Student Stories and Experiences

Resources

The Latest Video Interviews

Lane S. | Meridian Student Profile

Meridian University student Lane Simmons found her way to the PhD program because she was looking to gain more insight through a nontraditional education that integrated Somatics and transformative learning into the curriculum. The relational, collaborative, and challenging experiences throughout the program have stood out as having a lasting impact on her and her work. The interactions with peers and faculty have exceeded anything she could imagine in a beautiful and positive way.

Piret J. | Meridian Student Profile

Hear from open enrollment course registrant Piret Jeedas about her experience taking a few different courses and how she has applied what she learned in her career and life. Sharing the space with international students and hearing their stories, as well as reflecting together on faculty questions, has given her many perspectives and led her to inquire more within herself.

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.

—Sloan B.

PhD in Psychology

As an older student with an advanced degree from a traditional institution, I sought an interactive, experientially oriented PhD program. Meridian's gifted faculty delivered an evocative curriculum, exceeding my expectations, providing me with the canvas on which a deeply transformative experience was created. The initiatory nature of my educational journey at Meridian not only broadened my therapeutic skills, but it also deepened my personal capacities. As I finish my clinical hours toward my licensure as psychologist, I draw on my training on a daily basis. The program provided me with practical therapeutic interventions and strategies, but its most lasting and profound gift was the development and expansion of my empathic imagination. I am grateful that I chose Meridian University to pursue my dream of earning a PhD I can think of no other experience, outside of having my child, that has so profoundly affected my personal growth and maturation process.

—Joy Policar

Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Private Practice

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

I’ve always wanted to fuse dance and Psychology. I think what this joint program [with Tamalpa Institute] offers me is choice, flexibility, and connecting with a network I wouldn’t have before. I have choice in how I utilize therapy, how I utilize expressive arts, and in how I want to help people. My goal after Meridian is to be an expressive arts therapist. I feel like Meridian has really prepared me for that in being able to garner how I have been affected by others, my own memories, the stories of my own cohort, the concepts and theories and topics we’ve discussed…And that awareness is going to take me on for the rest of my life and my vocation.

—Gloria R.

PhD in Psychology

I think Meridian’s platform is amazing. It’s self-paced and online, but you do get a lot of contact with the faculty and with your peers. The faculty are so supportive and very attuned to your needs and interests. They know how to bring out things you’re afraid to admit at first. The peers are so supportive. Every time we have zoom classes or the intensives, it’s just totally life-changing. Meridian taught me a lot about myself. It was a big step in knowing who I am as a person and how I can bring this person into my professional career in the future.

—Vanessa N.

PsyD in Clinical Psychology

So far, my experience has been pretty phenomenal. It’s an incredible program. One of the things that’s really special about Meridian is the cohort culture. What’s called for is your presence, to be with the as-is in the moment, and to allow whatever’s in the room to arise without trying to fix, move, or change it. That capacity, I felt like I came into Meridian with, but I’m going to be leaving at a whole other level of ability to do that. The learning here is kind of meant to throw you for a loop and let you sit in that, and when you come out the other side, there’s a transformation that’s taken place.

—Michelle G.

MA in Psychology

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

Meridian offers a lot around learning your own countertransference and transference so that you know that you're affected, how you're affected, and also how to take care of yourself. And that actually super helped me through these really difficult cases. Meridian helped develop a higher capacity for relating to other human beings, no matter what their walk of life is.

—Mardi Storm

MA in Counseling Psychology

I did not find a better partner for that journey that I was on. It was speaking the language and opening the doors to all of these other people speaking the same language, too. Honestly, that's been one of the largest experiences for me. It was like an instant, ancient and present community.

—Angela Taylor

PhD in Psychology

My overall experience at Meridian has been transformational, and I don't mean that to be cheesy. I really am not the same person that enrolled in the school. I've become more courageous, more self-authoring. I really am loving this person that I'm growing into, and a lot of that has to do with the tools and education taught at Meridian University.

—Sara S.

PhD in Psychology Student

My overall experience at Meridian thus far has been quite transformational because the methods of presenting the teaching material, the assignments, and the classes has been quite profound. All the classes, all the teachings, and all the readings have helped me in such a way as to build my self-awareness muscle, and that has been quite palatable in my life. I appreciate the level of engagement that they [program faculty] put through with the class. I also appreciate their insights and perspective on things, but one of the things I appreciate the most is their vulnerability. That creates a kind of bond and openness, like safe space between the students and faculty. It's been quite meaningful to learn from my classmates as well.

—Cynthia G.

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.