Social Sciences at Loyola

Hi everyone I am doctor Caroline Berry and I am the associate Dean for social Sciences and graduate programs. I am here with a senior political science student Lulu Smith who will be joining us as part of our time together here today. I bet loyalist since 2001 and I've been proud member of the psychology Department and I now supervise all the social Sciences and communication RTC so I'm happy to be able to speak to that.

So I want to take the time and kind of go through a bit of an overview about Social Sciences 1st and then I welcome use kind of sending an questions along the way. One of our admissions staff will be helping with that and I'll restate the question and give you a chance and then answer the question for you. So kind of keep the questions coming as I as questions emerge from.

I share with you so just an overview as far as social Sciences at Loyola is that we have a wide variety of social Sciences from psychology to speech, language, hearing Sciences, sociology, political science and global studies. As you can see, we have obviously majors in all these areas, and some of these departments also offer minors. We also Global Studies is an interdisciplinary major. I should point out, whereas the other departments are not. We also have a really nice option that Lila to be an interdisciplinary major. So that means you could take.

Kind of half of one major and combine it with another one. So for instance, you might be really interested in psychology and biology until you could be a biopsychology major, so that's often an interest for people that are interested in health professions. There's also the psychology and sociology very common political science can be combined combined with writing or other sorts of things as well. So lots of different ways to kind of tailor to your interests.

So let me go over the requirements for each of these different majors so you have a little bit more of a flavor for what the curriculum would involve. In psychology, we try to give a lot of different, some limited required courses, and then an option for you to basically sample different parts of the major. So so that involves a variety of different areas that are online.

You so much?

And three psychology electives. So you can choose lots of different courses and that you might be interested in. We have new course that just started on sleep, so you can learn how to have better sleep, health, for instance.

And I also want to highlight the one credit professional development in Psychology Course. That's a course that all students are required to take in the major. And even if you're an interdisciplinary major required to take that too, and we bring in people who have a variety of different professions, not just psychologist, to talk about how they use their kind of site background in their daily life, we kind of partner with the Career Center and really kind of help to promote your vocational discernment. So that's something that we start start as when your sophomores encourage you to take that early on so that that can really shape the types. Of course, is that you're taking the types of Co, curricular experiences are happening, so.

You're well on your way to finding a really productive adult career there. After our speech. Language hearing Sciences requirements. While it might look rather kind of awesome. As far as the number of requirements. There very much driven by what you would need to do in order to be a audie ologist or speech language pathologist, which both require graduate degrees. Most of the students in this major then pursue those graduate degrees, but it is. Sometimes the case that they may pursue this degree and then decide to go into some other type of helping profession there after which is.

Certainly an option, but it gives you a good strong foundation in all of the sorts. Of course is that you would need to pursue that later. Profession are sociology Department has a little bit fewer requirements and a lot of opportunity for flexibility and choices with kind of introductory level courses, methods, and then kind of capstone courses that could be internships or kind of more kind of research based seminar courses and lots of different fax. The expertise there's a picture here the faculty members.

That you can really pursue lots of areas within the field are political science Department, and that's where lose from as well. So she can speak Additionally to that also offers a lot of different opportunity with just kind of Inter level courses required and then a really nice opportunity for students to choose their own adventure within political science. We have lots of faculty members who are very theoretical in their research, but we also have faculty who kind of do more, more quantitative or qualitative type of research. Political science is one of the several departments that's involved in the global studies major, so you'll see some.

Overlap between that major and the requirements so that gets us to Global Studies, which I noted was the one interdisciplinary major, and that major kind of exists within Loyal College of Arts and Sciences, but also crosses over into our Sellinger School of Business through the Economics Department which is housed there. So there's foundational courses that are specific courses that students will need to take. You'll see kind of a global studies course courses like an economics or political science sociology.

But then there's also analytical courses that you need to take, one from each of those disciplines topical, and then you can see the list of the different topics that you can choose from an individualized topic is if you don't like the other three that exists there, you can literally kind of name a topic and then name the types of courses that would work within the topic. The global studies director will approve of those and kind of on your way to kind of make an even more individualized option for your curriculum. Then there's kind of an end ending seminal experience with the senior seminar.

On a global studies issue, and they also have an international experience. Most students pursue this by studying abroad, but you could also take a service learning class in any variety of disciplines. Across campus. We have lots of service learning classes and those classes, the service learning partner that you would choose would have to have an international focus to fill this global studies requirement, or you can minor in a second language and you'll recall that when you come to loyal, you need to pursue a second language and so that might be yet another viable way for you to.

Did you complete that requirement?

So I just want to highlight some really neat innovative things about social science department's. Here at Loyola we have lots of opportunities for research both inside and outside of the classroom, so different assignments that you may be asked to do as part of your class work, but also opportunities to take independent studies lose. Taking one of those so she can talk about that as well as funding that we now have available to support students within social Sciences. Doing research with faculty members on the side, wondering summer as well.

Lots of courses offered, often service components or service learning. I teach human development courses in psychology and all of my courses from child through lifespan development. I partner with about 8 different partners and students, complete about 20 hours at the community service, which I kind of view is the lab component of the course that they really get a sense of. Going to learn theories about child development. I'm going to hang out with kids into them and after school program or worker, volunteer to daycare and then see these theories in action in material really comes alive.

We also have some really interesting innovative courses. Besides that, one credit professional development course. There's a really great course in political science that students taking either of those two particular political science courses will come together for a weekend. International Crisis simulation to kind of be like a crisis situation like that you would experience in the UN. And how do you work through that? So real kind of just kind of mock real life experience that they get to kind of use their knowledge that they've developed in the courses in this kind of applied setting over the weekend.

There's also a really innovative methodology that doctor, quirk, dozen sociology, and of course in conflict, war, and peace, where she has students use a simulated simulation of a simulated society, and they get to kind of explore topics that deal with different regions and inequalities that exist in the in the in a given society and kind of play out how that would work. So really nice ways of kind of bringing the material to life and innovative ways as their teaching is always being revised to be as viable, and it's interesting.

Engaging as possible.

So why come to Loyola to pursue social Sciences? First of all, were steeped in the judgment tradition, which means that we really focus and really cared deeply about social justice. It's just it's it pervades every part of the campus community, and especially in the social Sciences. It's something that all kind of content relates to, and we kind of bring it back to what is our role in the larger society. The agents of change in this world. So you come to loyally, you get a little X degree, and there's lots of opportunity for professionalism. Whether not that's in law, without that's being an audie ologist or social worker any.

Variety of things that we can offer you, so it's the best of both. Both of those opportunities we have award winning faculty. I have the pleasure of reading over faculty an accomplishment season every year and every year. Faculty continue to dazzle me with their with their awards and mentoring. Teaching scholarship.

The teacher of the year in this particular year is coming from the psychology Department and political science. All these other departments had lots of teachers every year, and we're very proud of our faculty. You come to loyal, you're going to have small class sizes. They're going to range anywhere from 10 students to maybe 35, and especially those upper level seminars that Cena classes. You're more writing intensive classes are going to be smaller, and so faculty really know you and it becomes a really engaging in a relationship focused experience.

Study abroad is very possible for all majors and we have lots of different places around the globe, but you can pursue some that are more perhaps interesting, relevant for some major than others, but lots of opportunities, and certainly plenty of electors to be able to take, hopefully major courses. Core classes and electives in these places throughout the globe we have miss.

Tina courses, so if you come as a first year student, you could presume these casino course, hopefully in one of the social Sciences that you'd be interested in, and there's opportunity for departmental honors in psychology and political science. Political science that involves A2 Semester Research Project that's done under the careful advising the mentor ship of a faculty member. Psychology has a similar experience where it's an individual experience, but they also have an opportunity to do a two semester research seminar class that students then present their culminating project often in our.

On campus, undergraduate research and scholarship colloquium. Or because psychology is also about the practice of the theory and research, you can pursue two different independent studies. Sorry, two different field experiences and then have a culminating project that you present before your peers as well. So we kind of have a more traditional research way of getting Department of honors as well as a practitioner way or applied way through internships in the field experiences. As I noted, we have a professional opportunities and so pre law. We have a wonderful pre law advisor.

Very active pre Law Society. We're bringing some alumni this semester to kind of come and talk about how to get into law school and people who are more seasoned in their career. Different areas of law and kind of sharing their wisdom with students, for instance.

Careful mentor ship about preparation for the L sat and how to pursue which law schools to apply to how to negotiate financial aid when you get in and pre health is doctor gardeners as an extensive background and pre health advising for not just folks interested in pre Med that might be bio, psych, psych or social needed folks but also people interested in dentistry, occupational therapy and things like that. We also have graduate programs so although we have lots of amazing experience for undergraduate.

My programs, we also have graduate programs available in our psychology. We have master's and doctoral level program in psychology as well as a Masters program in speech language, hearing Sciences and both of those programs have just recently been re accredited for eight to 10 years depending on the program. So we've had outside people say these programs are really top notch and that gives us additional feather in our cap, so to speak.

So what about life beyond the classroom? So we have internships available. Certainly in the large Baltimore Metropolitan area as well as DC. We've set up some funding opportunities to help offset costs that students may experience, and traveling, especially when they have traveled further to DC and all of the kind of train tickets and stuff to make that viable and political science, for instance, is very busy right now, doubling the number of internship opportunities that they have all students who want an internship. There's kind of lists of internships to get them. Get them started thinking about what they want, but.

Internship supervisors are very happy to work with students to find an internship that really is a good fit for them. That will really help them figure out what their next steps are beyond Leola. We also have honor societies and student clubs for every different major. Again, there's lots of panels and speakers, some of them engage in particular focus community service activities as well. We have a whole weekend in the first weekend, April every year. That is an academic excellence weekend where there's just a lot of cookies and juice 'cause we have lots of Honor Society induction's

That are happening. Another amazing campus events to celebrate our student achievement. So here's just a small list I took even notes of way more and I'm sure we can speak to even more of this. A variety of different clubs. And basically, if there isn't a cloud that connects to you, you can easily start a cloud from what I experienced in Lucan. Can speak to that as well. Other really exciting things that are happening in the social Sciences as we have broken ground on a renovated Baby Hall Building.

That will essentially double the size of the building, and so the kind of the part of the building that you see with all the glasses apart that is still to be done. So right now the the faculty in those departments have moved elsewhere on campus for the next year and a half, and they have begun work and creating this additional new building that will house the Career Center. There will be lots of lots of open space is really high tech classrooms, very innovative forms of learning and education will be a cafe in there. It's just going to be amazing.

And lots of meetings picking out furniture and what we need to make. This is welcoming and inclusive space as possible, so that is slated to open come fall of 2021. So we're very excited about that to come.

So what is students do after they finished? I'm loyal and they go on to pursue lots of different graduate degrees. In many cases, analog, business, social, work, medical, other health professions, to name a few. But lots students. Some students aren't aren't interested in law school or interested in other types of graduate Graduate School, and they're really interested in kind of getting a job right away and and being very satisfied in that. So they may later go on to Graduate School, where they may not, and so they pursue a variety of different kind of social justice related.

Nonprofit corporate private sector government. Public sector of variety. Different things. Local state city federal agencies. I've been here almost 20 years. I've known lots of students who have gone on to do amazing amazing things and different places both near and far.

And just to highlight of some of our social media that certain departments are particularly tech savvy with social media, and so those are some additional opportunities as well.

So, uhm, that is my spiel for now, so I will turn, turn, turn the screen over to Lou who can talk a little bit more about her experience, but certainly start sending those questions along and see what else I can. We're here to answer your questions and hear from you.

I think we're just waiting for.

So maybe you introduce yourself and stuff. So I'm Alexandra. Luna was my nickname. I'm a senior here at little that. I've been here for four years and loved every year of it.

Political science major and a philosophy minor. A minor part of the political science. Honor Society and the philosophy club which meets on Thursdays.

Angela, mostly because I really loved all the opportunities that were here. I felt in the capital of the campus to be super welcoming. I've made the best friends that I've had here.

And I've just come. They will be very sad to leave.

But through everything I've learned here is going to very comprehensive experience. The costs you take a really diverse and you have lots of options, so I've done independent studies. I did study abroad, I said move in Belgium.

So you pretty much have your pick to decide what you want to do until your experience to the things that you were interested in.

Um and on top of that there's tons of on campus resources. If there's something that you feel passionate about, what they would be a perfect class for you, you can push either an independent study.

You wanna start a club? You can start a club with your friends. Thank you. Only need four people.

And it's a really great way to sort of get involved. My freshman year. Messina was a political science course paired with an English course, was very community based, and it kind of got me thinking that I might want to do political science is my major, and pursue that later on.

An I'm still really close with a lot of the people who I check it with. There's only about 10 people in my class, so we had lots of trips for ice cream and got to walk around campus and it just really great way to sort of get you immersive involved.

You're a freshman 'cause it could be a bit scary, but it really helps to make the transition quite easy.

But did you fare cost? So far? My favorite class so far? Um, I took comparative politics my sophomore year and we did a simulation. So we did the simulation on the doctor Berry was referring to where you have like a model UN type situation and you get to dress up and get to go and hang out and Selinger and sort of the through some crises at you. And you have to sort of work around that and do some negotiations.

My country that I was representing with the United Kingdom, which is exciting and fun and we were talking about Brexit at the time. So it was a cool and relevant way to sort of implement the things that I've been learning in the classroom in a more sort of fun setting. It was kind of cool, uncompetitive, but also really like helpful learning experience.

She.

I mean, outside of the social Sciences, other cool things to do on campus that will keep you engaged outside the classroom. Your professor is here because class sizes are too small on because little is a relatively small community. You can really get to know your professors and they'll help you with things like internships or like I said, independent studies. There's lots of professors who, if you really passionate about a subject and they find that passion to be.

You know, sort of an inspiring thing as a professor. Then they really want to help you log in that process. I'm working on a senior thesis that I'm working on the whole semester. My professors were all so game to help me and to make sure that I could produce the best sort of academic work possible.

Um discretion says, did you do any internships? I did kind of an internal internship since I've been here where I would just two professors who got grants for research. They're working on a book, an academic Journal, respectively. So for the summer period, I worked with doctor Doug Harrison, the Political Science Department, and I was going to do you see, every day and doing Library of Congress research. And it was awesome. And it was a nice funded.

Experience um, something great for your resume, but also something that gave me tremendous research experience, which I you would need for something like Graduate School. Also sort of inspired me to want to do my honors thesis project, because you would get to learn how to work sort of independently, but it was also nice 'cause it was with a professor here, so the experience was kind of internalized, but there's plenty of other experiences that you can really sort of go out to the Baltimore community.

Um, the question says that you or any of your friends study abroad. I studied abroad in live in Belgium, and finally, if my roommate studied abroad there as well, we all loved it and had an amazing experience. We didn't want to leave when the time came, even though we'd love to come back to Layla.

Study abroad can be like an amazing way to make new friends, but also just sort of to have a nice semester to take some of your really core classes that you kind of put all freshman year or you weren't so sure about freshman year. I took in English class abroad a second philosophy of Rod and a few political science classes, and I actually got to take a Masters class abroad, which was really cool. If you meet certain GPA requirements, you can take a Masters class at the University that I studied at, which was a great experience to sort of being a classroom with an older group.

People, but it was honestly amazing because the school really allows you to kind of the time in the worker schedules that you have the opportunity to travel as much as you want to. We had lots of Belgian Waffles and traveled around pretty much all of Europe. I think we went to 11 countries, so study abroad is really a highlight.

Um discussion says what were the challenges during your freshman year? Um.

My freshman year I was very homesick for a little bit of time, especially when you first get here. You know your classes are a bit overwhelming and you don't sort of know what to do, but the greatest thing that I did freshman year was kind of on a whim. I check Arabic as my language and my cost is really small. It was about 6 people and even today at four people in my class who I took those classes with were all freshmen at the time and we still go and get lunch every Friday and spend a lot of time together. So I think that.

Homesickness are big freshman or big League freshman. Year sort of challenges, but there's plenty of on campus resources to help you. Counseling center is always there. Your professors really want to make sure that you're in a good mental headspace to succeed so they can be really helpful to you. There's academic advising. I'm also a tutor, so if you need any academic help, lots of freshmen common there, just like, Oh, I haven't really had to do much research on my own. I've never had to write a significant paper on my own, and you can help sort of give them some guidance, which is always really nice.

Um discussion says as a senior, how is little help you to be prepared for life? Slash your crew after school I think the biggest thing that whales given to me not necessarily even come in the classroom. It's come outside of it. Just the joy that I've got from being gone from being here and the relationships that I've been able to form with my teachers. I really learned to be more holistic thinker. I think when I came here, you feel sort of one track minded or you're not exactly sure what you want to do yet.

I feel that there's a million different things that I can do, even though I have this one degree, I feel generally repaired. Critically, think about the issues that I'm dealing with, no matter what my path is, so I feel very prepared in that way, and I also feel very supported by loyalist, so I know that I.

Sort of have the resources here that I need to.

Verb sort of after come graduation.

Um, what is the relationship with professors like? I love all my professors. I really haven't run into any professor is that I haven't had a great relationship with, and I know that that Stanley experience for a lot of my friends and roommates.

Close relationship with a lot of my professors because I've done these research experiences with them I think a lot of it is putting in the effort and if there's professor who's doing research that you're really interested in letting them know that and there it's sort of best resource I find that a lot of professors are big nerds about their topics so they want to talk about them a lot.

If you're as interested in it as they are, then you can have really great report with them. There's professors that I just go to office hours, or I just want to get coffee with them and their more than willing to do that they're here because they love learning. And if you're passionate about learning then.

It's just such an easy segue to have a great relationship, and also with the small class sizes. It's really easy to sort of like how your professors know you. I went to high school and I was really.

Sort of put off by the idea that I would have a huge classroom where no one would know. My name or you know if I wasn't there so no one would notice. But here you know, everyone notices and they want you to succeed and if there's an issue will get in touch with you and if you have something going on. It's really easy to talk to people.

Think there's no questions.

Can you speak a bit more on research opportunities? So all the reasons opportune is that I've had so far have been sort of things that I approached my professors about. They weren't anything that I found online necessarily here, but I went to my professors and I said I really want to do some research. There's not necessarily the perfect internship for me in DC or from where I'm from. Do you have anything in mind? I need advice and it so happens that this professors who I had spoken to their spending here at little that you can apply for.

Faculty member at a student work together on sort of a joint project or of a faculty members working on Abukar paper.

They want sort of some of the cursory research to be done.

Student, or even if they want some of the writing to be done. Sort of Co authored with the student. Then there is funding opportunities for that. So I spoke to my professors, told them that I was just something I was really interested in an I think that the program has really kind of expanded now, so there's a lot more people sort of doing independent research with professors for political science.

It's very much based on, you know, the professors wanting to do research and then your interest as well. They're always looking for help.

Like I said, I got to go to Library of Congress and look up archival records for congressional elections for one project. And then I did museum curation for Cold War Studies for a different project, so a wide sort of array of research, but both opportunities. It really helped me sort of hone my skills and also help me to sort of for my relationship with my professors.

What has your dorming experience been like? Um, my dorm experience was amazing when I first came here. I'd never shared a room with anyone, and so it's always a little like scary and iffy. I had a random roommate my freshman year and it was amazing. She was from Guam. So place that I you know little to nothing about.

And she ended up going abroad to the same place that I want to broaden. We had a great relationship and we still have a great relationship.

Lived in Flannery O'Connor my freshman year.

And I think that it's a really popular dorm.

Freshmen are live there with the exception of there's some residents. The systems that live there, but there's also a lot of honor students that live there, and there's Iggy or not users flamer on the freshman year sort of floor on the bottom floor Flannery so I love my dorm experience. I never found that it was sort of two. Stressful oil is really highly ranked in the country. I think #10 for residence halls so there's installs were always really clean. Their nice places to study as well as to live and sort of hang out with your friends.

Um and all the way up to being a senior. I've sort of like always lived on campus. It's easy and sort of all. The resources are here. You can really easily get from senior side or freshman side right over to Starbucks in like 10 minutes. So kind of everything being central senior class. So yeah, so a lot of the Massena classes are going to be also hosted in Flannery or Butler Hammer membership. Some of the freshman dorms, so it's kind of nice. My freshman year, Masino was.

In fact, in my freshman year dorm, so I didn't even have to leave for my 10:25.

The question says, what are you planning on doing after you graduate? Uhm, I had a focus on Graduate School for really long time. Uhm, and some of the opportunities that I apply for didn't end up working out as well as I thought that they would. Just because I applied to pH D programs, they're very large and very competitive, but I've used the Career Center and they've helped me to work on my resume and I've applied for a bunch of jobs that have some interviews set up in DC with some think tanks.

Doing some research. So just like what I did with my research assistantship here.

Sollala will kind of help you no matter what. You're sort of path is, there's a lot of people in social Sciences who do Graduate School. One of my roommates is doing Graduate School, and she's been accepted and she's really excited about it, and she was able to work with her professors to get like letters of recommendation.

So sort of whatever your path is, there's lots of resources to help you.

Um, this question says. What are some of the advantages of the campus location being in Baltimore, either in general or towards your major.

Um Baltimore is such a cool place. Um, I love like everything about it. It's such an eclectic place and there's lots of things that are like so central. I mean, if you want to get to New York on a train, or if you want to get to DC really quickly, which is something that, for my major political science, was really cool because we're on our train away from the White House in DC and sort of everything that's going on around there. And when I did, my Massena trip freshman year because part of my class was a political science class, we went.

And did like a behind scenes tour of Congress, which was such a unique experience that I don't know that I would have gotten to do under any other circumstances.

And being in Baltimore sort of just the community is so eclectic so on Top of that I took Arabic like I said we helped out at a program in inner city Baltimore and we worked with boys age 8 to 13 and we worked on teaching them introductory Arabic for an after school program as part of a service learning course so that was a really interesting sort of experience discussion says what's the philosophy club the philosophy club is a bunch of philosophy majors minors.

But also just a lot of people who like to talk about really cool topics and they meet on Thursday afternoons sort of clustered in the evening. They always have snacks and we meet and we talk about sort of whatever the topic is for the week.

So whether it's a work of Philosophy and some of its ancient philosophy, so Plato and Socrates or something that's more modern stuff. So we read camel and start. Or if you wanted to be philosophical questions, so we talk about what is sort of the philosophical value of certain forms of art, and how sort of in our society now do we focus on treating each other well and sort of embodying some of the basic philosophical values not just of theological thinkers, but of sort of the ancient thinkers.

Um, so it's kind of just an extra curricular activity. If you remember the philosophy club and you attend a lot and there's, uh, and you study philosophy as it major or minor, you could be inducted into the philosophy Honor Society here.

Which I'm a member of and it just kind of puts you in a closer position to a lot of other people who you study philosophy with. You get to meet a lot more even outside philosophy club, 'cause it can only be once a week. So I met a lot of really cool, interesting people through that. It's a nice thing for my roommates and I had to do on Thursday afternoon.

I always leave with your million more questions than we came with, but it's kind of just something nice and cool to do. And there's a million clubs that are just like that.

Um, are there resources for students coming into the social Sciences? Undecided.

Um, usually everyone comes in as a freshman to Lila has a general advisor, analog that's based on your machine, a class so that help you pick Massena classes at summer orientation. So my professor for Massena and my advisor was an English professor and immediately he helped me decide that expressed the political science with something I was really interested in, an he put me in contact with a professor in the Department.

Is really good about making sure that I had sort of the.

You know, kind of resources that I need to, but you don't have to declare until after your first semester until sophomore year, so you have some time to sort of talk to people on campus. You can talk about your advisor and then some of your professors. If you find that a class sort of Sparks your individual interests.

So there's tons of resources on campus for people to be able to help you. If you're an undecided major, or to sort of point you in the direction that you think you might want to go if you're in social Sciences.

Any final questions anyone?

Yeah, their trade.

Hey, I just wanted to add a couple other things to what Louis decide about different topics. So as far as the undecided, one of the things I've been missing accord visor for a long time and I really think helping the student, you know when they meet in summer orientation and then in the first year is in the scene of Professor and adviser to choose classes that they think they might be interested in. So take some core classes but try a course out where you think I might be really interested in this particular course. So let me try it out and see if I.

See if I really like that course and go to the Career Center, take a career interest inventory to figure out which topics might be interesting to you to really help inform that so we have a really holistic approach in Massena.

Sing a structure allows for not only your advisor in in the fall, but often the person you're going to take with your missing the students.

In spring is also part of that team, and there's an Evergreen for each of those cohorts an an extra Massena mentor visa, Stafford administrator on campus so you have a whole range of different people that you can kind of go to for resources as you're kind of thinking things through all of us with different life experiences to be able to share and help your decisions as far as Graduate School that lots of different students pursuing a range of different things. So part of it is like do I want to go? do I need to go? It makes sense to to take a couple of years offen, figure that out so I have some students.

Some senior advisors right now who are really kind of thinking. Well, I might want to do this, but I'm not sure which type of program, so I'm encouraging them. For instance, like they're interested in the health professions, but they're not sure which one. Well, why don't you get a job that works in a hospital setting where you might be able to kind of? Do you know, work in a clinical trial? For instance? There interesting research, but they also may be able to shadow variety of different health professionals and be able to kind of gain better insight into whether or not they're really interested in occupational therapy or being a child life specialist or pursuing.

Speech language pathology so a variety of different ways to kind of try things out and lots of students. I've written a million letters of recommendation over the years who know exactly what they want to do, know exactly where they want to work, and we use whatever context we have. Our Career Center has amazing resources and we have a thing called toilet connect. Little handshake where we have alumni and friends of Layla all over the Globe who said yes, I would be more than happy to talk to with students about about what I do for a living, and so I encourage students early on from the moment they step foot on campus to kind of sign up.

And go utilizes additional set of resources of people who actually might be doing the thing that you might want to do, and then talk to them. What do they like? Well, I hate about their job and so that's always a good good option as well. As far as research lilies, experience is very, very typical kind of folks that are interested in pursuing kind of traditional research at one on one with the faculty member. Lots of Social Science Department's, particularly in the psychology Department and sociology, as well as speech, thing, language pathology. They offer a lot of.

Faculty have wide areas of expertise, but research so you often can easily just kind of go to faculty member and say, Hey, I'm really interested in your topic. Is there anything you have a research project that I can work on and you could do that as a volunteer and just kind of help out because we have doctoral students in Psychology who are doing dissertations, they often welcome having undergraduate students as part of their team in collecting data or analyzing the data, coding the data. So it's a nice opportunity for undergrads to work also with grad students, can I get to see what's that like and?

Um, why are you doing that topic and how can I help and and what I say is, even if you never want a career in research, the opportunity to engage in resources are really wonderful thing, because it allows you to kind of choose an idea that's interesting and kind of. Go deep with it, and so if you're on a job interview about something that you can say, hey, I really I took this project and I had an idea and I asked. Interesting question. I figured out a way to kind of get an answer to that question and I was able to share my results in a professional setting. Well, that really shows a lot of initiative and independent thought.

It's really all employers, regardless of what you want to do. Want people who can work in a team but also like work independently and see an idea through and so opportunities for research really allow for that to happen in psychology in particular. We also have kind of formal. We have PY 305 class that is student can say I want to spend like an hour or two a week on this so I'm going to sign up for one credit of working on this research project so it shows up on my transcript, which means my future employer. My future Graduate School admission committee is going to see that I did this extra amount of work separate from what I could say. I was a volunteer.

And so and so's project. And we also have these research seminars that seniors take. Whether not, it's in global studies or psych has those two semester research seminars, so some examples of those seminar topics are ones that were on parent child relationships. We have a cool one on sleep and circadian rhythms. Right now other ones on prejudice and stereotypes. So variety of topics that again is based upon faculty areas of expertise. Intentionally hire faculty, have a range of different topics to be able to kind of share the front of that field with our with our students.

So if there's other questions about uhm, other student experiences or other.

Particular questions about each major. You know, we're here and happy to kind of address any of those questions that you may have.

So the question is, could you elaborate a bit more on loyal as a as a Jesuit school? So we are.

We originally were Loyola College in 2009, we became Loyola University Maryland, which really reflected our comprehensive nature of being institution and the judgment judgment ideals are something that I've kind of grown to know and Love and treasure treasure the most about being here at Loyola, and that's really because there's a real emphasis on caring for the whole person. So as a developmental psychologist, I teach people to think about the person's physical well being and how their thoughts in your mind work, as well as their cycle logic.

Show and social well being. And that's really a natural synergy with with the with the judge would approach that. I have students in my class and it's not just that I want them to succeed and I'll do really well in the class to learn this knowledge, but I really care about them as human beings. I want them to be successful and happy and people who are meaningful members of society. And so I realized that that students come into my class.

Is a person that has a life outside of my classroom. They have other classes. They have roommates. They have romantic partners. They have parents. They have grandparents who might be aging. Owner might know stuff is coming up in their life and I am here to support them and.

So I'm able to kind of interact with them. Kind of recognizing the kind of whole whole self that they bring to the classroom and just try to support them as much as possible. There's also A to me. It's an opportunity to be able to ask. Kind of asking have really meaningful conversations about what's. How does one spirituality kind of inform who you are, so you can certainly students will take theology and philosophy classes that are required, and ethics courses that are required for our core. But it's also an opportunity that when I teach.

A topic which, um, those students are scared of it actually wind up really enjoying life span development on death and dying. I ask people, what do you think happens after you die? And how does your view of whatever that is and people have a range of views going to inform how you live your life and how you Orient yourself in the world and feel like I can ask that question and have a meaningful conversation even more so at a judgment school. Then I can then I could, if I write a secular school I went to a large public University for Graduate School and taught the same course and it was a different type of conversation that I could.

And students are kind of willing to go there in this type of integer with setting and we have. We have a really active campus ministry with lots of amazing offerings. We also have one of our members of our director, associate director for campus ministry, specialized interfaith opportunities, and so there's a range of religions and opportunities on campus and in the community to connect students to wherever ways they find meaning and and.

Meaning and lice, life purpose and so that's something that we care about because we care about you as a whole person. What you did it continue to develop as that throughout your time here at Loyola.

It looks like there's a a nice website that kind of tell a little bit more about the Jesuit difference, and certainly another hallmark of our campus community is the Center for community services and Justice, which has really elaborate, established partnerships throughout the Baltimore community, some of which are related to kind of kind of Catholic charity types of organizations, but also lots of other nonprofits in hospital settings that we have a strong commitment to. Continuing to improve the lives of all people in Baltimore. And we do that through.

Lots of opportunities for students to volunteer and community service again, lots of service learning classes and a wide variety of internship placements that we that we are committed to. And that's really kind of at the heart of the judgment missions. It's one thing to have information, but more important thing that seemed macius encouraged us to do is to kind of use that and use that information to come to better the world to bring greater glory to God and so to me that issue at school is the world needs more Jesuit educated people because the world needs more people that are are socially consciously minded in ways that they want to make a meaningful difference to improve the world around us.

And I think we do that really well here.

Faculty outlook we have another question. How does the study abroad experience connect to themes within different social science majors?

Um, so I would say that that in order for loyal to have a study abroad program, we have established that we know that that program offers courses that are that will connect to certain core classes that may connect to your major and that certainly will have electives that will count within your within your 40 courses of study. 120 credits at Loyola, and so I've had students who inside Hunan all over the globe.

And I know that, um.

Hit some programs, offer lots of courses in their major and some courses may not, but they know that intentionally and they've been thinking and planning with their advisor and talking to international programs off of throughout the time. As far as there's actually a very elaborate M mega spreadsheet on our international programs website for students here on campus to be able to say, OK, I want to study in Rome, or I'd really like to go to Cape Town. And here's the types, of course, is that they have that we know are generally offered this time of year for this semester. So if I want to study abroad as a spring in my junior.

Here that means I will most likely be able to take these types of courses so when I start planning my career at Little as a freshman sophomore and I'm meeting with my advisor, I can save those courses for when I study abroad. I've also had students have really cool experiences. I member when I was undergraduate program director. I've worked with the folks in Denmark in our program in Denmark, and they said, well, what are the students need need to happen, so I said, well, it's kind of dream up a couple courses and they kind of took my suggestion so they had a whole course on child care.

And the students got to experience a wide variety of different types of childcare settings and how daycare works and how the juvenile justice system works. And in Denmark, and they did some study toward trips to different places, all on the particular course theme. I've also had students who have done research on they've been abroad with faculty members as well as an internship, so they get to kind of see what kind of a workplace setting is in maybe a hospital setting, maybe.

Maybe some type of?

As some type of school setting on some type of city, County, province, country, level setting that they can actually see how that system works in order to kind of stand social structures at work and so there's opportunities to kind of choose your own adventure with the types of places that you go to. Certainly there a lot of the study abroad experiences will allow kind of during the Times off between school to be able to have students kind of go to other places in that particular country or to kind of training goes somewhere else nearby.

While you're there and then and then from that will be able to see other other things, and there's intentionally planned kind of study tours for the students outlook, say the program to be able to connect to explore the sorts of things that you can kind of make the most of their time under there.

Are there most popular majors an? What are the opportunities to shape your own major between schools? So the most popular majors?

So probably of of the social science majors psychology would likely be the largest of those. It's roughly about 100 students per.

Her class years, about 400 students total. I should also note that we have an additional person who serves as an additional advisor in psychology, so you not only have your major advisor, but additional person to help with registration process as an additional source of support to you, and that person is also the person who teaches the PY 200 course.

So that's probably the largest major speech language. Hearing Sciences is also probably comparable in size to political science. Kind of the next visit. Sociology is a bit smaller, so their class sizes tend to be a little bit smaller, but that's also really nice and intimate.

But the biggest majors for sure on campus. By Claire. Our business, natural Sciences among the psychology majors. We have a large proportion of interdisciplinary majors who are with the bio psychology and a lot of these folks is. The students will tell me, or the people who are thinking I really like psychology. I really think I want to go to the health professions. I like biology, but I really like to take fewer classes on plants and more of the classes of biology. The deal with people. And then I get to partner that and take a course in psychopathology or health. Psych or neuro psychology. And it's a really nice blending to be able to.

Set you up and look to have a greater sense of what do you want to do with your health, health profession afterwards, and then one of the opportunities to shape your own major between schools. So again, you could have an interdisciplinary major and that can exist with any Department within Loyola College of Arts and Sciences. The Business School has a separate accreditation process and so at the current moment, we aren't able to kind of have an interdisciplinary between, let's say a business degree and a sociology degree.

However, again, there's lots of variety of different miners, so I had a advising many years ago who was a psych major and realized she was really interested in marketing and debated whether not she should switch majors, and she lined up to talk to the marketing, marketing faculty members, and she was really good at math, and she was a statistics minor and they said no finish your 6 minor. You'll have plenty of time afterwards to kind of go in and take a couple classes in free electives and marketing, and you have all the requisite quantitative and critical thinking skills to get a great job doing marketing.

And you know, then you're set, so there was no need to kind of switch majors and try to extend her time here at Loyola and have any financial additional expenses for her. And so. So that's totally totally an option.

For her as well, and so so. Lots of other opportunities to.

To do that, alright? Um yeah, so we have lots of interdisciplinary majors and so you can kind of think about it as basically taking about half of one major and combining it with half of the other.

Which again could be really interesting. Writing is an interesting major to combine, so let's say you want to be a person who writes kind of special feature articles about kind of social science related issues. Every time I kind of grocery store.

During a news story story in the morning, on on line on TV there's always some like new new kind of health related information and you want to be able to kind of critically evaluate the evidence. So maybe you want to be part psychology in part Communication that would also have a specialty in journalism, right? Or in writing? And you want to be able to combine that. I had a student years ago who knocked them, combining a language with one of the social Sciences as well because we increase. Our world is diverse and we need people who are fluent in that language, and so they bring those additional language and cultural skills.

To these various social social service settings. So that's a really nice opportunity as well to allow students to kind of to pursue that. The only caveat there as you want to you want to make sure that if you do have a particular career graduate program in mind that you're setting yourself up for enough depth in that particular area that you'll be successful, right? So, for instance, if you're really convinced that you want to be a speech language pathologist, you really do need to take all this course is going to be able to get into Graduate School, and so that probably wouldn't be in your best interest, right? Just like if you wanted to be an accountant.

Being better supplier major wouldn't be possible. It really isn't in your best interest to sit for the CPA. You need certain amount of courses on accounting right? So so it works really well for some majors more than others and you're missing advisor and major advisors and Department chairs. We're all here to kind of answer your questions throughout the way. Having freshman who.

You come and go, talk to their faculty member in the class that they're taking or just kind of walk into someone's office and say, Hey, I'd like to know more about this. That's what we're here forward here at Loyola, 'cause our commitment is first and foremost to our students. There are lots of people who have double majors.

And and some people who pursue multiple minors as well. I was working with a student the other day and she has a major in English and then a minor in.

It was a minor in statistics as well as fine art, so just a breath of persons. My former Massena Colleague who is now Dean of Loyola College Dean Foul. He is a theology professor and he and I viewed it very successful that we've had several students who became both double majors in theology and psychology. One of them actually just came back from from Rome, having been selected for a highly competitive opportunity to.

Be at a conference of young people and interact with the Pope, and so it was this great opportunity for her and she's interested in pursuing society in clinical psychology is a senior.

But she wanted that Meanwhile she is also pursuing a Masters degree and she started early and working on the Masters degree in theology and so that we have some graduate programs that you can start as early as your senior year and kind of get a Head Start in that area in ways that might be.

Certainly save some money as well as kind of getting a little closer to what your ultimate goal is, bit sooner.

We have a Masters degree program in clinical professional counseling and students can apply early and you don't have to take the GR ES and so then you already know what you're going to do when you graduate. So I've had several advises High Massena students years ago who have been stayed on for another year or two at Loyola two years to be able to finish their Masters degree in psychology.

Afternoon becoming Masters level practitioners right? So we'll hang their own shingle and be a therapist at the Masters level, which is a great a great career.

So other questions for.

For Lulu student clubs again, she said, use for takes four students or so to sign up for for various clubs on campus.

Some of the clubs are kind of more closely connected with particular departments more than others. So for example the sign language cloud. We often a class in sign language, which students are always very eager to take as an elective, and so it's an opportunity for students to continue to practice their skills, and it's useful for lots of people to know not just speech language pathologist's the active minds cloud. I just saw that they're doing a talk talk recently where they are going to be. They're bringing in people from the National Alliance for mental illness to be able to talk about their experiences and being.

Other people who live with mental illness or people who are allies and caregivers for those who are mentally ill and it's often kind of encourage the people that are taking the psychopathology class of doctor kha'zix to go there, but you know she was having me advertise at broadly to all social Sciences, because then really all students to better understand how to support and destigmatize mental illness on our campus in our broader community. So there's lots of clubs as you can see that are really oriented towards social justice that again live out our Jesuit mission.

So just a couple minutes left, we've really enjoyed all the questions that we've gotten from you all, and certainly happy to switch seats again with Lulu and put her back on. There's other questions you can better speak to the student experience about this. I came to Loyola because I realized that the mission was very consistent with my own worldview and has really proven to enrich my life in so many ways. I never could have anticipated, and I only said I'll stay as long as they'll have me, and I've been delighted to have a career here for almost two decades.

I am a vision, a bright future ahead for Loyola and I'm always happy to be part of this community given what it has given me and I'm happy to pass on to others.