Name: Rodolfo Francisco Trujillo Miranda
Age: 32
Graduate studies: Third year PhD Student in Clinical Psychology
Hobbies: Guitar, drawing, videogames and research projects
HCAlbizu: What are you studying and what do you wish to specialize on?
Prof. Rodoldo: “I’m working on my Clinical PhD and I want to specialize in gerontology because my interests lie within the community of older adults”.
HCAlbizu: What do you plan to do after you graduate?
Prof. Rodolfo: “Continue working on a post-doc and establish an office with my colleagues”.
HCAlbizu: Where did the initiative to be a professor come from?
Prof. Rodolfo: “The initiative of being a professor came from the advice of my mentors, who advised me that with everything I had studied, to be a professor. At first, it wasn’t for math class, it was for biology and I also could have given social studies or statistics. When I was in the interview for the position as a professor in the undergraduate psychology major, I was chosen for math class. I’ve been working three semesters as a professor now”.
HCAlbizu: Do you plan to use math and apply it to psychology?
Prof. Rodolfo: “Well, I chose PhD because it has a great statistics base, so it requires great knowledge in math. Yes, I desire to unite both majors. A PhD merges that numeric foundation to explain the problems of the experiments that we do in the psychology field”.
HCAlbizu: Have you worked in any investigations?
Prof. Rodolfo: “At the moment, I have two investigations: one done in the UPR’s Medical Sciences campus’ investigation fórum and a post-med. The post-med was done with Dr. José Rodríguez Gómez and it was a profile on the population of people with Achondroplasia (bone growth disorder that causes dwarfism) in Puerto Rico. In Medical Sciences, I did one about the effects of sound contamination on the older population. Apart from those, I am currently working on an investigation with the Department of Education and the CDC to measure substance use in children and teenagers from fourth grade to twelfth grade in schools in Puerto Rico”.
HCAlbizu: Do you have any advice for students who wish to double major?
Prof. Rodolfo: “Of course, studying two majors tends to be tiring, but is very rewarding. This isn’t a competition to see who knows more. It’s more of a competition with yourself. When you enter the university, that feeling of wanting to know more makes you hungry for knowledge. This is what motivates you to go for two or more majors. My advice is to study two things at once, because that’s what university means, to turn into an università (to know everything). The reality is that we don’t have enough time to know everything, but find those subjects which you are best at and use those skills in your favor. In my case, it was math, gerotology, my interest in health and mental health with psychology”.
HCAlbizu: Do you have any advice for undergraduate students?
Prof. Rodolfo: “My best advice is to start developing critical thinking, because most have come from schooling that reinforces memory. In school, the most your given to study is memory based; they give you the material, you memorize it and give it back. When the time comes for them to associate the material with their daily life, it gets hard. It is necessary to integrate everything we learn with the things that happen in our daily life. It’s a skill that we have to develop because how can we do a critical analysis of a problem if the only thing we know is the theory, but not how to associate it with our lives?”
HCAlbizu: Do you have any advice for Her Campus Albizu?
Prof. Rodolfo: “I recommend that you continue doing as you are because it’s a very interesting initiative. We know that Her Campus Albizu is a magazine with a lot of information for the biggest population that makes up the university which is women, as well as the rest of the university’s community. It is very important to stay informed and to have the tools and advice of how the institution works to motivate them [the students] to continue with their student responsibilities, both undergraduates and graduates. It’s always important to have that support of motivated people for our students”.