By: Carolyn Bazan
What led you to this field and/or career path? I started my academic career early on, although I didn’t know it at the time. When I was in community college, I took a psychology course that I found fascinating and spurred my interest in the field—as is the experience for many others. On the advice of my professor, I took many of the other psychology courses that were offered, and I decided to declare a psychology major once I transferred to my undergraduate alma mater, San Diego State University. There were a lot of courses, fields, and majors that interested me, and part of me assumed that I would eventually change my major to something else. But as I kept on, and got involved in research, learned more about health disparities and inequities, and explored options for a career path as a psychologist, I found my place and never looked back.
I find it so rewarding to find ways to empower communities and change systems to promote equity. Of course, it helps that throughout my undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral training, I’ve been fortunate to have incredible mentors and opportunities to work on projects that I’m truly passionate about, which I hope to create for others in the TRACC program and beyond.
What does work/life balance look like for you? For me, this means taking care of myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. I learned in graduate school that in academia, there’s no such thing as being “caught up,” and there’s always something you could be doing or working on. So, you have to create your own spaces for self-care and personal fulfillment.
Some of my highest priorities are getting enough sleep, staying engaged with nature, and having dedicated personal time for activities (e.g., reading, watching movies, spending time with my husband and dogs). I find that sometimes, evening and weekend work is unavoidable, especially during certain times of year—but keeping “personal time” as a priority and monitoring my time helps to guide whether I need to start saying no to things. I also try to find ways to make my work life easier, by finding the times of day that work best for my productivity, practicing mindfulness, and minimizing distractions in completing a task, such as staying off my phone and closing email while I’m writing.
If you hadn’t become a psychologist, what might have you done instead? When I was a kid, my earliest dream job was being a teacher—or a game show host, since that seemed like a fun job. I also loved reading, and my career plan for the longest time was to be a librarian. You can probably tell that I’ve always had a passion for reading and discovering new ideas, which I think lends itself well to my current career!
What advice would you give to someone starting out in your field? Some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten was to figure out what I wanted to do in my career, and then get the degree that let me do that. That helped me and a lot of my peers figure out whether a master’s, or a doctoral degree (and what type), would help us reach our specific goals. Something else I’ve learned along the way is that there’s no right answer, and no right path. Your plans and goals can change, and that’s perfectly fine.
As you navigate your career choices, I would encourage you to take advantage of new opportunities (balancing with expectations and what’s actually feasible for your time), even if they’re totally different than anything you’ve done before. Doing new things can be uncomfortable, but embracing discomfort can help you learn and grow. Some of the things I’m most proud of, like writing my first grant and advocating for myself, came with feeling uncertainty, anxiety, or worry about the outcome. Again, mentors are incredible in this area—talk to people in the field that you can trust to coach you through these situations, finding the right approach while navigating discomfort. And last, remember that while grad school is tough—it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but it doesn’t last forever!
What is your favorite food/restaurant? I grew up in San Diego, California, so this answer will always be tacos.