a lot of different plates at the same time. It can be really difficult to go from one thing to the next, so that's where being adaptable comes in because you may have three days of class and then two days at your clinic or practicum site and you have to be able to turn things on and off like now I'm going to be with my clients and I'm only going to be thinking about them and then I'm going to transition and work on this article or manuscript that I'm preparing in my research lab. Since I'm a first-year student I haven't started spinning all those plates yet I'm going to be starting clinical work in a few weeks and I just got matched to a research lab so if you didn't check out that video definitely do. What I've heard from a lot of more advanced students in my program is that that's one of the most difficult things is going from just taking classes to doing all these other things and doing them well and then prioritizing what's most important. The next challenge that comes with being a graduate student is finding out about all of your areas of growth and areas of growth is a nice way to say what you need to improve on or what you're not doing well on and graduate school is the place where those things get exposed sometimes for the first time and that can be a little bit of a blow I think I've said this in previous videos and it can be difficult to get certain feedback but if you keep in mind that that's why you're there you're in grad school to find out where you're lacking and where you need to improve how you can grow and then doing the steps towards that so it can be challenging to find that something that you thought you were super good at, like writing, needs a lot of work. And on the other hand, doing things that you've never done before, like clinical work, doing therapy with clients, that's something that is probably new to people who are coming into a PhD program in psych, unless they have a master's degree, they probably don't have a ton of clinical experience and what that entails. But I think in my experience it can be really challenging to find that you're not perfect at everything, and I think as grad students used to being high achievers, we're used to getting amazing grades, sometimes we're used to being at the top of our class, and that can change when you're in a room with a bunch of other highly intelligent people who have the same goal as you, who come from different backgrounds, and some people have more experience than you. So one of the hardest things is asking for the feedback or receiving the feedback and then realizing, okay, I'm not as good at this as I thought, or i'm not great at this at all and then with that information deciding how to move forward who do i ask how can i get extra help and doing things like that because it's not useful to get feedback and then do nothing about it that is the whole point of getting graduate training being pushed out of your comfort zone and then making it a place that you are and the last huge challenge that i've heard from a lot of different grad students and it's definitely something that i've I've dealt with too is imposter syndrome. And my definition of imposter syndrome is when you know that you're qualified to be somewhere or do something, but you still feel like you don't belong there. And it's almost this fear of being found out and other people realizing that you don't belong and that you aren't good enough to be there. And I'm definitely gonna do another video about this in the future. And if it's something that you're interested in, please comment and let me know. If you've ever dealt with imposter syndrome, tell me about it in the comments, I would love to hear from you. But imposter syndrome is a real thing. It's challenging because, like I said, if you are in graduate school, you're in the room with other people who have similar goals as you, and they're like-minded, and that's really cool, but at the same time, people come from all different past experiences, and some people might be a little bit more experienced than you, or some people might be stronger in certain areas than you, and you realize in classes that you feel like you don't know enough, even though you are really intelligent and you are super qualified and you were chosen to be in that program or in that job or in that role for a reason, but for reasons that you don't understand, you still feel like you have to prove yourself or you feel like something's gonna happen that's gonna expose the fact that you don't belong there. And that's something really real and really, really difficult to deal with because you wanna be focused on your schoolwork, you wanna be doing your best, but sometimes it's difficult to shake the feeling that everyone is just better, smarter, more capable. And I think it's normal if you feel that way, but at the same time, it can hold you back. So I'm excited to do another video about that and share what it's like and hopefully just bring awareness to it. And I think that it exists outside of graduate school, probably in medical school, in certain jobs. And I think it's also especially real for students of color because you might be the only black student in your class or you might be the only two or three Latina people in the room, and that's definitely been the case for me. So I'm excited to talk more about that. So these are the challenges that I thought were most relevant to bring up to you guys. I know that there are ways around them. Obviously, grad students are able to overcome these things all the time, and that's why people get PhDs and you survive, but I wanted to make sure that I was bringing you guys a realistic picture of what is going on for me and for other graduate students, because if you are a grad student, I want you to know that you're not the only one dealing with this stuff. And if you're thinking about getting a PhD or any other type of graduate degree, I want you to know what to expect. And it doesn't mean that you can't overcome, it just means that it's gonna take some adjusting. I think that the challenges for me are not the same as the challenges for other people. All of us have our own experience, but these are the things that I've dealt with and the things that I've heard are common among other people. And I hope that it was helpful for you to hear about. If you have comments about this video, please let me know. And if you aren't subscribed already, please do so. Thank you for watching this video. Again, my name is Arielle. My goal is to inform you, to inspire you, to spark an interest in you, and hopefully also entertain you. I really hope you'll check back in next time.