Staff Spotlight: Chryssi Tsounta, Psychology

The subject of the October Webster Vienna Private University Staff Spotlight is Chryssi Tsounta, department coordinator for the Psychology Department.

Originally from Thessaloniki, Greece, Tsounta received her BSc in Psychology and her MSc in School and Developmental Psychology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She joined Webster Vienna in July 2020.

Q: Could you tell us more about your role as a department coordinator for the psychology department?

Tsounta: I joined the Webster Vienna team as the Psychology Department Coordinator. I felt immediately like a big family member, which made the job challenges much more straightforward. It is a position that allows me to be the key person responsible for all the activities of the Department.

Among my responsibilities are the student's registrations and the control of their academic schedules and progress, the participation in the program and course planning, the new student and new faculty orientation, the management of BA and MA theses, the departmental internal and external communication, and the liaison with our main campus in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), as well as with other international campuses.

Q: What do you like most about your current role?

Tsounta: Mainly, I like the fact that I belong to a magnificent team of people who manage to be both, on the one hand, excellent scientists and instructors, and on the other hand, wonderful human beings with open minds and a great sense of humor. I enjoy the job's daily challenges, and I love the feeling that I contribute my best to my Department.

Q: As a university student, what was your favorite class?

Tsounta: All classes in the Developmental Psychology and the Children's and Adolescents Psychopathology discipline. I was so excited studying them that sometimes I felt my mind was on fire!

I belong to a magnificent team of people who are excellent scientists and instructors, and wonderful human beings with open minds and a great sense of humor

Q: What would you recommend to new and current psychology students?

Tsounta: Psychology is an exciting science spread in a wide and extended field of action, both in applied psychology and research. Therefore, I would recommend that all Psychology students not rush to decide which branch they would like to be involved in. They should try to take as many psychology courses from all offered areas as possible to have a well-rounded impression of what psychology can provide them with and what they could contribute to this field.

I would also like to tell them something one of my professors told me during my studies:

"You cannot be a good psychologist reading only university syllabi. This is enough for passing exams. But for really evolving as a person and through that as scientist, you have to read literature and poetry and history and go to the theatre and to art exhibitions and visit museums. And of course, you have to start paying close attention to all human activities and interactions around you. People hear but don't listen, watch but don't see. Stop talking and start listening and seeing and feeling. And then try to understand what you heard and saw and felt and think why."

This advice became my "holy bible" from the moment I heard it. There has not been a day in the past 22 years in which I have not followed this advice.

Q: Which spring semester class would you recommend to students? And why?

Tsounta: Well, as a genuine child of the Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology, I would definitely recommend the "Lifespan Development" and the "Abnormal Psychology."

But of course, in the sense of widening their horizons, I would also recommend some courses from the CLA such as the "Social Problems: Justice and Inequality," the "Environmental Ethics" and the "The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment" courses.

Q: Any hidden talents you would like to share with the WVPU community?

Tsounta: I do not know if they count as talents, but rather as parts of my life I would say: During the first part of my life, and for 18 continuous years, I was an athlete and a champion of swimming and water polo.

Now, in the second part of my life, I am enjoying the learning process and the progress I am making in classical guitar. It is a whole different relationship with music and something priceless and helpful in so many ways.