RonPaul

Hi Everyone, I have posted here before, but it hasn't been for a while. This might be a bit of a long post, but I really could use some advice from people who either made mistakes during their undergraduate degree or know of people who did. So, I have completed my undergraduate degree (sociology and psychology) with an honours thesis in 5 years. For the first four years of my degree, I was absolutely on fire. Every semester my GPA would range from 4.2/4.3 to a perfect 4.3/4.3. I was getting mostly A+'s each year with the odd A, my writing was excellent, my relationships with my professors were excellent, and I had numerous solid research experiences throughout my degree working as a Research Assistant. I was so excited to begin my final year, write a killer thesis, and get set myself up beautifully for a great future and a spot at a good graduate school here in Canada. But things went very south. My mental health began mildly declining, and I started to burn out a bit. This was expected to some extent, and I knew I just needed to get through one more year and kill it. But then I was deeply betrayed by my long-term significant other and best friend since childhood. I found out they had been sleeping together for nearly a year behind my back and this absolutely obliterated me. They were my to closest--and only--allies. To have them betray me like that while I was already feeling a bit down, and then to have spent the year in the same small town seeing the two of them together only to find out they were dating and moving in together was, well, horrible. I was so heartbroken, lonely, and miserable all year. I couldn't sleep, eating was hard, and I completely bombed my final year and the thesis I was so excited about. I ended up getting mostly B's (which was terrible given that my worst mark was an A- in one class in first year), and on my all-important thesis with my superstar professor I got a C-. I worked so hard to get to the point that I was at, and to have it all fall to pieces is devastating and so anxiety inducing for my future. I have since began turning things around though. I found a serving job, I live at home with my mom, I got a personal trainer, I am eating better, and generally taking better care of myself. I desperately want to build myself back up again over the next few years in order to get back to where I was and get into a school/clinical psychology program in Canada, but I don't know what to do about my horrible thesis and final year marks. They are not an indication of my abilities, only a dark time in my life. I also know that I could have handled that situation better and that other people manage to do fine in school in spite of their struggles, but I simply did not accomplish this. I am thinking about moving to Halifax this summer to live on my own and work as a server. They have a few schools there with psychology departments (and even a school psychology department at one of the schools), so maybe I should either take some courses or talk to the profs there and try to get some volunteering opportunities? I'm just not sure what direction I should go in now, but it's so important to me to get into graduate school eventually. Because I did so well the other four years of my program, my GPA is still pretty high. Has anyone had a similar experience with trying to recover from a serious mistake in their academic life? If so, what would you suggest I do? Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read this, in whatever forum you came across it.

Hi all! I am a Canadian undergraduate student in the final year of my degree with a real interest in pursuing either clinical or school psychology. However, I have a few questions about how competitive I would be. I am graduating with an honours degree (with thesis) in sociology, but I originally planned on doing psychology so I have 42 credits in psychology also. I have worked as a research assistant for 3 different professors (6 month terms), I have worked as a teaching assistant 3 times (6 month terms), I do not have any independent publications but I have my name on one publication (but not as the primary author). My undergraduate GPA is 4.15/4.30, and at this point I have over one year of experience working with children who struggle in school. I am taking a year or two off to work and make money in a major Canadian city (I am a waiter), but I will also be trying to volunteer for professors at the local universities or even find paid research assistantships. Does anyone have an idea whether or not I will be a competitive applicant for clinical and school psychology programs? Obviously I need to have more specific research interests than I currently do in order to find a good professor match, but just based on the stats I outlined above, how am I looking? Thanks so much to whoever took the time to read this! All the best, Ron