Alumni visit Tusculum College to discuss workplace challenges with Psychology Club
Graduation represents an exciting time of new horizons for Tusculum College’s students, but also introduces them to new challenges and uncertainties as seniors leave the familiar campus and launch careers.
With this in mind, the Tusculum College Psychology Club, along with the psychology program’s senior students, invited alumni back to visit the campus, share their experiences and offer advice to the group.
Recent alumni, Jessica Smith ‘10, who works in discharge planning with Woodridge Psychiatric Hospital and Danielle Tanner ‘10, who is pursuing a nursing degree, returned to address workplace challenges and how Tusculum prepared them to meet these challenges.
Smith said that in her role as a discharge planner she used abnormal psychology on a regular basis, grinned, and added that it turned out “I learned a lot more than I thought I did.” Tanner agreed. The courses and faculty prepared them well for their work in direct care to clients.
Tanner and Smith were also fans of the block system. Smith noted that in her work day she has many different tasks to accomplish, groups to schedule, clients who need appointments, phone calls to make - all of which need her prompt attention. The block system taught her the skill of time management.
Agreeing, Tanner added, “Tusculum taught me to work with deadlines. Life comes at you fast. And Tusculum comes at you fast. It really does. The block schedule is amazing… you learn to prioritize.”
When asked for advice, both Smith and Tanner underscored the importance of internships and credit these experiences with helping them to land work in this challenging economy. Jessica urged the students to do an internship.
She said, “It gets you out there. It is the reason I have my job. Get out there and make connections.”
Tanner added that the students needed to look beyond graduation and begin to think as junior and seniors about what they wanted to do after graduation.
According to Dr. Bill Garris, assistant professor of psychology and sponsor of the Psychology Club, Tusculum’s Psychology Club is grateful to Smith and Tanner for sharing their recent work experiences thereby rendering the future a little less challenging, by making it a little more certain.
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