General Questions Flashcards
Tell us more about you/ What do you like to do for fun:
My name is Jessica Olsen, I live in Eugene Oregon, and work at the Oregon Sleep Lab with Dr. Melynda Casement. I graduated with a degree in psychology from Oregon State University back in June of 2021 and have been conducting research since then.
Beyond my passion for research and examining xxx, I am very passionate about spending quality time with my loved ones. I love to read… be outside, I especially love climbing (bouldering) and biking outdoors. I love to play music, I play the upright bass…. I love doing social justice work in my community.
List Previous statistics experience
ACE: Studied the impact adverse childhood experiences have on college students
-Analyzed data using SPSS by conducting a reliability analysis and bivariate correlation
-Students with higher ACEs have a negative correlation to college satisfaction and quality of life
-Students with higher ACEs have a positive correlation to anxiety and depression
Logos: Investigated the influence wearing a college university logo has on an individual’s perception, part one looked specifically at women models, part two looked specifically at men of color
Analyzed data in SPSS & Jamovi by conducting a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA), reliability test, and creating composite variables
How do you respond to emails?
I try to prioritize emails and respond in a timely manner within the day
I also try my best to have a set time that I look through my messages and sit down and respond during that time.
How do you deal with deadlines?
Prioritize
How do you resolve conflict in group (give example)
open communication
What do you want to do with a degree in Clinical Psychology? 10 years? 20 years?
In 10 years I hope to have already completed the clinical psychology program here at xxxx.
Afterward, I hope to begin my path of conducting research and teaching at the University level.
In 20 years, I hope to be teaching and leading my own clinical science laboratory studying xxx. As well as disseminating psychological research to disadvantaged communities and ensuring my research is reaching the clinical populations it could benefit.
How did you get interested in Clinical Psychology?
My clinical experiences have really driven my passion for conducting psychological research.
Before college and then also throughout most of college, I cared for a child with autism, and epilepsy. She had grand mal seizures which had a significant impact on her mental and physical health that often led to significant pain and challenges with her overall wellbeing. I often spent weeks in the hospital taking care of her. Due to her family’s lack of resources, I became very interested in researching ways to best support her well-being. This interest really drove me to attend college.
Are you primarily interested in research clinical work or both why? Why did you choose our schools model (clinical science, scientist-practitioner….)
I am primarily interested of a future career in research. However, to best conduct clinical psychology research, I feel that having an understanding of the clinical field and populations you may work with is of great importance.
Conducting research work on a population you have never worked with could result in the researcher overlooking individual differences.
Throughout my clinical experience, I was able to gain an understanding of what goes on in the clinical populations that I’ve worked with and identify areas where I feel research could be beneficial for these groups
My experience working in a group (Clinical and Research)
I have several experiences working in a group in both clinical and research settings
Clinical
Farm Home: working with a team for behaviors
Research
ASC Lab: coming together to discuss surveys/ look for errors in work
My experience working in a group where it didn’t go so well (previous research, current research, and clinical)
Previously (undergrad): Weakness: Working with one research partner, I had a difficult time getting tasks done in a reasonable amount of time. This partner really procrastinated and took a while to get back to me. In return, I had a challenging time knowing how to best pursue in our work. In this situation, I ended up waiting for my partner and this postponed our work
From this I learned the importance of gaging how individuals work best, this partner really needed set deadlines, and a clear role definition in order to have this clear cut accountability set in place.
Current: We added new staff members and began to transition positions. Was difficult as we also had some staff work remote and some in person. Communication wasn’t great and it became difficult during the transition to keep track of who would work on what which created some internal conflict. We sat down and had open communication and set clear-cut accountability. And made sure every one was on the same page
Farm Home
At the children’s farm home we often had staff cycle through due to the high stress and low pay of the job. This led to constantly having new people. Often, when staff left and new staff replaced them this led to significant behaviors in the kids we worked for. (As they had to deal with consistent unwanted change). In one example, we lost significant staffing amd has to merge two houses together. There was a lack in communication of this all around. No one told the clients or the team until day of. This lead to significant behaviors including one client hoping the fence. And running down the highway for a while. And due to our staff being new I sprung into action and followed but no other staff did for a while. I was able to walkie it in and calmly communicate my ongoing safety concerns of the situation and they were able to send more help from traimed staff.
New staff didn’t know kids background and didn’t know kids behaviors.
What is a personal failure? In academia? How did you overcome that?
I had to submit a paper for publication (ACE) which was rejected. Learned how even the publication stage is tricky and takes significant effort (not just the research process). This paper got pushed back for a bit and we need to go back through and just make some updates and make sure our lit. review is recent.
I feel overall as a researcher, I’ve learned the importance of not only celebrating success but also failures that we have. I think it’s important to recognize that it’s something everyone faces and I think it’s good to be proud of failure because you’re still making progress and still heading in the direction you want.
Personal trial you’ve had to overcome?
Surgery
Really challenging impacted day to day life (work, school, even buttoning my own pants).
-Mindfulness-based interventions
-Acceptance
-Being adaptive and finding other methods and work arounds on work projects
-Reaching out for help when I needed it!! (Something I learned to do better throughout this process)
-Really being dedicated to my physical therapy and working hard to rehabilitate.
My experience working independently
I’ve had several opportunities to work independently both in a clinical and research setting.
Clinical
As a personal support worker, I often found myself working individually. This required me to be very knowledgeable about my client and know how to think quickly on my feet if anything came up. There were several times I had to manage several high-stress tasks alone. For instance, on more than one occasion my client had a grand mal seizure that lasted longer than 5 minutes, even after I administered medication. I had to remain calm, call 911, and continue to tend to my client. (Which was especially scary if she had difficulty breathing)
Research
In a research setting, I often have to work independently on tasks and troubleshoot the best I can at the moment. Particularly, when working 1:1 with participants I may often come across issues I have to do my best to address in the moment. (Such as surveys not working, technology crashing, and staff not showing up) I’m quick to think of solutions that work best for the moment.
However, I think it’s also important to know when you hit a point when you need to contact your team or PI if needed. And have a good balance of troubleshooting what you can and recognizing issues or questions you need assistance with.
My experience working independently when it didn’t go so well
Weakness: Took on too many tasks at once and had difficulty managing tasks… learned the importance of communication if you have too much on your plate and keeping everyone in the loop of where you’re at.
What have been your most challenging academic experiences
Challenging:
Work-Life Balance
It was challenging to balance taking classes with simultaneously working full-time and doing unpaid research work. I will say, that I did develop great time management skills from this experience.
Challenging Chemistry Lab:
I took a chemistry lab. My lab partners, unfortunately, did not make an effort to complete our projects and often relied on me to get the work done. At the time, I was also struggling with a concussion which made my day-to-day life, particularly homework and studying, very challenging. I talked with our TA and made an active effort to attend all the office hours I could to ensure I had an understanding of the material so I could perform to the best of my ability in the labs. It really was a lot of recognizing when I needed help, and reaching out as needed for support.
