Career Application Essay

Despite a life-long interest in psychology, I began my undergraduate career as a business major. I made this decision from the perspective of a nontraditional student with experience in the business world. Fortunately, I took an introductory psychology course during my first semester that set me on a new educational and career path. I earned a bachelor’s of science in psychology and am currently pursuing my master’s of science in research psychology. During my undergraduate career I developed a passion for research, which has led to my decision to obtain a PhD in experimental psychology with the goal of pursuing a career in academia. Ultimately, my career interests lie in conducting research in cognitive psychology and teaching in a university

During that time, I became active in the psychology club, eventually serving as treasurer. Additionally, I was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, and maintained a 4.0 grade point average. I also had an opportunity to serve as a psychology tutor for two semesters and went on to earn the annual “Excellence Award” for the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division. After earning my associate’s degree, I transferred to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) while continuing with full time employment. While at UTC, I became an active member of Psi Chi, serving as treasurer during my senior year. I maintained a 4.0 grade point average, earning a spot on the Dean’s list each semester. Finally, I was awarded the “Outstanding Senior in Psychology” for the 2015-2016 academic year. I continued my education at UTC in the research psychology master’s program and made the decision to dedicate myself to research and graduate studies on a full-time basis, and therefore ended outside employment. I am currently on track to defend my thesis and graduate with my master of science in the spring of

Jill Shelton’s Cognitive Aging, Learning, and Memory lab (CALM) lab while in my final semester of undergraduate. This experience served to solidify my resolve to purse experimental psychology as a career. During that first semester, I gained valuable experience as an undergraduate research assistant through helping with experimental design, data analysis, and conducting experiments. My early work in the CALM lab afforded me the opportunity to present the results of the first in a series of experiments on the topic of motivation in prospective memory at a poster session at the 6th International Conference on Memory (ICOM) in Budapest, Hungary. After deciding to remain at UTC and continue working with Dr. Shelton, I conducted the second experiment in this line of research as my first-year project. I am currently preparing the manuscript for the aforementioned study with the goal of submitting to a peer-reviewed scholarly journal by the end of 2017. My thesis is an extension of this line of research, specifically examining the influences of prosocial and self-interested motivation on prospective memory performance. In fact, I was awarded a Provost Student Research Award in the amount of $ 1,000.00 to help support this