Psychology of Learning, Psychopathology, Counseling, and Assessment II…welcome to my second semester of grad school and life as an aspiring school psychologist. Considering that my first semester was unexpectedly and overwhelmingly successful, I feel significantly more confident going into this second semester. It’s incredibly hard to describe, but I think something has changed in me. I feel like I’m rediscovering myself.
My passion for serving students and improving lives through education grew early on in my undergraduate studies. I went from wanting to be a teacher to wanting to completely revamp education, single-handedly. I wanted to change the face of education in America. Now I recognize that while I wasn’t being realistic, I was a dreamer, and all change starts with a dream. Well somewhere along the way, I lost the dreamer aspect of myself. I still wanted to make a difference. I wanted to work as a school psychologist. I wanted to help children in their journeys through education. But I lost my passion. I lost my confidence, my drive, my dream. I was going through the motions, writing personal statements, requesting recommendations, and applying to graduate schools. Yet, I wasn’t confident that I would get in, and I was quite convinced that I would just live in China forever if things didn’t pan out with grad school.
But as I’ve blogged before, I got into my top choice school. I moved halfway across the country for school, and it was tough. As some of my fellow cohort members were driving a few hours home every other weekend, I was trying to figure out what I was doing here. I felt like I was “doing school” all the time and still not doing well. Well, I shouldn’t have worried, as I did way better than I expected. Enter: renewed confidence and flourishing dreams. I feel it; it’s all coming back: my passion for learning, my drive to change the world (though I know I can’t do it single-handedly), my confidence that I can be all that I strive to be, my joy.
It’s all coming back, and not just due to a successful first semester in graduate school. I owe much of this to my supportive fiancé as well as the joy of wedding planning and merging our two families. And I could go without saying that all of this comes from a Creator who has my best interests at heart. My renewed joy comes from trusting in this plan of His. And while life isn’t always perfect, things are looking up. I look forward to learning how to be a good school psychologist, a loving wife, and a faithful Christian/friend.
Perhaps the greatest thing I’ve learned about life in general over the past couple of years is that there is always something to learn. As long as we focus on all of the things we can still learn, there’s no need to think about all of the things we’ve failed to learn. We will get there. It’s a process. & through this process, I vow to be kind to myself.
When I joined Alpha Delta Pi sorority just over four years ago, how could I have known just how much it would mean to me today? I never would have guessed that I would meet my maid of honor in ADPi, much less that I would become an advisor for an ADPi chapter halfway across the country. I became an advisor for the Zeta Chi chapter of ADPi here at Baylor last semester, but I really started getting involved just this past week. I currently serve as the Membership Education advisor, which is a dream. I helped out with recruitment some this week, and after the long week we finally got to meet all of the wonderful new alpha members!
a thousand new paths 