Tips for Successful Completion of Program
Homepage
Events
Contact Us
Recent Publication & Presentation Announcements
Who We Are
Staff
Faculty
Adjuncts
Graduate
Assistants
Undergraduate
Student Information
Major &
Minors
Advisor
Information
Subject
Pool
Course
Descriptions
Career Information
Graduate
Student Information
Homepage
M.A. General Psychology
I/O
Concentration
M.A. Educational
Psychology
Child/Adolescent
Clinical Concentration
Course Descriptions
Comprehensive Examination
Thesis Information
Career Information
Department
Laboratories
Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory
Information Processing Laboratory
Visual Perception & Attention Lab
Sentence Comprehension Lab
Clubs
and Organizations
Psi Chi
Psychology Club
Useful
Research and Study Links (external)
American Psychological Society
Amoeba Web
Annual Reviews
APA Online
ICPSR
National Institute of Mental Health
PsycCrawler
Psychology Online Resource Center
Psych Web
Social Psychology Network
Taking Initiative
What you get out of this program is directly proportional to what you put into this program. An advanced concentration degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology is extremely marketable and almost all students who complete this program have NO PROBLEM finding a job (many get jobs before they complete their Thesis or Internship and therefore have a problem completing the degree). However, there is a good deal of variation in starting salaries and utilization of the skills sets that the graduates use in their jobs, and a good deal of variation in job satisfaction of graduates of the program. This variation is mostly determined by amount of initiative students take when they are in the program. Some students make opportunities for themselves while others don’t. If you would like to see a change ask us (nicely) if we would or could consider one. We are happy to help you but you must seek us out in order for us to do so. We may not always be able to do what you request, but we will try our best to work with you. If you would like to know more about a topic or if you would like to have a speaker in a certain area, speak up. And please attend meetings and speakers when at all possible.
Just because you choose to complete a Thesis or an Internship
to fulfill your requirements does not mean you should not think about
gaining research experience or applied experience in addition to your
requirements. Students with the most research and applied
experience get the highest paying and most interesting jobs. If
you are completing an Internship ask psychology faculty if you may be
involved in some of their research. If you are completing a Thesis
attempt to get involved in some paid or unpaid projects at work or at
MSU.
Thesis and Internships
We cannot stress enough that completion of the Thesis and Internship is what take students the longest and gives them the most difficulty in completing the program. Students worry about completing courses in record time. Don’t! Worry about developing and completing the Thesis or finding and completing an Internship. The process of completing the Thesis or Internship takes about four times as long as what even the most diligent students expect. Begin thinking about it as soon as you begin the program. During the summer months worry more about taking steps to complete the Internship or Thesis than about completing course requirements.
Don’t try to conquer the world with your Thesis. It is important to pick a topic that is interesting to you and to choose a methodology that is valid and well thought out, but you do not want to re create the wheel with your Thesis. You want to think about a Thesis that is interesting, will teach you to do research and will get you out of the program within two or three years. Use psychology and business data bases to look at research that has been done and think about extending or slightly modifying a study of interest to you. Most importantly make sure that you pick a study of which: 1) you can access a population EASILY collect data 2) you can collect data that will not be overly time consuming.
If you intend to complete an Internship you should begin searching for a place to complete your Internship as soon as you begin the program. The Internship may not be your dream job but the experience WILL help your career. Students often expect to get a well paid exciting and highly skilled Internship without any prior experience in the field. It often does not work this way.. Your internship may not be extremely well paid or overly exciting. You may even decide from the Internship that a particular area of Industrial Organizational Psychology is NOT for you. But the Internship is EXTREMELY valuable in getting you a well paid and Interesting job AFTER you graduate. You may also begin by doing work that seems rather menial or dull, but progress to more advanced and interesting work once you show your talent and diligence.
We cannot guarantee to place you in an Internship (it is extremely rare for programs at Montclair or other institutions to be able to promise placement). We try very hard to find internship opportunities and are able to place some students. Unfortunately our program is not large enough to have faculty working as temporary agents and even if we could do this, many of the requests we receive for student employees (and contacts we make) ask for students with given skill sets (often those gained by completing a prior Internship and/or certain classes or research experience). You may (but are not required to) attempt to gain experience at more than one organization while in the program. Your subsequent experiences may be more interesting (and pay better). We try to help students with out any prior experience in the field to find Internships, but if we are able to do so these are often entry level positions. Many of these are paid, but some may not be. You have the option of completing extremely interesting unpaid Internships doing Industrial Organizational work at MSU (ask us) . If you are in a job you enjoy (or even one you don’t but currently pays the bills) attempt to work with people in your organization to create an Internship project in Industrial Organizational Psychology (this includes a wide array of areas including: Organizational Development, Motivational Projects, Training, Testing, Selection, Recruitment, Compensation, Job Satisfaction, Health and Safety, Stress, Quantitative Evaluation or other areas). This may involve some extra hours with little or no extra compensation, but it will help you complete your degree, get experience in the field you wish to go into, and it may even get you promoted.
The I/O faculty put effort into obtaining Internship opportunities. We sometimes lose opportunities due to finance problems at the organizations or problems with students. We will continue to work to find opportunities, but we cannot promise to find all students Internships. You should attempt to locate opportunities for yourselves. Talk to friends, relatives, co-workers and other students. Please help this program and one another by sharing any opportunities that you become aware of with us. If you hold a job and you feel comfortable there (and you already have an Internship project there) ask those you work with if there are other opportunities. If you feel comfortable doing so please check out all possible opportunities for yourselves and others at your place of employment. Thanks to those who have done so already!!!!
Comprehensive Exams
Read the books and journals on the reading list
carefully! Attempt to take as many required courses as possible
before taking the Comprehensive Exam. You may take the
comprehensives up to three times if you fail the first and second
time. FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS WHEN TAKING THE COMPS…USE EXAMPLES TO
ILLUSTRATE YOU POINTS!!!!
Conditional Matriculation
If you were accepted into the program on a conditional or deferred basis (or as a non-degree student) you may only take a certain number of courses that will be accepted toward your degree before you are fully accepted into the program. Make sure that you meet with someone in the Graduate school and provide them with the documentation once you have fulfilled conditions necessary to be fully matriculated (this may be taking or retaking the GREs, taking certain undergraduate courses, receiving a B or better in certain key graduate courses or other terms of agreement.) The will help you complete the paper work necessary to be fully accepted into the program.
Undergraduate Credits
If you were not a psychology major as an undergraduate, you should have completed 12 credits of undergraduate psychology courses before applying to the Master's Concentration in Industrial Organizational Psychology (in some cases, you may be able to apply to the program without having taken some of the courses and receive a decision of deferred acceptance. This status can be changed once the appropriate courses are taken). One of these courses must be an undergraduate psychology quantitative methods course and one of these courses must be an undergraduate psychology experimental or research methods course. The other courses are often an Psychology II course and a more advanced level course. Some student find an undergraduate Industrial Organizational course to be useful as an advanced level course.
Program Completion
You must complete the Master’s Concentration within seven years of being accepted in the program. If you do not do so you will no longer be considered a student in the program and will not be able to register. Under some circumstances you may be able to extend the deadline by having the Program Director and/or Graduate Advisor write a letter to the Graduate School.
Email our specialized faculty with your I/O questions!
Dr. Jennifer Bragger
I/O Psychologist
