Students and Early Career Professionals

Graduate Student and Early Career Activities

Graduate Student and Early Career Activities
We invite you to be among the more than 2,000 school psychology graduate students, interns, and new professionals who attend the convention annually. Register today to build on your training or practice experiences, enhance your long-term professional capacity, expand your involvement in the field, and build career connections.

As a graduate student, you can join NASP and save up to $360 on your student convention registration fees! If you are in your early career years, you can still save on your registration by joining NASP. Plus enjoy year round member benefits including easy access to resources, information on cutting edge findings in the field, discounted publications, and more!
You can pick from the hundreds of convention sessions included as part of your registration fee and will want to give special consideration to the following:

• Student Welcome Orientation: Networking 101 for Students. In this session, students will learn best practices for convention, get networking tips from school psychology leaders, and connect with one another regarding practice and/or research interests.  After the event, the Student Development Workgroup invites students to gather in the hotel lobby for a student social from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.


• Student Development and Early Career Panel Presentations. Attend these specially developed sessions addressing your most pressing professional challenges.


• From Student to Leader: Developing the Next Generation of NASP Leaders: A recent NASP initiative involves creating opportunities for student involvement in school psychology leadership.  Join us for a discussion of potential student leadership positions, important skills to develop, and how to get involved.  Student Leaders will be available to respond to questions and provide networking opportunities. 


• Using Your Degree for Diplomacy: Putting Advocacy Into Action: Graduate students and early career professionals play an important role in advocating for school psychology at the local, state, and national levels. Learn about critical policy issues and concrete examples of how you, as a student or early career professional, can put advocacy efforts into action.


• Essentials for Internship & Bringing Your Vita to Life: Recent graduates, practitioners, field and university-based supervisors, and interview committee members will discuss how to use a vita to stand out and get noticed during the application process and program requirements and expectations for internship. Panelists will emphasize NASP-approved standards and requirements, organization strategies, must-have experiences, and how to make the most out of supervision.


• School Psychology Through Our Eyes: Student Diversity in School Psychology: In this session, students will collaborate to share and understand barriers for students with diverse backgrounds in school psychology.  Working groups will be formed to address the needs of diverse students, consider pathways toward improved representations, and understand how to access leadership roles in the field of school psychology.


• Essential Tools for Early Career School Psychologists: Just starting out? You’re not alone. Come join the NASP Early Career Workgroup for a presentation and discussion of hot topics facing professionals in their first 5 years of practice, including crisis response at the individual student level. Gain tips, resources, and strategies for all those professional issues that keep you up at night!


• The Professional in Transition: Getting and Keeping Your First Job as a School Psychologist. Preregistration and $15 fee required.


• Student and Early Career Mentoring Program. Sign up before the convention to be matched with a mentor to get answers to your questions about the profession and your career.


• Student Outing. Enjoy a fun night out on Wednesday night of the convention week and meet and mingle with fellow graduate students from across the nation.

Consult your convention final program on site for complete listings with dates and times of all student and early career activities.

Mentoring Program at the NASP Annual Convention

Thank you for participating in the mentoring program at the NASP 2012 Annual Convention in Philadelphia. We had an overwhelming response this year, resulting in 96 matches.

Please check back again later in the fall for information on the mentoring program at the NASP 2013 Annual Convention in Seattle.

Convention Assistant Opportunity

NASP is looking for individuals to serve as NASP Convention Workshop monitors and as convention assistants to assist with various other convention activities. Convention assistants may sign up for a maximum of one slot in each category (workshop monitor or convention assistant).

All convention assistants must be current NASP members and must register for the convention before signing up as convention assistants or workshop monitors.

Workshop monitors may participate in the workshop (and receive CPD documentation) without paying the workshop fee. Individuals serving as workshop monitors do not need to register for the workshops they monitor once they have signed up for that monitor assignment.

The time you provide as a convention assistant may count toward continuing professional development (CPD) hours, depending on your personal evaluation of the educational value of the experience.

In appreciation for a minimum of four to six hours of service, a refund of $75 will be given to student convention assistants only. After completing their convention assistant assignments, students must bring the credit card they used to register for the convention to the convention assistant booth for $75 credits or refunds. Please note that time spent as a monitor in NASP Convention Workshops does not count toward the four to six hours of service required for students to receive the $75 registration fee refund.

The online convention assistant database will open on November 1, 2011. Convention assistant spots fill quickly and on a first-come, first-served basis. Sign up as an assistant. You will receive an e-mail confirmation of your assignment. Keep your confirmation page to verify your assignment. Also, please ensure that the e-mail address you provide is valid through March 2012.

Once scheduled, all convention assistant placements are considered final. If you cannot keep your commitment, you must log back into the convention assistant database and remove yourself from the position no later than two weeks before the convention.

The convention greatly benefits from the efforts of dedicated regular and student member convention assistants. Please consider spending a few hours of your time as a convention assistant