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.

—Susan J. Gulbe Walsh

PhD, Counseling Psychologist, University of California, Santa Cruz

Each term, I am pleasantly surprised with what emerges from myself and what I get to witness emerge from others. My experience at Meridian has been defined completely by the people. I’ve been so fortunate to have the most wonderful classmates: so interesting, so diverse, from all over the world, from all different backgrounds and cultures. And that blending of voices and experiences creates such an interesting mix and transformative experience for myself. Add to that, the really extraordinary staff and professors that we get to interact with, and we create this container to guide us on this journey.

—Heather R.

PsyD in Clinical Psychology

My studies at Meridian University gave me not only the capacities to understand systems but also the skill set necessary to design new structures and ways to collaborate.

—Claudia Meglin

MBA Graduate

Since starting Meridian, my life has changed. I have more clarity in my intention, thinking, and everything. Because I come from a different culture, I have not had experiences with students from such a big diversity and I’ve learned a lot from them. My experience with transformative learning is quite scary. There have been a couple of times I have actually gone out of my comfort zone. I thought it was scary, but at the same time, I really enjoyed the process. I think in the experience at Meridian, you have to keep looking into yourself.

—Fran S.

EdD in Organizational Leadership

Through personal development as well as soul searching, I decided that I wanted to be able to use dance to be able to go to more people. So, we were working bringing movement into schools as well as volunteering doing after school programs with art and children. It was really fulfilling and I really loved it and wanted to expand that. It feels like I got to choose and personalize a graduate program for myself exactly what I wanted to do. That in itself just feels exciting. I'm doing two programs at once [Tamalpa Program] and they both influence and inform each program. Both through the learning through reading and lectures, but also learning through experience in the class, I'm getting a richer knowledge of how I react to things and my own experience in the moment.

—Alison D.

PhD in Psychology

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

Meridian provides an extraordinary curriculum that has benefited me both personally and professionally. Community learning was completely transformative, catalyzing capacities in me which were previously undeveloped. Because of Meridian’s excellence, my education did not stop at graduation. I have bone knowledge and wisdom that continues to inform, guide, and inspire me in my work as a psychotherapist and educator. I am excited for anyone choosing Meridian for their graduate education because I know they will receive a rigorous yet meaningful education and expansive understanding of psychology and its true purpose of caring for the soul.

—Irene Ives

PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist

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

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.

—Rich McCuthchan

PhD, M.F.T, Psychotherapist in Private Practice

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

The school’s cohort learning model has deeply affirmed my sense that transformative learning is dependent on community; and the school’s emphasis on cultural leadership has enabled me to bridge my work in organizations with my yearning to support social change. Mary Oliver’s line — ‘One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began’ — applies to me as a result of my experience here. The combination of theory, a learning cohort, and faculty who embody the teachings, created an environment in which I transformed my capacity to experience life and to practice my vocation. I went to ‘great’ schools before this but this is where I truly learned what I needed to live in the world and serve my community.

—Mark Nicolson

MA, MBA, Co-Founder, Leadership DNA and Ventana Group

My main goal in my career is to work in the diabetes and mental health fields, find that overlap, and do some heart-centered diabetes work. One thing that stands out about the faculty at Meridian is the amount of presence and space that they hold in our courses. Being at Meridian feels like swimming in a school of fish with other people that are all sort of going the same direction as I am, even though we all have our specialties, and I think that space has been very valuable to my creative process and my work and what I’m passionate about.