California Lutheran University’s Psi Chi Chapter, the International Honors Society in Psychology, hosted their annual grad night on Oct. 29. The event was an informative session for undergraduates applying or interested in applying to graduate school.

Natalie Cicekci, senior and treasurer of Psi Chi, is currently going through the grad school application process along with several other Cal Lutheran students.

“We wanted to give an outline to students on how to apply to graduate school. We wanted to make it applicable to all students of all majors,” Cicekci said.

Gupreet Sahan, a former Cal Lutheran student, made an appearance to share his insight on the application process as well as his overall experience at grad school. 

“We went over the basic routine for how to get into grad schools. If you are doing it all by yourself and Googling everything and trying to figure out the process by trial and error it’s really stressful,” Emily Glossbrenner, vice president, said.

Mikaela Polster, this year’s president of Psi Chi, said she was happy about the turnout and impressed by the guest speakers.

“Dr. Sharmah [PsyD and Assistant Professor and Director of Clinical Training at Cal Lutheran] did a phenomenal job. I’ve been through the application process and did research on my own and I learned things tonight that I didn’t even know,” Polster said. “I thought it was really helpful to have someone who is actually reading applications talk about what they’re looking for in an application.”

Polster wasn’t the only officer excited about the amount of students that showed up.

“It’s good to see that students are really interested in applying to grad school. We’re glad we had a big turnout,” Cicekci said.

For students interested in joining, Polster emphasized the distinction between being a member of the honor society and being a member of the club.

“To be a part of the honor society you have to reach a certain GPA requirement, but to be a part of Psi Chi Connections you don’t have to meet any requirements so it’s open to everyone,” Glossbrenner said.

Psi Chi applications are due on Dec. 1 and there is a list of requirements to join on their website.

“Psi Chi Connections is available to any social science major. Feel free to come to events and meetings because we give away a lot of relevant information,” Polster said.

Several non-psychology majors were present at the event, resulting in a more diverse turnout since it is usually a psychology major heavy event.

“Our information that we give during grad night is applicable to all social science majors,” Polster said. “A lot of people don’t utilize the resources we have here at Cal Lutheran as often as they could and Psi Chi is one of those great resources for students who want to attend grad school.”

Psi Chi Connections has a roster of about 30 and there are nearly 10 inductees for the honor society each year.

“Hopefully the event continues to grow and expand so that we can get people from all majors to come and access the information that we have,” Polster said.

Undergraduates who weren’t able to attend this year’s event can look forward to next year or contact any of the Psi Chi officers for further questions.

Psi Chi meets every other Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

Katy Lindor
Staff Writer
Published November 4th, 2015