Alright.
Well, here we are.
Welcome, everyone, to the, presentation for the master's in psychology program here at Divine Mercy University.
My name is Greg Shapiro.
I'm the admissions representative.
I'm gonna be walking through with you the program details.
We're gonna be covering a few things.
One would be just general information regarding to Divine Mercy University, and then also, of course, the master's in psychology program.
We're gonna go further into the different vocational avenues that you can take once earning this degree.
This is, based on what many different students have done, after earning their degree going into different positions.
We're also gonna start covering the, tuition information as well.
So, the the tuition of the program, the scholarship options that we have, ways of reducing your tuition, there's always an opportunity for that.
So I'm gonna be including these slides.
You'll have visual aids for all of this.
But if you're one that just likes to listen, I will, speak very, clearly on the details if you're one that likes to listen while, you know, doing, household chores or whatever it is that you're doing.
So let's begin.
So just some general information on Divine Mercy.
To begin, we began back in 1999 under, the Institute for Psychological Sciences.
So we were called IPS.
And, later on, we added the school of counseling, which brought us to the university status.
And so we have three different programs.
We have the master's in counseling program, which is hybrid.
And then we also have, under IPS, the PsyD program in clinical psychology, and that one is fully residential.
So we have students here on campus in Sterling, Virginia.
And then we have what we're gonna be talking about today, the master's in psychology program, which is 100% online, and we'll go into the online format shortly.
With that, we are accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
So So this is one of the seven major accrediting bodies.
We're also accredited through, APA, American Psychological Association.
So this is a national accreditation.
And then, of course, we're also recognized by the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia.
So going deeper into the master's in psychology program, to begin, as I mentioned, we are 100% online.
There are no residencies, no field experience that needs to be completed with this one.
You could technically be a hermit and complete the degree from beginning to end.
With that, it's also asynchronous.
So in other words, you have the flexibility to participate in your classes at whatever time works within your schedule.
There are no live lectures, which is a benefit, especially if you do have a busy, work life or busy home life, if time might be more demanding for you.
So you can log in at whatever time works within your day.
And then as mentioned, we are regionally credited, through Saks as I mentioned.
So this is, you know, this is why we hold our our, education at a high standard.
And then this program is 36 credit hours.
And so 30 of those credit hours go toward psychology and six of the credits go toward philosophy and theology.
And then in order to be eligible to apply, you must have a baccalaureate degree with at least a 2.5 GPA.
And then with this program, I would classify this as a helping degree.
So it's for helping professionals.
In other words, this is not a licensure track program.
So if you're looking to become a licensed professional counselor or a licensed psychologist, this would not be the right program for you.
I would look at the other programs that we offer.
However, if you're looking for something that might be a little less intensive than that or you want to advance in your career or go into positions that don't require any formal licensure, then this is a great option for that.
And then lastly, as the university name implies, we're a Catholic university.
We teach the social sciences, but we include in the curriculum the Catholic Christian teaching of the human person through the meta model.
So you're not only getting a solid education of the human mind, we want to include an education of the human person as well.
One thing that we don't really highlight as often, but something I'm very proud of is the fact that our curriculum was formed by, by the Dominican excuse me, the Dominican order.
So there's a very scholastic, part of this Catholicism within the curriculum, but we even include a sort of Thomistic, Aquinas tradition into our teaching of psychology.
So with that, we do have three different tracks that you can choose from when it comes to completing the degree.
So the program could be completed in twenty eight months, twenty months, or sixteen months.
If you're doing the twenty eight month track, that means that you're committing about fifteen to eighteen hours per week toward your study time.
If you're doing the twenty month track, then you'd be committing about eighteen to twenty five hours per week.
And if you're doing the sixteen month track, then you'd be committing about twenty five to thirty hours per week.
So it's a good idea to take some time to think about, what your schedule looks like before choosing a track.
For those that might have a busier schedule, then the twenty eight month track might be a better option for you.
If you do have a little bit more flexibility in your time and you're ready to, proceed gung ho and and completing it at a at a faster rate, then the twenty or sixty month track might be a great option for you as well.
And so program structure and clinical experience.
These are some examples of certain skills that you'll be, gaining through the program you'll be trained in.
And, for a lot of employers, they really value these critical thinking skills that you might already have, but, this program will really solidify those skills that you're looking for.
So whether it's building a crisis plan or going into, counseling if you wanna gain counseling, skills.
For a lot of people, they they use this degree to counsel individuals in different, environments.
So maybe it's at at a parish level or working at a maybe a pro life crisis, center or something like that.
Counseling is a big part of it.
Now, again, you wouldn't be doing it as a as a licensed counselor, but you'll be able to recognize certain, maybe, mental health challenges that people experience, and you can help refer them to the right professional, for their needs.
And so let's go over the vocational opportunities.
There are a lot of different options that we, or a lot of vocational opportunities that people, use when it comes to after earning their degree.
So the first one as you're seeing within parishes and diocese.
I enroll a lot of consecrated religious and lay religious as well, and also lay people that may not be consecrated in the religious life, but, they use this degree in different forms of ministry.
So whether it's working within the diocesan office of marriage and family or for victim's assistance or working within ministry, whether it's as a, you know, a catechesis or something outside of that, this degree is very useful for that.
It could also be used within education.
So, taking positions in higher education or within a high school setting as an educator or a an instructor in a community college, this degree lends to that as well.
It could also be used within federal government positions.
So whether it's local, state, or federal, you'll you'll have that option.
So a lot of people use this degree within, as you see, vocational rehabilitation or drug and alcohol counseling or within employee counseling.
HR is a very common, position people take with this degree because you have to have that ability to communicate with different types of individuals.
It can even be used within a capacity of of, forensic psychology.
So pro officer, they usually, this degree will be very beneficial for that, or even something like criminal profiling.
So there's a a wide variety of government positions with this degree that you could go into.
And then child and family service organizations.
So these are, you know, different positions such as family service worker, working within child protection or as a child care supervisor, or working in different nonprofit agencies.
This is a great program to degree to have that that goes into these positions as well.
And then, health care and mental health services.
And these are typically more entry level positions, but these are, these are positions that that people have been able to go into after earning this degree.
So for many people, it might be working within behavioral counseling.
So I'm thinking something like, applied behavior analysis, for instance, which may require additional maybe an additional course that might need to be completed or an exam.
It really depends on the state in which you live.
But this could certainly go into that direction.
It could work within casework, case management.
This degree is also used within health project coordinating or working within a psychiatric tech psychiatric environment as a technician or within rehabilitation centers.
So, you know, having that background within psychology is, very useful within these different environments.
And then, also, lastly, this is something that a lot people don't even think about, but this degree is very useful within almost an industrial and organizational psychology capacity.
So working within a corporate environment or an organization.
So as I mentioned before, HR is common where people will earn this degree and go into those fields, but that can work not just in government positions, but in private sectors or something similar to that.
It could work within advertisement or market marketing, just because having a good sense of what the consumer or the client, the psychology behind those things, this is something that you'll be able to use this degree in with these critical thinking skills.
And so I wanna go into a testimonial.
I'm gonna keep this on the screen for a moment if you wanted to take that time to review it.
You're welcome to pause it and read it if you like.
But I like to highlight this one just because the the the, student that wrote this this testimonial, she highlighted just the fact that the faculty and the staff were very responsive to her needs.
As you see, the student suffered a miscarriage, and so she was going through a lot within her personal life.
And, it's very difficult.
I mean, it's always difficult outside of going through a program, but you have the extra burden of this additional, responsibility that you have to deal with as well.
The last thing we wanna do is make things more difficult for the student, especially when they're going through so much.
So we make sure that we're working with them with their needs.
But not only that, she was able to thrive in the program, and we were able to work with her.
We accommodated her needs with this.
And on top of that, she found healing in the program.
She was able to get that, that information that that she'll be able to pass over to different individuals, but she was able to, apply it with herself.
And so that's one of my favorite parts about this testimonial.
I also use this slide just to, just to clarify that I I've never seen any student come to me because they're having difficulty getting in touch with their professor or, you know, a support as student support service member, but I use myself as sort of a safety net on top of that.
So if for some reason, which, again, I've never seen, but if you're having difficulty getting in touch with those individuals, my number is gonna be at the very end.
You're You're always welcome to give me a call.
I could, at the very least, get you in touch with that individual.
So how to, this is actually pertaining to advancing you in your career, but more so with the capstone.
Many people do use their capstone to advance in their field, and that's one of the benefits to this being a nonlicensure program.
You can actually apply the skills automatically before you've even earned the degree.
And one way that people do that is they implement the, the information from their capstone.
Now the capstone is an extensive written project where you'll be writing about whatever subject you wanna write about, applying the information that you've gathered from your courses into this extensive written project.
And these are some examples of what other students have written about.
It really ranges for many people.
They are, as I mentioned, some are priests, religious sisters, that sort of thing.
And then we have a lot of laypeople.
This is not so we have, non Catholics that go into the program.
So they write about a litany of different things, but it's really up to you what you're gonna get to write about and applying that information into your capstone.
So going into the nitty gritty, is grad school affordable?
So there are definite definitely ways of making this affordable, different ways of funding your education.
We do have, for instance, we're we're, able to work with federal loans.
So many students will fill out a FAFSA application and fund their education through financial aid.
If you're military, of course, getting in touch with the VA and, you know, seeing if depending on what your status of the military is, if you're active or veteran or whatever it may be, that's something that we work with as well.
And then for many people that plan not to use financial aid, they might do a payment plan instead.
So setting up a a pay as you go option, that's something that we work with.
And then these are some examples of scholarships.
So you can always apply up to four scholarships and, be eligible to receive two of them in fact.
And, typically, it ranges between 2,000 to 50%.
We usually don't go beyond 50%.
I've never seen it go beyond that.
But the reason why is because we would actually rather everyone have an opportunity to reduce their tuition than only granting a few, a full amount.
So there's always a way to get that tuition reduced.
And then this is the baseline tuition.
So before any sort of tuition reduction, before any sort of scholarships that you're seeing in front of you.
So if you're doing a sixteen month track, the cost comes to 25,530.
For the twenty month track, you're seeing 26,109.
And for the twenty eight month track, it comes out to 28,428.
And the reason why you're seeing different, prices for, each track is because every second term that you're taking two courses, that second term comes down to 50% of what it originally is.
And so that's why you're seeing it sort of fluctuating this way.
But, again, one thing that I always highlight for students is that even though there's a more expedient way of doing it and the expedient way is, you know, it's a little bit less than the other options, it's always a good idea to choose the one that will be most compatible with your schedule.
We wanna make sure that you thrive as a student.
And then this is just going forward with what we discussed of, different ways of funding your education.
So we have different scholarships.
You can set up a cash plan using financial aid as another option.
And, also, of course, looking into even, something called the National Health Service Corps where you could be awarded 50,000 toward student loan debt after working three months and two years, of agreement in an area designated by, by the federal government as considered low income or undeserved.
So that's something that you could always look into if you're taking those positions.
So this brings us to the end.
This is my contact information, and I always encourage you to write down my email, write down my number.
I would love to have one on one if you're interested in pursuing the master's in psychology.
You're welcome to call, text, whatever.
My number does take text, so I do respond that way as well.
And then lastly, as you're seeing at the very bottom, if you begin an application, typically, there's a $55 application fee, but we can waive that for you.
All you would need to do is include that code.
What you're seeing, CCMMP1999.
So that's actually that stands for the Catholic Christian Meta Model, of the human person 1999, the year that we established.
So, you know, take that down if you decide to move forward, and we can get that that, application fee waived for you.
So that is the end of it.
Again, I look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions, and you have a great and blessed day.