Words from the Chair

From its founding in 2013 until now, the whole faculty and staff of the Department of Counseling and Industrial/Organizational Psychology of Ming Chuan University carefully attend to students and work hard to nurture them. Hence, the department shines as a favorite among businesses, relied upon by schools, trusted by parents, supported by alumni and liked by students. At present, there are a total of 10 full-time faculty (expanding to 12 in the future); every one holds a doctorate in a specialized field, including 3 in basic psychology, 3 in business psychology, 2 in counseling psychology, and 2 in clinical psychology. Those faculty specialized in counseling psychology and clinical psychology all hold relevant professional psychologist licenses.

Although there is only one undergraduate class cohort per year level in the undergraduate program, our teaching content is diverse and practical, comprising innovative activities, yielding excellent student learning outcomes. The undergraduate curriculum includes professional courses in all four areas of psychology specialization: counseling, clinical, industrial, and secondary school guidance. As students learn about all areas of applied psychology at the same time, this simultaneously stimulates the effectiveness of each area. In addition, the department’s curriculum and the courses of the secondary teacher education program overlap significantly, which is quite conducive for students who aspire to become secondary school guidance counselors as they complete training courses in teacher education.

In addition to classroom teaching, the Department pays special attention to the combination of theory and practice; therefore, since the establishment of the Department, we require each student to complete 240 hours of institutional internship. Besides interning at domestic institutions, the Department has opened up many overseas institutional internship opportunities, with the aim of enabling students to understand future career development directions and implications. In regard to innovation in instructional activities, because of the outstanding learning outcomes of its international sister schools, the Department has greatly encouraged students to go abroad for study exchange. In recent years, a number of students have participated in university exchange programs in the United States, South Korea, and mainland China 985 universities to elevate their international thinking. Department faculty lead students to participate in various off-campus instructional activities. For example, tutoring students to carry out supplementary activities with neighboring primary and secondary schools, organizing camp activities with Taoyuan elementary and secondary schools during winter and summer breaks. In addition, a charity cycling tour is also a major off-campus learning activity of the Department every year. In terms of student learning effectiveness, the Department fully encompasses the feature of small quantity with fine quality, and has a shining record in various academic and extra-curricular activities, and competition achievements. For example, our ratio for subsidies granted to college students by the Ministry of Science and Technology for research projects, among Taiwan public and private university departments of psychology, is always among the best. Even in the cross-strait university human resources competition held in annually Beijing, our student always attain great achievements, receiving all kinds of awards each year.

Finally, in terms of the master's classes, the Department currently has a counseling psychology section and a clinical psychology section in the general master's program, which is delivered on the Taoyuan campus, while the executive master's program focuses on industrial/organizational psychology, and is delivered both at Taoyuan and Jihe locations. With the joint efforts of teachers and students, the percentage of the Department's masters’ class students to take certificate examinations for psychologists is almost 100%.

Perhaps you have doubts that psychology has no concrete knowledge (such as accounting, financial management ...). After graduation, will it be applicable in the workplace? My thought is, "Psychology is useful if it is useful, it is useless when it is useless." Taken as an analogy, psychology can be a knife. In a chef’s hand, it becomes a sumptuous kitchen knife, hanging across the chest of a soldier, it becomes a bayonet to defend the country and defend the country. Of course, in the hands of Zhang Wuji, it will become the dragon-slaying sword at the peak of the battle. The key is that everyone will change, the applications will be different; especially when AI plays a larger role in the future, many industries will be replaced. However, what AI changes is technology, the way of working. What cannot be changed is the human heart. Once you have grasped the human heart, you will be invincible. Don't doubt, join us. Ming Chuan University Department of Counseling and Industrial / Organizational Psychology welcomes you!

Hsu, Chin-Tien PhD., Department Chair