When Kennedy Ruff ’22 entered Guilford, she had her sights set on medical school. She wanted to be a psychiatrist after taking a high-school psychology class she found very engaging. As Kennedy explored her interests and options during her undergraduate studies, the Durham native gravitated toward clinical psychology.
Pursuing Her Dreams
Currently a research assistant at Duke University’s Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, Kennedy is applying to Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology at a variety of universities in North Carolina and beyond. She has big plans for improving lives of others using her knowledge of mental health.
“I'm interested in opening a center for adolescent moms or young black moms in general. I also would like to have my own practice and work with black adolescent teens on just depression and anxiety,” Kennedy says. “I would also like to teach and do research.”
At Duke, she is working on a grant looking at race, religion and health with Dr. Keisha Bentley Edwards. Kennedy is also the program coordinator for the university’s Hank & Billye Suber Aaron Young Scholars Summer Research Institute, a three-week summer program where Durham public school students visit Duke to learn more about social equity and produce a research project. In fact, Kennedy was in the first cohort of that program while in high school.
Guilford Days
Kennedy says Guilford prepared her well for her current work and her educational and career aspirations. A Psychology major with a minor in Biology, she was quite involved on campus as part of the Guilford Student Government Association, Black Student Union, enrollment committee and Sisters Empowering Each Other club, not to mention being a tour guide and orientation leader.
A number of professors inspired Kennedy’s academic aspirations. She took a lot of Karen Tinsley’s psychology courses. “She did adolescent ADHD and developmental psychology and so I worked with her and took a lot of courses with her just because of how well she engaged with her students and just gave us a lot of opportunities to learn more.”
Kennedy also took Michele Malotky’s psychobiology course, which was a natural fit.
“I enjoyed it because we looked at not only mental illness but also other health disorders and how biologically it impacted the different neurons,” she says.
As a teacher assistant for professor Amber Slade, Kennedy worked on a research project that dealt with mental illness and mental health and noted the great support she received from Slade.
Her advice to current Psychology majors: “Talk to people in different fields who have a psychology major because you can go into college thinking you want to do one thing, but the psychology field is huge and then also find research offers because you can always learn something new that you can apply to what you’re learning in undergrad,” she says. “Also, enjoy college because the real the real world is different, but it’s been amazing that Guilford still has my back.”