Graduate Counselling and Applied Psychology (GCAP) 500

Overview

Welcome to the Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology! We are extremely pleased with the quality of students admitted and look forward to working with you throughout your program. Before you begin your program, it is important to learn more about the programs and about the Graduate Centre for Applied Psychology (GCAP) courses. We have designed the GCAP 500 Student Orientation course with two primary purposes in mind:

1. One difference between on-site and distance learning is online communication. This orientation will familiarize you with the tools, resources, and procedures that you will draw on throughout your graduate program, as well as the roles and expectations of both students and program staff. We recognize that distance learning and online communication are new to many of you, and we trust that, by the end of this course, you will feel more confident in this virtual academic environment and be ready to begin your first GCAP program course.
2. One of the key differences between graduate and undergraduate education is the focus on professional writing at the graduate level. Writing at the professional level involves developing your own voice, analyzing critically, synthesizing the professional literature to support your arguments, operating with scholarly integrity, and meeting most of the specific criteria required by the American Psychological Association (APA) format. You aren’t expected to master these skills in this course. This orientation is an opportunity to get a sense of what we mean by professional writing. We will support you to master these skills incrementally over the first year of your program. By the end of the orientation you will have a sense of your strengths and weakness in professional writing and will create a learning plan to carry forward with you into your first program course.

Outline

• Lesson 1: Foundations of the GCAP Graduate Experience
• Lesson 2: Becoming a Graduate Student
• Lesson 3: Joining Your Graduate Community
• Lesson 4: Preparing for your Graduate Course Work
• Lesson 5: You're on the Home Stretch
• Lesson 6: Ready, Set, Go!

Course Evaluation

There is no credit assigned to GCAP 500. Students will be assigned a pass/fail evaluation based solely on completing the tasks involved in the various study units. Students are required to complete the course prior to taking any other GCAP courses.