Nonlinear Higher Ed

Mentorship as a critical component to success

After 10 years outside of the classroom, I applied & was admitted to California State University, Sacramento to start in the spring of 2017. After recognizing that I chose a psychology course every time I needed to take an elective while at SRJC, I chose to major in psychology. It felt like coming home, & I knew that I had finally found my path.

I was able to go from barely graduating high school to earning my Bachelor's degree magna cum laude, & a huge part of this was due to the encouragement I received from my faculty mentors. These relationships influenced my research, and I began a project studying the impact of faculty support on university student belonging (learn more at The Belonging Project).

This is also where I gained an appreciation for statistics after many years of poor experiences with math. I am deeply humbled by the incredible humans who mentored me, as they allowed me to see that I was far more capable than I had ever thought. They pushed me forward with their love & kindness; I cannot imagine where I might be without their help & guidance.

I graduated from California State University, Sacramento in the spring of 2019, & was accepted into graduate school at University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the fall of 2019.

Finally pointed in the right direction

At UNL, I was able to cultivate a deep love for research and statistics through the many opportunities available to me. I took as many graduate-level courses in statistics & research methods as I could, including psychometric measures, ANOVA & MANOVA, linear & multiple regression, structure equation modeling, longitudinal research, multilevel modeling, as well as qualitative research methods and mixed methodology. I earned my Master's in Educational Psychology in the spring of 2021, then entered their PhD program that fall. I completed the work to earn a graduate certificate in Mixed Method Research in the spring of 2024. Upon completion of my dissertation in the summer of 2024, I earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Developmental and Learning Sciences with a minor in Quantitative, Qualitative, and Psychometric Measures.

For my dissertation, I developed a novel measure of comprehensive, multidimensional wellbeing specifically targeted at the developmental period of emerging adulthood. There is a significant gap in the research literature regarding how to measure wellbeing during this unique developmental period. What I've found is that very few researchers have utilized the help of the population they are attempting to study, so I wanted to use my study to amplify their voices using both quantitative and qualitative methods using a convergent parallel mixed method research design. Participants in the quantitative sample were asked to complete a series of surveys about their wellbeing, mental health, and happiness, as well as to share any symptoms they were experiencing of anxiety or depression.

While conducting this study, I recognized the demographic makeup of a midwestern sample, and because I was most interested in capturing the personal narratives of traditionally marginalized individuals, I over-sampled in these special populations for both the quantitative surveys as well as in the recruitment efforts for my qualitative focus groups. I used quantitative reliability and factor analyses directly integrated into the rich qualitative data from my focus groups in order to develop a nuanced measure, the Multidimensional Wellbeing Scale for Emerging Adults (MWS-EA; Wick & Clark, 2024), which I hope to pilot in 2027 (if interested in learning more about this study, please see The Wellbeing Project).

I was given the opportunity to teach from the first semester I came to UNL, and I have completely fallen in love with teaching statistics and research methods. There is nothing quite as tangible as seeing the moment when my students "get it", and I live for helping students move beyond their previous bad experiences and beyond what they believe are their limitations in math. In Fall of 2024, I worked as lecturer in the Psychology Department at my undergraduate alma mater, California State University, Sacramento, and I taught the third class in a series of 3 required statistic and research method course arc. As someone who has dealt with significant difficulty in my relationship with math, I teach in the way that I needed to be taught, with focus on making statistics and research approachable and understandable rather than subscribing to the gatekeeping that can happen with complex subjects and jargon. 

Most recently, I have been teaching in the Human Development & Ecology Department at the University of California, Davis. I have had the opportunity to teach three different courses for them: Research Methods, Social Relationships Across the Lifespan, & Thriving Across the Lifespan.

While I love getting the chance to teach as a lecturer, I am now searching for the next step in my career.