|
Change
of Heart
Written
by Fiona Munro
with assistance by Sarah Wilson
I
was not particularly interested in science when I was at high
school and mainly completed humanities subjects for my HSC.
However, when I got to university and studied psychology and
biology, I decided that I really wanted to pursue a career
that would allow me to help other people.
I am currently completing a Masters and PhD in Clinical
Psychology. I really enjoy the research and discovery aspect
of science (and, in particular, Psychology). I like conducting
research that aims to answer questions about human
behaviour and clinical disorders
that we do not yet fully understand.
Today I have completed quite a variety of tasks. I did some
research for a journal article that I am hoping to submit
for publication soon, ran some participants in my current
experiments, attended a Psychology Clinic Meeting and listened
to a colloquium presented by a researcher visiting the School
of Psychology. These activities are typical of the kinds of
activities that I do most days.
The highlight today was probably collecting some more data
for my current experiments. These experiments form the 9th
and 10th studies of my PhD, and are almost completed. Once
I have completed these experiments I will work on writing
them up for publication and inclusion in my PhD.
I am also looking forward to analysing the data from these
experiments, as they have been designed to clarify some of
the results obtained in my earlier experiments and it will
be exciting to see the results. This work fits directly into
my PhD looking at the influence of idealised media images
on young women's body image, and also fits with my desire
to remain in a research field on the completion of my PhD.
While I am currently keen to pursue a career in research,
I am also interested in keeping it related to clinical psychology
and the development of more effective intervention
and prevention programs for mental health problems.
My advice to future scientists would be to make sure you have
a keen interest to learn and pursue the different areas of
science. You do not always have to know what you want to be
straight away, but if you have an open mind, you will find
out soon enough. |
|
