Educational Psychology Personal Statement

When I declared a psychology major during the second year of my undergraduate career, my objective was to attend medical school and eventually become a psychiatrist. I enjoyed the psychology classes in which I was enrolled and found them to compliment the premed curriculum I also wanted to study. I reasoned that a major in psychology would provide insight that could later be useful in my planned studies of psychiatry. Although I decided against going to medical school, psychology remained the primary area of focus of my studies with the ultimate career goal of becoming a clinical psychologist. While my long term professional plans include achieving a PhD and becoming a clinical psychologist. Pursuing a masters degree in educational psychology will allow me to ultimately reach this goal while gaining professional experience as a school psychologist and serving a greatly needed role in the educational system of the inner city schools of the metropolitan area of Northern New Jersey and the surrounding suburbs. The majority of my experience working with children came from being a tutor for a third grade girl who attended my former grammar school. Her grades were slipping and her parents wanted her to have a mentor/tutor to aid her in completing her homework everyday after school. I quickly found out that while being a bright child she had trouble keeping up during class and would as a result would be lost when left to complete homework. She had parents who were too busy to give her the aid she required and I was hired to work with her for one spring term every day after school. By the end of the term she was no longer in danger of being left back in the third grade and had a new found self confidence that not only allowed her to complete homework assignments independently but also allowed her to excel in the quizzes, tests and presentations that had once caused her so much anxiety. I was after this experience that I realized that the