4D Fridays Course Turns Psychology Know-How Into a Career Plan

4D Peer Mentors, part of the 4D Experience. Photo by Hannah Fulk.

Where can a degree in psychology take you, and how do you get there? Students in Adjunct Professor Neda Senehi's applied fall quarter 4D Fridays “Careers in Psychology” class find real-world answers about post-grad professional and academic opportunities while acquiring the knowledge and skills to refine their goals and complete job and/or grad-school applications. 

To advance the University of Denver's 4D Experience, the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences  (CAHSS) offers 4D Fridays to help students channel their passions into careers and lives of purpose. 

The Careers in Psychology class has given students like Jessica Aparicio, a psychology major with a public policy minor expected to graduate in 2030, a better grasp of how to build her résumé. 

“I am learning where my strengths lie and how I can use them to build a stable career for myself, not just a job,” Aparicio said.

The course helps students evaluate their interests, values, strengths, and goals and match them to compatible employment options across practice-oriented, applied, and research careers in psychology. Assessments enable students to pinpoint the knowledge and skills they can bring to different professional settings, practice communicating their workplace value in applications, interviews, and conversations with a potential employer, and give and receive detailed peer feedback. 

“The class allowed me to view the current job outlook, which helped shape my post-grad goals,” said Dylan Marsan, a psychology major slated to graduate in June 2027 who plans to apply to master’s degree programs in psychology.

Marsan found learning to write a CV (curriculum vitae) required for job and graduate school applications, using samples provided by Senehi, especially useful. Fellow psychology major Emma Walter, a transfer student who will graduate in 2028, agrees. “Creating a résumé/CV is not something I particularly wanted to do on my own, so it has been nice to get class credit for something I need to do anyway.” 

The multistage résumé/CV project guides students from an initial draft through revision and peer review to a final version, and to an intentional action plan they can take with them. “This course is very applied,” Senehi explained. “Students use career assessment tools, research occupations and real job postings, and access job-search platforms including Indeed, ZipRecruiter, USAJobs, and Glassdoor.” 

The class also aims to show students the many ways they can apply their psychological knowledge and skills professionally, “including in careers that may not have ‘psychologist’ in the title,” Senehi added. She believes that helping students make the practical connection between the valuable knowledge and skills a psychology degree provides and how to translate those skills into a career makes all the difference. 

“Psychology students develop knowledge about human behavior, communication, research, and critical thinking, but they may not always know how to articulate those abilities to potential employers or identify the many settings where those skills are needed," Senehi said. "This course gives students the opportunity to make those connections while they are still in college and graduate ready to put them into practice.”

Marsan has a newfound appreciation for the wide range of career pathways psychology offers, “including specializing in relatively niche fields like school psychology or forensic psychology,” he said. 

Walter agrees. “The class has opened my eyes to the diverse possibilities of an undergraduate psychology degree, but the postgraduate opportunities have been even more impactful for me. The class has strengthened my desire to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology, and Dr. Senehi has provided many helpful resources and information about different DU options that can strengthen my application to a competitive graduate program.”