You passed your first year classes. You matched with an internship or practicum site for next year. You have successfully negotiated the first few hurdles of your graduate training.

Congratulations. You deserve credit for a job well done.

You probably feel tempted to sit back, let go, and enjoy the summer. Certainly, after all of your hard work, you deserve to take a break. But, before you close this chapter and start settling comfortably into your vacation, I invite you to start thinking about a very important issue:

This process starts gradually...almost imperceptibly. During your first few semesters of graduate school, you quickly settle into the role of graduate student: You dutifully attend class, write the papers they assign, and take their required exams.

Soon, you start focusing exclusively on meeting their requirements. You start acting as if you were pursuing this degree simply for your own personal enlightenment and scholarly enlightenment . . . rather than as a means of earning a living. If the former is true, please stop reading this article immediately and go back to leisurely reading Freud in The Original.

But, if you are like most graduate students, who actually intend to work in this profession, I would encourage you to start cultivating an ongoing awareness of the work world around you. Re-connect yourself to the world of professional, working, psychologists. Start thinking about what will make you a competitive applicant for some of those jobs when the time comes for you to start applying. Becoming a competitive applicant for your internship, a post-doc, or your first professional job is not something you can accomplish overnight or in the weeks before you start having to apply. Rather, it is the culmination of months and years of preparation. So, there is no better time to start this preparation than now.

In other words, start treating Match Day as the beginning of a process, rather than the end. You owe it to yourself to stay connected to the professional world around you and fight vigorously against the temptation to act as if you are in a cocoon. Graduation will be here before you know it . . . and, this time, you want to be prepared for making a smooth transition into the world of work.

So, what steps can you start taking now - before you begin your practicum or internship - to start preparing yourself for your future career?

1. Start thinking about what you want to learn during the coming year. Dream big . . . as big as your imagination will allow you to dream. Don’t worry about what you or your supervisors believe is possible for your future career. Start by thinking clearly about what you want to do in the field. By the time you finish your degree and obtain your license, the profession of psychology will probably have changed dramatically. Stay a step ahead of your peers by finding ways to keep abreast of these developments and constantly thinking about how you will find your place in them.

2. Don’t be afraid to try something new.  Expose yourself to every experience possible during these early training years (especially while you are still working under supervision). Whether the experience involves working in a new setting (emergency room, inpatient unit, outpatient clinic, research lab, conference presentation, or consulting room) or with a new population (presenting concerns, economic status, racial/cultural background, sexual orientation), you owe it to yourself to gain as much experience as possible. This process allows you the chance to the test out new areas of interest, make and correct mistakes, work with extremely challenging clients or projects, and challenge some of your deepest beliefs about yourself. You might even make significant progress while exploring a new area of learning, especially one that you thought you could never understand.

3. Ask more advanced students and professionals working in the field for advice about what they think you should be sure to get from your training. Find some time to talk with them over lunch or coffee. Or, cultivate an email relationship with those who live out of town. Take a moment to contact the professionals you admire or the authors of your favorite books - even if they seem too famous and inaccessible. The fact is that the busiest and most successful people are usually the most willing to find or make time for your requests (as long as your requests are reasonable and you show great respect for their time). There’s a reason they became so busy and successful . . . and it’s probably that they care so passionately about what they do.

4. Make a habit of learning something about the profession beyond your mandatory requirements at least once a week. Go to a lecture at the Institute for Psychoanalysis or the Jung Institute. Sign up for conferences and workshops as often as possible. Take advantage of the student admission rates. Even though you probably have less money now as a student than you will ever have in the future, consider these experiences as investments in your future. The knowledge and contacts you can gain might become priceless later . . . especially when the time comes to start looking for employment.

5. Keep a journal (written or typed) about you the training experiences you have and your reactions to them. Your thoughts and feelings about what you learn will help significantly as you begin sorting out the kinds of work you want to do and narrowing your areas of focus for the future. Make lists of the ideas and possibilities that are stimulated by each training experience. Keep a file specifically for ideas about articles or book chapters you might write and presentations you might give in the future.

In short, the sooner you start planning for what you want to get out of your training, the more easily you will start developing the habits that ensure your success in getting it. And, the more actively you start exploring the working world around you, the easier time you will have making the transition from student and trainee to beginning employee.

As you shift your view of yourself "student" to "professional-in-training," you will see how quickly you start leaving your classmates behind. While they are content simply to "move through the next hoop" of graduate school, you will have started to turn your training from what others expect from you into what you want it to be.