Unexpected detour led this grad to career that’s right for him
“It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” — Bill Gates
These days, Christopher Petsko has much to celebrate — after earning a B.A. in psychology, summa cum laude, last December, the UA graduate is headed to Northwestern University this fall to begin a doctoral program in social psychology.
Yet his academic success and certainty over his career path are hard won. Both came after heeding the lessons of failure, Petsko told members of UA's Board of Trustees during a presentation on his Akron Experience at their June meeting.
Christopher Petsko
“My route to UA was atypical,” says the Akron native, a Firestone High School graduate. “I did well in chemistry in high school and I expected to continue that trajectory at Miami University. I failed.”
He returned home to Akron and enrolled at UA. It was a social psychology class that ignited his passion and his talent.
Success and a career path
“I was really interested in what I was learning about ways we behave in different social contexts, and that we are all capable of good and bad behavior,” continues Petsko. “I found success as a student and I loved being able to explain who I am. Psychology was the right fit for me.”
Over his UA career, Petsko was a peer-tutor for Experimental Psychology — which has been good preparation for Northwestern. As part of his fully funded program, he will be teaching classes. He also served as chapter president of Psi Chi — the psychology honorary society.
And, after taking a research methods course, he began to explore topics related to social justice. Petsko completed an honors thesis on the psychological underpinnings of sexist prejudice, and presented his research at local, regional and national conferences.
Pictured at the June Board of Trustees meeting are, from left, Student Trustee Garrett E. Dowd, Dr. Janice Yoder, Chris Petsko and Student Trustee Ryan Thompson.
His efforts led to more opportunities to do research and he was selected for a summer internship at the Psychology of Social Justice Lab on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. There, he was able to “hone in on what I care a lot about — issues of gender and the nature of homophobia,” says Petsko. He published an article on the internship experience in the Association for Psychological Science magazine, The Observer.
Much of his research has been conducted with the guidance of Dr. Janice Yoder, a UA professor of psychology, who encouraged him to consider graduate school.
“She has been a powerful mentor to me,” notes Petsko. “Others in the department have been so supportive of me, but Dr. Yoder gave me the confidence to really become serious about psychology and to pursue it as a career.”
Rewards of mentoring go both ways
“Chris, and other inquisitive and committed students like him, make being an educator the best work imaginable,” notes Yoder. “In my more than 30 years of teaching, these students have made my own learning a lifelong opportunity.”
To Petsko, his experiences at UA have been, “transformative — giving me a sense of what is possible.
“After what was a remarkable failure, I have experienced a lot of success because of the people I met here and, through them, the opportunities that were made available to me.”