[music]
When I was looking at doctoral programs
in clinical psych, I was looking for
places that are close to a city but maybe
not located in a city. I'm originally
from New York so I've went to school in the
middle of the city and I know how
distracting that can be and in a new
graduate school I would need to be a lot
more focused and be able to have more
quiet spaces and time to just kind of
reflect on my research and my clinical
work, so NIU was far enough away from the
city that it was quiet but close enough
that I would be able to go in on
weekends and still feel like I'm still
that city girl. There's usually a lot of
free events, free music festivals, dance classes,
there's the Taste of Chicago which is
sampling food and there's free museum days.
Being at NIU there is a lot of work
to do but we're encouraged to have self
care so going into the city is a big
part of who I am and a big part of my
self care and making sure that I haven't
lost my roots to the city.
Northern is definitely in a college town, I think
DeKalb is a real cozy place. There are a lot
of students here so I think that if
you're looking for a place, a little cafe
to sit down and eat, you can find that here.
Or if you want to go out with your
classmates to de-stress at a local bar
and that's really easy. It's a quiet town
so I think that's really conducive
to studying and everything seems to be
really close by. Initially when I first
came, I was worried that I might not be
able to find opportunities for me to
still maintain some of my cultural
practices from home so like finding
foods that I like, finding other
individuals that have like the same interests
as me, so music, salsa dancing,
but that was actually not the case. That was
nice, I got a little bit of home but I
also got the perfect environment for me
to be able to focus on my studies the first year.
When I was looking for school
psychology programs, part of the big
influence to that was the area that it
would be in and the Chicagoland area
being from out of state was a big pull
for me because it gave all kinds of
opportunities as far as rural
environments, possibly urban environments,
potentially a mix in between, a lot of
different cultures are involved in the
school systems here, so that was a big
pull for me.
