Hello, everybody.
I am Joe Drennan, and I am the admissions adviser for, Divine Mercy University's online master's in psychology program, 100% online.
And I have with me today, Debbie Burke.
And Debbie graduated in 2019, and she's gonna share a little bit about our stories.
Now we do have this chat feature, and you could see it on the bottom of it.
Anytime you have a question, okay, you know, we we'll get it ants we'll get it answered sooner than later.
So, okay.
So without further ado, we have Debbie Berg.
So tell us what you wanna tell us, Deb.
Well, I I was looking for a program that, like, Divine Mercy University offered.
In fact, I was following it before it became a university, and I was considering joining with a certificate program.
I I just waited and waited and waited and finally, saw that I could, you know, get reimbursed from work or taken a psychology course that was exactly, you know, what I needed, something that was faith based with my faith that, so the psych ops the psychology, you know, was something that I would completely agree with a 100%, with what was taught, and I could, go at my own pace.
So it was a perfect fit for me.
I, did not go the counseling track.
I already had a full time job, counseling, so to speak, as a dietitian and a certified diabetes educator.
What I did not need was a higher degree in nutrition.
What I needed was a higher degree in understanding people better and helping people better.
And so it was it was wonderful.
It was wonderful to go through it.
I learned so much, and I applied so much.
And in fact, one of my coworkers went to this same type of program, and she's in the counseling program right now because we both agreed that we don't need more nutrition education.
We need people education.
And I would say the number one and two things I learned is just to be a better listener to my clients that would come in, wanting wanting nutrition information, but also empathy.
I mean, I I don't think anyone can be a good counselor of any kind of information if they're not a good listener, and they can't put their themselves in the shoes of the person that they're listening to.
And that was probably the number one and two thing that I learned and continued to practice.
And it's hard for all of us to be just a listener and not the advice giver, but I I have very much learned the value of that from the relationships I've developed with my own clients because they they're so relieved just to have someone listen to their story.
So thank you for letting me share my story.
So so yes.
It completely helped me professionally, but more recently, it's helped me personally.
Our daughter, two years ago, had a stroke at age 32, completely out of the blue.
Had no reason to have a stroke.
It was a massive stroke.
She was in the hospital for three months, tried rehab for a month.
She failed rehab, but we asked her to be readmitted to the hospital after another month in the hospital.
They it was the middle of COVID, which was horrible.
And so they just felt she couldn't speak.
She couldn't move anything independently.
She couldn't eat.
They put a PEG tube in.
I they just were just felt like she's needed skilled nursing, and we had my husband's a doctor.
Hallelujah.
Retired doctor.
I'm a dietitian.
We had just we were just tired of her being in a medical facility in the middle of COVID, and we said we're bringing her home.
Mhmm.
So Kristen went from being completely independent since graduating from high school, ten years living independently, full time job, very well paid, very active with her church, very active volunteer.
And here she is completely dependent on her parents.
And, so, she has come a very, very long ways.
But when she was in the hospital and in rehab, my divine mercy experience through my capstone project, and a lot of the reading that I did helped me make sure anyone that worked with Christian treated her with dignity, that she was a human being despite the fact that she could not do things for herself.
One of the things I learned in some of my reading had had, come from the palliative care area and how they had pictures of the person in the room.
So we brought in pictures of Kristen with her best friend, with her sister.
And even right down to the cleaning lady, they would look at that picture, and all of a sudden, she was a real person to them.
You know?
She wasn't just a body in a bed.
And, just so, you know, they could see that she wasn't born that way.
This just happened, and this is who Kristen really is in this picture.
And, so, again, it was very important for us to make sure that Kristen's body and her mind and her spirit were all treated with a 100% dignity.
And, again, my Divine Mercy education fully empowered me to do the right thing by Kristen.
Now she can speak, eat.
She's works with her physical therapist here at home.
She is suffering from depression.
So, again, I have to be a good listener.
I have to put myself in her shoes.
I just ask a question, and no matter what she answers, the answer is right, you know, because it's her answer and not mine.
So my education, continues to serve me and my family, and I'm so grateful for, for having invested those two and a half years into my master's degree.
Mhmm.
Oh, jeez.
I didn't realize that.
So but, but, you know, you know, you you mentioned that, okay, we always wanna treat people with dignity in that.
And, I mean, how how do you define and use flourishing, which is one of our basic foundations in the program?
Yeah.
Well, always remembering they're made in the image of God, and I think people take that to heart, that life is very precious no matter what the capacity is, that they're given a name and that and that name is very important to them.
You know, I would the the flourishing is is something that, you know, sounds nice, but it's so easy to despair.
So we I have found, you know, myself, my husband, her daughter, you know, in a state of despair, fluctuating from time to time.
But, hope you know, when it one of my instructors taught me that, you know, hope is a virtue and despair is the vice.
And, so I actually, in my office, my daughter painted me a sign with a quote from pope Benedict the sixteenth that said, people who live with hope people who have hope live differently.
And I read that as part of my DMU reading, and I'm like, that is I cannot forget that line.
So I told the girls, if you wanna give me a Christmas present, create me something that's that quotes Pope Benedict, and it's hanging in my office.
Inspiration.
Mhmm.
Inspiration for you.
Oh, Debbie.
And, again, if anybody has questions, you know, we have a chat chat line.
You know, I'm just, you know, you know, type it in, and we'll get it answered.
But, Debbie, when I went to graduation last May it's actually my first graduation for DMU, and I asked a lot of the students, you know, what did you learn most?
And they said, I learned about me most.
Would you say that's with with you too?
I I think me in relationship with other people, whether it's family, friends, coworkers.
I learned how important relationship is and how people can be lonely, even if they're surrounded by people.
So I think me in relationship to other people is what I learned the the most.
I was working as a dietitian for at least twenty five years, so I had a lot of experience in my field interacting with people and trying to be better at what I do.
But, yes, I did learn my strengths and weaknesses.
I just you know, the readings that I did just were, you know, so inspirational and kept several books and and, just, you know, have pulled them out from time to time and reread them.
You know, I I I went for my master's degree finally at age 41.
And, you know, that first two weeks, I was crying every night because I I can't do this.
I can't do this.
My wife said, you're gonna do it.
You're gonna do it.
Because all of a sudden, I had to start reading for a purpose and doing research instead of for the fun of it.
I mean, how did you make that adjustment for similar?
Yeah.
So I was not very technically inclined.
So it was a big learning curve.
I was very happy that we had that month or so of getting, experience at doing the quizzes and the, all the the many assignments that we had to do.
Their their writing was so huge.
That was, you know, just the style of writing and the referencing of research papers that, you know, that was a big learning curve too.
But because of what I was learning, it was so enlightening and helpful to me.
The the work and the challenge was not a problem.
I just my family supported me.
I was 50 years old.
There wasn't anything in my way, really.
You know, weekends, I did most of my work on the weekends and then my reading on the evenings.
So, it was okay.
Yeah.
So so, I mean, did so did you do a little bit of something every day?
You're saying most of the time the weekend, you said you read during the week.
Yeah.
I it it was interesting because when I was interviewed, like, how much time did I think I could allow Mhmm.
A week to do the program?
And I figured I could probably do nine to ten hours a week if I took you know, Saturdays as a big chunk of my time and then read assignments during the week.
And I was able to keep up pretty well, I I felt.
And, some of the work was kinda fun anyway, so I looked forward to it.
So, you know, it kinda I mean, I did similar.
You know, after going, you know, twenty six months or so or maybe somewhere in the middle of 2016 and '26, you know, you're doing about fifteen, twenty hours a week of work.
And once it was all finished, what did you do with your extra time?
Yeah.
Really, that's a good question because it's been several years since I finished, but I think I just enjoyed my leisure time just a little bit more.
Took back my Saturdays for more cooking and walking and, you know, did a little bit more traveling because it definitely did interfere with my ability to to go away for very long.
So we just put a lot of travel on hold so I could get my assignments done.
So just kinda kinda like when someone retires, they just fill in with what what they've missed doing before.
But Yeah.
Were there wait.
Mhmm.
So, I mean, were there any times though during the program that maybe you had to go somewhere to where, you know, visiting people, maybe a vacation or something like that, where you're able to incorporate your work while away from, you know, home base?
Well, I'm more of a book reader than an online reader.
So if there were was an assignment, I I would hopefully have the reading in a book that I could just carry with me, read in the car, you know, draft in a notebook.
So when I got home, I could upload it in into the program.
We didn't travel that much during the program except on breaks, like, the little the summer break we had, the Christmas break.
You know?
Mostly, I have families in Upstate New York, so it was only holiday time or summer that we would take a a long enough trip that we are away.
And a lot of times, that was breaks in school too.
So, you know, you know, all students, you know, master in psychology students have to do what they we call it capstone paper.
And, you know, how did you finally decide on, you know, what the best area was for you to write a capstone paper on?
Yeah.
That there were definitely some areas that I could rule out from the beginning.
I can't say say I remember exactly what they were.
But the one that I kept coming back to, at the time, I was a Eucharistic minister at my church.
And there was a capstone project that had to do with a Eucharistic minister.
And, and I really was drawn to people that were homebound because of my experience of being a Eucharistic minister.
I felt Mhmm.
Those people are somehow not connected, some more, isolated than others.
And I just felt that the role of you, Chris minister was really important, but it could be strengthened.
So my capstone project was on how the Eucharistic minister could enhance relationships.
Oh, yeah.
And so, of course, there's three major relationships.
One with the Eucharistic minister and the person receiving the, communion, the relationship with the church.
So in fact, I was bringing the church to them and sharing what was going on at church and seeing how we could get that person still feeling like they belonged to the church even though they may not physically be there.
And, of course, the most important one was with Jesus in the Eucharist.
So, it had to do with relationships and, the, you know, the homebound to the struggles that the homebound could have and then the research that showed how relationship with other people made a huge difference in those people that, that were homebound.
So I I just had a real strong sense of, helping people that had the chance of despairing from loneliness and being older aged.
And, you know, what what, folks, when, you know, Debbie was in school, you know, we I I don't believe we have the five different concentrations that we do now, which are, you know, marriage and family, human services leadership, pre PhD, and self design, but we still have the eight core courses.
And so what was your what was your favorite core course?
Was I was, I and many others were very afraid of statistics, and our instructors, like, handheld us through that course.
So we we all did fine.
But the and the philosophy, I thought, was gonna be very challenging.
But my daughter, Kristen, who lives with us now, she minored in philosophy, and she loved philosophy.
Still does.
So I was I was a little afraid of that course too, but it turned out to be a very enriching course.
And, also, I felt, in my role as a nutrition counselor that the courses on the diagnosing of mental health disorders, and how to manage, those situations.
I felt that was more very, important to my professional, my to my career with the persons might come come in.
You know, I would come across people with eating disorders, history of, you know, abusive marriages, all this baggage that influenced how they ate, how they thought, what they did, how they cared for themselves, their diabetes.
You know?
And they just needed to be heard.
Right.
You know?
And and I think, you know, everybody's different on that.
I know myself, I've always going through a stressful time, I don't eat.
I won't eat anything.
And if I'm happy, I eat a lot.
I know some people when they're stressed, all they wanna do is eat.
And then when they're not stressed, they don't eat.
So, I mean, how does that work?
What do you think from your Well, you know, so some of it is triggers and kind of helping them walk through what triggers them, thoughts, places, persons.
Mhmm.
And then just kinda helping them set very, very small goals, and surviving many experiences and helping them make a small, you know, step in success to kinda reinforce it.
But a lot of them are very deep and challenging and and, again, just not in good relationships.
So it's it's basically just accompanying them through their challenges and getting them on the other side if possible, putting people in their life that can, help them, you know, in a more professional way because I I'm I'm not a professional counselor or therapist, but I felt like I knew what to do to to help them.
And so the eating disorders is pretty much that was where I focused a lot of my mental health topics because I had some patients with eating disorders.
And, again, a lot of that is a lot of history, from their younger years.
They're just coming through.
But when they see me, they're not intense, so they may have been through an intensive inpatient rehab program for their eating disorders.
For me, they're if they see me, they're just kind of keeping their head above water in the real world.
So okay.
That's very, very good.
Very rich to what you're saying, Debbie.
But, you know, does anybody of the, you know, the the audience have any questions, you know, for Debbie, you know, about the program, you know, other things that I mean, we covered a lot, on that.
So anybody have any specific questions other than I mean, I'm gonna answer a lot of specifics, you know, on my part of this.
But, okay.
Well, yeah, thank you, Debbie.
It was a pleasure.
It was nice to to hear from DMU again, and I was, I will continue to recommend it to to people that are interested in, the careers that, DMU offers, and, I'll continue to use what I learned.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
And, again, you can stay on, but as of right now, folks, I'm going to share my screen with you and, give you more specifics on the, master's degree in psychology program.
And it is a 100% online, meaning that the only time you would ever have to come to campus in Sterling, Virginia would be for graduation.
And, you know, we're a Catholic university.
We have two schools, school counseling and school of, you know, psychological sciences.
And, but, anyway, we are built on what we call the Catholic Christian meta model.
And and what this is, we deal with the whole person.
And in secular psychology, you know, from, you know, you know, your your state schools, you know, they teach, you know, about, you know, the mind and behavior, and we certainly do too.
But we add some philosophy in there, and we infuse, some theology, and we do not have religion questions per se.
However, we make references to the saints.
And, yeah, you know, my motto is, you know, have faith in your faith.
And, you know, I never ask what your faith is.
Sometimes you tell me.
Okay?
But if you're a Catholic Christian, you know, Jewish, Muslim, or whatever, you know, faith is when you you believe in something higher than you, higher than yourself.
And what we do with this flourishing could help anybody anybody on that.
Anyway, we were founded in 1999, and we started this program 100% online in psychology in 2014.
And in 2015, we changed our name to Divine Mercy University, and we are accredited by the Southern Association of Schools Colleges and Schools, and that's the same accrediting body that, credits Florida State up to Duke, you know, Sanford, you know, over into Texas and up through Kentucky.
It's about, one sixth of the colleges in The US in the Southeastern part.
And this is our, program chair, doctor Julia Clausley.
And her big message is that when we form a class of about 25 or so students, they don't all have actually, very few have bachelor's in psychology.
And a lot of them, they may have master's in other things, but this makes for a good diverse learning group.
And to add to that, you know, we have we can have students from all over the world, from Brazil to Africa to Australia, and that even adds more to itself then the, how is online different?
And I don't know if you've had online, classes before that you're taking for credit or even maybe you took them in high school, but it's, you know, they're on your schedule.
And what Debbie was saying that, she did her work, you know, on the weekends.
And when I when I when I did my master's, I would do probably about I wanna say four hours a night, Monday through Thursday.
I took off Friday and either did I finished up my work on Saturday or Sunday.
So and we are built on the integrative approach to psychology for the deeper understanding of that whole person.
So it's just not bromide or, you know, superficial.
It's we we try to find that deeper understanding through our Catholic Christian metamol.
And, you know, you can finish the program.
Someone asked, can you do this part time?
Well, in, in a sixteen month program, you're taking two classes at a time.
In a twenty six month program, you're taking one class at a time.
And the nice thing about part time, it's structured in a way so, you know, financial aid, if you're taking out student loans, can still cover it.
And, individual feedback from instructors, well, a lot of time in classes, same with me.
My only feedback is the grade on my paper.
How did I do?
And, you know, our instructors wanna get to know you and help you learn.
You learn.
You get to know you, finding out your learning style and your goals.
And, you know, 24, 25, pretty small class, and we teach in the five learning modalities.
So, you know, every class, there are three lectures.
They're all recorded.
You don't have to be there.
So you can listen to them on your laptop.
You can download them to text, or you can download them to an audiobook.
So, you you know, if you're driving or doing things around the house, you can hear that.
You know?
And then we, you know, good experienced faculty.
You know, they've been there, and and they know pretty well.
So, anyway, the benefits of the psychology program, master's in psychology, and, you know, gaining a deeper understanding of yourself in professional or ministry settings.
And that's the first thing you learn now.
And, and the the other part is the flourishing, and we want to help people flourish.
And I was asking, you know, what is your definition of flourishing?
And, you know, and it's, you know, helping people feel better, grow and grow, and to have hope, like like Debbie said.
And, you know, problem solving to, you know, develop excellence in communication, and you have to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a program.
So if you are dealing with someone, you you may have a plan or treatment for them, but, you know, you always gotta say, is it working?
And then in our program, we have five different concentrations, marriage and family, human services, leadership, pre PhD, and self design.
And, and what a concentration is, they are three, unique electives that are focused in either the marriage and family, human service leadership, design.
But everybody takes these same eight core courses regardless of their, their concentration.
Helping people flourish.
It's a big thing.
I mean, we're we're, you know, kind of like the good guys.
We want we wanna help people feel better about themselves, you know, human growth and development.
And this is a study of people, you know, from birth to life's end.
And and big thing on this is that, you're gonna approach people of different ages differently.
I mean, you're not going to treat a 12 year old like you would a 50 year old or a 50 year old like they're a 12 year old.
And then your developmental psychology and this is this gets sent to making plans.
You know, plans of treatments.
You know, your cognition, emotion, and motivation.
You know, cognitions, your thinking.
Everybody has emotions, and, you know, emotions are a good thing.
And then your motivation and motivation is a reason for change.
And, you know, everybody's motivated just by different things.
You know, what motivates someone to lose 20 pounds?
What motivates you to get your, you know, your your a master's in psychology?
What motivates you to to move?
I mean, it's it's all different.
And then your Catholic Christian vision of flourishing, vocations, those are your jobs, kinda like your life's work and virtues.
These are the good things that you do.
You know, statistics so you know how to quantitatively measure progress.
And, you know, many times you're doing group psychology, and we got a group of people.
You have all kinds of different people in the group and, you know, and help you, you know, handle that diversity in there.
Then your research methodology, and this helps with the your capstone paper.
And all students to graduate, you have to write a capstone paper.
And it could be on anything you want as long as you have the psychology or the research to support it.
So let me check these questions here.
Okay.
Someone's wondering about the self design.
I'm gonna get to that here very shortly.
And then I have a priest, oh my god.
Loyola Marymount.
Thanks so much to help him.
And I know financial involvement in the program.
We I can get to that too.
And, and we okay, and all we have is a a PhD in psychology.
However, that is all on campus in Sterling, Virginia.
So and then, anyway so and in the I'll go over this briefly.
In your, say you do marriage and family, and your electives are, you know, Catholic Christian marriage and human sexuality, marriage and family interventions, and marriage and family systems theory.
Now one thing, this does get your certification, your certification.
It's called FOCUS, f o c c u s.
And that is when you're counseling, you know, couples before they get married.
And it is kind of a scientific way to help them well to compatibility and to see, you know, in the future.
But these are some of the different career opportunities afterwards from, you know, with the offices, you know, head of child and family service organizations, and we must have one out there.
And then family services work, services work.
And then in the human services, now this gets more, you know, into social work.
You know, it's very good thing.
And but, you know, leading and facilitating groups and, you know, your your relationships and interventions, personality, individual differences, addictions counseling, which is a big thing today.
Now we don't do the license in the addiction in addictions, but that's something you can do afterwards.
But, it is it's just an awful problem today.
Awful problem.
And they need help.
And then your, leadership, this is if you maybe you're leading people now in your job or you foresee it or want to lead people.
But, you know, transformation leadership, leading people in organizations that apply leadership skills.
But, you know, that's in part human resource management.
You know, focus groups is in there.
You know, interpreting data through a psychology standpoint.
And then your, self design, and this is it's the most popular.
And in self design, you pick one elective out of each of these areas.
So you're getting a little bit of, marriage and family.
You get a little bit of human services and a little bit of leadership in there.
So that way, you have a say so in in your major.
But a lot of different, you know, opportunities on that.
And then we have a a pre PhD program, and this is for students who well, you know you're gonna go for your PhD, you know, within maybe the next year.
And it get and we concentrate on thesis writing, and we have six one credit hour courses on thesis writing.
Difference between a thesis and a capstone as well, a thesis is a little bit more in-depth, and you have to orally defend your thesis.
So, once you write your thesis, you know, you're you're in a panel probably on Zoom maybe today.
Usually, about four people, they have their paper, and and they ask you questions on that.
So and, you know, one thing a master's also does is qualify you to teach at a community college because, you know, the they have, you know, one hundred and two hundred level courses, and it they could be online teaching too.
So and then at research, they think so.
And then these are, I guess, the, the good things about online learning.
And you can work anywhere, anytime.
So you can work from home, work from your office, you can work from your mother's house, your father's house, okay, as long as you have an Internet connection.
And you'll always have access to our learning platform that is called Canvas, and Canvas is it's the best.
You know?
They're all good now.
You know?
Blackboard, you know, they all get better and try to get better too.
Because online, learning is it's it is the future.
It is the present in the future.
And then these five learning points, videos, books, classrooms, tutorials.
You know, you can down actually, you can download the audiobooks to, you know, say, if your native language is Spanish or maybe, you know, Italian or German, you can download them there if it help helps you learn, then the feedback instructs.
Let me see.
No.
We do not have a, PhD in pastoral theology.
That's all good.
Good question, Gabriel, on, you know, can you partner with other universities for further education?
Like, something like that is, you know, we're doing now for an area called bioethics.
Okay.
So, anyway, moving along, this is our core instructional staff, and all the instructors have PhDs.
And and they they work out of their homes.
And most of them are in The US, but Giovanni, he is in Australia, big researcher.
You know, Chris is he was in the air force.
He has his own management consultant.
Doctor Classley, she is the head person.
And doctor Gross, very good teacher.
He teaches a lot of the philosophy.
And then here are our acceptance requirements.
You need you have to have a bachelor's degree, and it doesn't matter what it's in as long as you have a 2.5 or better grade average.
Two, letters of recommendation.
Now these aren't letters that, your recommender has to compose.
It is we we email them a reading form where they rate you in many areas on a one to five scale, and, they complete it, hit submit, and it comes back to us.
You know, your resume you know, your resume that is kind of your history from the past till what you're doing now.
And, you know, I call it the past and the present, and then your written statement of intent.
This is the a 300 to 500 word essay, so to speak, on how the masters in psychology will help you achieve your goals, and I call that the future.
And then if English is not your first language, you may have to take a TOEFL or IETLS.
And then we do have it's a mandatory virtual orientation.
And this happens, obviously, after you have applied to school, but it is a small group Zoom meeting with, you know, like, four or five, people in your in your class formation and doctor Clousely.
You know, it's question and answering, answer and this is gonna be focusing more on the academics and time management side.
And she wants to get to know me too.
The counseling program.
I can't answer that one.
Okay.
Alright.
So for that.
So and then now we do have government financial aid.
And when you get to master's level, the only thing the government does is they'll loan you the money.
Okay.
And they will loan you enough to cover everything, but we do have scholarships too to help, you know, level the playing field a little bit.
And, you know, right now, we have a $1,500 early admissions star or application scholarship just by from getting your application in by Saturday, I believe.
And then we have different ones.
You know, if you're in public service, a teacher, you know, where you work, and many are you know, you write an essay.
Okay.
Anyway, that can take anywhere from, you know, 10 to, you know, 20, maybe 25% of your tuition reduced.
And then this is our tuition, and it is $8.50 a credit hour for thirty three credit hours.
And, again, this is everything, books, everything.
Okay?
And without scholarships, the, $50, per class, we call technology fees, $5.50, and a residency fee of $2.50.
Now the only time you you're required to be online is that's after the last week of your first class, and it is called, virtual residency.
And that would be on Monday and Friday from ten to five, Eastern time.
So so Friday and Saturday, ten to five, and it's you, all your classmates, and all your instructors for a a a learning session.
Man, it is it's fun.
You really like it.
Then a $55 application fee, you can always talk about, you know, waiving that.
So now and, again, this is for one class at a time.
Now if you do the sixteen month, which is two classes at a time, I mean, it it takes your tuition down, you know, almost $3,000 because you're taking two classes.
And and the way our classes are structured, whether you take two classes or one class at a time.
You know, we have a class that starts on the January 10.
So, you you know, a class lasts eight weeks, then you get a week off.
And then you take your next one or two classes, for eight weeks, and then you get two weeks off.
So that would be your your your spring break.
And then in the summer, you know, we only take one eight week class in the summer.
Everybody just takes one class for eight weeks, then you get five weeks off.
Then the fall, you know, again, you you can get a midterm break of a week, then then a Christmas break of about four weeks.
So you get plenty of time off, and that is important for you and the instructors need time off too.
So, anyway, these are the questions you have to ask yourself.
And from what I said, which, you know, we don't we don't know yet, but will the completion of the program help you obtain your goals?
And can you fit in the time?
You know, realistically, you're taking one class at a time.
You're looking at, you know, fifteen, twenty hours a week study.
You may be able to do it, you know, in twelve hours, but just giving you a realistic expectation.
And if you're taking two classes, you know, twenty five to thirty hours a week.
So if you're working full time, I suggest you take one class.
And the good thing is everybody starts out with just one class.
That's all we let you take at first so you can get adjusted.
And then will financial aid work?
Well, you don't know, you know, till you get with financial aid and see what kind of scholarships you get and see.
Nobody goes for free, folks.
Nobody goes for free.
Some go for less depending upon different things.
And if you start the program, you know, please, you know, complete it.
And that's so, anyway, you know, that is it.
And let's see if you got any other questions here.
Someone said the role.
PhD pathway instructor roles.
No.
All our instructors have, PhDs.
And, the thing about the pre PhD it's a great question is, you know, when you're doing a pre PhD, we our goal is to help you get published.
Okay?
And when you get published, you know, they publish your thesis.
That gives you an opportunity to get into more competitive PhD programs.
And there are some PhD programs out there that, you know, they give you stipends that, you know, to, you know, for your for your research work on that if you're a good researcher.
So, anyway, we can go more into that, you know, one on one in that.
So, anyway, I I, you know, I thank everybody for being here today.
I'm gonna stop and share here.
And, you know, if, you know, if you're interested, you know, I you know, this is really a thumbnail sketch of what we do.
And my procedure is, you know, I would get with you, you know, one on one where we can, you know, get to meet each other.
I can answer all your questions.
I can show you, you know, a little bit more about the program, but this is something, you know, ultimately, that, you you have to decide.
You have to be motivated, and you have to see a goal at the end to where you're gonna get a good return on your investment, you know, dollar wise and and and and and intellect wise.
And I can kick myself.
I started looking at master's program age 25.
And finally, at age 41, I I got this is it.
I'm doing it, and I did.
It was tough.
It was tougher.
I went a sharp through.
I make it through.
And, you know, people always, oh, how much does it cost?
How much does it cost?
You know what?
That's the easy part.
Okay.
What costs I mean, what it costs is, you know, the time you put in, and what really costs is the time you wait.
You know, ten years from now, say, oh, I need to do my master's in psychology.
You know?
That happens.
But, you know you know, the sooner, the better.
You know, hope you're motivated, and I hope to get with everybody.
And, let me see if I got any other questions.
And these are all great questions, and, and thank you everybody for being here.
And, I will you know, I'll touch base with you probably sometime tomorrow.
And, you know, and may God bless you.
And, I hope always hope things go well.
Thank you.
Bye now.