Student Stories and Experiences
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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.
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
After being an established Marriage and Family Therapist I had a deeper knowing that something was missing. I wanted to do soul work within the context of community. My cohort life at Meridian provided the opportunity for my desires to manifest. The program’s curriculum, which emphasizes expression through ritual, imagination, and creativity within the complexities and challenges of community-making, invited the awakening of my soul. I engaged in relationships in ways I had not known in my family. This experience has opened my heart, freed my spirit, supported my growth, and allowed me to be more effective in my work as a healer.
—Dianna Grayer
Psychotherapist in Private Practice
I think Meridian’s platform is amazing. It’s self-paced and online, but you do get a lot of contact with the faculty and with your peers. The faculty are so supportive and very attuned to your needs and interests. They know how to bring out things you’re afraid to admit at first. The peers are so supportive. Every time we have zoom classes or the intensives, it’s just totally life-changing. Meridian taught me a lot about myself. It was a big step in knowing who I am as a person and how I can bring this person into my professional career in the future.
—Vanessa N.
PsyD in Clinical 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
Take a moment to imagine the most meaningful educational experience possible. Then, like me, imagine embarking on the life changing journey of going to Meridian. Engaging in the educational process at Meridian provided me the invaluable opportunity to enhance my willingness to participate in daily life as both a learner and a teacher. In a unique and compelling fashion, Meridian’s staff and faculty mentor students towards developing those capacities necessary to become a powerful and effective psychological practitioner who can serve the larger community with compassion and respect. Embracing Meridian’s encouragement of its students to strive towards cultural leadership in both professional practice and personal life, continues to be a challenging experience fully worth its immeasurable reward.
—Susan J. Gulbe Walsh
PhD, Counseling Psychologist, University of California, Santa Cruz
I love the assignments, the readings, the exercises and group discussions, and the dialogue with the faculty and my classmates and some guest lecturers. I love all those experiences. I think it is very valuable and eye-opening as well as touching the depth of my heart. I feel like studying at Meridian and using the format of transformative learning is really another level of learning. The whole process is a holistic process for me to become a better person and leader for the world or community I live within. Here, I feel like the faculty are all human. Even in the class, the feedback they give us- I would say they are really like our guardian angels leading us in the process of learning. Just like the faculty, I love my fellow classmates as well because they are from different walks of life, have age differences, are doing different work, and have different experiences in life. It's like a 'we study together, let's grow together, let's learn together': I like this atmosphere and environment that Meridian has built.
—Claire L.
PhD in Psychology
Meridian spoke of cultivating cultural leadership, and that really caught my attention. Something that was new and unexpected was the use of and focus on ritual and the learning around liminality. I feel like I’m really learning and growing in that area, and it’s enrichening my capacity to work with groups and individuals and to facilitate the process. Now, I’m aware of when ritual would be appropriate, I have ideas for what could be useful, and I also have more trust for the process and what develops in the moment because we have practiced that.
—Grace F.
MA in Counseling Psychology
I did not find a better partner for that journey that I was on. It was speaking the language and opening the doors to all of these other people speaking the same language, too. Honestly, that's been one of the largest experiences for me. It was like an instant, ancient and present community.
—Angela Taylor
PhD in Psychology
Meridian offers a lot around learning your own countertransference and transference so that you know that you're affected, how you're affected, and also how to take care of yourself. And that actually super helped me through these really difficult cases. Meridian helped develop a higher capacity for relating to other human beings, no matter what their walk of life is.
—Mardi Storm
MA in Counseling Psychology
The capacity of left-right brain integration has really developed for me here, so that I can give imaginative answers that are also grounded in left hemisphere sensibilities like linguistic and analytical sensibilities. Meridian has really helped me bridge the imaginal and analytical. I'm actually feeling, for the first time in my life, genuine success. There's a sense that my vocation- my calling and what I'm meant to do here on this planet- has now aligned with how I make money and take care of myself. That coming together was really, really blissful. What more could you ask for? Meridian has been central to that.
—Brian T.
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
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
Explore Alumni Stories
Meridian alumni come from diverse background and have achieved unique professional goals. Read more in graduates own words.
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