Psychology Skills Broaden Opportunites
[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 10
8 December - 12 January 2009 ] By Janine Sim-Jones
During her PhD Isla Carboon interviewed dozens of people who had recently been diagnosed with life-threatening cancers. It was a project which required her to combine great sensitivity and compassion alongside the more traditional research skills such as study design and statistical analysis.
“I worked in the Peter MacCallum, Royal Melbourne and Alfred hospitals to recruit into the study people who had leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma,” she says.
“I interviewed these people in the early stages of their diagnosis to explore how their beliefs and attitudes helped them cope emotionally.”
Dr Carboon says her PhD, from the University of Melbourne’s School of Behavioural Science, created many opportunities.
She spent three months on a University-funded study visit to New York, where she presented her research at conferences and worked with leading researchers in psycho-oncology at Mount Sinai and Memorial Sloan Kettering hospitals.
“It was a fantastic experience which really showed me that the quality of the research we do here in Melbourne stands up internationally,” she says.
Dr Carboon hopes her research will be a valuable resource for people working with cancer patients in the future.
She says the process of doing a PhD was also invaluable in preparing her for her current career as a Senior Research Officer with Victoria Police.
She is part of a team which evaluates the organisation’s policies and programs and conducts research on the social and economic factors which impact on policing operations in Victoria.
“The process of doing research teaches you a lot about dealing with people and the reality of putting a research project together teaches you a lot about how to be an effective manager,” she says.
Dr Carboon says graduates with research skills in psychology are increasingly in demand. She says that psychology graduates’ rigorous grasp of research methodology is valued by many employers.
“When I tell people I work for the police they often think that some kind of training in criminology or a related field would be most relevant,” she says. Psychology gives you such extensive and rigorous research training. Psychology students are really well trained in statistics and research methods and that means you can follow all sorts of different paths in your career and do research in many different areas that affect public policy.”
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