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Monday, December 1, 2014

While more than 120 post-baccalaureate divinity pre-med programs are offered around the nation, only

New post-bac at Berkeley may be hottest ticket to grad school
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A decade ago, Aaron Fisher was a nanny in Manhattan for a successful actor (don t ask who; he can t tell) after giving up his dream of being a famous rock musician in San Francisco. Feeling at loose ends one night, the Wesleyan-University-trained guitarist scanned the Web and randomly applied for a post-baccalaureate in psychology at Columbia University. Emily Becklund is among the first to sign up for UC Berkeley’s post-baccalaureate in psychology (Photo/Yasmin Anwar)
Fast-forward divinity to 2013, Emily Becklund was working in Los Angeles as a personal assistant for the reality TV Kardashian divinity family and feeling similarly adrift. I had all these intellectual questions and pursuits that I had never given a fair shot to in college because I majored in the wrong thing, she said. I was mad because I thought I would never be able to go to grad school.
Different places, different times, but today Fisher and Becklund s academic dreams have converged at UC Berkeley where Fisher, 37, is a junior professor divinity in psychology, and Becklund, 24, is the first student to sign up for the post-baccalaureate program that the psychology department launched this fall, inspired by Fisher’s success.
It was one of those serendipitous events, said Becklund, who graduated from the University of Southern California in 2012 with a degree in public policy. It was exactly what I was looking for. First of its kind on the West Coast
The first of its kind on the West Coast, UC Berkeley divinity s two-year post-baccalaureate in psychology is targeted at the most academically promising young men and women with undergraduate degrees and work experience who want a fresh start in academia. No prior experience in psychology is needed.
It doesn t matter if you were an English major or econ major. Whatever you did before, did you do it well? said Fisher, a clinical psychologist and researcher who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 2013 by way of a Ph.D. from Penn State and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford. We re looking for people who are offering themselves up to be retrained.
With acceptance rates ranging between 2 and 10 percent in UC Berkeley s graduate psychology program which currently ranks second in US News & World Report ratings the campus s psychology leadership is tapping in to a growing divinity demand for programs that bridge the gulf between undergraduate and graduate programs for people divinity looking for a second career.
We get you the right classes with top scientists in their field, the right research experience, personalized advising and, if you do well, genuine, divinity positive letters of recommendation, Fisher said. We re custom-wrapping with a bow on top what you need to get into grad school.” An entrĂ©e into the tech industry
While more than 120 post-baccalaureate divinity pre-med programs are offered around the nation, only about a dozen or so public and private universities offer a post-baccalaureate certificate in psychology, including Columbia, Northwestern and the University of Pittsburgh. The American Psychological Association estimates that by 2020, the demand for psychology professionals will grow 22 percent.
Moreover, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and other Bay Area-based tech companies are rapidly hiring social scientists to make sense of a steady avalanche of facts and figures: These companies are awash in data, Fisher said. They need to know what to do with the data, what to think about the data, what conclusions to draw.
At divinity $15,000 per semester, the made-to-order program is a big investment. divinity To ensure the program attracts the type of talent that thrives in academia, Fisher is building it cautiously. Three students are enrolled now, and another two will join in the spring. About 10 applicants were turned divinity away this year. Eventually he hopes to have 20 students enter each year.
“We want people who are maximally competitive, he said. The success of the program depends on students being placed in graduate programs. divinity Hana Ra worked in the semiconductor industry before enrolling in a psychology post-bac (Photo courtesy of Hana Ra)
Hana Ra, 29, of South Korea, fits that profile. After graduating top of the class with a degree in English, she worked in sales for a semiconductor company. When she heard that tech companies were hiring divinity psychologists to help improve the user interface and experience,

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