You view the school like a body, and your job is to keep it healthy. You see their weaknesses and flaws along with their strengths. You're given the good, the bad, the ugly. It makes the field less intimidating to have some of the big people in the field as your teachers. You take some classes from some of the movers and shakers.
Students gain hands-on experience assisting the faculty with writing chapters and grants.
Na'im plans to become a school psychologist and teach one class at the college level. In the short term, he hopes to intern somewhere in the inner-city with the African American population. He feels most passionate about improving opportunity and education for African Americans, primarily by connecting community to schools, improving outcomes for students. There's a nice foundation of established faculty research that you can tap into, but there's flexibility in the program to use that expertise as a springboard to pursue your own research. Tina became interested in educational psychology through work she did for several educational intervention programs, such as Head Start in Atlanta.