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SPSP Graduate Student Committee
Click on an officer's name to send them an e-mail
Austin Lee Nichols
President
Kathleen Fortune
Member-At-Large
Marina Milyavskaya
Member-At-Large
Nicole Noll
Member-At-Large
Jennifer Pattershall
Member-At-Large
Helen Lee Lin
Past President
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Welcome to the
Spring issue of the FORUM! With our term as GSC coming to a close and a
fantastic new group of students taking our place, we want to thank you for
giving us the opportunity to serve you this past year. We have a jam-packed
issue for you! We recap the GSC-related events at SPSP 2010 in Las Vegas
and offer you several articles on negotiating important transitions in your
academic career! Finally, we introduce you to your amazing new GSC! Please
take a minute to get to know each of them!
Recap of GSC-Sponsored Events
By Jennifer Pattershall
The 11th SPSP conference brought another year of
cutting edge research and theory in social and personality psychology, with
fabulous Las Vegas as an exciting (though distracting!) backdrop. In case
you missed any of our GSC-sponsored events here are some highlights.
On Thursday the GSC, in conjunction with the Training Committee, hosted a
preconference on familiar and not-so-familiar jobs available to newly
minted PhDs. A truly diverse group of enthusiastic speakers, representing a
myriad of academic and non-academic jobs, provided attendees with a greater
appreciation for the career options available to them.
Friday morning brought a symposium on funding for graduate students.
Speakers discussed the types of funding available to graduate students, and
tips for successful proposals. This topic is particularly important, since
the ability to secure funding not only increases research possibilities but
adds an impressive line to one's vita.
Friday and Saturday afternoons saw the return of the
mentoring luncheon, a popular event that has enjoyed several successful
years. Small groups of students discussed an academic or professional
development topic with a professional psychologist. The conversations this
year were also enhanced by the beautiful views from the penthouse-level
Riviera conference room.
We concluded our events at the final poster session on
Saturday evening with a poster entitled "What Graduate Students Want
Faculty to Know." Those who stopped by the poster learned a variety of
interesting facts about graduate student members of SPSP. If you were
unable to visit the poster, but want to know what we found, please email jennifer.pattershall@gmail.com - we would be
happy to share the results with you!
If you missed any of these events, be sure to keep them in
mind for next year. Although our specific events change each year, we
always have a variety of programs designed to help graduate students
advance their careers. We look forward to seeing you in San Antonio!
You've Come A Long Way....And You're
Just Getting Started!
By Nicole E. Noll
Congratulations to those of
you who have recently applied to graduate programs! By now, you have
probably received much good advice about the exciting transition that looms
in your future. The following are a few (more!) things to keep in mind as
you begin your career as a graduate student.
Graduate school is significantly
different from college (p < .05)
In college, the majority of your learning took place in or through
classes. During your graduate career, classes will compose only a small
part of the knowledge and skills you must develop in order to be an
independent scholar. Research, writing, teaching, and mentoring undergrad
RAs will all be part of your curriculum. Graduate programs are designed to
change how you think. You must actively integrate different kinds of
evidence from various sources in order to produce new knowledge through the
research you design and conduct. You will not merely be learning about social/personality psychology;
you will be becoming a
social/personality psychologist!
Graduate school is a job, sort of
Actually, a better analogy would be to say that graduate school is like
starting your own business, because you are the director and beneficiary of
your effort. You will, of course, have an advisor, but she or he will be
busy being what you are becoming: an independent scholar. The more you take
responsibility for your education-on everything from seeking out
information about requirements to periodically evaluating your own
performance-the greater the likelihood that you will make consistent
progress toward your goals.
Effective time management will be essential in this process. Many students
find the first year of graduate school to be overwhelming; it is easy to
get caught up doing things that have clear due dates, such as class
assignments or grading for the class for which you are a teaching
assistant. Fight the tendency to let these things consume too much of your
time! Your research needs to be your top priority and the time you devote
to it should reflect that.
Speaking of your research, remember this: in order to learn you have to
take risks and they are not all going to pan out. Embrace "failure" as part
of the learning process. Learn from what did not work and then take another
risk.
In closing, remember that you are not alone. Cultivate collegial
relationships with the advanced students in your program-they are an invaluable
source of information and support. For more guidance, I recommend The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide
(Darley, Zanna, & Roediger, Eds.); a quick Google search will also turn
up some great resources, including the Characteristics of
Graduate School Superstars and Surviving
Graduate School.
Transition From
Co-Author to First Author
By Marina Milyavskaya
You are
preparing to write your first paper as a lead author. Although it might
seem like a daunting process, it does not need to be much more difficult
that writing an honours thesis, or any other research paper. Unlike most papers on which you
have been a co-author, you will probably be doing most of the writing for
this paper. So any advice on how to write a good paper could be useful, and
many online and print resources exist to help you with the writing.
Your
first step should be to determine the breakdown of the responsibilities.
Will you be responsible for writing the entire draft, or will one of the
co-authors write one of the sections? Will you do the formatting,
communicate with editors, etc?
Another
important thing to consider before you begin a draft, is what your target
journal will be (your advisor and other co-authors should help with that).
Your target journal could determine such things as the length of your
article, and how you frame your findings. Read the 'information for authors' for your chosen journal, and make
sure that your paper will fit the requirements.
Don't
hesitate to ask your co-authors for their help with the paper. If you are
not certain about how to phrase a passage, how to best explain a concept,
or whether you could draw a specific conclusion from your findings, ask
your co-authors for help. Once you have a first draft written, send it to
your advisor first, and make these revisions before sending it out to the
other co-authors. You will need to be in contact with all the co-authors to
ensure that they have a chance to read and make comments and suggestions on
the manuscript. You will then need to integrate all their suggestions and
corrections into the manuscript so that they are all satisfied with the
final product.
Remember
that the progress of this project will mostly depend on you - make sure to
complete it in a timely fashion, so that your collaborators do not get
impatient with you (you might want to work with them again in the future). There is no point in trying to make
your submission absolutely perfect - the editor and reviewers will
undoubtedly suggest some changes, no matter how good the manuscript
is.
Ultimately,
although being first author is a demanding role, it is a necessary part of
a career in academia. Jump into it as early as you can - if you don't have
any of your own data yet, ask your supervisor for a project that can be
'your own'.
Happy
writing!
The Do's and Don'ts of Switching
Sides in the Classroom
by Austin Lee Nichols
One of the most intimidating
things you will do in grad school is transition from being a student and/or
teaching assistant to instructing a class by yourself. I hope the following
list of Do's and Don'ts will help make this transition smooth.
Do:
Realize you know more than they
do
Although it may not seem so, and you are likely to think students
notice every mistake you make, they look to you for information. If you
tell them something, they believe it.
Have a back-up plan
Normally, getting sick or missing class for other last-minute reasons
does not cause a major problem. However, when you teach, your students will
be waiting for you, and you need some way to communicate to them that you
are unable to make it. Make sure to have the number of the office assistant
or a graduate colleague who is generally around during your class time.
Relate to your students
Be sure to demand respect, but also take advantage of how little time
has passed since you were in that desk. Let your students know you care and
that you remember what it was like to be in their shoes. A good balance of
respect and relatedness often leads to better learning and understanding of
the material.
Don't:
Create too many assignments
When you finally get the opportunity to teach, you have had many years
to think about the things you would do if you were a teacher, and now you
are. However, fight the desire to assign too many tests, papers, or other
assignments, as this will only create more work for you.
Procrastinate
This should be an obvious one, but teaching is one of the hardest
things to catch up on after procrastinating. You can be sure that a student
will show up to your office 15 minutes before class as you are trying to
finish your lectures. Therefore, put your lectures together early and simply
review them before class.
Expect to be perfect
Even though you are the expert in the classroom, you should feel
comfortable telling students that you do not know something. They will
respect you more for that than pretending you know the answer. In addition,
giving them incorrect information may mislead them in the future.
Teaching takes practice, and nobody expects you to get perfect evaluations.
Just be yourself and do the best you can to give the students the
experience that you wish you had as an undergrad. If something doesn't go
well one semester, learn from it and make improvements for the following
semester.
Student Poster
Award Winners!
The Graduate
Student Committee is pleased to announce the names of the winners
of the 2010 Student Poster Award Competition. These individuals
wowed the judges during their poster presentations at the annual meeting in
Las Vegas and will receive a monetary award provided by the SPSP Executive
Committee. First place winners will also receive software and hardware
donated by Dr. Blair Jarvis of Empirisoft. Please join us in
congratulating the winners on their success, and a big thank you to
all of our judges for their time!
Session A
1st place: Daniel Philip Weisberg (University of Birmingham)
Runner-up: Pamela Sawyer (UC Santa Barbara)
Runner-up: Danay Novoa (Wilfrid Laurier)
Session B
1st place: Jessica Remedios (University of Toronto)
Runner-up: Maureen A. Craig (Northwestern University)
Runner-up: Emily Falk (UCLA)
Session C
1st place: Edward O'Brien (University of Michigan)
Runner-up: Andres Golden Martinez (UC Berkeley)
Runner-up: Christopher P. Barlett (Iowa State University)
Session D
1st place: Julie Longua (Loyola University Chicago)
Runner-up: Aleksandr Kogan (University of Hong Kong)
Runner-up: Jennifer Smith (Loyola University Chicago)
Session E
1st place: Jennelle Yopchick (Northeastern University)
Runner-up: Nadia Bashir (University of Toronto)
Runner-up (tie score): Rick Andrews (NYU)
Runner-up (tie score): Joshua Eng (UC Berkeley)
Session F
1st place: Jessica Sim (University of Chicago)
Runner-up (tie score): Debbie Ma (University of Chicago)
Runner-up (tie score): Kyle G. Ratner (NYU)
Session G
1st place: Danny Osborne (UCLA)
Runner-up: Sunita Sah (Carnegie Mellon University)
Runner-up: Ryan Buell (Harvard Business School)
Outstanding Research Award
Winners
We
would like to extend our congratulations to the following winners of the
Outstanding Research Awards!
Peter Caprariello (University of Rochester)
Juan Manuel Contreras (Harvard University)
Eric Hehman (University of Delaware)
David Rast (Claremont Graduate University)
Jamil Zaki (Columbia University)
President's Corner
On behalf of the outgoing GSC, I want to express to all of our
graduate colleagues how rewarding it was to serve you this year. We had a
very productive SPSP conference, and we are grateful to everyone for
contributing to the success of our events. I enjoyed meeting so many of you
and receiving your feedback on our activities. Each one of our events was
based on feedback from students last year about what was most important to
them. These concerns included statistical methodology, pursuing and
securing funding, job market materials, interviewing for jobs, and
alternatives to academia. We did our best to tackle each of these concerns
through the content of the FORUM: SPSP's Student Newsletter and through our
various SPSP GSC events.
Also, for additional information on any
of the events or activities we did throughout the year, please check out
our website - http://www.spsp.org/student/ or our Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/SPSPGSC . Also, feel free to email us at spspgsc@yahoo.com
or to contact the new GSC members directly with any feedback regarding
past, present, or future GSC events and activities. We genuinely appreciate
all the feedback that we receive!
I wish you all the best in your future
endeavours.
Sincerely,
Austin Lee Nichols
Introducing Your new GSC!
Sean
Hughes - President
Hi everyone, I'm Sean Hughes. I am a second
year doctoral student in Social Psychology at the National University of
Ireland, Maynooth. My empirical interests reside primarily in the
study of implicit social cognition and attitudes. In particular I am interested
in engineering attitudes within an experimental context to better
understand the antecedent conditions responsible for attitude formation and
change as well as the factors influencing their strength and persistence.
As your new president I am eager to build upon the excellent
foundation of past GSCs and with the assistance of Kristin Dukes, Amy-Jo
Lynch, Carmel Gabriel, Haylie Gomez and Robin Kaplan continually explore
new avenues to better serve SPSP's student constituency. You can look
forward to an expanded Forum hosting a plethora of stats, careers,
funding and teaching resources; a new SPSP Student Representative program
aimed at getting student members actively involved in the Society;
competitions; expanded on-line content and a more international flavor to
this year's GSC! We are always eager for feedback, suggestions and ideas
and can be contacted throughout the year at spspgsc@yahoo.com.
Robin Kaplan - Member-At-Large
Hello fellow SPSP students! My name is Robin
Kaplan and I'm a third year doctoral student at the University of
California, Irvine. I am interested in emotion and social cognition, how
emotion influences judgment and memory, affective forecasting, and biases
in predicted and recalled emotion. This is my first year on the GSC, and I
am thrilled to serve as Member-at-Large for the upcoming year! My goal is
to continue and expand upon the superb programs that the previous GSC
members have developed. Specifically, I hope to get students more involved
in all aspects of the SPSP GSC, down to the university level. I also hope
to offer new and innovative programs by drawing on what you as SPSP student
members want. The current GSC has already begun developing a number of
exciting ideas, and we hope to make your experience in San Antonio next
year as valuable as possible!
Haylie Gomez - Member-At-Large
Hello, my name is Haylie Gomez, and I am a fourth year experimental
psychology doctoral student at the University of Texas at Arlington. My
research investigates factors influencing social and personality
development, with a special focus on peer victimization and health
outcomes. Right now I am in the planning stages of a dissertation, which
will examine the influence of peer victimization in adolescents with Autism
Spectrum Disorder. After meeting my fellow committee members in Las Vegas
and discussing our ideas, I can assure you that we have a very exciting
year planned for SPSP! Thank you for the opportunity to serve as a
Member-At-Large!
Kristin Dukes - Member-At-Large
Hello
Everyone! My name is Kristin Dukes, and I am a fifth year doctoral
candidate in social psychology at Tufts University. My research interests
include stigmas and stereotype content as well as stereotyping, prejudice,
and discrimination. I am currently working on my dissertation which
investigates racial phenotypicality bias in Black women, in particular the
influence of racial phenotypes on stereotypic evaluations of Black
women. I am excited about the opportunity to serve as a GSC
Member-At-Large and I am looking forward to continuing and expanding upon
the excellent programming and services provided by the GSC.
Carmel Gabriel - Member-At-Large -
Undergraduate Affairs
Hello Everyone! My name is Carmel Gabriel, and
I am the incoming Member-at-Large of Undergraduate Affairs. I am a 5th-year
doctoral student at the University of California, Davis. My research
interests are focused on bicultural identity integration and cultural frame
switching. In particular, I am interested in the effects of cultural
priming on cognition and emotion, with a particular interest in the
moderating effect of bicultural identity integration. I have been a
member of SPSP for several years and am excited to get undergraduate
students from a variety of institutions more involved in SPSP! I
currently teach undergraduates at UC Davis and other institutions and am
eager to spread the word to undergraduates at as many institutions as I
can! I am also hoping to expand on the opportunities to reach
undergraduate students via the listserv, the Forum, campus representative,
and other avenues.
Amy-Jo
Lynch - Member-At-Large
Hello SPSP members! My name is Amy-Jo Lynch and I am a 2nd year
doctoral student in Social Psychology at the University of Kent in
Canterbury, England. My research area is fear of crime, gender and social
control. I hope to increase awareness of the SPSP 'across the pond' among
other goals, as a GSC Member-At-Large. I look forward to hearing from you,
and meeting you at the SPSP conference next year!
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