Student Stories and Experiences

Resources

The Latest Video Interviews

David S. | Meridian Student Profile

Hear from Meridian student David Stevenson, who chose Meridian because he was looking for an education that focuses on the depth of the personal journey. He connects his understanding of transformative learning with his interest in native culture and traditional teachings being more than data. He also reflects on his future plans and being on a developmental path.

Batya B.

Hear from Meridian student, Batya Biegun Yahav, as she is beginning her journey at Meridian. Her understanding and experience of transformative learning has already widened her perspective. She shares how enriching it has been being thousands of miles away from her classmates but feeling very close.

Student Testimonials

Read key takeaways from Meridian graduate students about their educational experience and why they chose Meridian's curriculum, faculty, community, and learning platform.

—Emily M.

PhD in Psychology

Meridian provides an extraordinary curriculum that has benefited me both personally and professionally. Community learning was completely transformative, catalyzing capacities in me which were previously undeveloped. Because of Meridian’s excellence, my education did not stop at graduation. I have bone knowledge and wisdom that continues to inform, guide, and inspire me in my work as a psychotherapist and educator. I am excited for anyone choosing Meridian for their graduate education because I know they will receive a rigorous yet meaningful education and expansive understanding of psychology and its true purpose of caring for the soul.

—Irene Ives

PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist

The school’s cohort learning model has deeply affirmed my sense that transformative learning is dependent on community; and the school’s emphasis on cultural leadership has enabled me to bridge my work in organizations with my yearning to support social change. Mary Oliver’s line — ‘One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began’ — applies to me as a result of my experience here. The combination of theory, a learning cohort, and faculty who embody the teachings, created an environment in which I transformed my capacity to experience life and to practice my vocation. I went to ‘great’ schools before this but this is where I truly learned what I needed to live in the world and serve my community.

—Mark Nicolson

MA, MBA, Co-Founder, Leadership DNA and Ventana Group

It's been a really beautiful experience at Meridian to dive into putting my whole being into the learning process- instead of just listening to a lecture or reading a book, actually experiencing the learning process in my body, my mind, and expression- and weaving that all into something that I can carry with me when I leave. Professionally, it's given me a lot of fuel and ideas and concepts that I've taken into my work and used not only with my clients but with designing programs where I work. There's a lot of encouraging of imagination and experience, while also rooting us into solid foundation.

—Carter S.

PhD in Psychology

What’s special about the way that Meridian structures things is that I'm given that material and then asked to integrate it and think about it through the context of my own lived experience by telling stories about my own life by unpacking my own Shadows my own fears my own complexities.

—Lili Jeree W.

MA in Counseling Psychology Student

After being an established Marriage and Family Therapist I had a deeper knowing that something was missing. I wanted to do soul work within the context of community. My cohort life at Meridian provided the opportunity for my desires to manifest. The program’s curriculum, which emphasizes expression through ritual, imagination, and creativity within the complexities and challenges of community-making, invited the awakening of my soul. I engaged in relationships in ways I had not known in my family. This experience has opened my heart, freed my spirit, supported my growth, and allowed me to be more effective in my work as a healer.

—Dianna Grayer

Psychotherapist in Private Practice

When it comes to transformative learning, what I really notice is kind of exactly how they say it: it’s just landing in my body. I don’t have this stress or urgency to memorize facts. Because it’s landing in such a way, it stays with me and translates to my outside of school experience, too. One thing that I have also really appreciated about the faculty is that they really leave space in their classrooms for folks to challenge and disagree not only them as the faculty, but with each other, and use those times of challenges or disagreements as learning opportunities to see how we can expand our awareness and capabilities to be with the other. Coming in, I didn’t have experience of online education. I was very surprised at what could be cultivated in the online format. I truly did feel seen and heard by my fellow classmates and the faculty and really felt like some deep transformative work was happening.

—Heather B.

PhD in Psychology

Each term, I am pleasantly surprised with what emerges from myself and what I get to witness emerge from others. My experience at Meridian has been defined completely by the people. I’ve been so fortunate to have the most wonderful classmates: so interesting, so diverse, from all over the world, from all different backgrounds and cultures. And that blending of voices and experiences creates such an interesting mix and transformative experience for myself. Add to that, the really extraordinary staff and professors that we get to interact with, and we create this container to guide us on this journey.

—Heather R.

PsyD in Clinical Psychology

Thirty years ago I became a Marriage and Family Therapist. Decades later, seasoned by life experiences, I returned to graduate school to deepen my own journey. I found a program at Meridian that integrated, within its academic requirements, challenges that engendered a richer and more expansive level of beingness to my life and work. The psychology program at Meridian is truly a transformative program.

—Rich McCuthchan

PhD, M.F.T, Psychotherapist in Private Practice

I think for me the kind of engagement part is more being in a space where so many different students meet. Kind of this international vibe and the stories and the context people come from, because sometimes we can also share things online or in small breakout rooms, and somehow, these different viewpoints, that always make me somehow reflect on something... I also like the questions and perspectives that the faculty brings. It just makes me curious and makes me think and inquire more into myself

—Piret J.

Open Enrollment Student

I'm definitely more grounded in myself. I know more who I am because I know if I want to show up more powerful and more purposeful in my professional life, I need to be more authentic. Through this course, I am more okay with the ebb and flow of things and more recognizable when authenticity shows up in the other person and myself, and we have that special moment. I'm so much more empathetic. One thing I'm amazed by is that we got students from all over the world. I got to meet a lot of people seriously very different than me. They bring so much diversity to the classroom and make the collective energy so much more powerful, and a miracle happens sometimes. I can definitely see it's the faculty's calling to do what they're doing. It's a loving, opening, deep listening space they created for all of us to grow if you choose to.

—Clara Y.

PhD in Psychology

My horizon has been widened by being a student here. I have learned to look at the world and myself differently. It’s very experiential and experience-based, which makes it very personal, but also I can take this personal experience and widen it and apply it in different ways to work with people or groups. It’s not just knowledge based; it’s grown into my bones and muscles and being, and I have grown with it. Meridian also taught me to actually value differences, to value diversity, look at diversity as a building material for community and society, and be creative in how we can create unity while preserving diversity.