Hey everyone,

So i think I am asking for advice, but I may also just be ranting and getting my thoughts out.. But i would really appreciate any type of advice, opinions, or comments from anyone.

I’m currently in the process of deciding on what to study for graduate school. I am on a 2 year break (I got my B.S. in psychology in May of 2008). I know for sure that I want to do something related to psychology, but sociology is not far out of reach for me.

Here is a little bit of my background. Ever since high school, I was convinced I wanted to get a PhD in clinical psychology and work with the mentally ill populations and study mental illnesses. I have a very intense personality (some may even say obsessive), and when i decide i am going to do something, i do everything i can. Based on this decision, once I entered college, I went a little nuts with opportunities to expand myself in this field. I became Co-President of our school’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, I volunteered at a community support program for the mentally ill, and started doing research at a lab about psychopaths. You get the idea.. I devoted my entire life to it. During my junior year, I took a class about problems American racial/ethnic minorities face, and was so moved by it that I decided that I wanted to pursue a PhD in social psychology instead, studying prejudice. Here are my mental blocks when it comes to this.. First off.. I am a VERY inflexible person, it is one of my biggest flaws and I know it. It was extremely difficult for me to decide on this change of heart, because everything I had done up until then concerned clinical psychology.. So, all of the stuff i had done outside of school to boost my resume and to gain experience doesn’t really mean anything anymore to graduate schools (i am sure it means something, but it is not in my field and not as important). My other mental block is that.. I really want to “fix” this prejudice problem and racial discrimination.. and the place I was thinking of doing it.. would be in the US. My problem comes that I am not even a US citizen. I’m a citizen of Canada and Taiwan, and to tell you the truth, I would feel a sense of disloyalty if i decide to study prejudice to better the US instead of doing something for MY countries.

And now here comes my current issue.. Over the past 2 months, I have been so severely affected by (and become so aware of) my TCK-ness, that i have completely lost interest in prejudice research.. and I know that I am going to change my mind and probably switch to doing a PhD in cultural psychology or something related. It had taken me 1 year to decide to switch from clinical to social.. And now that i’ve switched i want to change again! It drives me crazy because it is completely against my personality.. and ever since I decided to switch to social psych, i had been volunteering at a prejudice lab.. And now I don’t know what to do. I am applying for grad schools this fall, and i have NO time to develop ANYTHING for my resume that pertains to cultural psychology if i really do decide to pursue it. I know that if i stuck it out and did prejudice research, i would still like it, but now i feel so passionately about this multi-culturalism/cross-culturalism area that I just.. don’t want to do anything but this. Plus if i become a professor in this field, there would be so many more opportunities to travel and live in other countries.. and I’ve realized how important it is for me because I don’t think I can stay in one country for an extended period of time. I want to just move and live everywhere!
So.. to sum it up, here are my problems.

1) I hate changing my mind.. it’s really difficult for me and i am feeling significant cognitive dissonance at the moment. I feel like it is against my personality to keep changing my mind, but i can’t help it.

2) What should I do now that my resume is covered in experiences in almost EVERY field in psychology BUT cultural (i have research & community service experiences in clinical, social, and even exercise psychology..but not cultural)

3) I’m having a lot of difficulty finding research professors in this field because it is very new and not very developed yet. My family is very, very keen on very prestigious schools, and so far I haven’t been able to find any research professors in this field yet. maybe i am just not looking in the right department.

So i really don’t know what to do! I feel completely torn..

As i’ve said.. any opinions/comments/advice/thoughts would be really really appreciated, and thank you all for reading this long rant!

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An introduction.. my name is Alice.. currently i live in wisconsin. i’m not quite sure if i’m even a tckid, but i figured it’s the closest thing to what i am.
I was born in Canada, moved back to Taiwan immediately after birth until i was 3, moved back to Canada until i was 6, and then moved back to Taiwan until i was 17. I can’t recall living in Canada for the most part, but while i lived in Taiwan, i went to an international school, where we didn’t really fit in with the local culture, and people easily distinguished us from the people who grew up in Taiwan. We were called “ABCs” (American Born Chinese, though technically i am a Canadian born Chinese). I speak both Chinese and English fluently, but don’t really have a first language. I never felt like i fit in in Taiwan, and figured.. maybe Canada is home. I moved to Wisconsin when i was 17 to start college, and all of my friends now are from Wisconsin (locally grown). I dated a Wisconsin-grown guy for almost 4 years, and thoroughly absorbed the culture, but at the same time, being very aware that i don’t belong. While i am here, i think of home as Taiwan, when i am in Taiwan, i think of home as in Wisconsin. Home is definitely not Canada, i can’t even remember living there. I’ve now lived in Wisconsin for close to 5 years.

Very recently, i’ve started to feel very lost.. Having graduated from college and started working.. i really started to .. try to find who i was. My whole college career, my friends were from wisconsin, i dated a guy from wisconsin.. i had completely forgotten about my culture in a sense.. Recently i started to think about how lost i really felt. Wisconsin isn’t very diverse.. and I don’t think i’ve ever felt so lonely and lost in my entire life. Completely, not fitting in anywhere.. and then not having anyone to talk to about this. I talked to someone from a completely different culture for hours once.. because even though we were so different, we felt so alike because of how different we are from, say the US culture. I really don’t have anyone to talk to about how i feel, and nobody around me understands. My friends don’t understand, being that they’ve grown up here, and haven’t really visited or lived in other countries.. My parents don’t understand it, because even though they’ve moved, their home is in Taiwan, and it will always be. I keep thinking home is in Taiwan but when i go back, people can tell that i’m not from there, and when i’m here, it is even easier to not fit in. With the lack of diversity here.. i just don’t know what to do.

I almost feel as if i am in a crisis because of how alone and lost i feel. I feel extremely restless and desperately want to move from Madison to a bigger city where i can find people who are from different cultures just so that i can talk to someone and have someone understand me, and not try to tell me that “everything is fine,” or “yeah, it must be lonely because your family is so far away from you,” because that isn’t what this is about at all. But there is too much to lose for me to move.. and I just have to wait for when i apply to grad school to even consider moving out of this city. This won’t be until Fall of 2010, and right now.. i can’t even imagine staying here past May.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant, but here i am.. pleased to meet all of you.

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