Jacqueline: Hi, everybody.
Welcome.
We're just going to wait a few more minutes
before we get started here.
Thank you for joining us.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome and thank you so much for joining
us today for our live webinar where we'll
be discussing how applied psychology influences
consumer behavior.
Please be sure to occasionally refresh your
browsers and turn up the volume on your device
so you can hear audio.
If you have any questions, please use the
Q and A box shown below.
We will be sure to address all of these at
the end of the webinar.
Do not hesitate to ask questions here throughout
the presentation.
Looking to our agenda, my name is Jacqueline
and I'll be the facilitator of today's webinar.
We also have with us our program director
Dr. Ellen Leggett and in the faculty spotlight,
we have Dr. Steve Westberg.
Today, we will go over the applied psychology
program and curriculum.
Clear with you some career directions.
Meet one of our professors, Dr. Steve Westberg,
discuss practical applications of this degree
and finally go over the next steps in how
to apply.
I'm now going to turn it over to our program
director, Dr. Ellen Leggett.
Dr. Leggett, thank you so much for being with
us today.
Ellen Leggett: It's a pleasure to be here.
I really appreciate all of you joining us
today and especially appreciate that you have
an interest in our program.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I've been at USC for five years as the director
of this program and before that, I have spent
25 years working in a very niche area of applied
psychology, my area of consulting was working
with trial lawyers on how to prepare them
for jury trials.
That was a very fascinating career.
I helped to build that career and that field
over the last 25 years.
Coming back to academia was always a dream
of mine and coming back to USC, I say back
because I had began my career as a professor
in psychology at UC Riverside.
I was really delighted to have the opportunity
to join USC's faculty specifically to build
this program.
Over the last five years, the curriculum has
been completely redone and we have generated
a lot of excitement as the faculty has grown,
as the student body has grown and as our online
program has grown.
The main focus of our program, although we're
going to especially talk about consumer psychology
today, we actually focus specifically on two
areas of application for psychology to business,
consumer psychology and organizational psychology.
In fact, students in our program are required
to take one course in each.
Why is that?
That was one of the revisions to our curriculum
that began five years ago.
We believe that the tools and language of
psychology are relevant whether you were talking
about the external audiences of a company
which are the consumers or other stakeholders,
actually I consider jurors, a kind of external
consumer or whether you're talking about the
internal constituents of a company which would
be the employees, leaders and executives.
Because psychology is everywhere that there
are people, we have found the commonalities,
both in the way psychology theory applies
as well as how the research tools of psychology
apply.
Whether you're talking about understanding
consumers and their purchasing trends and
their decision making process or whether you're
talking about the organizational change that
has to happen at your organization by motivating
employees.
We focus on these two particular areas because
we believe the career outlook in both of these
areas is very strong.
Human resources and organizational psychologists
are experiencing rapid growth because this
is a time of rapid change in organizations,
especially being out here in California with
Silicon Valley and Google, leading a lot of
the innovations in how employees are treated,
how creativity is fostered and how organizations
are designed.
We see that other organizations are taking
a more progressive look at their own employee
policies and procedures as well, making this
a ripe area for job growth.
Additionally, we know that there's an explosion
in data about consumers and their preferences
and employees who have the capability to interpret
that data and lead companies towards a better
understanding of their consumers are also
jobs that are increasing tremendously and
we have many of our graduates who are in both
of these fields or who join this program with
already some experience in these fields, especially
in the online program.
What else do we think is unique about this
program?
We do think it's unique.
You think that the fact that it is an accelerated
degree and a challenging program is important
to comment on, when students join this program
on campus, they can complete it in one academic
year.
Students who are in the program virtually,
usually are working or have other life responsibilities
which make them ... considered full-time if
you're taking two courses a term and thus,
the entire program can be completed in 16
consecutive months including summer.
During that time period, although that seems
fast, students are also completing an internship
or a professional development opportunity
and concluding with a capstone research project.
We also believe that we have an exceptional
faculty and you're going to have the opportunity
to hear from Professor Westberg in this call
but we have added faculty specifically who
desire to teach in this program because they
are practitioners who have strong psychology
background and have been working in an applied
area of psychology.
Therefore our faculty have a lot of experience
in how companies can benefit from the work
that we do and we're in many cases, teaching
you exactly what we do in our day job so to
speak but we're all passionate about the fact
that there are many ways to use psychology
within the business world and not just with
clinical applications which often are ... what
are emphasized in undergraduate programs in
psychology.
Lastly, we are striving to make this program
very contemporary in the way in which we teach
and what that means is that projects are very
typical.
We work in teams of students often and we
are challenging you to not just memorize out
a book.
There is very little of that in fact.
What is more relevant is how do you use what
you have learned and therefore many of the
test and projects are intended to have you
solve a real world problem so that organizations
can benefit from your ability to think on
your feet, strategize and advise not just
memorize things, memorize psychology out of
a book.
We have the internship as a required part
of this program specifically to make sure
that students have kind of practiced what
they have learned in a more real world setting
and we'll talk a little more about the international
opportunity to do this which we have developed
in Dublin, Ireland.
The internships which I mentioned are required
and it's a one semester requirement and you're
taking a class at the same time.
The word internship though can have a lot
of different meaning so what we mean is that
it is a professional development opportunity
commensurate with your current professional
expertise as well as commensurate with where
you desire to go with you career after this
degree.
Therefore students are responsible for identifying
a learning opportunity that will be approved
by ... well, actually by me but students are
extraordinarily creative especially because
our virtual students are located all over
the country in very remote areas sometimes
and in major metropolitan areas like Washington
DC and New York and Chicago other times.
The organizations that are in your backyard
and sometimes even the organization where
you may currently be employed are the first
source for interesting opportunities for our
students.
We put up a smattering of logos here for you
to see that we have had students in many different
kinds of settings.
Across the top you'll see some very highly
recognized brands, Facebook, Intel, Mattel,
Disney and in the middle there LRW.
Some of you may not know Lieberman Research
Worldwide is one of the largest market research
firms in the country, it's an international
firm and our students are highly sought by
them.
We've had students in entertainment, in more
manufacturing areas, in consulting, as well
as public agencies, nonprofits and even the
military.
I mentioned also that we've developed ... well,
that we have a goal in the program of making
our course work relevant for global employment
settings.
As we know the marketplace is increasingly
global.
Apple wants to sell its iPhone not just in
the US but worldwide and thus, the boundaries
between countries are quite invisible in the
consumer arena right now, similarly in the
employee workforce, companies are global and
that they have offices around the world, they
also have teams that are put together from
employees in different parts of the world
as well.
Knowing how to think about these global issues
is a focus of our program.
We have given the first actual global opportunity
to an internship in Dublin, which is optional.
Students can go in the summer and do an internship
that meets our requirements.
Somewhere in Dublin, we will be working with
you to identify an internship placement that
is particularly chosen for you and this summer,
we have eight students in Dublin.
Most of them are virtual students who did
not know each other and are from very different
parts of the US and they have converged and
are living and learning together and working
together in Dublin and having ... from what
I can tell, having a great experience.
I went last summer at this time to Dublin
to visit our interns and can tell you that
it was a place I wish I could have stayed
longer.
To wrap up about our program, I want to be
sure you understand how the curriculum is
laid out.
We have foundation courses that are required
and much of this programs is required.
As I mentioned, first students are required
to take both consumer psychology and organizational
psychology.
Those are research methods in applied psychology
that is also required and then there is a
two semester sequence which we call professional
seminar, pro seminar for short which is the
first ... the first semester of it is a tour
of many different areas of academic psychology
and how they maybe relevant to the workplace
and the marketplace.
The second semester of professional seminar
takes a tour through applied skills and we
have workshops each week on a very useful
and timely skillset that we want to make sure
everyone in this program acquires.
The second part of the program is the Practica,
which I've mentioned both the internship for
four units and the capstone treatise which
is a research project.
In addition there are electives and students
have the option to take electives totaling
eight units which is two courses and we have
electives that were very excited by.
We have group dynamics and leadership.
We have an applied cross cultural psychology
course which meets a lot of our expectations
about learning to work in the global workforce
and marketplace.
An interactive media class.
An advanced quantitative methods class which
is useful for those of you desiring to go
into consumer insights but we've also made
sure that those who were interested in people
analytics are getting well served in that
course as well.
We have a course on psychology of employee
selection which is of course relevant to the
talent acquisition and talent management arena.
The entire program is 34 units and I want
to comment on this picture here.
This was just taken at graduation.
That's me in the middle but I am surrounded
by what I like to call the men of MAPP.
This was a group of online students who met
each other for the first time at graduation
and I just noticed, I was surrounded by a
bunch of guys at one point and couldn't resist
snapping that photo.
I'd like to pivot now and give you an opportunity
to hear from one of our professors focusing
specifically on the consumer psychology arena.
We believe that understanding human behavior
is central to the functions of reaching and
influencing consumers in the marketplace which
I've described for today as global.
Dr. Westberg, I will let him introduce himself
in a moment but he is the professor who's
been teaching in this program for the longest
of any of us.
He's well-qualified to teach the consumer
psychology course and we're very glad to introduce
him to you now.
Dr. Westberg, would you like to take it from
here?
Steve Westberg: Yes, absolutely.
Hello, everybody and I'm really happy to be
able to chat with you a little bit about myself
and about our program here today.
First of all, I want to just give you a bit
about my background.
I'm going to get into the weeds a little just
because I feel like it's really important
that you have a good sense of where your professors
come from.
What our backgrounds and experiences are because
that's a lot of what we bring to the program
and then how we bring that into the courses
that we teach.
You can see on this slide here, I have a BS
in business administration, actually, specialized
in accounting at UC Berkeley.
Actually never got around to becoming an accountant
due to life circumstances and other things,
grabbed my interest and I just haven't yet
pursued becoming an accountant but once I
graduated from Berkeley, I had a really strong
desire to branch out and expand my world view.
I ended up joining the US Navy, went to officer
candidate school and then I served on a ship
for about four years so I have that experience
and when I went to transition out of the military
back to civilian life, I took a job at Texas
Instruments, that got me into Dallas, Texas.
At that same time, I probably was where many
of you were at which is considering going
to grad school.
I knew that was a strong focus so I really
wanted to use that to bolster my knowledge
but also give me more direction into a career
path.
I didn't know exactly where I wanted to take
me but I knew that education is going to get
me there.
I started out actually in an MBA program but
then quickly realized I wanted much more focus,
concentrated information so I switched over
into this MS and PHD program in marketing
science and when I finished that program,
so then my career sort of blossomed out into
consulting but on a parallel track, I've been
teaching ever since and so I first started
at a big consulting company, Wirthlin Worldwide.
Oakland was best known for being Ronald Reagan's
poster and campaign strategist and I did a
fair amount of corporate work though so a
fair amount of political work when I was working
there but then I felt like I wanted to expand
my horizon and understand what is the consulting
arena like but from the client's point of
view.
I took a job at Southern California and this
is where I was the manager of market research
for two years, actually during a really interesting
time period for that industry because it was
going through what was going to be deregulation
but all that kind of fell apart in California
but nonetheless, learned an off a lot about
what it's like to be a client of other consultants.
Then, switched back to the consulting side
and took a position at Hiner and Partners
and that's where I've been ever since and
worked with a variety of different clients
and then as I mentioned, parallel through
this, I've been teaching ... I started at
UCLA.
Obviously, I was living in Southern California
as you can tell from my work experience but
living in Southern California so I taught
at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton and then UC Riverside.
From UC Riverside at that point, I had really
actually become firstly burned out on teaching
in that sort of environment, I had been teaching
all along within business schools and at UC
Riverside in particular, I was teaching some
intro to marketing class where I have about
four or 500 students and was coming in, once
or twice a week to give a lecture and big
lecture hall.
After a while, it was not all that rewarding
to me.
I took a break from teaching but shortly after
I decided to take a break, I was approached
by USC to come into the MAPP program and I
first started teaching in the research methods
class and then shortly after transitioned
over to consumer psychology and I have found,
and what brought me back into teaching in
academia was just what I thought was really
an ideal program of what MAPP is all about,
but just basically taking people for the most
part students who have backgrounds in psychology
although it's not required that you have that
but then in a relatively short amount of time
giving a lot of practical skills.
Knowledge to be able to make a really effective
transition either into a subsequent job or
for some students, this might be a first professional
job.
I've been with the program ever since, that
was in 2011 and in 2013, I shifted to teaching
online, from teaching in the classroom and
that was actually quite a big adjustment for
me and for the program.
To help me make that transition, I'm completing
a certificate in online instructional design
so that I better understand how students are
interacting with the media of working with
an online class.
I use all the information to really create
what I think is a pretty effective course
in consumer psychology.
We move on to the main charges and apply progression
here so I can ... Yeah, all right so, a little
bit about the course I teach.
It's Consumer psychology, it's PSYC 552 course.
The images that you're looking at here is
just a quick representation of the basic structure
of the course.
What we focus on is understanding the consumer
from three main perspectives and I should
point out that my end goal at the end of this
course is that all students have the language
of marketing, they have a knowledge about
how to apply it.
They have some practical skills that we've
gained through the course, through a number
of hands on practical exercises that we do
throughout.
All through the course, we're building towards
creating a marketing plan for a product or
service that the students choose.
They work in very small groups to do that
so that my ultimate goal is that when a student
graduates if they so choose that they would
be able to take a career in marketing and
really any position whether it's in market
research or with an agency or with a client's
company and that they would be immediately
be able to be an effective contributor if
they were in a meeting with the other decision
makers having to do with marketing.
If you're in a meeting with a VP of marketing,
with an ad agency, executives, with a marketing
research executive so all of those people
that are involved in creating marketing for
companies that you would be an effective contributor
and that with time, you'd eventually be able
to lead those meetings.
That's my end goal so getting back into, a
little bit about this graphic.
We dig in and provide structure to this really
confusing world of the consumer market place.
We look at consumers from the cognitive perspective
and that's really what ... how they're thinking,
what their ... it's more of the rational side
of the consumer's mindset.
We also look at the emotional side so what
consumers are feeling.
Why those are two main division in how we'd
like to look at how consumers make decisions.
Then, the third big piece of it is the behavioral
side.
The behavioral side is growing in importance
and it really is ... a way to think about
it is what if you were going to be a marketer
but all you wanted to do was just impact behaviors
regardless of what was going on in the mind
of the consumer.
It's a very different way of looking at marketing
but with the growth of online marketing, Amazon
and other companies like that, behavioral
marketing is becoming more and more important
just because these companies have lots of
... huge amounts of data about what their
customers had done but they don't necessarily
have a lot about what consumers are thinking
at the time that they're doing those behaviors.
We try to take accounts of all of these pieces
to really have a good strong understanding
of the consumer from these different aspects
and we take all this into ... in the lower
right hand corner, the marketing strategy
process so just as important as it is to understand
the consumer and by the way, I actually have
quite a bit of the courses grounded in psychological
theories but virtually all of it, we then
apply in a way that you would be able to develop
the right strategies if you're working in
a marketing position in a company or in one
of their agencies.
That's a little bit about the course and how
I think about it and little bit about what
we do and what I hope that students really
get out of it.
As we move on to the next slide, sort of just
an image of what we call a live session so
in consumer psychology in the span of 15 weeks
of the course, we have five live sessions
and the live sessions are a time for ... that
we, myself and all the students in the course,
we all get together at the same time and we
can see each other with our webcams and we
can have an interactive discussion.
We use these one for Q and A because I think
it's important that I'm acceptable to all
our students and that the students get to
know each other and so I start up every live
session with a Q and A. If anybody's got any
questions or just wants to bring up any issues
related to the course or really about anything,
sometimes student talk about career things.
We do that at the beginning of a live session
and then, most of the live sessions, the students
are presenting some of the work that they've
been doing so that they got an opportunity
and experience presenting and then I get direct
feedback so they get to know if they're on
track or not with what they're working on
and they get feedback from both myself but
also from all their peers during a live session.
We do those kind of spaced every few weeks
throughout the term.
I kind of find them very valuable for both
myself and I hope the students also get something
out of them because I think we're imparting
additional skills there that you wouldn't
get just from a more static sort of interactive
online course without needing live on occasion.
I would just say that all in all, what I've
tried to do is I've got lots of experience
teaching in a classroom.
I try to bring all of that, all the really
wonderful great things that come out of a
classroom experience and build that into an
online experience so we don't lose any of
that by learning online by that we also then
gain all the advantages that online provides
which is the flexibility and just being able
to do this from all different locations so
a little bit about my self and a little bit
about my course and about my, I guess you
could call it my philosophy about instructing
... hopefully you can tell I'm really passionate
about it.
I do this only because I really enjoy it and
I feel like I've reach that point of my career
that I'm now giving back and so that's really
important to me.
I do try to be very accessible to students.
I guess I should point out, just a little
bit more about myself.
I'm married.
I ended up living in Austin, Texas, that's
why I moved from Southern California and living
in Austin, Texas now so my wife can further
her career but then actually I found that
it's not hampered me at all.
I can work remotely both with teaching and
consulting.
Then I have two daughters that now has gotten
up into the age.
They're in their early 20s that I feel like
as I'm working and seeing them as well and
just coincidentally both of them right now,
where one just made a graduate school choice.
It's been about a year trying to figure all
that out.
My older daughter is now just starting to
think about what her graduate school choices
will be so I feel like I can also really relate
to our students and I try to be as accessible
as long as I can, both about course work but
also about career, guidance and advice.
I guess with that, I will move on and pass
this back to Ellen.
Ellen?
Ellen Leggett: Hi.
Thank you Dr. Westberg.
In this photo that we have here, another great
photo from graduation.
I would like to comment on how great you look
in the front row there on the left.
We had all the faculty from wherever they
live in the country, come to graduation and
this is most of the faculty that teaches on
the online program.
What are your observations about the faculty
in general?
Steve Westberg: Well, I would say that number
one is, I think that just as you described
at the beginning of our session here is that
our faculty are very low grounded academically
but then they're also all practitioners and
they all really do an excellent job of bringing
that into the classroom to the students.
That was ... I have to say that my prettiest
teaching experience is, that's an element
that I didn't always see, that many of the
faculty really weren't practitioners also
but that's definitely the case I think with
our MAPP faculty.
It's really been a pleasure I think to work
with our ... with my peers in the faculty
and actually be able to do what I think of
is more traditional academic types of things
like pursue our own research and bring that
into what we're doing.
Ellen Leggett: Great.
I think, I would comment on the fact that
the faculty really cares about creating a
virtual community that we don't expect to
just interact with students one on one and
hang up the phone from a conversation and
go on our merry way.
We want the students to be connected to each
other and the faculty, I see each and everyone
of these people as mentors and taking that
role seriously.
Steve Westberg: I would definitely agree with
that.
I think that's another strong opinion.
Ellen Leggett: Great.
Can you wrap it up Dr. Westberg with any comments
about how the MAPP program can create advantages
for our students in the workplace?
Steve Westberg: Yeah, so I think ... Well,
one clear aspect is that we have the two tracks
of those consumer and then the employee side
and in my experiences, I've done work both
primarily with consumers but also having to
do with employees and I think there's a lot
of overlap and it makes a lot of sense that
both sides of the equation I guess are taught
within the program and that our students have
the ability to both.
Then, I also want to stress that the underpinnings
of psychology are really becoming more and
more important in the business world and I
think just as technology is becoming important.
I see that the way companies are marketing
is becoming a bit more quantitative yet at
the same time, there's an increase need to
really understand what's going on ... from
the consumer's side, what's going on in the
mind of the consumer.
Why are they behaving the way they do, the
way that they do, why do they do the things
they do and how can marketers who have more
tools available to them now than ever before
and how can marketers really facilitate that
process in a way that most ... it's advantageous
to the company, because it makes efficient
use of their money but also advantageous to
the consumer because it makes more ... better
use of the consumer's time.
It's more cognizant of how consumers are living
their lives and try to create a more seamless
integration, I would guess of consumers with
companies and the employee's side, with employees
with companies and the way that you do that
is really, it is grounded in psychology so
it's kind of where I think the ... where this
program really shines.
Ellen Leggett: Great.
Thank you.
I like to think of the fact of it as just
giving a little extra competitive advantage
to understand both the consumer psychology
as well as how organizations work because
no matter where we focus our careers or where
the students focus their careers, they will
always be working in the context of some kind
of organization, even if it's an entrepreneurial
venture of your own so kind of an additional
benefit of understanding both arenas.
I think at this point, we are ready to turn
this back over to you Jacqueline.
Jacqueline: Thank you, Dr. Leggett.
If you are ready to apply, we do accept applications
throughout the year, as we have start dates
in spring, summer and fall.
We are currently enrolling for the fall 2018
term where classes begin Monday, September
3rd.
The admissions requirement for our program
are a completed application, a bachelor's
degree from an accredited institution with
at least a 3.0 GPA.
All official transcripts, GRE scores, statement
of purpose, professional resume and finally
three letters of recommendation.
The application deadline for the fall term
is Sunday, August 1st and if you're interested
in Spring 2019 that application deadline is
December 3rd.
Please feel free to contact us to further
discuss the program and the enrollment process.
My contact information is below.
Again, my name is Jacqueline Campagna and
I'm the enrollment advisor for this program.
We also have here Serena Diep, our academic
advisor.
Serena, do you want to say hello?
Serena Diep: Yes.
Thank you, Jacqueline.
Hi everyone.
My name is Serena Diep.
I am the academic advisor for the applied
psychology online program.
Feel free to reach out to me via email or
via phone if you have any questions regarding
the program.
Jacqueline: Thank you Serena.
Now, I want to open it up for some Q and A.
Don't forget that you can ask some questions
in the Q and A box below.
One question that we did come through, we
actually have several students ask about the
internship opportunities so can we go over
again, Dr. Leggett how the internship works
with those working full-time?
Are you able to apply your internship to your
current job?
Ellen Leggett: Many of our students are currently
employed but your current job will not satisfy
the internship requirement for this program.
On the other hand, your place of employment
may offer or you may find or you may develop
opportunities at your current company that
will very readily meet this requirement.
The reality is that students are quite creative
and we are very supportive in helping students
to think about what skills they want to learn
and where there maybe an opportunity for them
to learn them.
Even though you're working full-time you were
not exempt from this opportunity nor can you
count your current job as fulfilling this.
Although that may sound onerous, I think that
our students actually find it to be a career
enhancing experience that they would not have
missed for anything and that it turns out
to be one of the most pivotal parts of their
experience in this program.
We've had students get promotions at their
current company because of this internship
or whatever you want to call this requirement
obviously for those of who are already working,
it's more of a cross-training potentially
in your current company, taking on a project
that no one else is willing to do and championing
it, getting some extra opportunities.
You are stepping forward and saying, "I want
to do it and also USC required me to do it,"
and we found companies to be extraordinarily
cooperative and really welcome an employee
who wants to do more and learn more.
That's about the most that I can say about
it at this point.
We've had every student in this program fulfill
this requirement and those were working full-time
sometimes have the best opportunities right
where they're working currently.
Jacqueline: Great.
Thank you so much Ellen for clearing that
up.
Another question that came through regarding
the practicum are what are some examples of
treatise topics students have used in the
past?
Ellen Leggett: Students will stick on the
consumer side here but students have ... there
are so many things that students do and there's
not just even one type of project but the
kind of opportunities that most students do
for the capstone treatise is a survey research
project or a qualitative research project,
where they are actually speaking with consumers.
One example would be a student who really
was fascinated with the focus that millennials
have on specialty coffee and she, herself
was someone who was very interested in developing
a coffee product.
She did focus groups of patrons to a local
coffee shop and found it very easy to get
patrons from this coffee shop to say they
would come and talk to her.
She didn't even have to give them a gift certificate
for another cup of coffee but she pursued
with them what their consuming habits are
with respect to specialty coffees.
We've had students, and I can think of one
in Seattle who did a very interesting survey
noting that many of the stores in Seattle
advertise, flags outside their shops that
are rainbow flags, that is meant to connote
being friendly to LGBT community.
She wanted to know whether it really matters
with consumers and she did an online survey
actually of consumers that she randomly found
through social media in the Seattle area.
She presented them with pictures of storefront,
some of which had the rainbow flag, some of
which had no flag and some of which just had
a little rainbow sticker that's greatly in
the window.
She was trying to determine whether it was
noticed and what the meaning was that consumers
attach to that symbol as another example.
Dr. Westberg, do you want to comment on any
other examples of students you've worked with
for their treatise?
Steve Westberg: Sure.
Yeah.
I had a student who was ... he worked for
the USC's coliseum and so he was ... I think
he was the assistant facility director and
he had been approached by the LA Olympic Committee
for when Los Angeles will be hosting the Olympics
again in the future and wanted to understand
the impact of the Olympics locally focusing
on sustainability efforts.
Whether or not the Olympic organizers could
integrate more and promote more sustainability
activities be it as simple as just recycling
at the venues or more broadly encouraging
within the surrounding area.
He conducted a survey amongst potential ... in
the Los Angeles area, amongst consumers who
are likely to be interested to watch or to
even attend the Olympic games and his investigation
was just about the potential impact of the
Olympics focusing more on sustainability.
That was a recent one that stands up in my
mind.
Jacqueline: Great.
Thank you both so much for that.
We've had a few questions come through regarding
the live session.
Can we elaborate more on these live sessions
more specifically when do you meet and how
long do these lasts?
Steve Westberg: Well, that's great question.
Yeah, we meet ... They're spread out not exactly
every, like in consumer psychology, in the
PSYC 552 class, we have five live sessions.
The other courses have more or less about
the same number of live sessions and they're
spread out more or less every few weeks but
not exactly and they're also ... we coordinate
with each other so we're not overlapping too
much with our live session.
The live sessions then would be just pre-scheduled
at the very beginning of the semester, you
get the full schedule when they are and they
typically lasts from one to two hours.
It, in part, depends on how many students
are actually enrolled in the session and then
a little bit about what the topic of the session
is.
Then, for the consumer psychology live sessions,
actually I realized that many students are
busy, they have jobs.
Sometimes they have conflicts and so like
I do not grade the live sessions or grade
attendance at live sessions.
I think they're beneficial but if you can't
make it, we totally understand and we record
the live sessions so you can go back and view
it and get the benefit at least seeing which
you might have missed but all in all, I think
that the live sessions are ... they're not
an overwhelming burden to students but yeah,
I think students really get a lot of them
and we've tried to adjust the number of sessions
and what we found is having about five seems
just about right for what students think about
them.
Ellen Leggett: They're usually in the evenings.
They're no earlier than 5 PM California time
and really no later than 7 PM California time
that they would end.
Really, it's a pretty tight two-hour window
of time that we learned is optimum for students
all around the country to be able to join
at the same time.
Jacqueline: Great.
Thank you both so much for that.
Another question that came through, would
you say this program can set up students for
a PHD program?
Ellen Leggett: Yeah.
Let me talk to that.
We have students that aspire to other degrees,
even as they're in this programs but we will
not be focusing on caring you for graduate
school through our curriculum per se.
Our curriculum is very focused on work place
issues and performing task and real world
applications for what we're learning.
Nonetheless, there are many different PHD
programs that students can be interested in
and can pursue whether it's in educational
leadership or organizational leadership or
sometimes, I supposed students go and get
an MBA although I can't think of any.
I have in fact more students with MBAs have
come to get this degree afterwards but if
you are thinking of this as a way to get a
foot in the door, towards a PHD program in
psychology at USC, the answer is no.
It will not prepare you for that or give you
any extra credit so to speak.
Jacqueline: Great.
Thank you Dr. Leggett.
Another question that came through was how
does the online program provide support for
the distant learners outside of LA?
Ellen Leggett: Yeah, that's a great question.
It's something we care about a lot.
In fact, the faculty as I said consider ... we
consider each of us to be mentors to the students.
The first resource for every student in each
course is their own professor and professors
have been known to ... I'm going to speak
kind of generally and then Dr. Westberg, you
can be more specific but professors have been
... are definitely making themselves available
for one on one conversations with students
about anything related to the class or even
their own career and if you're in the LA area,
I know that students have come on campus,
students have met at Starbucks and met with
the professor there.
Professors are in this program because we
want to help students.
This is not a mook environment where you have
hundreds of students in these classes.
The largest class size maybe is 25 more typically
15 to 20 because we want to be able to give
personal attention to the students.
This is a private university and you will
get private university attention, I believe
is what we're trying to deliver.
Dr. Westberg, any other comments about that?
Steve Westberg: Well, I concur that the faculty
are really ... that they would be your first
point of contact but then also, we have great
support with ... like Serena for example,
for more program type issues that might occur,
that you might want some assistance or advice
or guidance or whatever is needed on that.
Most of the time, student issues are really
best handled by the faculty and just as an
example, I give all my students ... well,
you can get my email address but also my cellphone
number and I encourage all my students to
phone or text my cellphone really if I don't
respond to emails really quickly because just
like everybody, I'm not always looking at
my email.
I always have my phone with me and I am willing
to talk to students about any issues really
at anytime, day or night.
Just an example, I had one ... although, when
I go to bed, I put my cellphone in a different
room so it doesn't bug me.
That actually worked really well with one
student I had, who just like to text at about
3 AM in the morning with various thoughts
and comments and things that were fine.
I would get up in the morning and every couple
of days, there would be like her pretty lengthy
text that then I read through and I respond
to and answer whatever questions or at one
point we've setup a ... ended up having a
couple of scheduled calls just to go through
some things in more detail.
That's sort of one extreme.
At the other end, I just get random periodic
quick questions from students that maybe they're
studying for an exam or working on a particular
assignment and something just pops in their
head right in the middle of ... when they're
working on it.
They send me a quick text and I usually answer
immediately so that it doesn't slow them down
and they just keep on track.
That's the way I do things and I think probably
the other faculty are pretty similar.
Ellen Leggett: You did mention Serena and
Serena is on the line.
I want to reinforce the idea that your academic
advisor here on campus is right next to me,
in the office right next to me and when it
comes time for registration, she will be speaking
with you and we map your progress in the program
and are advising you all along the way regarding
how you're doing with work life balance.
We also have another team member who is ... if
any of you have lived in a residence hall,
you may know the difference between your academic
advisor and the RA of the residence hall who
just stopped by and says how were things going.
Well, we have one of those too.
She will be calling ... she has a schedule
of calling students just to check in and say
hi, how is it going and direct you to other
places where you can get things solved.
Additionally, you have all of USC available
to you.
The university has made a great effort to
put mesh of its ... many of its resources
on its website and you can find access to
even the career center through their website.
The USC entire university, although you can't
come on campus necessarily, if you're in Boston,
that doesn't preclude you from having one
to one chats with the librarians for example.
Jacqueline: Great.
Thank you, Dr. Leggett.
I think we have time for one more question.
How much time do you feel needs to be allocated
per class, per week for this program?
Ellen Leggett: It's definitely like having
a part time job and your work life balance
will change because the balance will tip towards
whatever you used to do for recreation, you
will now be spending much more of that time
on your school work.
Steve, speaking specifically, what would you
say for your class?
Steve Westberg: Well.
That's a good question.
I think it varies week to week and it's somewhat
flexible, I would like to point out that we
understand that almost all of our online students
have jobs and they have ... maybe even have
families.
We even have one student who I think had a
baby during the middle of term, which is quite
amazing and never missed a beep.
We have kind of built-in flexibility into
the program.
I guess, in terms of actual hourly commitment,
maybe that's about it.
Maybe it's an eight hour day so that could
be spread over some evenings, weekend work,
that's probably on average.
It kind of fluctuates up and down a little
bit on ... some weeks, I have more readings
in my course than other weeks and that sort
of thing.
Ellen Leggett: It is important to mention
that much of work that you need to do in the
course cannot be done in a solitary fashion.
It is done in collaboration with other students
so that you will be coordinating with other
students for meeting times and working together
on projects.
That takes some effort but it is worth it.
It's works get done in the real world and
it's how you become connected to other students
and how you do the application part of this
program.
By the way, another ... I think I saw a question,
I just want to stuck it in here because I
don't think I have mentioned that this isn't
master of science degree, not a master of
arts.
We take that seriously.
What that means is that data matters and that
we are graduating from this program, students
who will be facile with at least understanding
how collecting data can help solve a business
problem.
The kind of data that we specialize in is
people data, whether the people are consumers
or the people are employees.
The master of science is generally why we
have students doing a research, project and
applied project for their Treatise which is
satisfied very readily by doing a survey,
an online survey, doing focus groups or doing
a qualitative interview study for the most
part.
Just wanted to mention that because I think
I saw one question on that.
Jacqueline: Great.
Thank you so much, Dr. Leggett.
I think that's all the time that we have today
but if we did not get to your questions, we
will definitely be sure to contact you directly
to get those addressed.
I want to thank you all so much for joining
and Dr. Leggett, Dr. Westberg, thank you so
much for taking the time to join us today
and sharing all of this wonderful information.
Ellen Leggett: You're very welcome.
Thank you everyone and we hope to hear from
you again.
