School of Psychology and Counseling

My name is Ben Freer. I'm the director of the School of Psychology and Counseling here at Fairleigh Dickinson University. I love working at Fairleigh Dickinson because I get to have close interactions with students and guide them towards the careers that they want. There are so many great things about being in Fairleigh Dickinson Psychology and Counseling program. Two of the things that I value the most, our student centered perspective, where we really work closely with students and interact with them in meaningful ways. The other aspect is that we have faculty, who touch on psychology and counseling, and in so many different aspects. We have clinical psychologist, school psychologist, forensic psychologist, experimental psychologist, industrial organizational psychologist, as well as our Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program. For graduate students, we have many different opportunities and the opportunity to grow from a master's program into doctoral programs as well. At the Metropolitan campus, we offer a number of master's programs including Forensic Psychology, General Theoretical Psychology, and School Psychology with a master's plus certification. At the doctoral level at the Metropolitan campus, we offer a Clinical Psychology Ph. D program, which is APA accredited, as well as the School of Psychology Psy D program. For master's students, you'll have opportunities to be in small classrooms where you really get to know your faculty member, and your classmates. We operate on a cohort system so that you're really experienced multiple classes with the same students. You'll also be involved with research with those faculty-- where you can really understand what's going on in the field, and how we better answer questions. In addition to our research opportunities, there's clinical and field opportunities, where you get to apply what you've learned in the classroom into the settings. Some examples of this include positions in clinical fields, in clinicians offices, in inpatient mental health hospitals, law enforcement, and school settings to allow students to really understand what their career will be once they've graduated the program. Of note, our traditional forensic master's program offers students the opportunity to learn in small class settings of about 15 students, where they'll work with their same cohort of students throughout the 16 month program. This will allow students to be prepared to enter forensic settings such as prisons, jails, social services. Even with some students moving on to the FBI and Homeland Security. Students can also get involved with our student driven journal. The Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences offers students an opportunity to publish their own research, as well as review, and critique other research it's submitted from around the country. This not only provides undergraduates opportunities, but also our graduate students to get involved in what it means to run a journal for an academic field. We also offer Psi Chi, the honor society for psychology as well as our Student Alliance club. These two organizations allow students to get involved and interact with each other in a more personal informal way. We also bring in speakers to discuss career opportunities, and have participated in fundraisers to help our communities on both of our New Jersey campuses. For students who are interested in international psychology, we also take visits to the United Nations, where we discuss the way that psychology interacts with Global Policy and International Politics. Some of the events of the United Nations have included International Day of the Family, Psychology Day, and the Commission on the Status of Women. In the School of Psychology and Counseling, we are really welcoming to our students. We have an open door policy as faculty. So students can come by at any time to express their questions, their concerns, and get advisement both about classes they want to take, as well as career expectations and opportunities for themselves. In addition to this, we really operate under the guiding motto of empowering our students to do what they want to do with their careers. Our goal is to make sure that students know about the opportunities that they can have in their career, and we want to empower you to get to that place. This counts for students at the undergraduate level as freshmen, all the way for Masters working on thesis, and doctoral students working on their dissertation. I can't wait to see you here at Fairleigh Dickinson University. If you have any questions you can visit us on the website fdu.edu/psychology. You can also email some of the directors, myself included, or faculty to learn more about our programs.