In the Jungle; Chelsea Friedrich

Welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the grillers of Pittsburgh State University. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and today we are joined by Chelsea Fredrick. Chelsea, thanks for being with us today. Thank you for having me. Chelsea, tell us a little bit about yourself. Were you from and maybe how you came about choosing pit state to attend? I am from Erie, Kansas, and every so often they hold a grill alumni in Erie, and so I attended that one, and I got to meet with President Steve Scott, and he told me a little bit about the psychology program I told him what my interests were, and he told me a little bit about what pit state had to offer, so that kind of brought me in. What are your goals for the future? You mentioned psychology. What is it you're looking at as a career path here? I'm currently in the master's program, and I will be graduating soon with my master's level clinical psychology degree. So I'm hoping to work within Kansas as a clinical psychologist master's level, and working within hospitals or clinics throughout the state. Okay, I think I know what clinical psychology is, but what are you learning? What are you doing?

You learn quite a bit about why people do the things that they do, in ways we are creatures of habit, and so we kind of help others get out of that habit, especially if they're having some difficulties. So whether it's with mental health, I have my undergraduate is in substance abuse counseling, so I have some background in that, so I've been trained in working with a variety of different clients and helping them reach a better quality of life from where they're currently at, so. What do you feel are some strengths in that program that you're in right now? Some of the strengths would be we get quite a bit of training before we go out in the field, so we do quite a bit of, you know, we get quite a bit of the research and the science behind stuff, as well as then how to apply that within, you know, context with therapy session, and then we do quite a bit of work with within our cohort of role-playing it, you know, trying to kind of feel it, get our style, get our fit with how we do therapy, and then before we actually give out and we perform some of the therapy, and then while I'm currently in my

practicum and within my practicum site, it's very, you know, welcoming and it's a very warm environment, and they will kind of, they oversee what I do, you know, they're very constructed, you know, constructed criticism, kind of help me adapt and build my therapy skills. Can you say where the practicum site is? I'm on campus, I'm at the Pittsburgh, at Cowsing Center. Okay, what about the faculty in the program? What do you think about who you've had for instructors? They're all very warm and welcoming, so, you know, most of them are very open if they, as long as they don't have any meetings or anything, they try not to be late to meetings, but, you know, if the doors are open and they have scheduled office hours, they're free to talk with you at any time, I feel like I can email them at any point and I'll have a response back, you know, with an adequate answer within, you know, maybe a day at most. Who on campus is maybe, maybe it's a person or two that have influence on you, that maybe reinforce that, you know, I do want to do this. I like what I'm getting into or good instructors or whatever.

Whenever I first came to Pitt State where I did the psychology as a profession, and Dr. Jan Smith is actually the one that kind of lured me into the program, how she talked about it, her passion for the clinical psychology. I was like, that's kind of what that's what I want to do. And then from there, I was told that doing the Substance Abuse Counseling Program was a good undergraduate degree to have and good experience to have, you know, prior to going into the Master's Program for clinical psych, and so I had that guidance as well from some of the staff at the Pitt State, and then Dr. Chris Spira worked with me with the Substance Abuse Counseling, and it wasn't an area that I thought I was going to enjoy, but I did I thoroughly enjoyed working with him and what I learned from him. And then Dr. Herford has, he's really helped me with going through the clinical program, and you know, working with people is very, you know, he motivates you to keep going, whether you're struggling, or you're having some rough times, you know, he kind of keeps us all going. Now I know that you've not only, you know, attended classes, been working towards your degree, but you've been involved in some activities. One was presidential emerging leaders. Tell me a little bit about the experience, what that is. President emerging leaders, if you were involved in any kind of

leadership positions when you were in high school, that's kind of one of the pretty qualifications to get in. And what they do is they, once you apply and you get in, and you work towards, you know, expanding your leadership skills, you already have a kind of a basic, and we work on kind of expanding those skills, and then applying it within a leadership position, we do the basic leadership training in the spring. And then from there we kind of take the skills that we've learned and then share them with others. What do you like the best about going to school at Pitt State? Going, I like the support that I have here at Pitt State. Whether it's at my practicum site, or within, you know, the building that I have on my classes, I know that I have quite a bit of support. People know who I am. So there's not that confusion, but I feel like I can go in and I can talk to, you know, people on campus that I feel I can talk to about things and get some help and get some support. So that's been pretty nice. What's been your toughest class? Probably one of my toughest has been some of the research methods classes, just because I'm not

this, the numbers are not my strong suit, graphs, and I mean some of them are just some of the, that's not my strong area. So again, as I said earlier, Dr. Herff heard us help me through some of the struggles. He's the one that he's very passionate about it. He's passionate about it. And so he makes, he made that, the class that I thought was going to be awful, he made it enjoyable. You know, it was a struggle to get through it, but he kept pushing me and he kept, kept me getting, going and getting through it. It's been any surprises back going to college here? Definitely, friendlier than I thought it was going to be. So I'm from a very small town. And so, you know, everyone knows everybody and it's, you know, everyone. And it's very, it was supportive, you know, for a small town. And I thought going to a, you know, a bigger school, I knew they're the class sizes that the student to teacher ratio was, you know, it was, it was fairly good. But I still didn't expect to be it, it to be this friendly. So going into the psych department the first time and seeing that there is an M&M machine in their kind of encouragement.

I was like, this is a good place to be. Hey, what advice would you give a perspective student considering pit state? What would you tell them? That going to college can be very intimidating and let them know that they're not alone kind of in that intimidating. It's new. It's a new experience for them. And that there's quite a bit of support, you know, to kind of help them adapting, you know, prepare for college. There's the student to teacher ratio is wonderful. And not only do they have, you know, wonderful undergraduate programs, but they also have a very wide selection of master's programs. So if you wanted to continue education, they have great programs for that. So, you know, whether or not you're looking for a master's that when you're being an incoming freshman or not, there's a lot of opportunities here on campus and a lot of support. And that proves why you belong at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for joining us in the jungle. I'm your host, Howard Smith.