She got her Bachelor’s degree in psychology from SUNY Purchase and her Master’s degree from New School for Social Research. However, for her Ph.D., Allison Betus chose Georgia State University.
Betus is in her sixth year of the Communications program, specializing in terrorism. She hopes to graduate in the summer of 2021.
She spent four years in the Transcultural Conflict and Violence (TCV) Initiative fellowship program.
“Basically, it’s a fellowship where you study terrorism or political violence in general,” Betus said.
Georgia State’s website describes the fellowship as academics across several majors who are “identifying the origins of and solutions to ethnic, religious and other transcultural conflicts.”
For the last two years, Betus has been a Craigie International Security scholar.
“The Craigie international security scholarship is quite similar to TCV actually. It’s another thing where you study violent extremism but more in the context of media and trying to affect policy,” Betus said.
Her curiosity about terrorism began with an interest in the psychology of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. White supremacist cases were always the most interesting to her.
“It began with me getting interested with how prejudice works, which led to me thinking how group dynamics work, which led to me thinking about how terrorism works,” Betus said. “You see all these atrocities happening in the news and you want to understand why it’s happening, and when you understand a little bit about why it’s happening you want to help.”
Career-wise, Betus wants to continue studying and working to combat domestic white supremacist terrorism.
“ I haven’t decided if I want to go into the [non-governmental organization] or think tank direction quite yet, but I would love to work for the United Nations one day. I’m also considering getting on board with a social media website to help them keep extremists off of their platforms,” Betus said.
Betus has faced some challenges studying domestic white supremacist terrorism specifically.
“These past four years have been hard… So now with a new president, hopefully funding for fighting white supremacy will come back.”
Her specific interests and area of study are some of the reasons why she chose Georgia State for her Doctorate degree.
“The reason I came to GSU for my Ph.D. is because they offered me the opportunity to study terrorism. When you apply to Ph.D. programs, they’re very hyper-specialized, so it’s not like I could go anywhere and study terrorism,” Betus said.
Georgia State gave Betus the chance to get experience and make connections specifically in her field, which is otherwise hard to find.
The Communications program at Georgia State has prepared Betus to work in her field by “putting me in contact with amazing scholars in the field that I want to work in and giving me the opportunity to work with them, and to meet so many other wonderful students from all over the world who come into this field with different interests and perspectives,” Betus said.
“It’s been great because we’ve all been able to learn from each other and it feels like we’ve been building a good sense of cohesion. It’s been really good to get to know the field and you can’t just do that at any school,” Betus said.
Some of the classes that she’s really enjoyed are quantitative and qualitative methods and psychiatry of terrorism. Betus also appreciates her coworkers and professors. She believes that there is a true sense of camaraderie within the Communications department.
Her favorite aspect of the program is that studying at Georgia State has opened up her mind to new ways of thinking and conducting research.
“I came in here with all of this knowledge already on social psychology and learning about communication really synergized with that well,” Betus said. “It really alters how I view my psych knowledge, and my psych knowledge alters how I view my comm knowledge.”
Betus highly recommends the Communications program and offered two pieces of advice for prospective students.
“I think one bit of advice I just want to give to anyone who wants to come in, because I’ve seen people make this mistake before, is that people want to work with people who are nice. If you come in with this mindset like ‘I’m going to be the best you’re not really going to go far,” Betus said.
Her final piece of advice is “if you have questions about the program, ask the older graduate students. We’re very happy to help out new people with questions all the time.”
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