​This summer Karly and Jen are flying the UTEP coop! We have jobs! Yay, employment! (Yay, paying back student loans!....) 

​Walking home from class today, I found myself in awe of the beauty of an Indiana sunset—one of those sunsets that finally appears on the first warm day of spring, bringing with it the birds and the flowers and the overzealous college students itching to dust off their hammocks on the nearest tree limb. Walking through the crowd of students soaking in some much needed vitamin D, the irony was not lost on me that this sunset was a fairly on-the-nose metaphor for my quickly dwindling days as an undergraduate student. In one month (or, to be more precise: one month, 2 days, 11 hours and 56), I will be walking across a stage in front of my friends and family wearing a funny looking hat to receive a piece of paper that will represent the culmination of my last four years as a student, supposedly. Watching the sun set on what has been an important chapter of my life, I find myself to be in a very reflective state of mind, wondering what I would go back and tell my freshman self if I could. Of all of the ideas bouncing around in my head, one stands out more than any other: do not be afraid to ask for help. 

This is Part 2 of a post featuring answers to questions about online teaching from Guest Contributor Jason Eggerman and Novice Professor Contributor Ciara Kidder. Check out Part 1 for their takes on discussion boards and lectures/content presentation. 

Online college courses are on the rise: 
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"In the most recent year for which full data is available, about 5.4 million students, or 25.8 percent of the college student population, took at least one online class. About 2,642,158 students – 12.5 percent of all college students – took online courses exclusively, and the other 13.3 percent of students combined online studies with traditional courses. These statistics show that online studies are gaining popularity. In 2007-2008, just 20 percent of undergraduate students took any online courses at all, and only 3.7 percent took online courses exclusively, according to the National Center for Education Statistics" (BestCollegesOnline.org). 

Anyone who is looking to be competitive on the job market or just looking to try something new, should be thinking about whether or not to teach online. Teaching online is not for everyone, but its  an important skill that will only become more in demand. To help you think about whether online teaching is for you, here are some answers from Guest Contributor Jason Eggerman, and Novice Professor Contributor, Ciara Kidder about online teaching. 

This is Part 2 of a guest post by Eric Landrum, were he discusses careers for Psychology Majors, and how we can better support them. In Part 1, he covered some of the basic groundwork for how we should approach this conversation (with our colleagues AND with our students). Check out Part 1, but here are some of the highlights:
1) According to the APA, out of the 3.5 million people in the US with a Bachelor's in psychology, 56% went straight into the workforce after completing their undergraduate degree. 
2) If we know that the majority of our students are going straight into a career, we need more detailed data on where they are going and what they need when the get there. 

In Part 2 of Eric´s guest post, he presents some new data about how students utilize career resources. This data is from a study he and his student conducted and presented at the 2019 Eastern Psychological Association meeting (Abellera & Landrum, 2019).

I’m always so pleased when my friends at The Novice Professor asked me to write about – well, anything.  I believe in their mission and I’m happy to support their cause in whatever ways that I can.
 
I was asked a while back to write about how to talk to undergraduate students about their preparation for careers with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.  For the sake of this blog post, I’ll divide this topic into two parts: some basic foundational ideas that I believe can be helpful to the conversation, and then share some new data that was reported at the 2019 Eastern Psychological Association meeting with my student Cierra Abellera (Abellera & Landrum, 2019).

​Immersed in the work of full-time teaching and so much more, I am grateful that March brought a much-deserved spring break. Without that opportunity for rest, relaxation, and renewal, I might not have discovered a whole new slate of favorite things to share. Here it goes…