CSPP Student Profile: Gina Poelke

Gina Poelke is a third year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology PhD Program at Alliant’s San Francisco campus. Before coming to CSPP, Gina worked as a statistical analysis software programmer. She also worked for WestEd, a non-profit education agency, and studied student success at community colleges at Columbia University. Gina’s family inspired her to pursue psychology. “My mother’s side of the family is Indonesian. My family would congregate once a week at a family member’s house for rice table. Everyone cooks. I loved it growing up because everyone would sit around the table. Sometimes everyone talked or no one talked. But when I left, I always felt more centered. I enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories and knowing I was going to hear their story again, every month.”

Gina benefited from the practicum requirements, which compelled her to work with different sets of clients. “Initially I preferred to work with adults, and working with children confirmed that preference.” In her second year Gina worked at a residential facility for the severely mentally ill. In her third year Gina worked with adolescents at a non-profit agency in the tenderloin, a San Francisco neighborhood with significant poverty and crime. “The sites are what make the practicum. I have had therapists that really want to make good supervisors out of their students.”

Gina’s favorite classes have been those taught by professors who included their own clinical experiences into the class. “These smaller classes are so much better than undergrad. You get to know everybody.”

Gina experienced CSPP’s supportive environment first hand when a research project she was working on fell through. She had been assisting a forensic psychologist in a study in exchange for his data. “It was great knowing that I had the support of CSPP - the program, students and professors. They researched the legal aspects of it, to protect me. That stood out for me. Having everyone's support. That was nice.”

For her dissertation Gina is study meditation as stress reduction for women, focusing on its effect on the aging process, weight and specific hormones like estrogen. “Your first research project gives you tools to do your dissertation. It gives you a nice set of tools and helps you learn your limitations. It helps you learn to think outside the box,” she says.

Gina plans to find a postdoctoral internship that will incorporated clinical experience into research projects or at least work with people who are research minded. “Ultimately, I’d like to do both,” she says. “San Francisco is a rich place to work. The diversity. The people. I knew people from all over would be coming to study at CSPP.”