Changes: Undergrad one moment, Graduate the next!

The end of my senior year came quickly.  It seems like it has been forever since I last blogged, but at the same time it seems like just yesterday.  The last month and a half of my undergraduate education was overwhelmed by the intense demands of my honors thesis.  My thesis ended up being sixty pages long and a 45 minute defense presentation.  This sounds and feels like a lot, but the amazing part of it all is that there is still so much more that can be said and done.  Originally, I was terrified of the thought of completing a Master’s thesis and especially, a dissertation.  I never thought I would do such a thing in undergrad.  But, I look back on it now and I have to say that conducting my own senior honors thesis was the best experience of my entire education.  It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun.  It is really satisfying to be able to spend a year of your life critically assessing and researching a topic that you are passionate about.  And the feeling of success and accomplishment that you get when you finish that defense and know that you did it… that moment is irreplaceable.

I completed my senior honors thesis this May and was awarded High Honors in the department of Psychology at the College of William and Mary.  That is a big statement.  And it is a statement that will take me places. The topic: therapist interventions used to stimulate paternal involvement in therapy and in the family. The irony: I am now a Masters student at the College of William and Mary’s School of Education for Marriage and Family Counseling.  I suppose it was meant to be.

May 2010: I graduated with a BA in Psychology.

Summer 2010: I oscillated graduate school decisions and pondered on how surreal it was that graduation came and went, and life was dramatically changing.

August 2010: The wonderful tradition of Convocation warmly invited me back in those wren doors for another two years of W&M history.

Now… though I wonder where I will end up for my doctorate degree (i.e., UCLA, U of Oregon, Duke, etc) and what exactly I will study (i.e., Counseling, Social Work, Clinical Psychology)… I must tame my typical W&M over-achiever mentality and focus on the new and exciting path in front of me.

P.S. In February 2010 my baby brother was born… and he is absolutely the coolest baby ever!!!

Enjoy life! Enjoy family! Enjoy friends! Enjoy your education… because time flies and if you are not looking it will sweep you off your feet.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

–Abraham Lincoln