A s the novel coronavirus sweeps the country, graduate students are facing challenges they never could have anticipated. And as the academic year closes, many still have no certainty about the future of their coursework, research, practica and internships, graduation, and more.
"It's scary to come this far and to think that something like this—something so unexpected and uncontrollable—can get in the way of attaining my dreams," says Zarina Giannone, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the University of British Columbia (UBC) counseling psychology program. During the first month of the pandemic, she faced the possibility of not being able to meet her internship requirements in time to graduate (a worry eventually addressed by her internship site). Now, she wonders how her job prospects will be affected by the fallout.
At the same time, she wants to view the crisis as a learning experience—an opportunity to build her personal and professional strength instead of succumbing to fear. "I want to be someone who is adapting well, who is thinking about all of the people who are in more vulnerable positions than I am," Giannone says. "And I want to grow. So I'm focusing not only on getting through it but growing because of it."
Uncertainty and adaptation
Completion of internships, practicum experiences and postdoc research top the list of many grad student worries. "As a school psychology student, one of the most important experiences we receive in training is practicum in the schools," says Kristen H. Erps, a second-year student in the University of Houston's school psychology program. "For those of us who are counting on a practicum or training program starting in the fall, that has become another unknown and point of concern." (See the latest developments in internship guidance.)
Research students, too, are finding it difficult to continue their work. Siara Rouzer, a fifth-year PhD candidate at Binghamton University in New York, was investigating fetal alcohol syndrome using rat models when the university closed its doors because of the virus. That meant having to abandon animals she had spent two months breeding for the study, a loss she projects will take an additional six months to repair once she can return to the lab. That work is a centerpiece of her dissertation.
"For preclinical investigators, all of our research and data collection has been put on pause," Rouzer says.
Amid these uncertainties, students have been devising creative ways to continue their coursework, research and clinical work from home. Besides pivoting to platforms like Zoom to help them meet their course requirements and connect with faculty and research associates, many have learned the importance of developing daily routines and carving out chunks of time for schooling, research or clinical work, as well as family and household obligations.
For Nick Vignati, a third-year PsyD candidate at Immaculata College in Chester County, Pennsylvania, that meant scheduling time for tangible goals as well. "I noticed early on that if my goal was just to do research for a paper or to work on a paper, it didn't end up happening," he says. "But if I made a goal like "Find five articles for this paper'—concrete things that I could check off a list—it was easier to accomplish."
Rouzer is using her time at home to tackle writing projects that are possible to do off-site, including writing the methodology, introduction and background sections of her thesis. "[Before the crisis], we might have planned to write our theses once all the data collection was done," she says. "But under these circumstances, it makes sense to compose certain sections now to save us time down the line."
Some students are teaming up with peers to keep each other on task with work goals or to chug through virtual exercise classes together. Clinical students are using coping strategies that they've learned in training. Julia Maietta, a fourth-year clinical psychology student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for instance, is using the mindfulness and cognitive restructuring techniques she's learned to keep negative thoughts in check and honor the positive parts of life, "even if it's small things like a great cup of coffee," she says.
Giannone—who was planning to be married in the fall but is postponing her wedding—says she uses perspective-taking to look at her situation through fresh eyes. Recognizing her own fears about the pandemic helps her better empathize with clients, she says. She also likes to think about how the new normal is affecting her dog, a miniature dachshund named Piccolo. "We're home with him and he gets so much attention—there's something comforting about thinking about what it must be like through his eyes," she says.
Perhaps the most popular coping technique graduate students have been using is connecting with peers, faculty and other resources via listservs, Twitter, Zoom and other online modalities (see "Resources" below for more).
"Before this, I almost never read mass emails from professional or career psychology listservs," admits Justine Stewart, a second-year PsyD student at Wheaton College in Illinois. "Now, I'm reading most of them." While much of the communication focuses on encouragement, Stewart has also gleaned practical information, such as how to get reimbursed for telehealth.
"It's been really helpful to stay informed about what professionals in our field are thinking, and just to connect with others," she says.
Projecting ahead
Besides eliciting concerns about their academic and career trajectories, the pandemic has prompted some students to think about how they can help future trainees, the field and the public when the next crisis occurs.
Among them is Madeline Brodt, who emerged from a difficult and confusing experience as an intern in Tacoma, Washington—including experiencing COVID-like symptoms, running out of paid time off, and subsequently being told she needed to return to her site to start working in person again. As a result, the fifth-year University of Massachusetts Boston counseling student has been considering how she can help trainees better advocate for themselves. For one, she wants to gather trainees' stories about their internship sites to help the field better understand trainee challenges during a time of crisis and how to strike a thoughtful balance between practice demands and trainees' relatively vulnerable position. She is a member of an APA Div. 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology) group that's working on creating new training models, including how to expand the scope of advocacy.
"I want to discuss with the task group members how we can ensure that students feel more comfortable advocating for themselves, and how should we outline that in our model," she says.
Ashley Ramclam, a fourth-year school psychology PhD candidate at the University of Houston, says she's already thinking about how to apply crisis-management tools that she learned on a practicum in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. "It was six months to a year after the hurricane, and we were still seeing adolescents and families coming in and sharing their stories," she says. "So we had to go back in time with them and say, "Hey, what happened during Harvey? Tell us about that progression.' I think this current crisis is going to be similar, where we will be seeing its aftermath for a while."
To bring doctoral students and trainees into emergency telepsychology services, Giannone is spearheading a program set up by the British Columbia Psychological Association and UBC's Okanagan campus to provide free psychological services to front-line health-care workers.
"Getting involved to help alleviate the psychological burden that has arisen due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been an effective way of coping," says Giannone, who adds that the effort has met with huge success: Forty students signed up within the first 48 hours of recruitment.
Ramclam says she sees the crisis as an opportunity for psychology to put its best foot forward.
"We need to be strategic and continue to put ourselves out there to provide support for others," she says. "The need for psychologists is going to continue to grow as we're in the midst of this," she adds, "and then coming out of it as well."
