Tera Letzring, Ph.D.

Idaho State University

 

I received my PhD from the Social/Personality program at the University of California, Riverside in 2005 and since then have been working as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Idaho State University.  My training and experience at UCR prepared me well for the duties I currently have in research, teaching, and mentoring.  One of the most valuable experiences I had at UCR was the opportunity to give several oral research presentations.  Graduate school is the perfect time to work on presentation skills because this is when you have the best opportunity to receive constructive feedback.  At weekly brown bag meetings, I was able to present several times and to also observe and learn from other graduate students and faculty.  This experience certainly helped me on the job market, and has also been a useful skill that I have transferred to teaching.  I also had the opportunity at UCR to work relatively independently on research in terms of analyzing data, constructing posters, and writing papers.  Of course, all of these skills are invaluable to me as an assistant professor now that I need to show that I can conduct successful research on my own.  The mentoring experience I acquired while at UCR has also served me well.  As the senior student in the lab for three years, I learned what it was like to work with junior graduate students by helping them become familiar with the way our lab was run, teaching them to analyze data in SAS, and helping them become independent researchers in their own right.  These are skills I will continue to use as my lab grows and I mentor both graduate and undergraduate students.  The teaching experience I gained at UCR was also invaluable.  I was a teaching assistant for many courses and independently taught several courses.  This experience of managing an entire course, from putting together the syllabus to dealing with student issues, helped me transition more easily to the role of an assistant professor who typically teaches three courses per semester.  My years at UCR prepared me well for an academic career because I gained experience in many areas and was encouraged to push myself to become a professional in the field of psychology.