One Step Closer to My Goal; Pursuing an M.S. in Forensic and Legal Psychology

Last week Leah and I reflected back on summer with a quick look at what's to come. This week I want to take a deeper dive into what's to come since I'll have my first day of my new master's program tomorrow, and I cannot be more excited.

The program that I'll start is a Master of Science in Forensic and Legal Psychology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I am excited yet anxious. I have gone through 5 years of school within the American educational system and I feel like it'll be a major switch to get used to the Dutch educational system at their universities. I want to take the time to go through my courses and kind of outline the year.

The year consists of 5 'blokken' (semesters almost), with the first 'blok' starting (technically) today. The first period will last until the first week of October and I will cover two courses:

1. Introduction to Forensic and Legal Psychology
2. Forensic Psychological Assessment in Criminal Law

The second period will go start October 9th and go until like the 2nd week of November. In this period I will be covering two other classes that still go hand in hand:

1. Etiology of Offender Types and Forensic Neuroscience
2. Techniques in Forensic Neuroscience

We then go on into the third period which goes until December 15th, after which I will have three weeks of Christmas break. During these weeks I hope that I'm gonna be able to visit Michael in the United States as well as pick up some of the stuff that I left there since I was initially planning on returning to the United States. Flights are extremely expensive though so we're gonna see what the possibilities will be. The third period will be more treatment-focused. We will also have two classes to cover this:

1. Forensic Diagnostics and Treatment
2. Treatment Interventions in Forensic Populations

After the new year, we're gonna cover my least favorite topic: STATISTICS....!!! I truly wished last year was my last year of stats, but it's okay, I have faith that I'm gonna be able to finish the courses strong. I do have the advantage that I've done quite some SPSS work at both Lindenwood and Lewis University and that I've always received good teaching with the software but still, we're gonna have to cover it again:

1. Applied Multivariate Data Analysis
2. Practical Applied Multivariate Data Analysis Using SPSS

Lastly, we have period five, starting in February. During this time we need to finish up our master's thesis and complete an internship. I really like that this program separates school and internship because I could not imagine the workload if the two were separated. I don't know how everything is gonna play out, how to find internships, or when to start my thesis. Tomorrow during my first lecture we should receive more information regarding the master and its progression throughout the year. I'll keep you all posted!!