Tapaigh an Dies

Life of a Senior Psych Major

When I was a sophomore, I switched my major from Biology to Psychology. While there was one professor who was really instramental in causing this switch, I can say that all of the psych professors at Hartwick made me glad I made it. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to pursue a research opportunity with my thesis advisor. My thesis is extremely interesting to me - basically, I’m looking at the difference between optimists and pessimists in terms of areas where pessimists could potentially do better than optimists, or at least perform at an even level. Entitled The Two Dark Horses of Self-Regulation: Anxiety, Depression, and Their Differential Effects on the Self-Regulation of Pessimists (haaa, I sound so smart!!), it looks at the different conditions where pessimists are able to prosper. Hopefully, by looking into this, eventually cognitive thought therapy will be able to help pessimists train themselves to persist in the face of conflict, rather than giving up. 

I entered the Freedman Award competition at my school, and went through the process of submitting an abstract, a proposal, and a twenty-minute presentation, and I was actually awarded the grand prize for $1,000!! This, of course, now means I have more work to do as I need to prepare for the Scholarship Showcase at my school, a presentation for the Freedman’s themselves, and actually finish my thesis so I can present it at a conference / try to get it published - but I’m actually kind of looking forward to all that. At the very least, it should all be a good experience.