What I Wish I Had Known Before Starting at Touro University Worldwide

There are several things I wish I had known before joining the Marriage & Family Therapy (MFT) program with Touro University Worldwide (TUW). However, I do feel that even if I had that information beforehand I would still choose to attend TUW/an online online program.

One

It would have been amazing to know in advance that practicum work tends to mostly be unpaid. There are some places that do pay their trainees but from my understanding based on other’s experiences and my own searches, paid positions are few and far in between.

What often happens with unpaid traineeships is that people will work their regular 9-5, work at their practicum site part-time, and then still need to balance their personal/family life. Depending on when you enroll in practicum, you may or may not still be taking non-practicum courses, which means fitting school work into your schedule as well.

Specifically for TUW, even if you do finish all of your non-practicum courses, that doesn’t mean you won’t have any assignments due. You’ll still have work to turn in. However, there’s much more breathing room. As of the date of this posting, there’s only a very quick form due during week 1 and nothing else is due until week 4.

There are also assignments due weeks 7 and 8 but this is still better than having discussion posts due twice/week with the case and signature assignments being due on weeks 4 and 8.

Two

It would have been helpful to know how challenging it is to find a practicum site. TUW provides you with a list of sites in CA (I’m not sure if this is given out on a state-by-state basis or if they only provide you with CA because the school has a physical branch in CA). The list can be helpful but if you’re in a small city like I am with only a couple of practicum sites listed, then it’s not terribly useful.

We’re also able to attend a Zoom meeting where they explain the process of finding a site and answer questions but I personally didn’t find that to be terribly helpful either. I will say though, that the school encourages students to look for sites 6 - 8 months in advance and while that may seem like quite a long time, you’ll need it.

What helped me during my practicum search was networking with other students. I found out about my current practicum site from a student who was just wrapping up their time at Touro. That student was incredibly helpful. Not only did she provide me with a connection to the site but it was great to have some of my questions answered from a student’s perspective.

Three

It could have been good to know that there’s not a lot of constructive criticism. I’ve had only one professor who actually did more than essentially just say some variation of “Great job!” Aside from that one professor, what little criticism I did receive was related to mistakes I made with APA formatting.

In my experience I had at least 2 professors who didn’t provide any feedback, either good or bad, in regard to the content on the essays I submitted - the focus was solely on the APA formatting. I suppose I could have asked the professors but I didn’t so that’s on me (hindsight is 20/20…which after that year is pretty accurate). At the same time, I can see from a professor’s experience where they’re probably not going to leave much, if any feedback for students who may not need it when they have so many papers to grade.

I’m not paid or compensated in any way by the university to promote the program (I pay tuition every term, like all students who are enrolled). The above information presented is opinion-based and draws from my personal experience. The information is not in any way a guarantee of any specific experiences or outcomes if you enroll in the program.