Transcript for:
Military Psychology Career Path

and he told me to just go ahead and talk to a recruiter so I went online and I found the recruiters for all three branches Army Navy and Air Force neuropsychological testing psycho diagnostic testing um administering the test scoring interpreting report writing all of those things are so different than what a master's level therapist does and so these are things that I have really wanted to focus on and get better at your fellowship time so one thing that I did not mention is is you're paid as an officer once you start doing internship um and so the internship sites through the military are the best paying internship sites in the nation hands down what is up fam welcome back to the channel my name is Phil sarpong this is Phil's guide to side D this channel is dedicated to all things psychology wellness and graduate school today we have a very special guest his name is Ethan Martin he's a actually a student we are both in the same cohort and so we actually go to the same program he will be joining us today to talk about how to become a military psychologist a lot of graduate students graduate from asciety or PhD program from anywhere from 80 000 to 100 000 of student loan debt and so this is pretty alarming in terms of if you don't have a plan to pay off those student loans they can be really crippling especially early on as an early career psychologist and so this is just one opportunity to check out to see if it might be a really good fit for you so once again I'm super excited about this interview if you all have not already please like and share the video and subscribe to the channel if you haven't and if you want more behind the scenes video clips to videos that we haven't released it you can always join and become a member to the channel without further Ado we'll go ahead and jump right into the interview [Music] all right Ethan how is it going good how are you doing Phil I'm doing great I'm doing great I'm so excited for this interview this is something that I've been looking forward to and it's crazy because you know we're in the same cohort and you're the first person that I'm interviewing on this platform so congratulations I made it we made it oh man so I'm super excited to get into it uh hopefully if you want to just introduce yourself to the audience in terms of um in terms of what why you wanted to go into a doctoral program for Clinical Psychology and kind of what made you interested about you know with the military and everything yeah sure yeah so my name is Ethan Martin I am originally from Fort Myers Florida um and I was down in Fort Myers Florida being a licensed mental health counselor so I already have a master's in counseling and I was doing therapy um I worked at the Salvation Army for a little bit over 10 years and was primarily doing substance abuse counseling um after the 10 years I uh was considering what kind of would be the next chapter of my life and um considering different uh career moves um trying to figure out what I could do as far as therapy goes and where I could possibly go from there and so I started looking into the military I had had a few patients throughout my time at in in counseling that were veterans and one of the things that really stuck out to me with those particular veterans with substance abuse is that a lot of their substance abuse started in the military while they were in the military um and it it for some of them it actually got them kicked out of the military because they just couldn't manage the substances that they were using and so um I was I was considering how to do therapy in the military actually and so um I had another friend who was also considering um the military at that time another counselor and he told me to just go ahead and talk to a recruiter so I went online and I found the recruiters for all three branches Army Navy and Air Force and initially the Navy was the only recruiter that got back to me so I had to meet with that recruiter um talk with them and in the conversation that I had with that recruiter he said that they don't take Masters level clinicians unless it was a master's in social work um and I did not have a master's in social work I had a masters in counseling in depending on what state you're from in in Florida it's called mental health counseling um so I was not able to be a therapist in the military um but during that conversation he said hey there is this scholarship program um that you could potentially go back and get your doctorate and the military would cover the cost of tuition and give you a stipend to live um to live monthly and um and then once you're done you would work for the military and kind of pay back the amount of years that you did while you were in school and so um he said you have to get a doctor in either Clinical Psychology or counseling psychology and the programs have to be APA accredited so that actually began my journey of looking into going back to school I never thought that I would go back to school um I thought I was done with my masters uh but I had always said in the back of my mind if if somebody would pay for my doctorate I would probably go back and get my doctorate um just because I you know uh highest level of credentials possible in the psych world and um I you know I know I knew I had the capacity to become a doctor so um so I was like all right well let me just go ahead and try so I I had to take the GRE again um because it had been over 10 years and um took the GRE uh you know applied to several schools um got invited to interview first schools um and then got into a couple schools and ended up choosing the school that we attend and that's kind of what got me uh from there up to here and and part of the reason that I um wanted to come back to get my doctorate was uh to work in the military so to do military psych and to use my um my therapy skills uh serving the people who have served our country wow that's an incredible story thank you so much for sharing there's so many things that I I want to kind of sift through that you mentioned in terms of so you worked for 10 years as a therapist yes yep and yeah I you know I get a lot of questions from people who are either in a different field altogether who are thinking about going to graduate school for Clinical Psychology and I also get people who are Master levels therapists or clinical social workers who are thinking about going back to get their doctorate yeah and it's kind of a apprehensive thing because obviously doctoral programs are long uh anywhere from four to six years right and they can be expensive and very it's it's amazing that for you that it it that didn't stop you from trying to make those trying to see if there were different opportunities for yourself to make it work and now that you've been in in graduate school you're a fourth year Society student what has it been like for you being away from school for so long but also like now almost nearing the the end of the the tunnel in terms of getting your doctoral degree yeah yeah so I that yeah one of the one of the really big concerns for me having not been in school for over 10 years was what is that environment going to be like and especially because um you know most I think if not all APA accredited Clinical Psychology programs are um like in-person full-time programs so having a job and working full-time while doing um your doctorate it's not impossible but it's close to Impossible and almost will definitely result in burnouts so you know it's not something that I would recommend for anybody to to work full-time and do a full-time doctoral program um that is clinpsych uh for especially APA accredited so um so it was a little bit of an adjustment going from a having a career working full-time being financially stable to coming back to being a student where I was not working you know no longer have health insurance no longer have the benefits no longer have um the income um and then just coming back into a program where I haven't written papers in over 10 years I haven't taken tests I haven't done all of the things that we do in a doctoral program in a long time so it took me a while to get um to get adjusted I'll be honest I don't know that I'm still fully adjusted to uh to a program but I'm in it you know I'm I'm making good grades so uh clearly some somebody somewhere thinks that I'm adjusting well but um it doesn't it still doesn't feel like I'm like in a full-time doctoral program it just feels like I'm just kind of in this interim portion of my life um and I'm taking classes during this time well I still think you're an inspiration because I think it is kind of intimidating to go back to school to go through that that coursework to go through all of those different things and so the fact that you're doing it I think is an inspiration for people who are trying to figure out if it might be the best option for them so yeah yeah I just appreciate your story in sharing that and uh one of the things that I think is really cool because since you were a therapist and now you're becoming a clinical psychologist you kind of have this dual perspective of what it's like to be a therapist and what it's like to and starting to become a psychologist can you speak to a little bit about maybe some of the differences that you've enjoyed in learning about psychology learning about you know maybe what you're doing in your clinical rotations and some of the differences yeah I so I think the main difference that I that I have seen and kind of observed is with psychological testing uh generally speaking Master's level therapists do not do psychological testing and um there are certain tests that uh Master's level uh therapists just cannot do um and so it's so for me some of the things that that I have been learning and kind of focusing on um as far as becoming a well-rounded clinical psychologist and um just uh kind of adding things to my repertoire is is the testing so neuropsychological testing psycho diagnostic testing um administering the test scoring interpreting report writing all of those things are so different than what a master's level therapist does and so these are things that I have um really wanted to focus on and get better at um there's a lot of therapeutic techniques that I have been using for years um and so um didn't really want to focus too much on the therapy side of the doctoral program but more on the testing side so that was kind of um that was something that coming into this program that I was very aware of and really interested in focusing on was gaining more experience and and um uh competence in in the testing Arena and then also research um that is something that all doctoral programs have um uh I'm not the biggest fan of research part of the reason that I chose this ID program um is because I am just not the I don't want to do research um actively for the rest of my life I will always be a part of research and always be aware of research and all of that stuff but as far as like actually doing the research and putting it on and orchestrating it and developing it and creating it and all of that stuff I don't necessarily want to do that's not been a passion of mine um I'm I like the more clinical practical side of things and so I I chose this ID program specifically for that reason but all I think almost all Sid programs have research and um do have research labs and and you know you still do a dissertation and you do all of the research search type things and that's different than Masters level Master's level of course they're very aware of research they may be depending on where they work they may be involved in aspects of research but Master's level therapists generally aren't producing the type of research that clinical psychologists do they're not creating it they're not developing it they're not writing all the research articles again this is just a generalization I mean there are some that that do that out there um but by and large Master's level therapists pretty much just do therapy and so I wanted to kind of learn all of the other aspects of psychology Testing Research that that I haven't really been doing as a master's level clinician that that makes me think about you know for you is there a pathway that you see in terms of your career of being a psychologist that just does testing or maybe even specializing in sort of a neuropsychology realm are those things that you've thought about or what is what is your approach to that yeah good good question so I came into this program really wanting to do um testing and kind of learn those skills um I I'll be honest I did not know what neuropsychological testing was when I first entered the program I had zero idea um kind of embarrassing for me to admit that um but now that I'm a few years beyond that I'm okay it's not as embarrassing for me anymore um but yeah in our first year I was like ever there were people that were like yeah I'm neuro and I'm like that's really sciency like I'm not that's not my cup of tea like I'm not interested in that I ended up doing um in my first uh practicum I did my my full-time practicum at a psycho diagnostic so we were just giving out regular like diagnostic assessments um and then I did a um a supplemental practicum at a neuropsychological testing site because I wanted to learn what that was and what that looked like well I ended up falling in love with neuropsychological testing through that site and that kind of actually changed a little bit of uh not my career path but definitely the path in my doctoral program so I I was kind I didn't come in thinking that I would do neuro but now I am our school has a neurotrack and I am on the neuro track and I'm doing neuropsychological testing um at my practicum site right now full time um at a VA and it's it has been so fun I never thought that I would be uh pursuing neuropsychology I didn't think that I was good at science but this has been just so intriguing and I found out that I'm a little bit better at science than I thought I would be um and so yeah I've just I've really enjoyed the neuropsych kind of world as far as career I don't know that I'll become a neuropsychologist um that's still kind of out there in the kind of future questions that I have about my own career path but um I'm kind of setting myself up to be able to do that by doing the neuro track and taking all the classes that you need to and having neuropsychological batteries under my belt um so I'm setting myself up to so if I do choose to do that I I can and I can approach that with some confidence um so so yeah I mean definitely I was interested in testing and didn't realize the um the scope of how interested in testing I would be even to the point of neuropsychological testing and here I am that's awesome I do feel like with neuropsychology like you don't really it's hard to explain it to somebody unless they actually start doing it you know like you can kind of and describe it explain it but it's like unless you're actually doing it I think the the action part of it is is what people fall in love with yeah and so I I think that's just awesome that for you you already have that foundation in terms of therapy and seeing therapy clients but now adding that additional layer of being able to do testing and assessment I think for me too that's been a really just fun experience I've I've enjoyed as well yeah I'm wondering so let's say you have a graduate student that is just starting out their first year of graduate school they're wanting they're thinking about going into the military becoming a military psychologist what are I guess maybe the general guidelines the general steps that they should take in terms of getting there okay yeah good question so there are three different paths to becoming a neuropsychologist wow a nurse a military psychologist um so I'll kind of explain the path that I went on this is the the kind of earliest path to becoming a military psychologist this would be someone who comes in either knowing that they want to be a psychologist in the military or um has an idea that this is a path that they want to take but isn't maybe quite sure just yet um so that path is probably through What's called the health profession scholarship program we shorten it to hpsp um every every single branch of the military um and so well almost every single branch of the military has an hpsp scholarship program uh that would be Navy Army and Air Force Space Force doesn't have anything yet Marines is kind of subsumed under the Navy so if you're working in the Navy as a Navy psychologist you will most likely be working with Marines um and then I don't believe Coast Guard has an hpsp program I don't know not 100 sure about Coast Guard I'm not sure that they have psychologist positions I could be completely wrong with that I just never looked into that but the kind of three main branches Navy Army and Air Force they they have military psychologists and they're actively looking for people to become psychologists in the military so the hpsp program um each of the branches has different scholarship programs so the Navy has a three-year scholarship so um generally speaking what that means is that after or in your first year of your program assuming that your program is four years of academic work fifth year being internship like most programs are that's kind of the the general assumption here in your first year you would start working with a recruiter get in touch with a recruiter and start going through their process of the the application process for getting the scholarship um it is intense for all branches um it's it is not long but longer than most applications um you'll have to do a physical you'll have to go through uh MEPS you'll have to do all sorts of things background checks all sorts of things be medically cleared if you have some medical conditions Etc so your recruiter will kind of go over all of that with you um and just kind of discuss what options are available so um you would start that in your first year if you're interested in Navy of course because Navy is three years that's the longest scholarship um it's pretty competitive um and so a lot of people want to do the Navy uh for a lot for that reason because there's the the um the three year is is nice it's nice to have three years out of four paid for um and so so that first year you will have to pay for yourself loans whatever um but if you get that Navy scholarship you get the hpsp you'll become a commissioned officer in the Navy and then they'll commission you and then you are in um a kind of a reserve unit I'm not sure exactly what it's called for the Navy it may be the same thing but for Army it's a independent ready reserve and so that's kind of like a special sub unit of their of the reserves where they know that you're in school like this is this is your kind of your duty station so to speak um okay so that's that's Navy um if you want to do the Army the Army is a two-year scholarship so they have they actually have a two year and a one-year scholarship available okay um I went for the two-year scholarship so I was hoping to get two years of my program paid for so I started that in my second year of the program again pretty similar to the Navy um you you have you talked with the recruiter you have to go um if you have medical issues become medically cleared go do physical um background check all sorts of things um you're you're literally signing a contract with the Department of Defense uh if you if you get this so it's pretty intense it's pretty severe and they want to make sure that you are 100 in that you're 100 sure um that you really want to do this uh so that's that's the Army um and then so I got that scholarship and so they're paying for two years of my school plus giving me um a monthly stipend plus paying for books um and things that I might need for classes um so you can also elect to do the one year so you would apply for that in your third year of the program you can do the one-year scholarship um you can also do that in your fourth year if you wanted to take an extra year of academic work I've known people who have done that and then uh Air Force not a hundred percent sure on Air Force but I think they're the same as the Army where they offer a two-year and a one-year scholarship um the air force uh that was one where the I I was never able to get in touch with the recruiter um and I didn't pursue it too much just because I was already in touch with an army recruiter so um you know it was not really on the docket for me but for some people you know that might be what they want to go for and I would say go for it um so I believe it's a two-year one-year scholarship very similar to Navy and army you're gonna have a talk with a recruiter go through the whole process um and if you get the scholarship you'll become a commissioned officer you'll get two years of your program paid for they'll pay for books um and so when one of the another benefit that is is really nice with the um the hpsp is that when it comes time to internship um there is there's a there's a you have a better chance than perhaps a civilian of getting an internship it's not a guarantee and they make sure that you know that it is not a guarantee um but um there's there's a good chance you know there there are the military is already paying for you and so they they probably want you right you still have to make sure that you do everything for internship all the applications are good you got to make sure your cover letters um every training site will tell you every internship Training Site will tell you it's not a free in for hpsp you still have to show up you have to be professional you have to uh do all the things that that you need to do just like uh any sort of site okay um but it I think it does look better on applications and CVS and stuff uh stuff like that um for the The Internship training sites so that that is nice that's one of the things that's positive so that's option number one of getting into military psych option number two is if you don't do hpsp or you're not interested or you just haven't pursued it or maybe it's a later thing in that you're coming to you can enter at internship so all of the military sites are available they're on the um apic website for internship and you can actually apply to them now um you do have to be cleared by a recruiter so if you are interested in that so say you're in your fourth year and you're like you know I missed the hpsb boat but I think I'm still interested in that you would talk with a recruiter of whatever Branch or all three branches um and you would start working on the process to become medically cleared and all of that stuff um and then you could come in at internship time right if they if the site says yeah we like you um and you know you're cleared for everything then they'll come commission you and you'll enter the military and start doing all the internship process the same as us like hpsp people if we get those internship sites so it would kind of be in the same boat you just wouldn't have your school paid for and those those monthly stipends throughout the time that you're in the program but anybody can can get as long as they're cleared medically cleared background cleared anybody can get into the military at internship and as long as they you know accept you um and then the uh last option um and I think there is another option to enter at Fellowship I don't know as much about that so I I will kind of put a question mark there um but then the and this may be a part of what I'm about to say next the the um the last option is called I think called direct Ascension and that means that you're already done with your doctoral program I believe you're already a licensed psychologist at this point um I think you can come in at fellowship before you're licensed depending on the branch not 100 sure on that one um but you can come in direct Ascension your licensed psychologist and generally speaking this is a good one in terms of making money because in most branches give you a sign on bonus and the sign-on bonus is a decent sign-on bonus so if you want to join the military as a already practicing clinical psychologist um that's called direct Ascension you would meet with a recruiter you would go through the whole process you'd have to you know go through the physical and all of those things background checks Etc um and then you could come on they would commission you and you would um you know go through the the basic trainings and all of those things and then you would become a military psychologist and they call that direct Ascension so those are the three options of becoming a military psychologist wow that was an excellent thorough thank you for taking us through that and I learned so much as you were sharing that so for you once you finish your internship in your postdoc how many years do you have to put into the military until yeah like yeah so again each branch is a little bit different um and it depends on your uh your kind of contract what your payback time would be so for me it is um it's three years of of payback uh for for my scholarship so even though my scholarship is only two years the Army says you have to give three years back um it doesn't that does not include your um internship time that that counts as active duty but that doesn't count as payback time so the year of internship doesn't count as payback um I also believe that your year of postdoctoral residency does not count as payback time so that's yeah so so technically around five years for me um got it Navy I know their payback time is three years I'm not sure if internship counts or if their post-doc residency counts as that three years and same with Air Force um I think Air Force payback is three years uh again unsure of what that looks like as far as internship and postdoc residency um it could be uh it could be exactly the three years you know you do your year of internship do your year of post-doc and then only one year as a practicing clinician um practicing military psychologist to me that doesn't really make a lot of sense for the military to do it that way sure because that's one year of independent practice that they get you um it does make more sense to me the way the Army does it with um you know we're paying for your school we want you for three years of independent work um so that you can kind of pay your dues for unless paying for your school like that makes sense to me from a business perspective yeah absolutely it it's such a I'm so glad that we're talking about this because I think the the financial burden of graduate school it really weighs heavily on students especially in our time where inflation is increasing student loans I mean there's just a lot of different things that are are moving parts for us in graduating and especially you know talking to early career psychologists when you graduate you know you want to work as much as you can to kind of pay off those two loans back but then you can easily get into a a type of format where you're working 40 50 more than 50 hours a week just in trying to pay back your dues and get burned out so quickly yeah and yep of course that's not what you want as an early career psychologist when you have your whole you know your whole career ahead of you yeah so I think what is great about the military is that it provides an opportunity for students especially if they're interested in working with veterans or working in the military that that they can have that opportunity to have a little bit of their schooling paid off of and I'm sure there's a huge financial burden that's off their back that they can just really focus on their clients and their patients and their work life balance and and so I just think it's such an awesome opportunity I'm wondering for you where do you see yourself maybe even after you pay back your your time in the military do you see yourself still working with veterans or potentially seeing what other opportunities come up for you yeah I think um I think I'm just kind of open at this point right like once my contract is through I'm open if I'm just absolutely loving it like I'll I would probably renew my contract um there is so again this is this is just for the Army um when it comes to actually like doing a fellowship so if I wanted to become a neuropsychologist for instance um I would not be able to do a my fellowship right after internship um so for neuropsych you have to do a two-year Fellowship to become a neuropsychologist um I wouldn't be able to do that immediately after internship so I would have to do my on my postdoc residency become licensed fulfill my three-year contract and then um so if I wanted to do a fellowship then that's the time to do the fellowship that's this is my understanding um and it's not a bad it's not it seems like it's kind of like later but it's not a bad gig because your um your fellowship time so one thing that I did not mention is is you're paid as an officer once you start doing internship um and so the internship sites through the military are the best paying internship sites in the nation hands down you're paid as an officer so you're not getting just thirty thousand dollars or whatever that average is for internship sites in the United States you're actually getting paid a decent amount of money um living wages you know more than living wages um and so um so you're getting paid as an officer throughout internship in your postdoc residency and then of course as you are an independent um psychologist and then so then you fulfill your contract right you can choose to do a fellowship so Army has offers for neuropsych Fellowship forensic Health psychology those are the ones I know for sure off the top of my head I think there might be like a few different more like maybe Child and Adolescent there might be um uh uh some sort of maybe operational psychology too potentially I can't remember all of the different things but Army has a decent amount of Fellowship opportunities right and so I could choose if I wanted to become a neuropsychologist I could choose after my three years of payback to say I'm interested in doing Fellowship I'm sure there's some sort of application process for that and then there's probably another contract that I would sign in order to do that so I would do two years of Fellowship as a neuropsychologist um and but I would be getting paid as an officer okay so neuropsychologists now when they do Fellowship they're not getting paid barely living living wages you know um and so that's two years that they're barely getting paid this that they have to commit to this right in the Army I would be getting paid as an officer um at this level so I'm doing two years of Fellowship getting paid as an officer to me that's not a bad gig right and so again don't know what the payback would be because I haven't researched that um but there's there is that opportunity to do Fellowship as um after your first kind of contract time is over with there's also opportunities to just be a generalist psychologist in the military and redo contract they have great retention bonuses in the military because they want to keep you you know they trained you they want to keep you um and so they have great retention bonuses um you could so I could elect to just be like yeah I don't know if I want to do a fellowship but I do want to stay in as a psychologist you know maybe I want to be stationed in Japan so there's a job opening there so I'm just gonna stay in renew my contract try to go over to Japan and be a clinical psychologist at a base there um right so there's there's I'm open to what to what is next I could not have had a great experience in the military and I could just be like that I'm kind of done with my military I did my payback time so now I just want to be um you know work at a in a civilian site I could be a civilian contractor with the military where I'm no longer um like I'm no longer a part of the military but there's a lot of psychologists that are civilian contracts through the military so that could be an option right so there I'm just kind of open so all that to say I'm open to what to what is next I think that's awesome I think that's a great space to be in because you're you'll be flexible with whatever comes your way and you know I was as you were talking I was kind of thinking about you know for students who are maybe just for starting out their graduate program they're thinking about the military but you know maybe there's some apprehension some nervousness some anxiety about going into it and really committing I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit on you know like going through that process maybe what advice do you have for students and also it are are you going to be required to do like a fitness test or like basic training um you know are there certain age limits like I'm just curious about maybe certain things that people will have to face in terms of uh some obstacles in getting there sure yeah yeah there are there are age limits um and so depending on which branch you're in is is dependent on the age limit um so for instance I think with the Navy um I was still within the age limit but when it came to Army I had to get I had to sign what was called an age waiver um so I was over the age limit but because I'm interested in being a medical officer I had to get an age waiver done um yeah apparently it was not a problem you know they they accepted me um and it's fine um I'm about to turn 40 here soon so for those of you who might be a little bit later in life like um I would say if that's your interest still pursue it um uh talk about an age waiver with your recruiter um there are medical things there are certain medical things that can preclude you from getting into the military I don't know exactly what those are there is a list of medical things on the dod website um however um I I do think that they're um for some things they can wave some of those medical things so you would get a medical waiver um and again this is something that you discuss with your medical recruiter I don't know what that whole process is like so I don't know what things they could wave and what things they they couldn't wave but that is a conversation to have with your recruiter that's something to ask them and talk to them about and say Hey you know I I have this I have that um they also want a pretty extensive uh background on medical things that you have gone through like past surgeries all of that stuff and you you have to be honest about that stuff um because they can they will find it um and uh they can they can potentially kick you out if you lie about certain medical things or if you lie about medical things so you want to be honest about um all of the past history again this is a conversation that you would have with your medical recruiter um so that's that as far as medical and age um they they of course have weight restrictions too so if you're a little bit on the heavier side you do have to fall within a weight bracket for your height um and that's also um through you can find that just by Googling what are the height weight standards for whatever branch of the military you're interested in um and so again I think you can still get started with the application process if you're on the heavier side but you will want to get down within your weight I think probably by time of commissioning um if not um at least by the time you start uh basic training um so you do need to get down into your weight class then um there is a physical fitness test and again depending on Branch you can find out what that is per Branch so I think it's a little bit I think they're all trying to become standardized but I think it's different for each branch um and so you can kind of Google that I may have a link for that um Phil I don't know if you can put that in the the YouTube thing but I think I have a link for that that I can send you at least the Army um okay and so people can find out like what is the test and um and it even has you um the Army has a nice little um on their website it has like little exercises that you can do to prepare yourself for those tests too so like what kind of workouts can you do to help prepare um for those types of tests um and so and so those are the kind of like just practical things to do and as far as like any sort of trepidation or fear about pursuing the military you know I get that it's a commitment right and um it's a commitment that the military takes very seriously um and then so should you right if that's your choice like you should really take it seriously there should be something that you want to do it doesn't mean that you're gonna absolutely love it but you generally don't know that until you're there anyways in in any situation you might think that you this is the perfect thing for you and then you get there and you hate it you might think you might be questioning it you might have doubts and then you absolutely love it so um but I would say at least pursue it right talk to a recruiter um recruiters are their job is to get you in right so that's that's their job and they will do what they can generally speaking to get you in depending on the recruiter some sometimes you have to be a little bit more tenacious and reach out to them and and kind of get get their attention um but that just depends on the recruiter um I had some really really good recruiters um working with me and they were constantly in contact with me I have found the Army recruiter up here um has has been incredibly helpful and very responsive so I've really appreciated their um their recruiting station here I really can't speak highly enough for um for what they've done and how they've worked with me so so it that does depend though um you know just depends on branch and and the personality of the recruiter um but yeah I'd say as far as like fear and any sort of fear trepidation uh if you're if you're just a little bit interested just talk to a recruiter um and and see what they say and get a feel for what they're saying and give them some of your background information and see if see if that would be a good fit a lot of times you can tell if it would be a good fit um you know I walked away from the recruiting station every time just feeling like man I can't wait to do this um so it was like it was that that kind of feeling that was like um that's that's what I left with if you leave a recruiting station and you're like I don't know that sounds horrible probably don't do it you know look somewhere else thank you I think that's a great great advice and I love it because what I'm hearing you say is that you know social support really throughout this process is really important if you can find a recruiter who can kind of Mentor you through the steps yep you can balance ideas off of them ask some different questions yes it seems to be really helpful and I think that is probably Universal just in terms of just graduate school in general like I feel like for me having mentors who are rooting for me who I can go to who I can ask different questions about just navigating the space in general is just so so so helpful and so for students who are just starting out I think that's my typically like my number one piece of advice is just to try and find some support whether in your cohort or upperclassmen or just either faculty members or teachers who can kind of be there in your corner kind of cheerleading you on I'm wondering you know for you is there any other general advice that you would give students in terms of just getting through graduate school and nearing the end of their of their graduate school career yeah um stick with it you know um it's it's there will be very difficult times um there will also be very rewarding and fun times um but a lot of that it just requires some some perseverance and um some some tenacity yeah and depending on your personality um fun um definitely self-care is absolutely necessary and self-care can look differently for everybody but certainly start doing whatever you can in your first semester start establishing those those habits and those routines of self-care that will get you through because it will your first year can be difficult but in my experience is not as difficult as the other years so um start establishing routines and healthy self-care activities in those times and I think to to Echo what you're saying Phil is find mentors whether that's faculty whether that's students that are in cohorts above you whether that's somebody in the in the career field that you're trying to enter or be a part of um all of that like have that social support and then find other avenues of social support social support is incredibly necessary whether that's uh you know a pickleball club or playing volleyball in my case love playing volleyball or church or any sort of like social activity where you're gonna be able to have some support that's outside of your academic program is also going to be really beneficial um you you don't always have to think about school and I think that that's a big thing that's hard for graduate students to deal with especially full-time graduate students because there's constantly deadlines Milestones homework papers looming but it's actually healthier if you don't think about those things all the time so um try to find some outside activities that are not academic um that where you can find that support as well um I think it's a great segue you know one of the questions that I ask all my guests is you know in terms of Wellness for either the body the mind the spirit in terms of giving back to ourselves in this profession we're constantly giving to our patients and we're pouring into our school work and our social life but you know what are some of the ways for you that you give back to yourself that you take care of your soul and so that you can pour out you know you can continue to pour out to others yeah yeah really good just so just like I said volleyball I try to play volleyball as often as possible um and uh I have just recently kind of picked up pickleball um I loved playing tennis but um as I'm getting older tennis is a little bit more difficult and so some friends have started playing pickleball and so I've kind of started adopting that and been playing that a little bit more I try to stay active that's generally my one one of my self-care activities to try to give back just ran my first 5k a couple weeks ago you know of course being active is necessary for the military so it's also in prep for military um but I yeah I do try to stay active and have have times of active work um and then I would also say for me um church is a really good place to have some some support and to to kind of be poured into um and fed and and getting that kind of community um friends um one of my biggest values in life is is fun and so I you know game nights trying to hang out with people from cohorts our cohort um people from church people from wherever you know I try to have fun and make that a huge priority in my career because I know that if I'm not having fun in school then I I'm going to lose my motivation I'm just gonna not have that and it's not gonna work well for me and I'm gonna get burnt out really quickly so um so those are some of the actually practical activities I think um and depending on personality and your values I think you can kind of create self-care activities that fit your personality and your values but those are some of those are the things that I do that fit my um personality and and values that's awesome I was listening to something the other day that was talking about the power of laughter and how when people you know go to work they were just doing a research study that showed that the people who laugh a lot at their workspace are actually very productive in their work um they're able to have a lot of mental energy into their work and so you talking about just having fun throughout this process I know it's it's incredibly stressful at times but being able to have fun and laugh throughout the process and and be with people I think is such such a huge blessing and and it kind of helps you to carry a little bit of that weight in terms of all of the things that come from school so yes I agree I agree well Ethan this was an awesome conversation thank you so much for sharing your experience going in such a detail with how to go into the military for people and just for your time here there's um I just want to also say there's another link hopefully um that you got Phil and that is a um what uh it's a link to an article that was written by a Navy psychologist and it is the um it's the how much you make the salaries now this I think was posted in 2019 and so of course the salaries have increased since then but this is a general idea of what you can make as a military psychologist and it is fantastic information um so if anybody's interested like at least on the the salary side of things um that link is a really good link as well yes I I think it's definitely really important for people to know how competitive the salary is and uh and not only that but it's like for me I did my clinical rotation in the VA you know as my last clinical rotation and I loved it I loved working with the veterans I loved going to the VA hospital and so I think it's not just a competitive salary but it's also a really great place to work yeah to be supervised by and so it's literally The Best of Both Worlds when it comes down to it so yeah yeah we'll definitely definitely make sure to put down that link in the show notes but once again Ethan thank you thank you so much I am looking forward to seeing where you go in terms of your future aspirations and becoming a psychologist neuropsychologist military psychologist all of the above yeah time will tell time will tell sky is the limit yeah yeah yes well thank you so much for having me Phil um uh it's been a great sharing my story and all of the opportunities that the military provides and thank you for opening up this opportunity for us to to have this conversation and discourse about um this uh the amazing opportunities that we have um with the military so I really appreciate that um yeah absolutely it was great having you