Michi Fu, PhD

Professor of Clinical Psychology, Los Angeles and Alliant alumna who graduated with an emphasis in Multicultural Community Clinical Psychology (MCCP). Dr. Fu is also a Visiting Professor of National Taiwan University.

Q: What made you want to pursue teaching at Alliant? 

A: For me I really love my alma mater, which is why I continue to teach here. I have the pleasure of working with a wide variety of students and my heart really goes out toward the first-generation students that didn't have a road map from their families.

I approach mentoring in a tiered way where I’ll groom folks to also be peer mentors because sometimes, I find that the students want to ask me a question, but they think that it's not a smart question to ask and it's a lot easier to encourage them to mentor one another. Ultimately, they still have access to me, but the labs are structured in a way where maybe the lab manager is a more advanced graduate student.

I create a sense of community, and I try to foster a safe space so that they can ask things that are really difficult such as how do I register for a conference if I don't have the money? Those are conversations that I didn't always know how to have as a student. So, I create an atmosphere where no question is dumb, but you do have to find courage to get what you want in life. I've been very fortunate where I got to participate in several leadership tracks. APA had a few and the Asian American site had a few and I try and bring in the information that I've learned from those leadership tracks to our student population.

Q: What are some of the concerns that you find in the students? 

A: I think there's a variety of differences among our student population. We have a bimodal population. Some have parents who are alumni of our program and they’ve known since they were growing up that they’d be a psychologist and they’re able to carve out a space that's different maybe from their family members. I also have those that are siblings of alumni.

Then I have those that haven't been socialized in higher education and they don't really understand how to study or how to present at professional spaces or how to create a study that you can get excited about that can sustain you over the next few years. I think being able to see yourself as a scholar and have a voice is something that is really near and dear to me, so I teach the interesting electives that are very immersive like media advocacy and public outreach, where we’ll probably have you produce a podcast when you're done about a topic that you're really passionate about on a platform that makes the most sense for your personality.

Q: What are the common misconceptions about the field of psychology or the program?

A: I teach in the clinical PhD program, and I think there's a misconception that because we're a professional school that we may not take research seriously. But we do have rigorous dissertations, and we actually have a lot of opportunities to bring students to professional psychology conventions.

Q: Can you tell me about the dissertation process at Alliant?

A: I cannot speak for the PsyD programs only for the clinical PhDs, and they tend to be traditional dissertations. Our PhD program also does a scaffolding kind of experience so that at the end of your first year you're going to take the first semester out of a three-semester course and then essentially walk away with a master's thesis type of study that serves as the foundation for your dissertation. As a result, students end up having a poster that they can present at a conference, and we encourage people to do so.

Q: What do you want prospective students to know about the PhD program at Alliant?

A: CSPP is different than other professional schools because we are the oldest, longstanding accredited university.

We have an excellent reputation for turning out great clinicians. In fact, I am a part time faculty member but I'm also working in the community and when we look for practicum candidates or interns, we give serious consideration to CSPP students because we know they're going to have excellent clinical training.

That being said, we also have several different tracks, so if you're interested in health and you see yourself in a hospital setting doing neuropsychology, that can happen. If you love working with families and children, you'll have mentors for how to do that. I'm in the social justice track so we might encourage you to do a community mural at The Boys and Girls Club because that might improve those kids’ self-esteem. There’s a variety of different spaces where you can find mentoring from faculty that have a lot of different areas of expertise.

Q: Does Alliant encourage its students to try out different tracks or interests?

A: We have some folks coming in who say, “I just know I want to be a psychologist. I don't know if I like children or not.” And I say, “You should go figure that out before you graduate it's not good to experiment after you get licensed.” I like to encourage people if they already know what they're going to do. I knew I wanted to work with Asian Americans, so I chose a college counseling center with a high percentage of Asian Americans. I also chose solid training at Pfizer and then let my supervisors know I can speak other languages so that they can keep that in mind when they give me cases to see. And then I carved out things for myself in other placements so if you're very clear about what you want to do, find ways from a variety of angles to still get that experience and give yourself that expertise.

Q: Is there any advice you’d like to give to future students or people considering a career in psychology?

A: The field needs more people. We have a woeful shortage of workers. There will always be work and there will always be a population that needs whatever it is that you have to offer. I have some colleagues that hate doing therapy, but they love doing assessments and other colleagues that don't like doing any clinical work whatsoever and they do very valuable research so that we can apply it to the populations that we work with. We need more people in the field, and I think we offer great training.