Hi my name is AJ Levy. I am a first year
school psychology graduate student. I
could always tell that I wanted to do
psychology or something related to
psychology, and I was trying to figure
out what that was, and then I stumbled
upon school psychology as like a field
and that seemed to just have everything
come together to exactly what I wanted
to do. When I was looking through school
psychology programs in particular JMU's
program and their students really showed
like a sense of community and showed a
sense of belonging and ownership and
what they're doing and that really
appealed to me. The faculty really makes
sure that you are feeling comfortable
with the material and that you are
prepared for all the different aspects
of the program, like classes and going
into schools. The biggest question I had
going into the program was when I would
start being in schools or working with
kids, and to my surprise and delight, that
happened this semester, in my very first
semester. Now I have a mental image of
what I will be doing later in life and
I'm able to apply what I learned in
class to that experience. As soon as I
got into the program I was thrown into
the process of finding an assistantship
to help fund my tuition and fund my
my living here, my moving here. And then I got mine. It was really streamlined as a
process and very easy to do while I was
still finishing my undergrad. I will be
ready once I'm done with the class
requirements to go out into the field
because we are getting such a holistic
and comprehensive training in terms of
ethics and practice and assessments and
counseling. The professors do a really
good job fostering that sense of
confidence really early on in the
program.
