Carlos Molina: «Internet allows to create a more varied training offer»

Times change, and with them, the needs and demands that must be faced to develop an interesting professional profile with a future are also transformed.

Obviously, this is also true in the field of Psychology, an area of ​​work development in which it is not precisely easy neither to find work or clients, nor to take the first steps having only the title under your arm academic. In an increasingly interconnected world and with more and more educated people looking for a place in the labor market, it is difficult to know which direction to go... but there are also more and more opportunities to train looking for courses and masters that fit what we are looking for. This is precisely what we will talk about in this interview. Carlos Molina, part of the team responsible for the Mediterranean School of Psychology.

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Interview with Carlos Molina: the new trends in training in Psychology

Carlos Molina is Director of Operations of the business group that has created the Mediterranean School of Psychology, a training center in the field of Psychology that in In a short time it has managed to offer an important diversity of masters, courses and postgraduate courses in the online modality and that it has a presence in several of the main cities of Spain. In this interview, Carlos tells us about the dynamics that are currently shaping the world of training in this broad professional field that includes both the world of mental health and new discoveries in neuroscience and team management and communication strategies in Business.

What are the main basic ideas that gave rise to the birth of the Mediterranean School of Psychology?

The Mediterranean School of Psychology was born as a response to several deficiencies that existed in terms of training in Psychology. We detected that there were many possibilities for improvement in the sector, and we decided to take advantage of them.

On the one hand, we realized that the labor market rewards more and more the specialization of its professionals, but this specialization requires prior training that is not easy to get.

First, study for a university degree, spend at least four years of effort and dedication, and then don't think you've finished; you have to continue investing years and money in different masters or in preparing for the PIR, all without being able to work at the same time because it requires attendance and time that prevent you from dedicating yourself to something else time.

We want to facilitate this process, make it more accessible to everyone, so that you can study and specialize regardless of whether at the same time you are working, that you have some subjects left in your degree, that you have family responsibilities or that you are carrying out others Projects. We want the personal situation of each student not to be a brake on continuing to grow as a professional. That is why we have created our 100% online and flexible methodology.

In addition, on the other hand, there is the group of people who, although they do not have a degree in Psychology, are very interested in this branch and would like to be trained in it, either for personal reasons or professionals. We also wanted to create a solution for them, with accessible training programs and lighter, yet equally rigorous, syllabi.

Beyond what has happened in the times of the coronavirus crisis... Is online training here to stay?

Of course, I have no doubt that online training is here to stay. The coronavirus, of course, has been an accelerator, because it has forced us to do everything remotely, but it has also made us realize that learning from home it is possible, that we already had all the necessary technology, and that we only needed to change certain customs and leave our zone of comfort.

Once we have all verified the advantages of online training, why go back? Before, if you wanted to do a master's degree in a training center outside your city, you supposed that you had to leave your home behind, with all the transportation and accommodation expenses that this entails, in addition to the inconveniences that it may entail at the personal.

At the Mediterranean School of Psychology, our students are not obliged to turn their lives upside down to train, they can study where they want, at the time they want, take the exams when they want and follow their own rhythm.

Is the mistake often made of believing that online training is only for people who fall under the concept of "digital nomads"?

It is true that some people are more likely than others to jump into online training. There are still profiles with a lot of reluctance to adapt to digital, because they think it is only for young people, or with people with special abilities like being very organized or savvy with technology, when they don't have to be So.

In the end, everyone can have their preferences, but we believe that, at a minimum, you deserve the opportunity to try an online methodology and decide if it is what best suits your needs needs.

If someone takes the face-to-face route, we would like it to be because they truly prefer it, not due to lack of online options or fear of doing things differently from how they have been done until now now.

What are the main positive aspects of having a Psychology training offer that increasingly exploits the possibilities offered by the Internet?

For me, the clearest advantage is flexibility. The Internet has allowed us to create a much more accessible and varied training offer, which adapts to the needs of any person. From your living room at 10 p.m., you can study both the Master's in Child Psychology and the Postgraduate in Clinical Neuropsychology, as well as one of our self-help courses.

In addition, in our school, we often hold lectures with different professionals that we invite to work with us, these Lectures are also 100% online, and we leave them recorded on our platform so that our students can see them when want. We call it Mediterranean Method. In summary, as a result of the flexibility that the Internet gives us, many other positive aspects arise.

For an entity focused on training such as the Mediterranean School of Psychology, does the online modality also provide greater flexibility to adapt to the needs of people who want to professionalize themselves and offer them options with relative speed?

Exactly. The online modality greatly facilitates and speeds up the professionalization and specialization of those interested. From the moment you decide that you want to expand your training until you start, for example, a Master's degree, only a few days can pass in our school. Also, if you organize your time well and are consistent with it, in less than a year you can have your degree in your hands.

Would you say that part of the university or postgraduate education and training sector does not consider offering online options simply because that is a departure from what has been done for decades with classes face-to-face? To what extent does the logic of tradition weigh?

In our experience, this is completely true. Getting out of the comfort zone and changing our habits is something that costs and requires effort, both individually and for organizations in general.

When, as a result of COVID, new ways of doing things began to emerge, there were people who were looking forward to everything going back to normal. normality, return to work and offer training as before, without keeping any of the new online techniques that had been developed. In my opinion, the smartest thing is to keep the best “before” and the best “now”. If we all followed the logic of tradition, there would be no innovation or progress, something that is very important to us.