It’s March 11, 2022, the eve of my 22nd birthday, 10:50 p.m. I frantically open the first email received from one of my applications for admission to graduate studies: refusal. Seven other refusal letters will be received in the following weeks.
Posted at 10:00 a.m.
I spent three years struggling to maintain a high grade point average, getting up early to volunteer in a lab, working multiple jobs to increase my intervention hours, working long hours as a suicide prevention volunteer. All this for what ? To be refused all along the line. It’s hard to explain how discouraging it is to be rejected like this after giving your all. I felt like I was playing a pre-rigged game, where my chances of winning were almost nil from the start.
During this time, I hear everywhere: “Crying need for psychologists in Quebec! There is no shortage of people wanting to become psychologists in Quebec. In three years, I have rubbed shoulders with plenty. Brilliant, motivated, dedicated students, who had and still have the same dream as me… We hit a huge wall when we leave the baccalaureate which, ironically, has greatly damaged the mental health of many of us so much the competition was intense.
We are promised incredible careers that make us dream for three years, only to be told to consider a plan B. “Basically, psychoeducation and criminology, that sounds a bit like what you like, doesn’t it? »
Meanwhile, I see a society where the minimum wait time for a psychologist is six months to the public. I see high suicide rates, hospitals and CLSCs overwhelmed by the number of mental health cases.
It makes me angry, it overwhelms me, because I am powerless against a system built against me, despite my wish to help.
I also see a Prime Minister who imagines that in three years of university we will have a beautiful brand new psychologist. Mr. Legault, multiply this figure by three and you will have a psychologist. And that’s if he makes it through the psychology graduate admissions funnel.
I did not do my bachelor’s degree in psychology in order to obtain a good culture. I have never heard an engineering or education student being told that his baccalaureate could give him a good culture. We love our culture, but we want jobs, careers, opportunities to develop as people and to change the society in which we live.
One day, I will be a psychologist, but tomorrow is not the day before.