final essay

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Over the Thanksgiving break I was able to interview Jennifer Thorpe-Moscon, Ph.D. She is in the field of social psychology and also the Vice President of Marketing and Research for Body Care by Emylee, a company that creates organic and cruelty-free body, skin and hair products. Dr. Thorpe-Moscon works in New York City and was previously an adjunct instructor at New York University, where she received her Ph.D. in Psychology. I was introduced to her by my brother, Adam, who served his mission in New York City. We had a problem trying to get our schedules to match up so we had to result to having the interview over email. But this was a great opportunity for me to learn more about psychology and it gave me many different ideas of what I would like to do in the future.
To start off I thought that psychology was just one specific career choice. I didn’t know there were so many different types of psychologist out there. So the first question I had for Jennifer was, what is social psychology? She responded to me saying, “Broadly speaking, social psychology is the study of people and their interactions in groups of various sizes. Social psychology can also examine how groups, and societies interact with one another, keeping the focus on the behavior of the individual rather than society as a system. It is a broad field that has innumerable applications to everyday life”. To me this also sounds a bit like humanistic psychology that focuses on the feelings and thoughts of the client and helping them realize what their problem is. I was really intrigued by that connection because I wrote about how humanistic psychology is my favorite type of psychology.
Another question that I asked Jennifer was, what kind of person would make a good so...

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... I wanted to ask her this question so I could try to narrow it down a bit. She responded but saying “for those who may not want the traditional academic path, it may be hard to find information or opportunities to get non-academic experience”. She recommended that I find a social psychology program and advisor that are good matches for your interests. Also she then told me that one of the greatest resources is the Association for Psychological Science.
I had a lot of fun reading the responses of Jennifer and being able to get to know her just a little bit more over emails. Now I have a deeper sense of a career that I have definitely thought about in psychology. I think having us do this assignment is a really good idea because there is a difference between just learning about the different types of psychologist than actually talking to one in person or over emails.

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