Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.mmmKay
Weren't you feeling extremely full when you were drinking that much water?
Not that I recall. Unlike real life where the day would start around 9 AM, in this case we had eaten and were at the range by like 6 AM IIRC. Lunch around noon, 6-7 canteens over that amount of time wouldn't be that much over a normal rate anyway. They encouraged you to drink around a canteen an hour in hot weather, and this was Missouri in July, so of course it was hot, although that day wasn't particularly brutal by those standards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iversonian
would drinking that much gatorade have been ok?
Probably. At the hospital, someone told me that I should drink Gatorade at meals to help avoid this from happening (specifically the flushing of the electrolytes). But we weren't allowed to drink anything except water. Like you could get milk for your cereal but each meal was two glasses of water - not soda, not juice, not milk. Water. I told the doctor or nurse who mentioned it that this wasn't allowed in basic training and he just looked at me like I was from outer space. It's possible that was just something with my unit. I passed it along to my drill sergeant but I doubt it did much good. They told me I was the first one who had gotten water intoxication in that training brigade in several years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Divided By Zero
Afaik you have a PhD in psychology;
when did you start knowing you would want to get one, so you started the necessary steps (get involved in research etc)?
and how hard was it to get into a program?
Well, slightly off there - I'm finishing my Ph.D. (I'm ABD, but my dissertation is finished - I'll defend in the Fall) in Counseling, which is extremely similar but not quite the same. I can't call myself a psychologist.
Psychology was my undergraduate minor, so it's been at least an interest of mine for years. When the Army stationed me in Belgium, I was doing the orientation at all the different offices, which meant I had to stop by the Education office. I told them honestly that I doubted I'd ever use them - I already had a bachelors, which is what most people in the Army are working towards if they are taking civilian classes. They told me that the University of Maryland had a satellite program for soldiers in Europe, and they were JUST starting a masters in Counseling Psychology.
Normally, gradate work in Psychology is fairly difficult to get into. If you have decent grades you'll get in somewhere, but you have to cast a fairly wide net - the number of seats in any given masters/Ph.D. program is tiny compared to the number of applications they receive. But here was a program where they were struggling to get ENOUGH qualified applicants.
I figured worst case scenario, I take a few classes and don't like it. No harm no foul. Other than a small fee, the classes were free since I was active duty. But I enjoyed it, and frankly Belgium is a pretty dull duty station so there was plenty of spare time. Why not get a free masters? I finished all my actual course work while in Belgium, mostly online but a few face to face classes in Germany and Belgium. I lined up my internship for the Fall after I got out of the service (not sure how that would have worked had I stayed in) and got my masters in Spring of '06.
I basically just figured that since I was back in school mode, I might as well go ahead and try to get my Ph.D. At the time, I limited myself mostly to schools that required you to have your masters to enter their program, because I wanted a shorter program. This is funny because I've been writing my dissertation for three years now and I only have until Spring of next year to finish (I will, though - the dissertation needs only to be defended and final edits). I cast a fairly wide net in terms of psychology interests. I applied to Ph.D. programs in clinical psych, counseling psych, one in forensic psych, and one Counseling program at George Washington University (I didn't really get the distinction at the time). I applied at 8 schools, got interviews for 4, was accepted at 1 (and wait listed at another, one of my two top choices, which was a bit of a bummer).
Other than just researching some schools I didn't really do any prep, though. I wasn't published before entering grad school (although I had to write a research paper to get my masters). My background was probably very different from a lot of other applicants, since my work history was in law enforcement, but I saw that as a plus, and apparently so did GW.
Having solid grades and GRE scores is a plus, other than that just learning how to talk yourself up during the interview, and writing a good essay (if required) to get your foot in the door.