Graduation gift for RA and would-be counseling psychologist?
April 8, 2015 9:15 AM Subscribe
What is a good gift for my unpaid undergrad research assistant that says "thanks for all your hard work as part of the team" that will support her in her current or future endeavors in counseling psychology, but won't highlight next year's uncertainty about grad school?
My unpaid undergraduate research assistant has been a rockstar in the lab, and will be graduating this May. She hopes to eventually be a counseling psychologist with a Ph.D at a university (she has a strong interest in mindfulness approaches to mitigating anxiety, particularly to help those with disordered eating), but grad school applications have not gone super favorably. She has lined up an internship this summer with an organization that provides counseling to adolescents. It is possible she will enter a Masters program this fall.
The usual strong letters of rec, nominating her for awards, etc, have been done. She is a good reader and critical thinker so book ideas are welcome, as well as non-book things. I know that she enjoys exercise, eating out, and documentaries.
What is a good gift that says "thanks for all your hard work as part of the team" that will support her in her current or future endeavors, but won't highlight next year's uncertainty about grad school? I'd prefer a gift <$50, but could manage up to $100 for the perfect gift.
My unpaid undergraduate research assistant has been a rockstar in the lab, and will be graduating this May. She hopes to eventually be a counseling psychologist with a Ph.D at a university (she has a strong interest in mindfulness approaches to mitigating anxiety, particularly to help those with disordered eating), but grad school applications have not gone super favorably. She has lined up an internship this summer with an organization that provides counseling to adolescents. It is possible she will enter a Masters program this fall.
The usual strong letters of rec, nominating her for awards, etc, have been done. She is a good reader and critical thinker so book ideas are welcome, as well as non-book things. I know that she enjoys exercise, eating out, and documentaries.
What is a good gift that says "thanks for all your hard work as part of the team" that will support her in her current or future endeavors, but won't highlight next year's uncertainty about grad school? I'd prefer a gift <$50, but could manage up to $100 for the perfect gift.
Cash and a great recommendation letter.
posted by guster4lovers at 9:29 AM on April 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by guster4lovers at 9:29 AM on April 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: This may go over your budget, but student membership to a professional organization?
posted by rtha at 9:30 AM on April 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by rtha at 9:30 AM on April 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
Letters to a Young Therapist by Mary Pipher (author of Reviving Ophelia) and The Gift of Therapy by Yalom (assuming neither of them was assigned reading in the program!).
posted by jaguar at 9:33 AM on April 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by jaguar at 9:33 AM on April 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
Best answer: (I recommend the Pipher especially because my first therapy/counseling work with adolescents was a major struggle for me in learning appropriate boundaries with clients, and that book helped a lot. If she's working with adolescents this summer, even second-hand, I think it's helpful to really think about what "respectful helping" looks like, in order to maintain one's own mental health.)
posted by jaguar at 9:37 AM on April 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by jaguar at 9:37 AM on April 8, 2015 [4 favorites]
I really like your book idea. I was also a (mostly) unpaid undergraduate research assistant who did a lot of work for my lab, and I think it's very sweet that you want to send your student off with a motivating bang. I had the opposite sort of desire when I left my undergrad lab, and wound up giving my mentor a little stuffed animal of our study organism as a keepsake and also a handwritten card thanking her warmly for all the advice and support she gave me. I think something like that could easily go the other way, depending on what kind of research you do. (I will probably do something similar for my equally beloved graduate advisor eventually.)
I would have found getting money from my undergraduate research mentor to be really strange and potentially a little upsetting, despite the fact that I loved working with her and I still rave about her to my colleagues on a semi-regular basis. A book gift card is also something I would have found strange coming from a professional mentor. I would avoid anything that looks like money, even if it would be appreciated by the student in other contexts--it sort of takes away from the whole "thank you for all of your much-appreciated hard work" vibe, at least too me.
Student membership to a professional organization or a specific book that you hope will help her on her career sound much less fraught to me. I would also suggest maybe not giving a gift per se, but if you have regular lab meetings, maybe host a small celebration of her graduation with champagne for everyone or something? This wasn't something I did as an undergraduate, but it's a common lab tradition in graduate school when someone passes prelims or advances to candidacy, and I think it might be just as moving for a graduation and sending a student on to great things.
posted by sciatrix at 6:40 AM on April 9, 2015
I would have found getting money from my undergraduate research mentor to be really strange and potentially a little upsetting, despite the fact that I loved working with her and I still rave about her to my colleagues on a semi-regular basis. A book gift card is also something I would have found strange coming from a professional mentor. I would avoid anything that looks like money, even if it would be appreciated by the student in other contexts--it sort of takes away from the whole "thank you for all of your much-appreciated hard work" vibe, at least too me.
Student membership to a professional organization or a specific book that you hope will help her on her career sound much less fraught to me. I would also suggest maybe not giving a gift per se, but if you have regular lab meetings, maybe host a small celebration of her graduation with champagne for everyone or something? This wasn't something I did as an undergraduate, but it's a common lab tradition in graduate school when someone passes prelims or advances to candidacy, and I think it might be just as moving for a graduation and sending a student on to great things.
posted by sciatrix at 6:40 AM on April 9, 2015
This is thoughtful! I just wanted to say that with whatever gift you get her, I would include a card where you explicitly state "you can always come to me for a stellar letter of recommendation." Just having those words in ink could be a huge reassurance at some future point -- even though I've had that in action from mentors, I would have loved to have those words, as well.
posted by elephantsvanish at 8:15 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by elephantsvanish at 8:15 AM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for the guidance! All comments were very helpful.
posted by nicodine at 1:16 PM on April 9, 2015
posted by nicodine at 1:16 PM on April 9, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by vitabellosi at 9:26 AM on April 8, 2015