But on it is gonna be me, Jo Drennan.
I am the, admissions advisor in I'm very honored to have Doctor.
Clousely with us.
She's the program chair of our master's in psychology degree, 100% online, and, very interesting background.
And, you know, she earned her master's in counseling through Columbia International University and received her doctorate at the University of Texas in Dallas.
And, you know, her, I guess her focus has been on, you know, focus childcare for low income, ethically diverse children during the time she taught statistics and marriage and family counseling.
And then she had lived with her family in Stuttgart, Germany for six years, and she still taught online, a lot of research methods and has been she's still adjunct, at Columbia University.
And her current research are in, areas of spirituality and depression in college students and approaches to self care amongst individuals who work full time in the ministry.
And she's happily married and a proud mother of four lovely girls.
And in her free time, she enjoys long walks playing the piano and bassoon and enjoying a good cup of coffee.
And without further ado, I would like to have, doctor Kostley speak.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Welcome, everybody.
So good to be here.
I'm gonna give a little bit just a overview input into kind of who we are as a program, the masters of psychology.
And then, Jodran will kind of follow-up kinda on some of the logistics pieces on how to enroll, how to get the necessary information you need.
So as we jump in, I'm gonna share my screen to, just have a couple slides to kinda guide us through our discussion.
So, as we start thinking about the study of psychology, first question is why study psychology?
So, if you are out there, I know at least 10 of you are there.
Tell me your thoughts.
What why are you here tonight?
What intrigues you?
Why would you want to study psychology?
And you can just put it in the chat or in the q and a.
Well, I don't know if you you're able to unmute yourself.
You can do that as well.
Anybody have a and if not, you can kinda keep thinking about it and, bring something up later.
Okay?
Oh, here we have from, she says to try to learn how and why people act in certain ways.
Excellent.
And that is actually a core piece as a excellent, excellent thought.
Right?
Trying to understand why people do what they do.
Right?
And and getting a little deeper understanding to be able to help the community, Jacqueline.
Excellent.
I enjoy helping people to around me and help them on their journeys.
Excellent.
And so helping people understand the thinking of the human race.
Very, very good.
Then the last one, to better understand the people around me, help them on their journeys from Seth.
Great.
Excellent points.
Right?
So there are these common pieces that draw us to psychology.
I've been in psychology for a long time.
I actually when I was an undergrad, I was never gonna see do psychology.
I had zero interest until I took mandatorily into to psych.
And after that course, I was just like, man, I'm gonna take another class.
I wanna take another class.
This is so interesting to understand how we tick, right, what makes us do what we do.
So I wanna take a couple of minutes as we think through, the master in psychology at DMU.
Kind of what are those core pieces and kind of follow-up on some of your thoughts of what draws you to study psychology?
First of all, just on this, on an intro, how we view education is that we do not see education as just, getting information to gain knowledge, even though that is a part of education, but we really view it as formation throughout the program.
I love that statement from Aquinas.
The soul is perfected by knowledge and virtue.
We need knowledge, but we also need growth and virtue to to flourish, to do well.
Right?
So, with a desire that our students do well and leave the program differently, than they entered, we have this approach that we take through every course in the program that we have a formative element, a view of formation in education.
So my, so here's our three pieces that when I think our master's in psychology as a faculty, what we've kind of come, what, what is that, what we give and what you gain as you come into the masters.
A couple of you said exactly what brings you to the program is understanding self and others.
Right?
Understanding myself better actually makes me more effective in just about any work environment.
Can be leadership, can be service, can be ministry, and understanding others.
We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.
But having a paradigm, how look how I look at behavior.
Second piece is kind of that formative piece of growing personally, spiritually, and professionally.
Right?
I'm probably not gonna leave the program the way I entered.
I'm gonna as I learn, as I grow, as I reflect, I'm changing personally to to to have deeper knowledge of self.
I'm gonna grow spiritually.
We are a Catholic Christian program and, every single course is, integrated with theology, philosophy, and psychology.
And we want everybody to grow professionally.
Right.
We want you to be able to go out in the workforce and be really well prepared.
The third piece is that we want people to gain those skills of leading individuals and groups to flourishing.
DMU as a whole school has this this deep view of the need to flourish as a created being in the image of God.
So and we can be vehicles, we can be instruments to help others and grow and flourishing.
So first of all, understanding self and others.
That was kind of the few comments, right?
Actually, we had a couple of comments.
One of understanding self and others and one of helping others, right, towards flourishing.
So at DMU, we have this integrative view of the person.
I have loved doing psychology at DMU.
I feel like I've grown and learned a ton as a psychologist even though I've been a psychologist several decades at this point.
But But it has such a deep view of the human person.
So we go past what we do really well understanding research literature, but then we also pull in that deeper view of the person of seeing everybody as created, fallen, and redeemed.
We see that that the journey through vocation and virtue as vehicles to to well-being and flourishing.
The person will do well as they grow in virtue and and as they flourish in vocation, both professionally, relationally, and personally.
Right?
So so we look at the person volitionally, right, and free by nature of being created.
So as we're studying psychology, we always pull in that deeper view of the person for what I would say is a small well rounded, view of the individual.
The other piece is, that we help the psychological knowledge.
I love psychology.
I love like and I feel the more I read, the more I study.
I still love psychology.
Right.
Because I feel like you understand the person and you have another way of understanding behavior.
Right?
And you see it, like, kids in a school setting, little Billy is is mean.
Right?
Well, as a psychologist, I also have another avenue to understand that behavior.
At some level, all behavior is logical.
Right?
So so what is that anger?
If I see anger in a person, we'd call that, a secondary emotion.
There's probably always something under anger.
Right?
Anger is never just an emotion in itself.
There's always a deeper level.
So having a having a a paradigm, having having another lens to understand behavior, It's one of those great assets in studying psychology.
So part of the core courses, right, seeing the person developmentally.
Right?
Working with a teenager is very different than working with a retiree.
Right?
How do we develop as human beings is one of those core piece of understanding functioning.
We have, abnormal psychopathology, looking at risk and resiliency, understanding who is at risk towards psychopathology, what factors pose risk, and how can you create a culture and an environment towards well-being, flourishing, and resilience.
And we're looking one of my favorite classes, biology, affective and cognitive basis for behavior.
And we have motivation in there and a little bit of neuroscience, a little bit of biological basis of behavior.
It opens the door to understanding how the person ticks in such a great way.
And then we have social psychology, understanding culture and groups, and of course, statistics and research methods, which gives you another vehicle for looking at behavior.
And we also have always one course that is truly philosophy theology to have another way of looking at human flourishing and functioning.
The other part that's part of our program is growing personally, spiritually, professionally.
Right?
Part of that is one piece is a scientific mindedness.
That's not knowledge.
That's a skill.
Right?
That that when you get your master's in psychology, you go from non expert to expert.
Right?
People look to you as a person who is able to reason through maybe tensions, conflicts, needing conflict resolution.
Right?
So having scientific mindedness, that skill of looking at the evidence before you and looking at evidence based solutions, having psychological explanations for behavioral phenomena.
Right?
Rather than like, oh, he's just mean, it's like, okay, there's a different explanation for behavior.
Right?
We you can go further because you have another lens of understanding why people do the stuff they do.
You you develop a deep psychological literacy.
Right?
We want people to be very well versed in psychology.
So they have a very deep foundation.
They're psychologically literate.
And then there's kind of a piece of innovative, integrative applications to solve problems.
Right?
That can be really helpful if you're leadership and management.
Right?
When when you have a group of people you're responsible for, how do you solve problems?
How do you lead your group through crisis?
Really helpful for people who are in ministry leadership.
We have a lot of people who are in ministry leadership who feel they need to understand the person better.
They need to understand better.
How do I lead people?
How do I help in difficult situations?
What if obstacles come?
Right.
How do you deal with conflict in a way that leads to flourishing?
So we have those piece and, you solve problems as transformational leaders where people working for you and under you, become a better self because of your leadership.
And then personal professional development, right?
You are growing in all three areas of vocation, right?
We look at the vocation of self and spiritual self, relational vocation, and professional vocation.
I'm not gonna get into these.
We have certain things embedded in every single course that you build on throughout the program so you can keep growing in those different areas.
We have different concentrations so we can accommodate different professional career desires and needs.
Then, last piece that some of you mentioned is, leading individuals and groups to flourishing.
There's a couple different pieces.
So we, oops, sorry.
I went too far.
That's okay.
We have two pieces.
There's a skills part where we have skills classes on empathic listening, relating skills, conflict resolution skills, so you can work with others.
And there's a piece of learning to communicate well.
So you can go out, especially in this world where people are not super positive sometimes towards Christian psychologists.
Right.
But if you are really, really good and you have looked at your data well, and you communicate clearly, you can go out pretty much anywhere, let the data speak, let your knowledge speak and present a deeper view of the person and that and how the person flourishes.
No matter if it's a Christian or a secular supportive, non supportive world, you have that skill of communicating well and clearly.
So this is like our graph that is kind of the overview of what the program is, and then we'll go a little bit more the different areas you can apply it to.
The one is understanding self and others, both psychological base and integrative view of the person, Catholic Christian vision of the person.
Growing personally and professionally, there's a scientific mindedness and personal professional development.
And then there's the ability and the skills to lead individuals and groups to flourishing.
There's ethical behavior in a very diverse world.
And is interpersonal relating and communication skills.
So if you think, okay, what what am I getting out of this program?
That's kinda our core of what we focus on.
And we have probably our program, which I love as part of leading and directing this program, we probably have the most diverse student body of any program at DMU and probably any program I have come to know at other schools or have colleagues and friends at other schools.
We We have over 25% of students are overseas.
We have people in Nigeria, Africa, different Indian, Africa, in India, African countries, Europe, Asia, New Zealand, and Australia.
And one of our faculty members actually is in Australia.
And we have, sometimes we have live Zoom meetings, sometimes I have people, the biggest problem is finding a time because sometimes I have people in Honolulu as well as in Nigeria and in The US, Canada, and South America, and finding a time, when we can all meet, which is such makes for such great discussion.
I I teach statistics normally most of the time.
So I had I did a live Zoom meeting to help everybody run the analysis they have to do.
And I had a a priest, a father from Nigeria, and I felt so bad.
It was 2AM, I think, for him.
And he's like, I just need to talk.
I was like, oh, I'm so sorry.
But it was such a great so having his view and having the person from, Hawaii and and South America, it makes for incredibly rich discussion, which which I just have so enjoyed.
Then professionally, we have also a huge amount of diversity.
We have people who are in upper management of companies.
We have people in Silicon Valley who have moved into leadership positions, and they're like, all I know is computers or engineering.
I don't know anything about people.
Can you help us?
And I'm like, great.
And they love the program.
We have people who are in medical professions, nurses, doctors, physical therapists who work with chronic pain, and they just say, I just need a different view of the person to keep me motivated and doing what I do and do it well.
We have Catholic educators, teachers from different public or private schools who wanna think through how does formation look and how do I do self care in the classroom when it's really hard?
And a lot of kids come from hard backgrounds.
We have a lot of people from ministry, focused missionaries, priests, people who work in spiritual formation, discernment at seminaries, and wanting to understand the functioning of the person better.
And then we have a growing group of chaplains who, overseas military deployed.
Some some people are just gone because they get last minute deployed and then at some point they resurface and they're like, great.
You're back.
And they find find the understanding of the person so helpful to their work as chaplains.
And then we have a growing group of people who do the pre PhD.
We've added pre PhD track who just come sixteen months, do a thesis, go on for doctoral work, and they just come to stop for the integrity of you, on psychology.
And then many others.
Right?
We can list all of them.
But as we close, I wanna give one little thing before we talk about concentrations.
Kind of the question comes up all the time, clinical or nonclinical psychology.
So we are the nonclinical program in in the global campus at DMU.
We also have a counseling program that is clinical.
And we always get this question.
Right?
So this is a nonlicensing program.
Would I prefer a licensing program?
And and the way I like to look at it and help people think through this is it really depends how how God has made you and how you like to work.
So counseling, you see on the left, is really that one on one direct service, and it's has that restorative focus.
Right?
People come I do a little bit you know, I got a counseling degree first.
I do a little bit of private practice, kind of two evenings a week.
I mostly work with couples, which I also love.
But a lot of my colleagues who do only counseling, they see 35 to 40 people a week.
There's they don't do teamwork.
They don't see colleagues.
They just clock client after client.
Some some people love it.
Some people find that lonely.
Right?
Find that they would prefer working in a team.
They would prefer developing culture.
Right?
So if you on the right here, if you think nonclinical psychology, the framework I like is broader interventions for groups and individuals.
Right?
You are not doing the one on one direct service with a restorative focus.
You are more, you're developing cultures, you are developing broader interventions.
If If you think human services, you're connecting people with, with resources to overcome adversity, right?
You are maybe a little more preventative and growth oriented in focus, and you're more in the business of creating broad interventions, creating cultures for flourishing and well-being.
You've had quite a few people who've written their capstone, they've done their work on preventing burnout.
They work in companies.
They are either in ministry settings, have moved into leadership positions, and they wanna think through how do I create a culture for well-being?
How do I create culture that prevents burnout?
Right?
If you love working in a team, growth oriented, preventative, culture development, you're probably better in the nonclinical field.
So for me, my doctorate is nonclinical.
My master's was clinical.
I love my private practice, two evenings a week, but I love the rest of the week that I'm not only private practice.
So for me, it was kind of that, I love a little bit of it and I feel I learn a lot by being with clients.
But my mind goes like, can we have preventative interventions?
How about psychoeducational pieces where we can have a ton of people because I do mostly marriage counseling.
Most people don't come to see me until they are doing pretty badly.
Right?
And most people don't come to counseling if you look across the population.
So thinking, how can we get to people earlier, better in a preventative sense?
To me, that is exciting.
I love research.
I love developing new ways of looking through stuff.
Right.
So kind of before the Lord exploring what is your professional journey, and what is interesting?
What draws you kind of answers your question a little bit, but we need that clinical nonclinical psychology discernment.
Then just one quick word.
And I know Jill will talk about it a little bit.
What are the specializations we're offering now?
We have four, and then we have a self design for those who wanna pick and choose.
We have a lot of our ministry people choose self design because they wanna they have different needs.
They want one leadership class, one skills class.
And we have leadership psychology just because we keep getting people who are in leadership settings, and they want to lead well.
I love our view on, servant leadership, transformational leadership, virtue based leadership.
It's kind of that counterpiece to how a lot of other leadership programs are secular.
But it's a lot of new research coming and finding it incredibly effective.
So you take three courses, in applied leadership skills, transformational leadership and leading groups and programs.
Then we have marriage and family studies.
People who work in the diocesan level, people who work in early intervention, family ministry, and marriage, pre K and A, post K and A, mentor couples, training mentor couples, who wanna understand family marriage family systems theory, interventions, and kind of the theology of marriage and family.
With that, pre PhD, we've just started this year is fantastic.
I love it.
I'm working with two people right now who are doing their thesis.
It's really you're doing research.
So if you're interested in doctoral studies, eventually, if having a thesis and especially if you presented or published your thesis definitely gives you a heads up or just a little edge up to more competitive doctoral programs.
Certain doctoral programs are very competitive in psychology.
Coming with a master's with a thesis that's published definitely gives you a much wider open door in different programs.
So you do a research project.
You work with an advisor who walks you through all the steps of research.
You run analysis, collect data, and present hopefully at a conference and publish your article.
And then human services is for people like case management, adver helping people overcome adversity that this kind of, love have different friends who work in human services and, being that piece who connects them with the resources to not just stay at the hard place they are at.
So we have a lot of people who've loved that concentration.
And there's a certification you can get, that we don't offer in the program, but we qualify the program qualifies you to get, certified as a human service professional.
So that's, kind of on the specializations.
If you have questions and otherwise I mean, Joe, you can take over and give a little more of the other parts of the program.
Alright.
Well, thank you, doctor Clousely.
That was, well said, and I, I can never say it like you can.
So because you are the program chair and that's so, okay.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go I'm gonna, share my screen with you and, go into some more details on, divine mercy, master's in psychology, 100% online.
The only time you have to go to campuses for graduation, no GRE or graduate record exam required for admission.
And, that well, that's me.
And, next slide.
And, anyway, we are accredited by the Southern Association of College and Schools.
And some of the schools accredited in the Southern Association are Duke, you know, Florida State all the way over to Texas and, you know, Mississippi.
And we were formed and chartered in Virginia in 1998.
So we're a relatively young university.
K.
Next slide.
And we're a Catholic graduate university dedicated to scientific study of psychology and counseling.
And, you know, like I said, founded in 1999.
And in 2015, we changed our name to Divine Mercy from the, you know, psychological science college.
K.
And how is our online masters in psychology different?
Well, it's a synchronous, meaning when you're online, you can study when you want to.
You know, whether you're an early morning person, you wanna do it late at night or on weekends, but, however, you still have to get the work done.
And our, we have a very experienced faculty who are experts in their fields and, you know, and they try to help you individually.
And, what's important to me and hopefully to you is we're infused by our Catholic Christian meta model of the human person, which means we deal with the whole person, you know, mind, body, spirit, heart.
And we do it through, you know, psychology, philosophy, and theology.
And we don't have religion classes per se, but we do infuse it in our our studies.
So k.
Next slide.
And, anyway, these are some of the benefits in a psychology management psychology.
I'm not gonna go go over them, but, you know, take a look at them.
And, these are very important, and, you know, they can help you in whatever you are doing now.
And like doctor Klausie was saying, evaluating critically one's own biases and assumptions.
So in a program like this, you get to get to know yourself really well.
And we know when you know yourself really well, you know, it it helps you help other people.
Okay?
And these are some of the advanced skills provided by the MSP, and I'll let you look at these.
And, you know, and one of the big effectively communication.
And, you know, a big part of communication is listening.
You know, listening.
I mean, are you hearing?
Are you listening?
You're listening empathetically to where you're putting yourself in the other person's place, and you're trying to understand it from where they are.
So and then again, you know, doctor Kostley talks about program evaluation which are, you know, you always have to measure progress.
How are we doing?
Are we we we we getting to the right place?
So okay.
Next slide.
And these are our five concentrations, marriage and family, human services, leadership, pre PhD, and self design.
And, you know, self design, you can pick, you know, three electives, you know, human services, and marriage and family.
They have, you know, very defined ones in leadership if you're in business.
And but it's all online.
And but it is not a licensure track.
There is no no licensing involved.
So the next one.
But, these are are, well, eight core courses.
Everybody takes the same eight core courses no matter what their concentration is.
And, you know, we use we we preach.
We talk about flourishing.
Flourishing is very important.
And, you know, as you said, that is, you know, you know, helping people feel better about themselves.
And when you feel better about yourselves, you know, you can do big things.
So and, but those are the, electives in marriage and family, marriage and family systems, flourishing relationships, and marriage and family interventions.
Okay?
The next slide.
And human services, you know, this is more in your in your social work, same eight core courses.
And the eight core courses, they they're very good.
They will take you a lot of places.
But, you know, relationship to intervention skills, personality, group counseling work are the three electives.
And the next one.
And, in leadership, you know, transformational leadership, leading people, programs, and organizations and applying leadership skills.
And we have had, students who they're you know, they know their numbers that an MBA would teach you, but they want people skills, you know, how to understand people.
And this will help them do that.
And then the next one, which is pre PhD, same eight core courses.
However, their the electives are, they are six, one and a half credit hour courses on how to write your thesis.
And difference between your thesis and all you know, the other concentrations have what they call a capstone.
But a thesis, you have to write your defend it orally in front of a group.
Both the proposal and the actual project.
So What's that?
Fantastic.
You you have two defenses actually for the thesis.
Proposal defense, then you get IRB approval, then you collect data, analyze it, write it up, and then you then write it down.
Exactly.
So a little bit more intense.
And then, you know, the third one is, what we call self design.
They can pick their electives from each of the three from, you know, marriage, family, flourishing, and, and, you know, group counseling.
So, that is actually the most popular concentration.
About 40% of our students are doing that because they, you know, they they want a choice in in their studies.
So and then next one.
But these are some of the different areas in, that, you know, graduates can go into.
And these are areas that our graduates have gone into From industrial organizations, education, you know, teaching, psychology, community college.
You have to have a master's in psychology as well as your if you're doing it in high school.
And then, you know, social, mental health, ministry, government.
You know, they need, you know, folks with a psychology background because they understand how people tick.
And the next one.
And then in, you know, health care, mental services, you know, case management, the, you know, foster care, you know, social work.
Man, that is a, a tough work, and maybe some of you are in social work now.
But what will a master's in psychology do to help you help people in that sense?
And the next one.
And then in, business, you know, in human resource management to, you know, sales representatives, you know, public relations.
I mean, that's probably one of the biggest areas that a a psychology masters will I guess if you wanna make money, it's a good area to be in.
So and then the next one is the, you know, parishes and dioceses.
We we get a lot of graduates who, you know, they they wanna understand people better to help with their community or their parish or their, you know, what whatever their church is.
And, because they know people need help and, you know, they wanna help them.
So and next one.
And then in child family services, very big.
And, you know, and then they are nonprofits and, you know, child protection.
So and next one.
And then in local state and federal government, you know, they like to have, you know, psychology grads to help out with, you know, drug and alcohol dependency.
That's just it's getting out of hand, you know, parole officer.
Yeah.
We get, you know, quite a few students who are, you know, they're policemen, sheriffs, and that.
And, you know, they do wanna do that to help them with what they call community policing.
So in the next one.
So and that, fellow there in the red gown, that is, father Charles Sikorsky.
He's the president of our university.
And, of course, in the ministry, you know, for youth pastors, you know, leaders of churches.
And, you know, it it kinda depends on, you know, what is important to you.
And next one.
Now online classroom, well, it, well, in twenty twenty when COVID hit, high schools, colleges, they did everything online because, you know, you couldn't be together.
And, you know, online is it's the present and the future, but, as long as you have an Internet connection, you can do it.
And it's the same atmosphere with full student participation and teachers, fast turnaround with professors and peers.
You know, you, email your instructor.
They should be back with you, I think, within twenty four hours.
And then we we work on the five sense, sensory learning points, videos, books, tutorials, and audiobooks.
You know, audiobooks are great.
And, you can download them to some of the lectures to audiobooks, and we use Canvas, which is different than Blackboard.
And Canvas is very, very user friendly, for the, students.
And but, anyway, you can study when you want to, any anytime you want to as long as you have the Internet connection.
So And next, these are our instructors.
And, of course, our, main speaker, doctor Closley, is there and, you know, Angela Williamson and doctor Pecoraro, and, doctor Trepto, Christopher, and Giovanna.
And, you know, they're all very good at what they do and very personable and knowledgeable.
And, you know, they wanna see you succeed.
So next.
And we have two tracks, a sixteen month track.
So sixteen months, you take two two courses per term, which in every trimester, there are two two terms per you know, two, eight week courses in a trimester.
And then in the twenty six month path, you just take one.
So it depends on you.
You know, can you do two?
But when I look at it, when I used to take 18 a semester And someone said, you only have to do two.
I'm like, really?
That should be easy.
But, you know, but, you know, time wise, put your time commitment wise.
I mean, you still have to do the work.
And if you are in the, you know, taking one class a term on the twenty six months, you're looking at about fifteen hours a week of, you know, reading, writing, research, and reflecting.
End of the sixteen months, you're probably looking about, you know, twenty four hours a week in doing that, but you finish faster, so it has its benefits.
And the next one.
And here are acceptance requirements.
You have to have a baccalaureate degree, bachelor's degree, from a, institution or college that is recognized by the US Department of Education or and we have a lot of international students, and we we we get those evaluated.
And as far as your your grades, a 2.5 or better grade average to be admitted.
You know, two letters of recommendation.
These can be from your spiritual directors, you know, former teachers, you know, supervisors.
It they just can't be your best friend.
And a written statement of intent, very, very important.
And this is, I am here now.
And in five years, I want to be here.
And this is how the masters of psychology is gonna help me get there.
And, you know, like I said, it's very important.
And then TOEFL, you know, if English is not your first language, you know, we'll, you know, we'll deal with that.
And the next one.
And we do have, is grad school affordable?
Well, we have government financial aid for those who qualify.
You know, student loans, you you don't get, you know, federal grants on a graduate level.
However, you know, we we do a lot of scholar shipping and, you know, we we do about, you know, 2,000,000 a year in scholarships.
And what these do the the do is they reduce the tuition amount.
Okay?
Next one.
And this is our our fees.
Our, master of psychology, $8.26 a credit hour, thirty three credit hours, $27.02 $5.08, you know, technology fees, and, oh, did mention a virtual residency.
And this is the only time you have to be online together.
And we usually do that mid first trimester.
And, you know, it's everyone together on a Friday and a Saturday from ten to five, and it's workshops.
You all the instructors are there, and, it is great.
I I went through it the last term, and it, boy, it enlightened me.
Now, this includes your books too.
And, you know, books can be expensive, and, of course, we use ebooks or electronic books.
And now if you do the sixteen month track where you're taking two classes, they reduce the tuition.
They give you 5050% off on your second course, which that would bring it down to around, you know, $21,000, you know, without any scholarships.
And, of course, application fee of $55 can be waived, by me.
The next one.
And these are I call the four big questions, and, you know, everyone discerns.
I mean, it no one has to get a master's degree.
It's something you want to.
You know, maybe you need to, but, you know, will the completion of the program help you obtain your goals?
Depends on what your goals are.
And will scheduling requirements for successful completion workable in your schedule?
Well, you know, when you carve out fifteen hours a week or twenty two hours a week, you know, something's gotta give.
You know, it could be bowling, could be, you know, different activities you do.
But the good thing is it doesn't last forever.
It's gonna last for sixteen months or twenty six months.
And do financial aid options?
Are they gonna work?
Well, you know, once you apply to college or or or program, but we get you with financial aid.
And, you know, you have to have a workable plan and, it it has to be affordable for you.
And can you commit to successful completion?
And, I mean, I as the admission I don't want anybody coming into my program that, oh, I'm just gonna take a couple courses and, you know, do something else.
I mean, you have to get your degree.
And next slide.
That's me.
And then one more.
But these are the skills to learn.
And listening empathetically oh my gosh.
I mean, I thought I was a good listener until I went through virtual residency.
I was you know, I'd give myself a d.
However, I'm I'm back to at least a c.
And, again, it's non licensed.
You know, you know, we can work alongside licensed mental health professionals, you know, wellness and life coaching.
And, and you always when you you see someone has a really bad problem, you wanna refer them up to, someone who is, you know, licensed.
So the next one.
Yeah.
Other skills learned, you know, building trust.
Trust is a big thing.
And I don't know about you, but everyone always used to come to me with all their problems.
And I would listen, but, you know, I did not help them.
And one thing about, being a psychologist, you can't always give them the right answers, but you could ask the right questions.
And the right questions will help them help themselves.
And next one.
And these are our concentrations, marriage and family, knowledge and reading, human services, leadership, p PhD, and self design.
And, and, you know, you listen to this.
You probably pretty much, you know, what what your concentration would be.
So and then one more.
That's it.
The finale.
And, we, you know, $55 application fee that can be waived, and we don't know anything till you apply to school and go through a a meeting with me for about thirty minutes or so just to make sure it's a good fit.
And, you know, I wanna make sure that our students are doing this for the right reasons, and, you know, that that's gonna lead to success.
And, you know, and and if it's not a good fit, hey.
You know what?
We shake hands.
Hardest friends.
And, that is it.
So People have questions.
If you have question, may you put them in the chat or in the q and a?
So we can take some questions about either logistics, entering, focus of the program.
Well, I guess they were all answered, doctor Claussen.
Excellent.
So, anyway, I, you know oh, wait a minute.
No.
I think it was earlier.
It was?
Yeah.
Oh, Milagro, I think somebody raised their hand.
Do you wanna just, text, put it in the chat, or do you wanna unmute yourself?
I'm unmuted.
Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
So I'm working as a LPN.
I do home health, and and I'm looking to go into case management or maybe into hospice nursing.
I'm currently pursuing my RN online.
So would this be a good, just general master's degree program to do that?
And I think so.
I think it's very Mhmm.
We have more and more people from all kinds of different health care situations, and they love the deeper just a new angle to think through what is what are aspects of flourishing.
We just had somebody who does who's physical therapist, doctoral level physical therapist who works with chronic pain people.
Mhmm.
And, she just needed a reframing of suffering.
How do you take people through those hard places with hope?
Right?
The the whole psychology of hope.
And I think she found she actually presented Catholic Medical Association on her she did her capstone on kind of the flourishing person in suffering and adding a kind of cognitive behavioral piece to her medical intervention and was very well received.
And I think it's really given her a new way of working with patients.
I think given her new joy, new hope in the way she works with patients.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I want to just take a moment to thank you guys for the presentation.
It was very helpful.
So glad.
I have to pop off and go to work.
No.
Well Okay.
Oh, well.
Okay.
So So be good work.
But, you know, one thing I say is, you know, anytime you get into a master's degree like this, it's gonna change you Mhmm.
More than anything because you're gonna have different outlooks.
And, you know, you know, your friends may, you know hopefully, they'll still be your friends, but you're you're a different person.
But, you know, you have to do that to help people.
So So I see there are two more press questions about which program can be licensed is to master's in counseling, clinical mental health counseling.
It is, I think it's twice twice as long, and then you have licensing hours.
Right?
You have depending on your state.
So then you are licensed.
And it very good.
So so what requirement for licensing?
So our program is not licensing.
However, certain states, like Colorado has, like, a three tier system for addictions counseling.
So the the highest tier is for clinical mental health counselors who are fully licensed, but you can be an addictions counselor at with a master's of psychology.
So and then you can get a certification to do addictions work.
So it depends what state you are in.
So there are different states.
We're working on putting a list together for our students because some people really do enjoy working, doing addictions work, and very, very needed this day and age.
So, that's and some people career counseling, if you do like I'm certified to do, aptitude assessment for career counseling, which does not require a clinical mental health license.
So I'm a certified.
You have to do extra training, but I offer assessment for aptitude and ability for people to kinda discern what is good career choices for them.
So that's a certification route versus a licensing route, if that makes sense.
Seth, I think that was your question.
Let let us know that when, Myra, I think, had the question about which program is licensing.
Hi.
My name is Ariana.
I am a strategic director at a nonprofit organization, and we have pregnancy help centers in Miami.
I've been looking over this program, and I don't know.
The more I look into it, the more I feel like the leadership track would be beneficial.
I mean, there's a lot of people that I'm supposed you know, I kinda am supposed to be, leading, and I would love to learn more how to, you know, like, problem, solve with groups of people.
Because I'm I don't know if maybe in the future, I'll be in a even bigger leadership, position in the organization.
So I'm just very thankful for this, and it's just kind of like a confirmation from God that Excellent.
Well, you know, we've had quite a few people who are in nonprofit pro life pregnancy center ministry, who who've gone through the program.
We had someone who was Downtown New York leading a pro life center, who graduated, like, pretty early in the program.
And I think found it really, really helpful at both the leadership of others, but also in the work and thinking through how to run that organization.
Yeah.
I could really relate to what you were saying about burnout.
I see it in my in my boss a lot, and it would be something that I think Yeah.
Would be interesting to dive into.
Excellent.
Yeah.
Great.
Are there other questions, comments?
I also had another question.
If I was looking at there's, like, different terms.
Do you offer, a spring term?
Yep.
Two in the spring, one in the summer, two in the fall.
Five eight week terms a year.
Okay.
And the spring one would start in January?
January through March, March through May, then end of May through July, then we take three, four weeks off, and then start again middle of August through October, October through December.
Okay.
And, when would you recommend to apply if I would like to start, hopefully?
Apply now if you wanna start in May.
You can apply in the next few weeks if you wanna start in August.
We do have program orientation.
We do a library orientation.
So it's nice if you don't apply, like, the week before we start.
We actually don't take you anymore the week before we start, but we just feel people need a couple weeks to go, right, be be well situated and to start well.
So if you wanna start two months before it starts, it's probably a good time frame.
Okay.
Thank you.
Joe, is that kinda what you would think?
Yeah.
Again, you know, I mean, we're gonna we're gonna start a trimester every January, every May, every August till the end of time.
However, you know, tuition goes up.
And I know in May what I told you, that's the May tuition.
You know, those who wanna wait till fall, well, for the next one, they're gonna pay a little bit more.
But, you know, when it when it comes to, you know, graduate school, it's not about the money.
You know?
Everybody say it's the money, money, money.
No.
It's about the time you put in, the emotions you put into it.
And, you know, and it's something you're gonna earn and very be very, very proud of that you have that on your resume, a master's in psychology.
And, that that is the payoff.
That is the payoff.
And what you do with it from there?
Well, I mean, that's up to you, but, you know, with a broader knowledge base and knowledge of people, it can take you far.
Thank you.
Mhmm.
Alright.
And, yeah, I think this answer if you have more questions, be in touch with, children.
Oh, I'll I'll help you, and I thank you for attending.
And I wanna thank doctor Clousely too.
You know, what a wonderful session.
I mean, that is I mean, she's the expert.
She knows the program inside out, upside down, right left, up down.
So, but if you got questions, you know, I'll see if we can answer them for you.
So That's great.
Alright.
Well, thank you, everybody.
We're going to You're ready.
Sign off here and good night.
And, you know?
Goodbye.
Bye bye.
I enjoyed it.
Thank you.
Bye now.