#psychology research jobs sydney

[mariacallous]

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Those aren’t just lyrics from the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They’re also the questions that the brain must constantly answer while processing streams of visual signals from the eyes and purely mental pictures bubbling out of the imagination. Brain scan studies have repeatedly found that seeing something and imagining it evoke highly similar patterns of neural activity. Yet for most of us, the subjective experiences they produce are very different.

“I can look outside my window right now, and if I want to, I can imagine a unicorn walking down the street,” said Thomas Naselaris, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. The street would seem real and the unicorn would not. “It’s very clear to me,” he said. The knowledge that unicorns are mythical barely plays into that: A simple imaginary white horse would seem just as unreal.

So “why are we not constantly hallucinating?” asked Nadine Dijkstra, a postdoctoral fellow at University College London. A study she led, recently published in Nature Communications, provides an intriguing answer: The brain evaluates the images it is processing against a “reality threshold.” If the signal passes the threshold, the brain thinks it’s real; if it doesn’t, the brain thinks it’s imagined.

Such a system works well most of the time because imagined signals are typically weak. But if an imagined signal is strong enough to cross the threshold, the brain takes it for reality.

Although the brain is very competent at assessing the images in our minds, it appears that “this kind of reality checking is a serious struggle,” said Lars Muckli, a professor of visual and cognitive neurosciences at the University of Glasgow. The new findings raise questions about whether variations or alterations in this system could lead to hallucinations, invasive thoughts, or even dreaming.

“They’ve done a great job, in my opinion, of taking an issue that philosophers have been debating about for centuries and defining models with predictable outcomes and testing them,” Naselaris said.

When Perceptions and Imagination Mix

Dijkstra’s study of imagined images was born in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when quarantines and lockdowns interrupted her scheduled work. Bored, she started going through the scientific literature on imagination—and then spent hours combing papers for historical accounts of how scientists tested such an abstract concept. That’s how she came upon a 1910 study conducted by the psychologist Mary Cheves West Perky.

Perky asked participants to picture fruits while staring at a blank wall. As they did so, she secretly projected extremely faint images of those fruits—so faint as to be barely visible—on the wall and asked the participants if they saw anything. None of them thought they saw anything real, although they commented on how vivid their imagined image seemed. “If I hadn’t known I was imagining, I would have thought it real,” one participant said.

A 1910 study by the psychologist Mary Cheves West Perky found that when our perceptions match what we are imagining, we assume that their inputs are imaginary.Photograph: DOI/Quanta Magazine

Perky’s conclusion was that when our perception of something matches what we know we are imagining, we will assume it is imaginary. It eventually came to be known in psychology as the Perky effect. “It’s a huge classic,” said Bence Nanay, a professor of philosophical psychology at the University of Antwerp. It became kind of a “compulsory thing when you write about imagery to say your two cents about the Perky experiment.”

In the 1970s, the psychology researcher Sydney Joelson Segal revived interest in Perky’s work by updating and modifying the experiment. In one follow-up study, Segal asked participants to imagine something, such as the New York City skyline, while he projected something else faintly onto the wall—such as a tomato. What the participants saw was a mix of the imagined image and the real one, such as the New York City skyline at sunset. Segal’s findings suggested that perception and imagination can sometimes “quite literally mix,” Nanay said.

Not all studies that aimed to replicate Perky’s findings succeeded. Some of them involved repeated trials for the participants, which muddied the results: Once people know what you’re trying to test, they tend to change their answers to what they think is correct, Naselaris said.

So Dijkstra, under the direction of Steve Fleming, a metacognition expert at University College London, set up a modern version of the experiment that avoided the problem. In their study, participants never had a chance to edit their answers because they were tested only once. The work modeled and examined the Perky effect and two other competing hypotheses for how the brain tells reality and imagination apart.

Evaluation Networks

One of those alternative hypotheses says that the brain uses the same networks for reality and imagination, but that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans don’t have high enough resolution for neuroscientists to discern the differences in how the networks are used. One of Muckli’s studies, for example, suggests that in the brain’s visual cortex, which processes images, imaginary experiences are coded in a more superficial layer than real experiences are.

With functional brain imaging, “we’re squinting our eyes,” Muckli said. Within each equivalent of a pixel in a brain scan, there are about 1,000 neurons, and we can’t see what each one is doing.

The other hypothesis, suggested by studies led by Joel Pearson at the University of New South Wales, is that the same pathways in the brain code for both imagination and perception, but imagination is just a weaker form of perception.

During the pandemic lockdown, Dijkstra and Fleming recruited for an online study. Four hundred participants were told to look at a series of static-filled images and imagine diagonal lines tilting through them to the right or left. Between each trial, they were asked to rate how vivid the imagery was on a scale of 1 to 5. What the participants did not know was that in the last trial, the researchers slowly raised the intensity of a faint projected image of diagonal lines—tilted either in the direction the participants were told to imagine or in the opposite direction. The researchers then asked the participants if what they saw was real or imagined.

Dijkstra expected that she would find the Perky effect—that when the imagined image matched the projected one, the participants would see the projection as the product of their imagination. Instead, the participants were much more likely to think the image was really there.

Yet there was at least an echo of the Perky effect in those results: Participants who thought the image was there saw it more vividly than the participants who thought it was all their imagination.

In a second experiment, Dijkstra and her team didn’t present an image during the last trial. But the result was the same: The people who rated what they were seeing as more vivid were also more likely to rate it as real.

The observations suggest that imagery in our mind’s eye and real perceived images in the world do get mixed together, Dijkstra said. “When this mixed signal is strong or vivid enough, we think it reflects reality.” It’s likely that there’s some threshold above which visual signals feel real to the brain and below which they feel imagined, she thinks. But there could also be a more gradual continuum.

To learn what’s happening within a brain trying to distinguish reality from imagination, the researchers reanalyzed brain scans from a previous study in which 35 participants vividly imagined and perceived various images, from watering cans to roosters.

In keeping with other studies, they found that the activity patterns in the visual cortex in the two scenarios were very similar. “Vivid imagery is more like perception, but whether faint perception is more like imagery is less clear,” Dijkstra said. There were hints that looking at a faint image could produce a pattern similar to that of imagination, but the differences weren’t significant and need to be examined further.

Scans of brain function show that imagined and perceived images trigger similar patterns of activity, but the signals are weaker for the imagined ones (at left).Courtesy of Nadine Dijkstra/Quanta Magazine

What is clear is that the brain must be able to accurately regulate how strong a mental image is to avoid confusion between fantasy and reality. “The brain has this really careful balancing act that it has to perform,” Naselaris said. “In some sense it is going to interpret mental imagery as literally as it does visual imagery.”

They found that the strength of the signal might be read or regulated in the frontal cortex, which analyzes emotions and memories (among its other duties). But it’s not yet clear what determines the vividness of a mental image or the difference between the strength of the imagery signal and the reality threshold. It could be a neurotransmitter, changes to neuronal connections or something totally different, Naselaris said.

It could even be a different, unidentified subset of neurons that sets the reality threshold and dictates whether a signal should be diverted into a pathway for imagined images or a pathway for genuinely perceived ones—a finding that would tie the first and third hypotheses together neatly, Muckli said.

Even though the findings are different from his own results, which support the first hypothesis, Muckli likes their line of reasoning. It’s an “exciting paper,” he said. It’s an “intriguing conclusion.”

But imagination is a process that involves much more than just looking at a few lines on a noisy background, said Peter Tse, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth College. Imagination, he said, is the capacity to look at what’s in your cupboard and decide what to make for dinner, or (if you’re the Wright brothers) to take a propeller, stick it on a wing and imagine it flying.

The differences between Perky’s findings and Dijkstra’s could be entirely due to differences in their procedures. But they also hint at another possibility: that we could be perceiving the world differently than our ancestors did.

Her study didn’t focus on belief in an image’s reality but was more about the “feeling” of reality, Dijkstra said. The authors speculate that because projected images, video, and other representations of reality are commonplace in the 21st century, our brains may have learned to evaluate reality slightly differently than people did just a century ago.

Even though participants in this experiment “were not expecting to see something, it’s still more expected than if you’re in 1910 and you’ve never seen a projector in your life,” Dijkstra said. The reality threshold today is therefore likely much lower than in the past, so it may take an imagined image that’s much more vivid to pass the threshold and confuse the brain.

A Basis for Hallucinations

The findings open up questions about whether the mechanism could be relevant to a wide range of conditions in which the distinction between imagination and perception dissolves. Dijkstra speculates, for example, that when people start to drift off to sleep and reality begins blending with the dream world, their reality threshold might be dipping. In conditions like schizophrenia, where there is a “general breakdown of reality,” there could be a calibration issue, Dijkstra said.

“In psychosis, it could be either that their imagery is so good that it just hits that threshold, or it could be that their threshold is off,” said Karolina Lempert, an assistant professor of psychology at Adelphi University who was not involved in the study. Some studies have found that in people who hallucinate, there’s a sort of sensory hyperactivity, which suggests that the image signal is increased. But more research is needed to establish the mechanism by which hallucinations emerge, she added. “After all, most people who experience vivid imagery do not hallucinate.”

Nanay thinks it would be interesting to study the reality thresholds of people who have hyperphantasia, an extremely vivid imagination that they often confuse with reality. Similarly, there are situations in which people suffer from very strong imagined experiences that they know are not real, as when hallucinating on drugs or in lucid dreams. In conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, people often “start seeing things that they didn’t want to,” and it feels more real than it should, Dijkstra said.

Some of these problems may involve failures in brain mechanisms that normally help make these distinctions. Dijkstra thinks it might be fruitful to look at the reality thresholds of people who have aphantasia, the inability to consciously imagine mental images.

The mechanisms by which the brain distinguishes what’s real from what’s imaginary could also be related to how it distinguishes between real and fake (inauthentic) images. In a world where simulations are getting closer to reality, distinguishing between real and fake images is going to get increasingly challenging, Lempert said. “I think that maybe it’s a more important question than ever.”

Dijkstra and her team are now working to adapt their experiment to work in a brain scanner. “Now that lockdown is over, I want to look at brains again,” she said.

She eventually hopes to figure out if they can manipulate this system to make imagination feel more real. For example, virtual reality and neural implants are now being investigated for medical treatments, such as to help blind people see again. The ability to make experiences feel more or less real, she said, could be really important for such applications.

It’s not outlandish, given that reality is a construct of the brain.

“Underneath our skull, everything is made up,” Muckli said. “We entirely construct the world, in its richness and detail and color and sound and content and excitement. … It is created by our neurons.”

That means one person’s reality is going to be different from another person’s, Dijkstra said: “The line between imagination and reality is just not so solid.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Cory Clark and Bo Winegard

Published: Jul 27, 2020

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. ~Timothy Leary

Many feminists and progressives argue that the West is plagued by pervasive misogyny. In fact, this claim is made with such frequency, and is so rarely challenged, that it has become part of the Left’s catechism of victimhood, repeated by rote without a second thought. The only real question is how powerful and pernicious the misogyny is. Real-world data, however, suggest a different narrative, complicated by the fact that men have worse outcomes in many domains. For example, they are much more likely to be incarcerated, to be shot by the police, to be a victim of violent crime, to be homeless, to commit suicide, and to die on the job or in combat than women. Furthermore, they have a shorter life expectancy and are less likely to be college educated than women. Although these (and similar) data can be reconciled with the pervasive misogyny theory, they should at least give pause to the open-minded. The best data from contemporary social science tell a rather different story and suggest that the very persistence of the pervasive misogyny narrative is itself a manifestation of the opposite: society is largely biased in favor of women.

The world, of course, is a messy place and disparities between men and women may have many causes. This is why carefully controlled social science is useful for examining the extent, direction, and nature of sex-related biases. Although the details can get complicated, the basic idea behind most bias studies is pretty straightforward. Researchers present participants with identical information that has some bearing on the abilities of males or females while manipulating which sex the information is about. For example, they might ask two groups of people to evaluate identical essays, telling one group that it was written by a man and the other group that it was written by a woman. If participants who believed the essay was written by a man evaluated it as more compelling, more intelligent, more insightful, and so on than participants who believed it was written by a woman, psychologists would consider that a bias in favor of men. Similarly, if one asked two groups of people to evaluate identical scientific studies that discovered that either men or women performed better on a measure of leadership, and participants who read that men outperformed women regarded the study as higher quality than participants who read that women outperformed men, psychologists would consider this a male-favoring bias (everyday people consider such patterns to be biases as well).

Contrary to expectations from the pervasive misogyny theory, across a variety of topics, samples, and research teams, recent findings in psychology suggest that such biases often favor women. For example, a paper just published in the British Journal of Psychology led by Steve Stewart-Williams found that people respond to research on sex differences in ways that favor females. In two studies, participants were asked to read a popular science article that was experimentally manipulated to suggest that either men or women have a more desirable quality (for example, men/women are better at drawing or men/women lie less often). Participants evaluated the female-favoring research more favorably than the male-favoring research. Specifically, participants found the female-favoring research more important, more plausible, and more well-conducted and found the male-favoring research more offensive, more harmful, more upsetting, and more inherently sexist. This pro-female bias was observed among both male and female participants, and in study two, the researchers replicated the results in a south-east Asian sample.

In some of our own work, we found a similar pattern for the socially desired trait of intelligence. In two studies, participants read about a (fictitious) scientific study that identified a gene associated with higher intelligence that purported to explain why either (1) men score higher on intelligence tests than women, (2) women score higher on intelligence tests than men, or (3) men and women score roughly equally on intelligence tests. Participants evaluated the scientific study to be similarly credible when it drew the conclusion that men and women score equally on intelligence tests and when women were said to score higher than men, but participants found the study less credible when it suggested that men score higher on intelligence tests than women.

In a related study, participants read about a college entrance exam that is remarkably accurate at predicting academic performance in college. They were told that either men tend to outperform women or that women tend to outperform men on the exam. Participants endorsed use of the exam more when women were said to outperform men than when men were said to outperform women. These findings suggest that people more readily accept the notion that women could be smarter than men than vice versa.

Scholars observed a similar pattern among psychology academics. In 2017, the social scientists William von Hippel and David Buss emailed a survey to a sample of psychologists, asking their beliefs about a variety of evolutionary claims and findings. These psychologists were more likely to endorse a female-favoring sex difference than a male-favoring one. Specifically, they were more likely to accept that women could have evolved to be more verbally talented than men than that men could have evolved to be more mathematically talented than women. Although these sex differences are not perfectly symmetrical (one regards verbal ability and the other mathematical ability), there is little reason to believe that an evolutionary explanation for one sex difference is more plausible than the other. Like non-academics, scientists themselves may have preferences for pro-female information over pro-male information.

We have also found that people have a stronger desire to censor science that disfavors women. In this study, participants were asked to read a series of passages from books and to decide whether the text should be censored (for example, whether it should be removed from the library, whether a professor should not be allowed to require it for class). One passage argued that either men or women make better leaders. The results showed that people wanted to censor the book more when it argued that men make better leaders than women than when it argued the opposite.

Ironically, these pro-female preferences may explain why mainstream narratives focus so assiduously on the possibility of anti-female biases: society cares more about the wellbeing of women than men and is thus less tolerant of disparities that disfavor them. A series of studies led by Katharina Block found that people care more about female underrepresentation in careers than male underrepresentation. In one such study, for example, participants were told that a particular career was dominated either by men or women. Participants were then asked whether policies and programs should be put in place to encourage whichever group was underrepresented to enter that career and whether efforts should be made to actively recruit the underrepresented group. Participants were more likely to support this social action when women were underrepresented than when men were.

Moreover, when the career was said to be accompanied by a high salary, people were more likely to say that prohibitive norms were blocking women from entering the male-dominated career than that prohibitive norms were blocking men from entering the female-dominated fields. So, people are more likely to believe that external barriers explain women’s underrepresentation in desirable careers than men’s underrepresentation. These findings suggest that when real world disparities exist between men and women, people are more likely to care and more likely to try to engage in corrective behavior when women are at a disadvantage.

One explanation for these pro-female biases is that humans may have evolved a general protectiveness of women. Indeed, numerous reports over the past few decades have shown that people have more sympathy for female than male suffering. For just a few examples, people are less willing to harm a female than a male, women receive more help than men, those who harm women are punished more severely than those who harm men, and women are punished less severely than men for the same crimes.

Such findings contradict the concept of “himpathy,” introduced in philosopher Kate Manne’s successful book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Anecdotes can create an illusion of excessive sympathy for men, but more systematic analyses suggest the opposite: People are vastly more sympathetic toward women. The success of Manne’s book might indeed be a manifestation of these very sympathies, because people are more alarmed and disturbed by the possibility of a bias against women than against men.

Concerns about women’s wellbeing are so strong that researchers often frame pro-female preferences and biases as harmful to women. For example, in a series of studies led by Lily Jampol, researchers asked participants to evaluate essays and give feedback to the author. Participants who then discovered the essay writer was female were more likely to adjust their performance evaluations upward than participants who were told the essay writer was male. This paper was entitled “The Dark Side of White Lies in the Workplace: Feedback to Women Is Upwardly Distorted,” highlighting the potentially harmful consequences of providing softened or distorted feedback to women.

Of course, it is possible that overly positive feedback harms women in the long-run, but it might also help them, for example, if it boosts their confidence, or if evaluators internalize the flattering feedback. Furthermore, it’s difficult to imagine that similar but opposite results would be framed as potentially deleterious to men. It seems as if research is often framed as “if biases favor men, then that’s bad for women; if biases favor women, then that’s also bad for women.” For example, the women-are-wonderful effect, which is the tendency for people to view women more favorably than men, is often regarded as a form of benevolent sexism against women. We eagerly await a paper that claims preferences for men as teachers or leaders illustrates a kind of benevolent sexism against men.

Though not exhaustive, the table below summarizes findings from numerous studies demonstrating biases and attitudes that appear to favor women.

Various findings demonstrating biases, attitudes, and treatments that favor women over men

People prefer to spare the lives of females over the lives of males : Awad, Bonnefon, Shariff, & Rahwan, 2019

People support more social action to correct female underrepresentation in careers than male underrepresentation : Block, Croft, De Souza, & Schmader, 2019

Both male and female faculty preferred hiring a female over a male applicant for tenure-track assistant professorships in STEM : Ceci & Williams, 2015

Offenders who victimize females receive longer sentences than those who victimize males; males who victimize females receive the longest sentences : Curry, Lee, & Rodriguez, 2004

Police respond more negatively toward hypothetical male rape victims than hypothetical female rape victims : Davies, Smith, & Rogers, 2009

Women receive more help than men : Eagly & Crowley, 1986

Women are evaluated more favorably than men : Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991

People are less willing to harm females than males : FeldmanHall, Dalgleish, Evans, Navrady, Tedeschi, & Mobbs, 2016

In vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women are given longer sentences than those who kill men : Glaeser & Sacerdote, 2003

People are particularly intolerant of aggression from a male and aggression directed toward a female : Harris & Knight-Bohnhoff, 1996

People adjust essay performance evaluations upward when they learn the writer is female : Jampol & Zayas, 2017

Women are punished less than men for the same crime : Mazzella & Feingold, 1994

Controlling for numerous characteristics, men receive longer prison sentences than women : Mustard, 2001

People have more empathy for female than male perpetrators and female than male victims : Osman, 2011

Women are more easily seen as victims and men as perpetrators : Reynolds, Howard, Sjåstad, Zhu, Okimoto, Baumeister, Aquino, & Kim, 2020

People attribute less guilt to a female-on-male sexual aggressor than a male-on-female sexual aggressor : Russel, Oswald, & Kraus, 2011

People have less sympathy for male than female perpetrators and more sympathy for female than male victims : Savage, Scarduzio, Lockwood Harris, Carlyle, & Sheff, 2017

Female sex offenders are given shorter sentences than male sex offenders : Shields & Cochran, 2019

Women’s aggression is perceived as more acceptable than men’s aggression : Stewart-Williams, 2002

People evaluate science on female-favoring sex differences more favorably than science on male-favoring sex differences : Stewart-Williams, Chang, Wong, Blackburn, & Thomas, 2020

Psychologists agree more that it is possible that women evolved to be more verbally talented than men than that men evolved to be more mathematically talented than women : von Hippel & Buss, 2017

People evaluate science that suggests that women score higher on IQ tests than men more favorably than science that suggests the opposite : Winegard, Clark, Hasty, & Baumeister, 2018

People wish to censor a book that suggests that men evolved to be better leaders than women more than a book that suggests the opposite : Winegard, Clark, Bunnel, & Farkas, 2019

As noted above, an important feature of many of these studies (though not all of them) is that they are experimental—they randomly assign participants to evaluate information with some bearing on outcomes for men or women (or a man or woman). Many scholars who argue that sexism against women is still a major problem in modern Western societies point to real-world disparities between men and women (but ignore many others). For example, they point out that women are underrepresented in high-paying STEM careers and leadership positions, and full-time working women earn less than full-time working men. However, the existence of such differences tells us little about the causes of them, for just as correlation does not equal causation, so too disparity does not equal discrimination. And, in fact, the claim that women are underrepresented in STEM because qualified male job candidates are preferred over equally qualified female job candidates no longer seems plausible. Experimental work suggests that faculty in STEM fields have demonstrated a preference for female applicants over equally qualified male applicants. Other explanations, such as differences in personality and vocational interests therefore appear much more promising.

This does not mean, of course, that there are no biases against women. For a long time, women in the West were treated as property and were considered emotional, irrational, and incapable of contributing significantly to higher culture. It is not unimaginable that some of these prejudices still persist and shape society. For just one example, there seems to be a sort of genius bias against women, such that people more readily associate men with extremely high levels of intelligence than women. And although there is reason to believe that men might be more highly represented at the highest (and lowest) ends of intelligence, this stereotype could explain part of the underrepresentation of women at the highest ends of achievement. However, overall, the results presented here make the claim that the West is pervaded by misogyny difficult to maintain.

The mainstream view is that we live in a sexist patriarchy that is persistently unfair toward women and privileges men in nearly all ways. And any claims to the contrary are treated as the protestations of benighted conservatives or other masculinist cranks. A Google Scholar search for misogyny yielded 114,000 results, whereas a search for misandry yielded only 2,340. We suspect this difference in interest in misogyny over misandry reflects not the relative prevalence of each type of prejudice, but rather greater concern for the wellbeing of women than men. All of the arguments, anecdotes, and data forwarded to support the narrative that we live in an implacably misogynistic society, in fact, may be evidence of precisely the opposite.

[ Archive: https://archive.is/gpp2b ]

#Bo Winegard #Cory Clark #misogyny #misandry #sex discrimination #sexism #feminism #western feminism #radical feminism #alternate universe #parallel universe #religion is a mental illness

[intinternationalnursetraining]

Aspiring to Be a Mental Health Worker in Sydney? Follow This Guide

Australia's increasing focus on mental health has created a demand for dedicated professionals committed to supporting participants with complex emotional needs. If you aspire to become a mental health worker in Sydney, here's a roadmap to guide you on your journey.

Educational Foundations:

Start by obtaining the necessary qualifications. Mental health diploma courses in Sydney on psychology, social work, or a related field is often a prerequisite. Consider pursuing a higher degree for advanced roles and increased career opportunities.

Gain Relevant Experience:

Practical experience is invaluable in the mental health field. Seek internships, volunteer opportunities, or entry-level positions to develop your skills and understanding of the industry. This hands-on experience will also enhance your resume when applying for formal roles.

Specialise Your Skills:

Mental health is a diverse field. Consider diploma courses in mental health in Sydney for areas such as addiction counselling, trauma therapy, or child and adolescent mental health. Specialisation not only makes you more marketable, but also allows you to focus on areas you are passionate about.

Obtain Professional Certification:

Many mental health professions require certification for practice. Research and pursue certifications relevant to your chosen field. This includes Certified Alcohol and Drug Counsellor (CADC) or Accredited Mental Health Social Worker (AMHSW).

Stay Informed and Network: 

Stay tuned to the latest developments in the mental health field by attending conferences, workshops, and seminars. Networking with professionals on LinkedIn and other portals can open doors to job opportunities and provide valuable insights into the industry.

Meet Registration Requirements: 

Register with the appropriate regulatory body in your state or territory. For instance, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) oversees the registration of health practitioners, including mental health professionals.

Embarking on a career as a mental health worker in Sydney requires dedication, continuous learning, and a genuine passion for helping others. By following these tips, you can build a rewarding career in this dynamic field.

#Mental Health Diploma Courses Sydney #Diploma Courses in Mental Health Sydney

[ear-worthy]

Psychology of Our 20s Podcast: Exploring The Mind Of Twenty Somethings

The podcast landscape is a garden of psychological delights. Ear worthy, helpful, and insightful psychology / relationship podcasts grow like dandelions on a spring lawn. Some of the best include Hidden Brain (created and hosted by Shankar Vedantam), which is billed as a podcast that "explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior and questions that lie at the heart of our complex and changing world."

In almost every episode, Vedantam takes long-standing beliefs we hug like a "child's blankie"  and carefully strips away at our fortress of misconceptions.

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) podcast All In The Mind offers episodes such as You’ve got the music in you, which explores how music affects us from the womb through the rest of our lives — and what new research tells us about its measurable impact on our mental health. Therefore, a successful and notable psychology podcast needs a specific attribute that separates it from the thousands of other psychology podcasts. The Psychology of Your 20s podcast has that granular feature -- a podcast for those in their 20s. Boomers, and other generations beware. This is a heat-seeking missile aimed precisely at Gen Zers. That's why iHeartRadio just announced Psychology of Your 20s will join iHeartPodcasts. The popular health and wellness podcast aims to make psychology more accessible and applicable to the everyday experiences of those in their 20s. In Psychology Of Your 20s, host Jemma Sbeg explores the science, research, and concepts behind the defining experiences of this critical decade – from imposter syndrome, the myth of the dream job, and friendship breakups, to career anxiety, therapy, and heartbreak – to show how everything is psychology, even in our 20s. 

In recent epidotes, host Sbeg has tackled "Why we outgrow our friendships" and "The complete guide to therapy in your 20s."

Give the podcast credit. It knows how to produce shows perfectly aligned to the interests and life experiences of its target listening audience -- twenty somethings. However, for those not a member of that age-specific club, listening to this podcast can offer you greater insight into your 20ish son or daughter, niece or nephew, friend, grandchild, or employee. You don't really need to walk a mile in their shoes. You could listen to this podcast. Psychology of Our 20s launched in 2021 and has since amassed millions of downloads. The podcast is one of the top wellness and self-help podcasts globally, having reached top charts of all podcasts in four countries across the U.K., United States, Australia and Canada.  Jemma Sbeg is a psychology graduate and mental health advocate living in Sydney, Australia. "I started this show as a passion project and have poured so much of my soul into it, so finding the right partner to take it to that next level was crucial. I'm so excited to be working with iHeartPodcasts. They are the perfect home for my show, and I couldn't be more proud of the partnership we are creating." New episodes of Psychology of Our 20s will be available every Tuesday and Friday. 

#podcast #psychology #gen z experience

[getstudysupports]

Diploma Courses In Australia for International Students

Studying in Australia is a dream for many international students. Students from all over the world travel to Australia for higher education.

International students can take diploma courses in Australia. Education and Accommodation.

Australian universities enable students to gain experience and make the most of the educational environment.

Students can also find the best business and engineering degrees in Australia.

Therefore, students can receive the best education while learning life lessons.

Why Pursue Diploma Courses In Australia?

There are many reasons why students might want to continue their education in Australia.

You get many benefits from diploma courses in Australia. Some of them are listed below:

Students gain global recognition by taking courses in Australia as these universities are well-known around the world. Some universities have also made it to the top of international university rankings.

Australia is one of the top 5 study destinations in the world and offers quality education.

Students have the opportunity to work for some of the world's leading companies when studying in Australia. Universities include an internship or job placement for the duration of the degree. It allows students to gain work experience in Australia and understand what to expect from different careers and jobs.

Working in Australia also allows students to gain theoretical, practical, and digital knowledge. This knowledge will be used later when looking for a job.

Students enjoy a welcoming and supportive environment at Australian universities.

Australia offers ongoing support to international students. They have exclusive places in Australian cities for international students. Students can go there to find housing, get help with networking, legal claims and more.

What is the List of Diploma Courses in Australia

Students will find a variety of diploma study opportunities in Australia. They range from graphic design to STEM programs and more. Students can also take multiple majors and multiple majors.

Students can find the perfect option for them and take a course they love. Below are the best diploma courses in Australia:

➡️ Diploma in Arts ➡️ Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy ➡️ Diploma in Engineering ➡️ Diploma in English ➡️ Diploma in Exercise and Sport Science ➡️ Diploma in Fine Arts ➡️ Diploma in Health Research ➡️ Diploma in Network Engineering ➡️ Diploma in Pharmaceutical Science ➡️ Diploma of Emergency Disaster ➡️ Diploma of Endogenous Policy Development ➡️ Diploma of Laws ➡️ Diploma of Science ➡️ Graduate Diploma if Land Surveying ➡️ Graduate Diploma in Psychology

Top 5 Diploma Courses in Australia

The table provided has all the necessary details for the 5 best diploma courses in Australia:

Diploma in Network Engineering

Diploma in Journalism

Diploma in Mental Health

Diploma in Australian Law

Diploma of Business Administration

Top Universities for Diploma Courses in Australia

Students have many university options to pursue Diploma courses in Australia.

These universities offer UG and PG diploma degrees. Courses are flexible in electives and core subjects and have a reasonable fee structure.

Students have many university options to pursue Diploma courses in Australia. These universities offer UG and PG diploma degrees.

Courses are flexible in electives and core subjects and have a reasonable fee structure.

➡️ Australian Catholic University ➡️ Australian National University ➡️ Bond University ➡️ Charles Darwin University ➡️ Charles Sturt University ➡️ University of Canberra ➡️ University of New England ➡️ University of New South Wales ➡️ University of Newcastle ➡️ University of Queensland ➡️ University of Sydney ➡️ University of the Sunshine Coast ➡️ University of Wollongong

One-Year Diploma Courses in Australia

Students have many university options to pursue Diploma courses in Australia. These universities offer UG and PG diploma degrees.

Courses are flexible in electives and core subjects and have a reasonable fee structure.

Eligibility Requirements to Study Diploma Courses in Australia

Students must meet certain eligibility criteria in order to enroll in diploma courses in Australia. Students must meet university academic requirements and English proficiency.

You must also meet the following criteria:

Students must be at least 16 years old. Some universities may defer admission if age requirements are not met.

Students must have passed the 10th grade with at least 60% of the grades. Must have a 50% grade in Arts and Computer Science and a 65% grade in Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Students must have passed the 10th grade with at least 60% of the grades. Must have a 50% grade in Arts and Computer Science and a 65% grade in Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Admission Process to Study Diploma Courses in Australia

Students must go through an admissions process to enroll in a diploma program in Australia.

The steps to enroll an international student in Australia are as follows:

Before applying anywhere, students should do thorough research about each college, course, and location.

You should review your preferred majors, majors, and eligible courses.

Once this is done, students must ensure they are eligible for the course and university they wish to enroll in.

Once this is done, students must ensure they are eligible for the course and university they wish to enroll in.

When applying, students must submit certain documents. You must prepare and upload these documents when you fill in the application form.

Some other details required to complete the application forms are: academic qualifications, personal information, English proficiency, and course preferences.

Students can also contact the university if they have questions about the application form.

Once the form is complete, it should be reviewed and resubmitted.

Now you have to wait for an offer.

Students can finally get their acceptance letter from the university. After receiving the letter they must agree and make plans for Australia.

Difference Between Diploma Courses Vs PG Diploma Courses

Diploma programs and PG diploma programs differ in many ways. These are listed below:

Diploma Courses

Students may enroll in diploma programs after completing grade 12.

They are shorter in duration compared to UG courses and help to understand the basic concepts of a field of study.

PG Diploma Courses

Students can only enroll in PG diploma courses after completing a UG-level degree.

PG diplomas are of shorter duration and help to specialize after UG courses.

How Much Does Diploma Course Cost in Australia?

Tuition fees vary by subject and university. The cost also depends on the subjects (electives) students choose.

Therefore, the cost can increase with the number of compartments, since each option requires a certain number.

Students can expect to spend between A$4,000 and A$8,000 per year on diploma courses in Australia.

However, some courses may cost more and students should research this carefully before starting a course.

How to Study Diploma in Australia with Scholarships?

Students can find many scholarship options when taking diploma courses in Australia.

These are great because they help ease the financial burden of meeting the required payment requirements.

Some scholarships can even provide 100% reimbursement of tuition and living expenses.

Therefore, students should apply if they are eligible and take advantage of them.

Below are some scholarships for international students pursuing Diploma courses in Australia:

1. Bond University - Georgina Hope Rinehart Swimming Excellence Scholarships In Australia

2. Seekvisa Scholarship

3. NATA Business Scholarship

4. RMIT Lonsdale Scholarship

5. Bedford College Diploma Scholarships

6. Endeavour Vocational Education And Training (VET) Scholarships

7. William Blue Scholarships

Jobs and Salary for Diploma Courses in Australia

Students can obtain various employment opportunities in Australia after completing a diploma.

You can expect a starting salary of A$61,000 per year or A$34 per hour. This can be up to AUD$99,000 per year for experienced staff.

The following are the professional roles and salaries of various graduates in Australia:

1. Trained Educators

2. Registered Nurses (mental health programs)

3. Operations Manager

4. Graphic Designer

5. Administrative Assistant

6. Marketing Coordinator

Well, that was extensive coverage, but we have more information for you at Get Study Support.

Get Study Support is the right place to accelerate your educational endeavors with assistance with everything from finding accredited courses to finding an ideal destination and leading institution.

Specialized consultants will advise you and make your dreams come true.

[minenhlembatha]

Occupational Barriers Experienced in Mental Health in S.A.

What is Mental Health?

First and foremost, we shall break down the topic. Mental Health is our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021).

(Great people inside, 2020)

How does mental health affect occupational performance?

Due to anxiety and diminished volition, for instance, depression may worsen social interaction and leisure activity participation as they might distance themselves from others decreasing their level of social participation.  Sleeping for the desired amount of time may be challenging for someone who worries excessively as their mind will be overthinking causing them to be exposed to insomnia. Thereafter, due to them not getting enough rest and sleep at night, their ability to work during the day is impacted negatively as they’ll be tired and not be able to work efficiently to produce a good product. A psychotic disease may make it difficult for a person to start or finish tasks, which may influence their ADLS and IADLS as well as cause them to use their free time in an unproductive way (Joy Beckett, 2021).

(Cited on the gif with the link on it)

CONCLUSION

According to research, it states that mostly if mental health deteriorates negatively then occupational performance is negatively affected as well. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that conditions like depression are linked to greater rates of unemployment and disability. It has been suggested that depression reduces cognitive performance by roughly 35% and interferes with a person's ability to do physical job responsibilities about 20% of the time (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Therefore, overall, our behavior and participation in our daily activities are greatly influenced by our mental health.

"Mental Health is not a destination but a process. It's about how you drive, not where you are going" ~Antara

"Health does not always come from medicine. Most of the time, it comes from peace of mind, peace in the heart, and peace in the soul. It comes from laughter and love." ~HealthyPlace.com

REFERENCES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data table for Figure 16. Health care visits in the past 12 months among children aged 2-17 and adults aged 18 and over, by age and provider type: United States, 1997, 2006, and 2015. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/fig16.pdficon.  [PDF – 898 KB]. Accessed October 20, 2022.

Great people inside. Human Resources. Retrieved from: https://greatpeopleinside.com/organisations-have-to-prioritise-young-workers-mental-health/. Accessed: October 23, 2022.

National Institute of Mental Health. Mental illness website https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.shtmlexternalicon. Accessed October 20, 2022.

Ranka, J., & Chapparo, C. (1997). Definition of terms. In C.  Chapparo and J. Ranka (Eds.). Occupational Performance Model (Australia): Monograph 1 (pp. 58-60). Occupational Performance Network: Sydney retrieved (October 23, 2022) from: www.occupationalperformance.com/definitions.

[ziamhaze]

My Future in Fic

Yeah, so, the 100k fic that I’ve been working on for the past six months?  The one that was going to be uploaded to AO3 last week?  Yeah, it’s accidentally getting published...

Where do I start?

I suppose with a massive thank you to anyone who’s clicked on any of my fics over these past two years.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  I never ever thought about writing as a career.  I’ve never written anything prior to my Harry Potter AU Compartment 451.  I didn’t even take an English class in undergrad or grad school.  I genuinely just had an idea for a fic I wanted to read and since no one had written it, I had to do so myself.  Since then, I’ve written every single day for 2 years.  I left my job in the entertainment industry, got accepted to one of the best creative writing programs in the world on a scholarship, and now one of my stories is being considered at Harper Collins.  Yes, the Harper Collins.  It’s the longest shot in the world, but for legal reasons I was not allowed to upload the fic version on any website prior to submission.  Even if they don’t pick it up, I’ve been advised to continue to shop it around to agents.

What I can do, however, is share the premise.

If you’ve been following my tumblr and watching my tags - I SEE YOU ALL OUT THERE - then you’ll know that this fic was meant to have Zayn with his signature undercut hairstyle and one more little thing...

Someone sent me an ask a while back about what this fic was supposed to be about.  I believe I said something about it being an adaptation fic, but not from a film/tv show/other piece of literature, from a song.  This next fic was meant to be an adaptation of the song Younger by Ruel.  Later on, it also took shape with the help of Remember by Liam and a few others that you can find here.

The miniature summary is as follows:

When his father suddenly passes, twenty-nine-year-old Liam Payne is brought back to the Sydney suburbs where he grew up.  He doesn’t plan on seeing his childhood best friend, Zayn Malik, at the burial service.  They haven’t spoken since going from brothers to strangers one fateful day fifteen years prior.  But Zayn puts an end to this when he approaches Liam after the burial, offering his condolences and asking if Liam can help his archaeological research team with photographing their newest project.  The unexpected closeness forces each man to wade through uneasy emotions.  For Liam, a mixture of grief, lost identity, and confusion over why he’s willing to interact with the one person he swore he’d never forgive.  And for Zayn, a tidal wave of anxiety that comes from finally facing a part of himself he’s always chosen to deny.  When We Were Younger is a story heavily rooted in blurred identities and exploring what loss can look like in two different scenarios: death and friendship.

For obvious reasons, their names will be changed.  Liam, to Hutton.  Zayn, to Cairo (his ethnicity will also be changed to Egyptian).  As you can see, it was meant to be my big ‘enemies to lovers’ fic.  Technically, it’s ‘best friends to enemies to lovers’, but you know.

Right, so what does this mean for me going forward?

I still have so much inspiration when it comes to writing Zayn and Liam as characters.  I don’t plan on putting a complete stop to writing them, but with my career taking this large of a turn, I do have to prioritise my time.  That said, as of now, I can’t afford to write long-form fic any longer.

Soon, I’ll be starting a PhD program where I’ll be writing another full-length novel for mass publication.  For fun, here’s a little insight on the two ideas that I’ll be pitching:

1.  Underground boxer (loosely based off Liam) falls in love with arms gang leader (loosely based off Zayn).  Throughout their love story, the latter has to outrun the psychological trauma his father (the leader of Zayn’s rival gang) still throws his way. 

2.  Cold War AU.  Paris, circa 1950/51.  Ambassador’s son (loosely based off Liam) befriends new student (loosely based off Zayn) at the international school.  Paris is a ticking time bomb; war is about to break out at literally any second.  The two clearly have feelings for each other, but can’t act on them because homosexuality in the 1950s...yikes.  When war does break out, the two are separated, and as Liam’s character goes out to find Zayn’s, he learns a secret of his that changes everything.

Whichever I don’t write for the PhD will be the novel I write following it.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to write (and edit) like crazy.  Ever since I randomly wrote C451, there hasn't been a day that’s gone by where I haven't written something.  It may have only been a paragraph or two, but never zero.  This is how you get better.  This is the equivalent of going out and shooting free throws for 30 minutes a day.  You have to put in the work in order to get better.  I'm very lucky that I'm incredibly self-disciplined and I've been able to crank out as many stories as I have over the past 2 years.

That said, I’ll be writing shorter little oneshots.  I have several ideas that I’ve been sitting on, but haven’t ever thought to write because I HATE writing short stories.  Little ideas that don't have huge plotline/climax potential, but that I want to just see on paper, I'll probably end up writing.  If I had to guess, I'd say they'll come out to around 10-15k.  Also, sequels?  Prequels?  Haha, you never know...

I’ve also got a series called “Sleep Drabbles” that are, yes, you guessed it, a series of drabbles based around one theme: sleep.  I also have a few scenes that I want to write which are based on ziam’s kids, not actually ziam themselves.  If there’s enough demand for that, I can upload those too, but they’re quite niche, so I don’t think the general fandom would be very interested.

As far as frequency for all of this, I have no idea.  I’ve always done things at my own pace and written stories that I want to write, for myself.  That won’t ever change, so I don’t want to commit to one drabble a week or one short-length fic per month.  It takes me weeks (months for this last fic) to research and interview the necessary people to get character arcs correct/believable.  I love that part of writing, and so if I have a little story that I want to write that may only be 10k but takes me ages to put together how I want, then so be it.  I will always be around to answer asks/messages and please, continue to tag me in your writing tag posts!  But please, no prompts.

So, that’s my future with fic.

Again, I cannot say thank you enough to every single one of you.  Every single thing that people tag me in (@malik-payne , @zqua1d , @zentiment , @liamisthesun , @redyellowberry I’m looking at you), I appreciate and love!  The recommendation lists that people have put me on, THANK YOU!  It’s wild to think that I used to look to rec lists for years and now I’m on them.  @ziamfanfiction THANK YOU for always having my back with exposure!  @paynefulperiods , my beloved beta reader, THANK YOU for always encouraging me and putting up with shit first drafts.  @march-z5 , THANK YOU for always being on call for ideas and listening to me bang my head against the wall at 4 am.

Now, might fuck around and make a fake picspam for the fic that never was...

Also, all of the behind scenes pages for each of my fics are now public, so feel free to check those out here.

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making this journey possible. I know people say that a lot when they gain a following of any sort, but I truly truly mean it.  You have to have talent in order to be an author, but you also have to have people who want to read your stuff.  Proof of concept is a real thing.

So thank you a million times over.

Speak soon my friends.

#ziamhaze #my writing #ziam #ziam fanfic #ziam fanfiction #not sure what to tag this #also gonna be reblogging for a while bc I know people are going to be curious about where the next fic is and won't have seen this

[sorchasidhe]

11 July 2021 …

In the past fortnight I have:

* started Research & Statistics unit as part of my psychology bridging degree.

* had my sister visiting from Sydney, who is now residing with us indefinitely due to a covid-19 outbreak there.

* spent valuable time with my grandmother, who is in hospital with terminal cancer.

* sort of got my head around standard deviations and variance and z-scores (although I need to practice the calculations).

* consumed a copious amount of delicious vegetarian food prepared by my sister.

* drowned my sorrows in g&t.

* studied, studied, studied whilst my sister worked, worked, worked.

* submitted a job application in the public service.

* completed the first of 6 quizzes in my Research & Statistics class (and got a disappointing 75%).

* went shopping for essentials for my nephew B, who has just moved out of home and into his own place (incidentally just around the corner from me).

* set up a study group meet-up for Wednesdays in my Research & Statistics class.

Until next time,

S.xo

#postgraduate #studyblr #postgrad studyblr #psychology student #study with me #study space #studystudystudy #academia aesthetic

[oliverphisher]

Richard Newsome on always keeping your clothes on and much more

Richard Newsome is the author of the Archer Legacy; The Billionaire's Curse, The Emerald Casket and The Mask of Destiny.

In researching the trilogy, Richard traveled to England, India, France, Italy, and Greece, visiting many of the historical sites featured in the books. Richard Newsome’s debut novel, The Billionaire's Curse received rave reviews and has been sold to publishers in the US, Canada, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and Turkey.

Richard was born in a modest-sized town in the north island of New Zealand, a little place called Wanganui on a great roiling river, his family migrated to Queensland’s Gold Coast, Australia when he was two and a half.

After finishing high school Richard deferred going to university to take up a journalism cadetship on the local newspaper, the Gold Coast Bulletin. After seven years working on various newspapers and with ABC TV and radio, Richard went to university to study economics. After graduating with first class honours he secured a job in Boston in the United States with an international strategy firm.After which Richard returned to Australia and moved to Sydney, where he moved into media, by then he was married and had started a family. In an attempt to bore his children to sleep at night, he started making up a story, which would eventually provide the basis for his Billionaire’s series of books. Richard now lives in Brisbane with his wife and three children.

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

There are many but one that stands out was written by William Peter Blatty, the author or The Exorcist.

The books is Which Way to Mecca, Jack? — it’s a memoir of the author growing up Lebanese in New York, and then moving to Beirut as a US Government information officer. It’s an insider’s outsider account of life in a familiar yet foreign land. I picked it up in the second-hand book shop around the corner from where my dad worked because the cover intrigued me.

It cost maybe 40 cents but it opened my then 12-year-old’s eyes to a large and complex world, well beyond the Gold Coast of the 1970s where I grew up. I’m sure most of the material flew straight over my innocent head, but the author had a turn of phrase that I found intriguing. It was my first experience of ‘grown up’ books.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?

A new Spirax A4 Notebook No. 810 ($5.49 from Officeworks). It was for my next book. I hand write the first draft of all my books, and this is my go-to notebook. The paper is just right for writing in pencil (HB 0.7mm Pentel leads for my mechanical pencil, a Lamy Scribble 0.7mm). Scratch any writer and you’ll find a frustrated stationer.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

I have a miserably poor attention span for any activity that does not completely entrance me within the first 30 seconds. This has ruled out several attempts at serious business, which is typified by countless hours of donkey work to actually get anything done. Luckily, this psychological tendency towards mind-wandering is ideal for story writing. If I get bored I just have to make the story more interesting. Works for me, works for the reader.

Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

I was bemoaning the sales figures for one of my books to a friend and the woeful lot of the author when his young daughter piped up with, ‘Just write better.’ That is my new life motto.

What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made?

My Lamy Scribble 0.7mm mechanical pencil. I bought it in New Zealand about 15 years ago and have written about 700,000 words with it.

Best $75 I’ve ever spent.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

I’m not sure it’s an unusual habit, but I like to get up at 5.30am and sit on the back deck with the first coffee of the morning and listen to the birds greet the sun while I gather my thoughts for the day ahead. Solitary time is the best time.

In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

The knowledge that resting on your laurels only leads to soreness and blood clots. It’s important to press on to new and interesting challenges.

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore?

The best advice I ever received as a beginning writer was, ‘Write it out.’ Finish the manuscript. You can plan until the end of time, but unless you actually complete the thing it doesn't count a damn.

What are bad recommendations for aspiring authors, that you hear in your often?

‘Write what you know’. How boring is that! Find out new and interesting stuff and write about that.

In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?

I seldom say no to anything. I’m terminally polite.

What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

Always keep you clothes on.

What new realizations and/or approaches helped you achieve your goals?

That time is going to pass anyway. Life’s clock ticks on whatever you choose to do, so you may as well choose to get stuff done. Is there any more pathetic line in movie history that ‘I coulda been a contender’ from On The Waterfront? Don't be that guy.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?

A cup of black Irish breakfast tea (no sugar) and a walk by the river at dusk.

Any other tips?

Once you get published, don’t be an ass.

To find out more about Richard visit his website here

_______

Enjoyed this Q&A? Want to discuss in more depth? Join Community Writers. You'll get access to 100+ exclusive writing tips. Q&As with successful authors, an exclusive ebook on building an audience and much more. Sign-up for free as a community writer here

#Author Business #be an author #Blog #fiction writer #professional writer #Publishing #useful tips #writing advice

[muggle-zoology]

Hey do you have any advice for how I can work in animal conservation or like zoology work. I’m close to graduating college with a bachelors degree in psychology. Sadly when I started I was to afraid to go for what I really wanted, which was zoology. And now part of me feels like it’s too late to do anything but I just really want to work with animals or wildlife in some way. I would do more schooling if I had too. But I was just wondering if you had any advice on what I could do.

Hey Anon!

I would like to preface this by saying that I don’t work in animal conservation or zoology myself currently, I’m working through my Honours and have a couple of volunteer positions. 

But I hope I can give you some advice anyway!

Depending on where you are in the world some of this might not be as useful, but all I’ve got to draw on is my experience here in Australia. 

I’m going to be honest, conservation and zoology unfortunately are fairly underfunded fields and there is a high chance that you will have to do a lot of volunteering to get anywhere. Jobs can be hard to come by depending on what you want to do and how far you are willing to move.

But don’t let that discourage you, even if a full-time career in this field is not what you are after or get, there are still many ways to get involved and help.

It’s definitely not too late! Depending on the type of work you want to get into, you may need to do extra schooling (eg. research), but if it’s a more practical hands on thing it’s more useful to have experience and maybe a certificate. And in general, experience is way more useful than having a bachelor (unless the job specifies you have to have one). It’s one thing to have the theory, another to be actually able to do something with it. 

I don’t know how things work where you are, but it may be possible for you to get to the next level (masters possibly?) and switch to conservation now that you have a bachelor in science, and you may just need to do a couple of bridging units to bring you up to speed. The best way to see if this is possible to talk to someone at your college. 

A great way to get some hands on experience is to see if there is a wildlife rehab center near where you live. Those kinds of places are almost always looking for volunteers and are generally happy if you’re willing to spend a couple of hours a week there. They give great hands on experience and learning opportunities that you can put on your resume. 

A museum may also be a good place to go. Despite the general opinion, museums are by and large research institutions that have seasoned academics working on numerous projects which range from taxonomy to genetics and more things than I will ever be able to understand (and that’s only in Zoology). One person I met at the Australian Museum in Sydney ended up traveling over south-east Asia and Africa helping identify illegal ivory that had been seized. Others identify new species which changes the conservation status and how they are managed. Depending on where you live, the number of volunteer positions may be different, but unless they really do have more than they can handle, I doubt they’d turn you away. Museum staff also tend to know who’s who in conservation circles and may be able to point you in the right direction.

Things like animal parks and zoos will be more difficult since more people will want to be involved. For example, the Perth Zoo has a waiting list for volunteers wanting to become Docents (the guides), and you have to have been a Docent for about 4 years before you are allowed to volunteer with the animals directly. They also only recruit volunteers once a year. But it’s still worth a shot!

Once you have some experience you may be able to do a certificate which you can use as further proof of experience. 

Check the Zoology department at your college, research students are sometimes looking for volunteers. You could help in the field with data collection, or simply helping them put their data into a database. Both of which are good things to have a reference for. 

Any kind of field-based volunteering will be harder to manage, especially since they generally require a minimum one week commitment. They are incredibly useful, but you will often have to pay for your own travel costs and any equipment, and depending on what you are handling, perhaps even a rabbies shot (which in Australia cost $300). A couple of friends of mine have done a year-long volunteering trip to the Kalahari where they monitored meerkats. It looked amazing, but they had to pay for everything except food and accommodation. Which if you’re like me and don’t have about $3000 dollars to use and need to worry about where you were going to live when you got back, isn’t an ideal situation. 

PhD students tend to have funding from their projects that they will be able to foot a fair portion of the bill. And most government institutions will at least give a weekly allowance to help pay for food and fuel, and will generally have a place nearby that you can live in if you are travelling to get there. You can learn about these simply by emailing their inquiries email and asking if there are any positions available or if they can put you on their volunteer mailing list so you hear about them quickly.

And never forget out useful social media can be! There are entire Facebook groups/pages that dedicate themselves to posting volunteer and job opportunities. Follow local conservation groups and government agencies on Facebook, they will often post something. Follow them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, wherever they post.https://www.facebook.com/WildlifeJobSearch/

And there are also websites dedicated to this:https://www.environmentjobs.com/ https://www.conservation-careers.com/http://www.ecojobs.com/index.php

I know it can be daunting, and for a long time I doubted whether I had made the right decision in picking Zoology as my major. But there are a lot of ways to get your foot in the door, no matter on how involved you end up deciding to become. 

I hope this has helped!

#anon #anon asks #Mel answers #zoology #animal #conservation #volunteering #wildlife #advice #Anonymous

[kyndaris]

How to be Inconspicuous 101

Tucked away in an office job, lunch has become the new water cooler. All gathered around the communal kitchen, it has helped enable me to learn a great deal about my fellow coworkers. While thirty minutes may not be the longest break when it comes to partaking of the midday meal, it has afforded me the opportunity to understand various facets of my colleagues and chat about anything that comes to mind as I munch on the leftovers brought from home. There are some that prefer the waft of fresh air (a valid choice after sitting for approximately three to four hours) but it does make it difficult to connect with others unless they are members of your team or simply within your immediate vicinity. And while toilet breaks are also a good chance to shoot the breeze with everyone locked into their very own cubicle, the three to five minutes only allows for a brief topic to be discussed before it’s back to the daily grind.

Though what is discussed at the lunch table can vary wildly, from weekend plans to the US government shutdown or how unsafe Sydney feels with the discovery of a dentist in a suitcase (and yes, I know that it’s old news by the time this post is published), there’s always something to keep our mouths chatting away the precious time we’ve been allocated to refuel for the afternoon ahead. Usually, there’s a strong focus on the general day-to-day. Complaints about the workload, gossip about so-and-so...

But then you encounter the deep meaningful talks - wondering about criminal motive and how multiple stab wounds might be indicative of explosive anger impulses. You know the ones - when we try to break down the most recent tragedy and put down our own guesses to a murder mystery.

As the resident armchair criminologist (due to the degree I pursued all those years ago at university), I often like to chime in and offer my unwarranted two cents. Due to my familiarity of the basic theories of crime and some basic psychology courses I did during my tenure, I often terrify one or two of my colleagues as I describe in detail the possible scenarios. In fact, one of my coworkers now obliquely jokes about what I might do to his hapless corpse once I’m finished. A little macabre perhaps and not something I would actually entertain. I mean, I am a law-abiding citizen for goodness sake without a mean bone in my body. The only crimes I have ever committed where in video games - where I very much enjoyed robbing stagecoaches in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Still, this whole enterprise had me thinking about a terrific series on Netflix. You. Yes, I know it has been months since it was first released on the streaming giant and that many of the elements within are quite unrealistic when looked at critically, but a blogger can be bogged down with other shows and books and planning the numerous ways I can kill the players in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign (again, only in the realm of make-believe).

Whether it was my inherent interest in Sherlock Holmes at a young age or the influence of watching far too many Detective Conan during my stays in China, crime has always been an area of interest to me. And one of the key ingredients to any salacious crime novel is the motive. What were the reasons behind the criminal’s actions? What could have pushed them into committing so heinous a murder?

You, much like the short story I published quite a while ago, is about someone that observes the world around them and instantly makes assumptions about the people that inhabit it. He isn’t always wrong in how he dissects the behaviours of those around him and played by Penn Badgley, there is something innately charismatic about Joe. Whereas my nameless protagonist teetered very close to insanity.

In the end, though, his desire to ‘save’ Beck and be her knight in shining armour backfires. Instead, he is unmasked to the audience as the villain. Yet even after disposing of Beck’s body, he does not believe he is in the wrong. As one article I read advised, Joe Goldberg is the perfect example of toxic masculinity that has saturated our society. In many ways he is the extreme version of the ‘nice guy’ that immediately blames the woman if their advances are rejected.

It is important to understand that obsession is not love and if anime has taught me anything, yanderes are incredibly terrifying. No one wants to be with a yandere. Don’t be a yandere.

Of course, in saying that, it doesn’t hurt to do some research into the potential people you may be dating. Or learning a little bit more about your colleagues at work. And just like Joe from You, I was able to glean a wealth of information from a basic search on social media about the myriad people I surround myself with. Seriously, people out there need to learn to put less personal information on the internet and stop making it so easy for unsavoury individuals to find out everything from addresses to the name of their first pet.

That aside, perhaps people would be less suspicions of my intentions if I stopped memoring their residential addresses and mobile numbers. For this blogger, I suppose it is something I should actively look into if I want to retain my cover as an innocent bystander.

#personal blog

[cynicaldesire]

I’m not living up to their expectations, but I’m far exceeding mine. And that’s good enough for me.

Went to Ube for the Thanksgiving dinner one of the shopowners have every year. He runs a sushi place, but for one day in November, he invites all the foreigners to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner since they can’t on their own. No families or ovens or turkeys available at a basic Japanese grocery.

So we go there and I’m nervous, but not as nervous as I would have been 6 months ago, which I didn’t realize until after we were on our way back home. We encountered a random English speaking woman on the train headed that direction, a woman who loved Toronto, who was divorced, who studied psychology and wanted to go back to Toronto. She was nice, added us on Line and then we had to change trains so we lost track of each other. So it was kinda good practice?

Then we took a nap on the next train. But we made it to the Thanksgiving venue and started chatting with people.

And this is where it starts going downhill. For me.

Most of the foreigners in Japan require a Visa, which means you have a job. I don’t, and before I came here, I didn’t. So most introductions consist of your name and occupation. I do my best to stay quiet because I’m so fucking terrible at conversation that I just avoid it altogether and look at my husband. He can field these things way better, having a higher CHA stat and doing it for work. But he still looks to me to answer or I want to clarify important things, or they want me to answer directly.

So my occupation is normally “Wife of Drew” now. Which then gets either surprise from people that know him, or a funny look and further questions of “What did you used to do?” or “What will you do when you go home”. Neither of which I have an answer for. I am a housewife. I enjoy housewifing. I enjoy not having much to do except vacuum, cook, clean, and love my husband. (Mostly because I’ve been stuck in a toxic hellhole, but it’s hard to convey that in a brief, shouted conversation at a busy party.)

At least one guy had the wherewithall to ask if I had hobbies. I enjoy writing, I might want to do that professionally, then he snarked over the fact that I’m American because he doesn’t know the distance between Georgia and Texas just like I don’t know the distance between Melbourne and Sydney. (You’re right, I don’t, but it’s not super necessary to point that out.) (He also joked, when I did the Look At My Watch Thing when I said we’d been together for 10 years that I had a very good watch.) He got called away for cooking duties and everybody else that showed up, because I’m not used to social interaction, got mostly dumb but hopefully friendly looks from me because I don’t know how to start or continue conversations. Probably because my family just keeps fucking talking so I just let them go unless I have something to say.

One girl sat down to chat with us and her boyfriend was at another table speaking in Japanese with the Japanese people. But he was doing it to the exclusion of other foreigners, so to me he was just being a pretentious douchebag. They had showed up to greet us and he had gotten distracted and wandered away in the middle of me speaking. So that didn’t help. She asked us when we realized we wanted to be together and get married and we didn’t have a good answer because... we haven’t really lived together? We got married so that we could continue living together. So this is the longest. But I figured she was asking so she could have a better idea of how much she loved her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend eventually showed up to chat and my husband did the basic questions of name, occupation, how long have you and her been together. But this guy said something odd: he wanted to go back to the states, probably move to New Hampshire with a bunch of other people in a collective, and study the science of aesthetic? I tried to clarify what he meant, and I think his desire is to find empirical date to research and define a Universal Aesthetic to Make The World A More Beautiful Place. He framed it initially as a desire to force companies like Google to reveal their studies about what users prefer to see on their websites and shit, which I thought was interesting, but I wasn’t interested in finding out about from him. Like, noble cause to force companies to make their marketing research public knowledge for other people to utilize in their own businesses, that’d be rad. But my husband was like Nah, I wanna know what that means for when you get home.

So over the next several minutes, Twiggy Hobo Beard tried to explain shit to my husband who was very much not asking him to explain himself so my husband had to keep fighting him about shit and then eventually realized he had been talked away from the original question of “What does that mean? How does that employ you and make you money?” His girlfriend showed up and we had a very small bond over the fact that they were fighting about art and we only really took 1 art class each and didn’t care this much.

It wasn’t until Twiggy Hobo Beard said his favorite piece of art is duChamp’s Fountain. My husband said he knew what it was and later I found that he didn’t remember it, but I did. For those that don’t know, duChamp’s Fountain is a urinal that has the letters R. MUTT on the edge. We then discover that Twiggy Hobo Beard used to be a Modern Artist that has been displayed in galleries. Which is news to us because he was introduced as a guy that fixed old arcade machines, sound systems, and other electrical shit. Which I am totally down for because my Dad does that.

Come to find out it was all a ruse for this Dada-douchebag.

So they argue back and forth and I’m getting frustrated because it’s fucking stupid and also I don’t care but mostly he’s a pretentious ARTIST. So eventually my husband gives up and the dust settles and he heads to the bathroom. So Twiggy Hobo Beard is left with me. And I stare at him, having no desire to enjoy this man’s company. I’m still trying to accept that my husband just argued hard with this hippy ARTIST who is also a Full Capitalist and blah blah. So he keeps looking at me, expecting me to have some conversation and eventually asks if I play WoW.

No, my family did so I stayed in it longer than it deserved but I don’t play it anymore.  (I had used it as a way to explain something THB was saying earlier, see.)

Eventually he asks what I do/want to do. As I don’t know and I am a terrible liar, but I also wanted to posture that I had done programming, I said that I went to school for code, didn’t like it, and wanted to become a writer instead. But I have no idea if I can do that either.

And he starts asking if I want to just be a housewife forever, if I wanna have kids.

Yeah, I want kids, but it all depends on how my uterus feels that day. Hahaha, I have a disease and it’s uncomfortable to think about.

I don’t remember how this came up, but I said something about how I hate all this rhetoric about hating men, his girlfriend - previously distracted trying to let the shopowner let her make persimmon crumble - turns around and he gleefully says I was telling him about how all men are evil. Which.... I was saying how I hate that rhetoric because all my best friends have been guys and I haven’t been able to make friends with woman. She laughs and says “So you’re a feminist!” And I wanted to kill them.

I have been watching videos on Youtube about capitalism and why it sucks and so I used the verbiage they used of calling the wealthy Reptiles, which prompted them to ask if I watch Alex Jones. It took me a second to register who the fuck that was and then they all started joking about TURNIN’ THE FROGS GAY.

Eventually they got bored with me and my housewife contentment and wandered off. I have spent the rest of the day joyfully hating these people.

They were followed by a couple of nice people that showed up tardy and missed all the not-great food - mostly because nothing I eat will ever be as good as my family’s, so I’m super biased - and they got distracted by not being friends with us. But we entertained them pretty well. My husband’s replacement is French-Canadian and a little weird, but he seems a cool guy, if a little odd.

And on the way home, I realized... while mostly everyone had been casting glances or aspersions on my current lifestyle, I didn’t feel as inadequate or shitty as they wanted me to feel. I’m a housewife, yes, but I’m dieting, I’m exercising, I’m working on my social anxiety. I’m leaving the house, able to climb the damn hills, and when I encounter an issue with the cashiers, I don’t freak out for hours on end. I go through a cycle of I FUCKED UP but it all worked out okay until I stop thinking about it. It hasn’t crippled me. Hell, I went to this party, engaged in conversation that maybe I didn’t do correctly, but I didn’t roll absolute 1s.

So maybe I’m not living up to their expectations, but I’m far exceeding mine. And that’s good enough for me.

#about me

[gromorfoodnursery]

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#online garden plants #buy indoor plants online