Life At Ripon – Rachel Detrie ’15

Chapter 1: The Beginning of a New Journey

[Editor’s Note: Rachel Detrie ’15, Clarence Sanon ’15 , and Kaitlyn Welzen ’15 are writing rotating monthly entries for the Ripon College Newsletter chronicling their senior year experiences. We hope you enjoy their perspectives on Life At Ripon!]

My name is Rachel Detrie, and after three eventful years, I am finally beginning my senior year here at Ripon College. I chose Ripon College three years ago because of all of the opportunities and personal attention the students here seemed to get. Without a doubt, I have had plenty of opportunities in my time at Ripon College.

Let me start with some pre-Ripon background. I grew up on the southwest side of Milwaukee and attended South Milwaukee High School. I have a large, nontraditional family, and I am the youngest of ten kids. I was raised by my father, who didn’t attend college, but I have a sister and brother who graduated from Marquette University in 2011 and 2013 respectively.

I am a double major in Psychology and Sociology and have had four psychology internships in the past three years. In my first year at Ripon, I interned both at Crossroads Academy, an alternative high school in Ripon, and Green Lake County Correctional Facility with the anti-recidivism program. In my second year, I interned with a small, private mental health clinic that practiced traditional talk therapy in conjunction with art, music, and animal assisted therapy. If I learned anything from this experience, it is that private practice is not for me. In my third year at Ripon, I interned with the local Police Department, particularly with the officer assigned to the school district. Though I am unsure of what internship I will take on during my final year at Ripon, I am sure I will keep busy providing my assistance somewhere in the field!

If my internship experience didn’t tell you, I am particularly focused on psychology. In addition to getting experience off campus, I have worked as a tutor, teaching assistant, and research assistant. I have been lucky enough to spend my summer working under a research grant with Professor Joe Hatcher (someone I am sure many of you remember fondly!).

Though the summer seems to have flown by, we took on numerous projects. One of the most significant opportunities I have had this summer was co-authoring a chapter on the Peace Studies course in Jamaica. Don’t get too excited – the first draft just went off to the editors, so you likely won’t be seeing it anytime soon! This summer we also revised some articles and studies about arousal theory (particularly in regards to conformity), the Change-5 theory approach to therapeutic practice, and factors of college students’ happiness. I have also been quite busy helping to develop and run a study which measures skin conductance in relation to anchoring theory. Hopefully in the little bit of summer that is left, we will be able to finish off some of these projects since I know it will be a busy school year!

I am sure many of you can remember how eventful your senior year was…or maybe you can’t for one reason or another! My senior year is going to be structured in a nontraditional manner. Because I was so eager to soak up all the opportunities here at Ripon, I was set to graduate a year early and thought I would be walking across the graduation stage this past May. I took my senior seminar courses last year, finished my majors, and ordered my cap and gown. After interviewing at numerous schools for Clinical Psychology Ph.D programs, I decided I wanted to seize more of the opportunities available at Ripon in order to better tackle the next feat of graduate school.

So here I am, about to take on this fourth year which will no doubt be filled with graduate school applications (including both Social Ph.D and Clinical Ph.D), opportunities to learn more and build my resume, and a few senior year shenanigans.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or even advice for both my senior year and graduate school applications.

Rachel Detrie ’15

Posted August 15, 2014 in Alumni, Student.

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