Phone: 510-352-0462
E-mail: Rayveronda@aol.com
GENERAL INFORMATION TO HELP GENERATE QUESTIONS
Undertaking graduate school is a major decision that needs to be made with the complete understanding of what you are committing to before selecting a school. The following is some information to help you generate questions you may want answered from students, faculty, staff and the administration prior to taking that big step in committing yourself to CSPP.
It is very common to hear both Clinical and Organizational Psychology students say they just want to get through their program and never look back. (Reference survey.)
Visit the school(s), if possible, before committing yourself.
Ask good questions from the students, faculty and staff and understand the motivation behind their answers. Expect answers! Keep in mind that it is important to CSPP, and any graduate school, to have students enrolled, otherwise the school(s) would not exist. CSPP has a reputation with many of looking at the student as money, and not as a human being with potential contracting for services.
Ask to sit in on a class or two of your choice to get an idea of the quality of instruction. This is not an unreasonable request. Talk to students from those classes at break or other times outside of class.
Often students aren't aware that the units earned at CSPP are not transferable to other colleges and universities. Many of these units are not even transferable within the CSPP system from school to school. If you decide to quit or transfer, it could cost you what you have already paid in tuition along with the time you have committed. Students get stuck in this system and are afraid to quit because of the time and money they have invested. Some students have lost thousands of dollars and not received a degree or even the units they worked so hard for should they want to apply them to other schools.
CSPP-Alameda has been in financial difficulties for numerous years. As a result of this, student services have been cut in the past, while morale has dropped. Most everyone has suffered as a result of poor management. You can expect a yearly increase in your tuition, with no guarantee of an increase in service.
Ask for a contract. Even though you are the consumer, you probably won't receive one. Private schools such as CSPP do not guarantee your rights as do public schools. (Public schools are even limited themselves in providing students adequate rights to protect them from abuse.) There have been lawsuits and numerous threats of legal action against CSPP from students because of the inadequate services provided, and the violations of their rights.
Programs often take much longer to complete than what they are advertised as.
Ask how many new students have been added each year, and what CSPP has done to provide adequate faculty to ensure the quality of the education while increasing student populations.
There are dedicated student representatives on campus, but their influence is limited. The fear of retaliation and having to "play the game" in order to get through the program limits their abilities to adequately serve the students' needs. The Student Senate/Association is just a symbol and its purpose is more geared to putting on campus events, than to address the real needs of students. You may want to ask the top student representatives how much money they receive from CSPP for their positions? If any money or benefits are paid at all, it is a conflict of interest. Also ask, "How much time do representatives devote towards ensuring students' rights?" and, "What roles do representatives play in helping to resolve conflicts on campus while ensuring that the same problems never happen again?"
The Organizational Psychology program in Alameda has had some serious problems in the past. Prospective students should be aware of the problems and thoroughly investigate this program before making commitments. This advice, of course, is highly recommended of the Clinical, OP and IO/OD programs at all campuses too.
Recent 1998 campus visits by a representative of California's Schools of Psychology Profile (CSPPROFILE) has found that the problems outlined in this web site are ongoing today. The manager of CSPPROFILE continues to receive comments from present students confirming this. Also, at the recent 1998 summer APA Conference in San Francisco numerous present and past students from CSPP were talked to. It was confirmed by most of these students that indeed these problems have been, and are still a problem at the four CSPP campuses.
On March 7th, 1996, an emergency Organizational Psychology (OP) meeting was held to discuss current problems and issues affecting the OP program. At this meeting, concerned students talked about the issues which they felt were critical to the success of the OP program. Many of these were recurring problems from earlier years. Reproduced below is a copy of the meeting's agenda as well as key points that were brought up during discussion. Please use this information to generate questions to those representing the OP program at Open Houses or other meetings set up for prospective students to find out what CSPP has done to address the students' needs.
* THE FUTURE OF THE OP PROGRAM
1) Since many of the new OP students don't come from business backgrounds, the OP program should offer business courses to enhance these students' learning.
2) Since the OP program is a psychology program, we should be offered relevant psychology classes as part of our curriculum.
3) Since as consultants, we will have to manage conflict as part of our day-to-day work, we would like to have conflict management classes to prepare us for this.
4) Since the comprehensive examinations are such a critical part of our program, our classes should be geared towards these comprehensive exams. We would like to have the content of the OP curriculum standardized to better prepare us for these exams.
5) In order to help us directly prepare for the comps, we should have a comps integration course. This course should be taught by a combination of all the OP faculty in order to promote diverse perspectives.
6) Since sitting through three hours of class is difficult enough, we don't want to have to take any back to back courses. Professors should be more flexible in choosing times for their courses, or we should find new instructors that will!
7) Since the current availability of summer classes is dismal, we should increase the independent study allowances for summer classes. These allowances would be above and beyond our present maximum, yet would be reserved solely for the summer term. This would allow moderated and full time students the ability to catch up on missed courses so that they can stay on track with their cohorts.
1) The objective of the comps is to ascertain whether a student can be granted advanced candidacy to the doctoral level. This implies that the comprehensive examinations test for the appropriate research and writing skills. A Master's Thesis can also test these skills! The L.A. Campus has offered this option; maybe we should emulate the L.A. Campus and offer a choice to OP students.
2) Since course content varies with each instructor, we find it difficult to study for the comps. Although we respect that teaching styles may vary from instructor to instructor, we wold like specific, consistent course content that doesn't vary across instructors/time. To accomplish this, the OP students would like to have the faculty coordinate regarding both comprehensive examinations and course content. We believe that this would promote good fit between the courses and the comps.
3) Since comps are an integral part of our program, and since they endeavor to measure our ability to integrate the materials at the level required for doctoral candidacy, how does the current time limit restriction fulfill this function? We would like to have more time to complete the comps.
4) In addition, we feel that placing the three parts of the exam so close to each other prevents us from being able to adequately study for each portion. We would like the exams to be spaced further apart to enhance our ability to pass each individual section.
5) We believe that the comps committee should have representation from all members of the OP program, incorporating first through fourth year students.
1) There are five core faculty members in the OP program, of which, only two are full time. This is very problematic as it prevents us from extended contact with the faculty. We feel that set office hours will help us get to know our professors better. Instructors should endeavor to make their schedules flexible and student centered. If they can not manage this, we should find new instructors that can!
2) We recognize that CSPP operates on a limited budget, yet we need more full time and 3/4 time faculty for our program. If our present budget does not permit the acquisition of more full time faculty, we would benefit from more full time professors at the expense of part time and adjunct faculty.
3) Since Dr. Snyder spends most of his time working with the OP Center, what is his role as a faculty member? What are the results of the OP Center and what outcome measures are being used to determine the success of this program? If the program is not producing significant results, it should be abandoned and a new program should be adopted.
1) Is the Op Center effective at providing OP students with internships? How can the OP Center become more effective?
2) OPT: our tuition pays, we get nothing! This must change!
3) We need to establish links in the business community. Who's role is this? Can students be funded to take this initiative?
1) We need communication between current and new students.
2) We need to be honest with the new students concerning the state of the OP program.
3) Could we use current OP students to aid in the recruiting process?
1) We need increased representation in the CSPP library.
2) We need on-line access.
3) We need to form an alliance with a large university (UCB?) for library privileges. CSPP could pay half and we would pay the remaining half.
4) We need remote library access to a large university's database.
5) We need better food and drink selections for night students in the Psych-a-Deli.
6) To save money, we should pre-order the books for our classes from the publisher instead of going to the Community College of Alameda. A 10-40-percent savings may be realized.
1) We need mandatory faculty advisors for students in all years for the program.
2) We need a mentoring program which places first year students with the third and fourth year students. For further information see Marc Ossinger.
3 We need Alumni contact and involvement with the OP program.
1) We need to increase our reputation and visibility in the community.
2) We need to increase recruiting efforts.
3) We need to adjust the program to meet the needs of new students. (i.e., scheduling, course offerings, etc.).
4) We need to change the orientation of our program from Humanistic to Pragmatic.
5) Our program needs new perspectives (i.e., O.B., Business, Psychology, etc.), not just OD.
6) Our program is too Value Centered; this is not practical for us. We need to be prepared for the reality of the workplace as well as academia.
7) We need to focus on our program's identity and determine what that identity is.
8) We need balance in our course content/ more integration of materials.
9 Modern businesses are oriented around "bottom-line" thinking, we need to emulate this!
1) "Clean it up;" our education is being affected!
2) Address conflicts immediately!
3) We need to take preventative measures to keep conflicts like this from happening to the extent that they have now!
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