Why I Love Psychology

I wrote the following essay as an entry for a $500 scholarship. The prompt was extremely open ended:

Requirements: Junior or Senior Stevenson College student
Majoring in Psychology and/or Legal Studies
Demonstrated academic excellence

Application: Submit a two-page statement explaining how you meet the scholarship requirements.
Include information regarding your background, interests, future plans and potential major(s).

So I basically wrote about why I love Psychology, what I've done with it so far, and what I hope to do with it in the future. I felt that this essay was blog-worthy, so here it is.

(Oh, and I also won the scholarship. :P)

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As a child, I spent a great deal of time traversing the roads of America with my parents. One of the primary consequences of such a hobby is getting to meet lots and lots of people.

There's a wide variety of interactions you can have while on the road. There are those people who are little more than nameless faces you catch a glimpse of from your car window. There are those you meet for thirty seconds, then never again. There are those who you have the chance to talk with just for a few minutes, and, though your time together was brief, they make a lasting impression on you. Then there are those who will gladly share their entire life's story if you have the endurance to listen for long enough.

I couldn't begin to count the people I've met in these twenty-one years. But even if I don't remember the vast majority of those individuals, the effect of having passed, ghost-like, through so many lives has been profound. Having gotten firsthand some idea of just how many people exist in this world made me determined to understand them better, to perceive that crowd as more than just a fast-moving blur. Then one day, I discovered Psychology, and things suddenly started clicking into place.

When I took my first Introduction to Psychology class, I knew I had stumbled across something amazing. It was unbelievable how much I found myself enjoying the material, never bored, always enthusiastic about learning more. Before I'd had no idea what I wanted my life to look like. But with Psychology, it was suddenly obvious what path I wanted to take.

I have spent the last four years immersed in the field of Psychology, which I think of as the study of people. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than to learn about the research behind the behavior I witness in myself and those around me every day. To begin to discover why we are the way we are seems like a miracle, like turning the lights on in a world which had, till then, been very dim.
At this point, I have found myself unexpectedly on the far side of my undergraduate career. When I made the realization that, soon, Psychology would mean more than taking notes and passing tests, I made the effort to throw myself headfirst into the field.

I started with research, connecting with my professors to find a place in their labs. I was intrigued at the idea of seeing Psychology in the making, as its academic minds attempted to solve the unsolved mysteries. I worked for five months as a Research Assistant, and was introduced to hot-off-the-press work that was being done in the field of Cognitive Psychology. I saw what life in the lab was really like, meeting with participants as I collected data. It was eye-opening, to be sure, getting a glimpse of the nuts and bolts behind what I'd been learning.

I went on to Teaching College Psychology, where I got the incredible opportunity to act as an Instructional Assistant to students in an Intro class. Together with the other IAs, we waded our way through the frightening new depths of imparting our knowledge to others. I led my own discussion section where we discussed and explored the material we had talked about in lecture. I encouraged the students to work with the curriculum on many different levels, so as to thoroughly absorb it, and in doing so, I was able to re-cement the knowledge as well.

Now, in my final year, I have embarked on the most rewarding and nerve-wracking journey yet: putting my knowledge to use out in the real world. I have begun an internship with Front Street, Inc, a local program that provides residential care for the mentally ill in the community. I have been given the chance to see the reality of a life in the mental health field, helping individuals to make the best of their difficult situations. Looking into the faces of the clients at these facilities, I can see the names behind the statistics, the humanity inherent-- but often hidden-- in the field. I am given a constant reminder that Psychology extends beyond textbooks and classrooms; it is working towards the daunting goal of providing care and relief for those who suffer mentally.

Post graduation, I am hoping to put my education to work as a Clinical Psychologist, working to both further current research and to help those who need it. I hope for the chance to, every day, have one-on-one conversations with other human beings as, together, we try to figure out what's wrong and what's right with us as people. I hope to get to meet some of the individuals in that nameless crowd I drove past as a child, to gain witness that we are all of us human, mixing our own distinctiveness into the world, making for a terrifying, confusing, and fascinating place to exist.