Discovering myself

One day someone told me I needed to figure out what inspired me to keep me going and I nodded my head and sipped my tea acknowledging them. Less than three months later I found myself sitting in an office with someone who told me the same thing and a wave of tears rushed over me.  Why? Because I had no idea what inspired me.  I had no idea what I was passionate about and it made me feel like I did not have a pathway in life.

Finding what inspired me and what I'm passionate about has been a journey.  I've tried to fit into these boxes my friends have made in regards to what their passionate about and what inspires them. It worked for me for a short period of time, and then I would become bored and not the least bit interested in things anymore.  This year, things seem to be different.  This year in addition to being a year to improve academically has been about a year improving emotionally.

What I found out about me #1: I actually love psychology and HATE social work.
 For the past year I've been telling people I'm going to become a social worker.  I convinced myself this was going to be the perfect pathway for me and I was going to find a job and help people.  The thing is, I actually hate social work.  Most of the social work classes I took were heavily psychology based and I convinced myself from this that I wanted to be a social worker.  I have many wonderful friends who love social work and will be great social workers (shout out to Tristan) but it's not for me.
   Social work is not all about therapy.  Social work is like this giant puzzle involving social policy, and justice, and a variety of issues including therapy. I realized I want to be a person who spends their entire day listening to people's stories.  Listening to what they have to say and guiding them to empower themselves.  This is what counselling psychology is all about.  I want to be able to handle mental health issues like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, this is where clinical psychology comes about.
   And once I realized this is where my passion lies, I became inspired to find a grad school.  I'm not talking Google search: APPLYING TO GRAD SCHOOL IN PSYCHOLOGY, I'm talking buying a 980 some-odd page book and reading it four or five times to bring it down to 10 grad school choices among Canada and the USA.  I met with multiple professionals who have gone to grad school and picked their brains about their application process and kept finding out information.  When I became inspired, I worked my butt off to get to my goals.

What I found out about me #2: I am inspired by hard working, humorous women.
  I never really had a mentor in my life from the university stand point of my life.  My mother has raised me to be a hard working, humorous, hard headed lady but it's always good to have more than one person to look up to.  On a trip up north, through many tears, I poured my heart out to someone for the first time in my life about how frustrating it is to have parents who don't understand the academic world as badly as they want to and about how nobody ever says their proud of me.  In the course of 15 minutes a person who barely knows me was able to highlight all the ways that I reminded her of herself.  I became inspired, that if someone has gone through these things and has come out of it to be a badass female, then I must be able to do it too.
   And then I have a mentor who has been in charge of a big volunteer group I worked with last year and now is one of my bosses.  I admire her hard work, her hilarious personality, and her ability to be an ear and empower you.  She doesn't solve your problems for you, she gives you ways that you can move forward and coaches you to how you can be better. She is adventurous and the lessons she has comes from years of being an amazing student life professional who has travelled and embarked on many adventures. She helped my confidence grow over the last year, and every conversation with her ends with me hoping that I can be as amazing as she is some day.

What I found out about me #3: I have the ability to change the world.
  I never knew that I inspired people until someone told me they looked up to me.  I never thought people could see me as a counsellor or going to grad school until I asked someone.  I am a listener.  I am someone who will take the time out of her day to hear your story and not talk over you.  I will provide you with a hug when you need it and give you the tough love you need.  I am empathetic, not to the annoying point of "I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL BECAUSE THIS ONE TIME I..." but to the point I can assure you that I hear what you have to say.  I have the ability to pick up my bags and move and get an education with an adventure attached to it.  The little things I do inspire other people now, and will continue to inspire and empower people for as long as I can.

Discovering myself is painful at times.  It means breaking down the tough walls and having sensitive moments.  But it's worth it.  It's so worth it to finally discover things that make me happy and that I find myself wanting to work towards.  I know as far as theories such as Erikson is concerned I'm way behind on the development scale.  I spent my adolescent years trying too hard to grow up and handle problems too big for my age then discovering myself.  This is my time to do it.  Where I'm as free as a bird and as willing to learn as I ever see myself being.

What it's like to research grad school

   Imagine you've decided to run a marathon.  One you've been training for four years.  It's one you've wanted to do, but you weren't too sure if you were going to be able to do it.  With some pushes in the right direction, you decide it's finally time to lace up.  You put your shoes on and you stand at the starting line waiting for that gun to fire that it's time to go.  You take a deep breath in and close your eyes, and when the gun is pulled, you feel like you're walking the race instead of running it.  Every few miles you fall down and every time you get back up it's more of a challenge.  But you keep going.  You know at the end your prize is there, and despite the fact the beginning of your journey feels like it's beating you down, you keep doing it.  You see glimmers of hope in your future in the form of post it note flags making it to the garbage and schools getting crossed off and eliminated.  You feel yourself fall one more time by not having a prerequisite for a school you loved.  Researching grad schools is a marathon.
   It's not just a marathon though, it's also feels like your being interrogated for a crime at times.  The questions are of course, asked out of genuine curiosity of people.  But when you're feeling overwhelmed by going through 50 states and 10 provinces to find programs you're interested in, your fuze can be particularly short at times and while you're not in a tiny room with a detective sipping his cup of coffee as he goes through the same questions for the hundredth time, it can sure somtimes feel like it. Why would you pick that school?  Why would you go to America if you were a Canadian citizen? What faculty do you like? Do you have a research topic idea? Who are your references? Have you written the GREs yet? How's studying for them going? When's your application due dates?
  And then sometimes, it feels like you're on a gameshow called "what does this university offer?" where your prize is going to be the financial funding you need.  You look through the teaching assistantships, the research positions, the on campus jobs and whether they offer scholarships.  Sometimes it feels like you're going to step up there and spin the wheel and land on BANKRUPT, and sometimes it feels like you've got that million dollar spin.

It's been many hours filled with tears researching where I want to go.  But I feel like if I dream big enough and I try hard enough I'm going to get in somewhere.  My hardwork is going to be paid off.  As I've so wisely been told "there's nothing as bitter as a grad school drop out".  I will be better, and not bitter.

One track mind.

I think it's difficult being a student preparing for grad school, because it is literally the only thing on your mind.  I don't mean that in a "I LITERALLY slept 20 hours" kind of way, I mean it's all you think about.  From the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed the word GREs probably leaves my mouth a good 20 or more times.  I read vocab. I do practice questions.  I dread November 6th like no tomorrow.  I wonder what I've gotten myself into.  I read the prep book again.  I skim the pages.  I see I'm still struggling. I worry. I take a study break to work on my homework.  I think about how if my average drops 1% I'll lower my chances at so many schools. I think about my personal statements I need to write.  About the application process.  The cost. The cost. The cost. The dollars. The cents. Does any of it make sense? The fights with parents. The need for people to understand why I'm applying across North America.  The "I'm not drinking booze until I've finished" promise.  The big book of schools. The post it notes.  Colour coding. Google search.  A school that doesn't fit my needs.  A rip out of a flagged post-it note.  A website booked.  A "more information" form filled out.  A never ending process.

The worst part is, acceptance is obviously not guaranteed. Nobody on the other side has the faintest clue who I am.  I rely on the scores, the personal statement, my resume, and reference letters to speak volumes for me.  And then sometimes I'll be required to have an interview.

I annoy people.  I struggle to have conversations that don't revolve around grad school.  I'm irritating.  I'm annoying.  I don't make plans. I sit at home or at school constantly.  I don't have a life.  Right now that's okay.

Grad school is all I think about.

"How's the drive?"

    I swear this is the number one question I get from people.  After being someone who literally lived a parking lot away from her university classes her entire academic career you can imagine the shock it must of been for me to start commuting.  Sometimes, it sucks and sometimes it's alright.  It's not my ideal situation, but it's something I have to do in order to make things work for me.  Here's the best break down of what it's like commuting for me:

• The drive from my town to the city is almost never busy.  In fact, I kind of enjoy it this time of year with all the leaves changing colour.  I have time where I can sip my coffee now and then as I drive and not worry about getting into an accident or it affecting my speed. 
• Tuesdays are easily the worst day.  I don't know what it is, but every Tuesday trying to get myself to school is a hassle.  My 45 minute - an hour commute turns into an hour and a half.  The highway where I need to be on for two exits takes me almost 20 minutes.  It's a nightmare. 
• I leave late enough at night where I never hit rush hour.  It's actually refreshing that I don't sit in line ups at traffic lights. 
• My parents are constantly annoyed that I have the car, and to be honest I don't blame them.  I'm almost never home for someone who lives there.
• The cost I pay in gas a week is insane.  But it's still cheaper than living on residence.

I like having a car at school though because it honestly makes a different to my day and I no longer feel trapped on campus.  I'm taking opportunities I never took before because I have access to a car.  I'm able to go and get food if I want it at lunch time or drive friends to pick up some dinner. Those little breaks of sanity are what's needed. 

So overall the drive, is not too bad. I may be singing a different story though once we have snow on the ground.

"So are you like, going to be a student forever?"

   With October finally making it's way here, and 31 for 21 starting, I figured what better time than now to start the blog that's been rushing in my head for what feels like forever.  For those of you who don't know, October is Down syndrome awareness month.  For the last six years, the Down syndrome community has blogged everyday for the month of October to show their support for one another.  The idea of it is to get you writing and to connect with others, not write about Down syndrome everyday.

So where did the idea for this blog come from?  Somewhere between the "you're doing five years of your undergrad?" and "why do you want to go to grad school?" I decided I needed to get my thoughts out about the whole slew of decisions that have come from it one place.  Let me start off by saying one thing: if you had asked me a year ago if I would be going to grad school, I would of told you to stop being an idiot.  Now I'm spending hours a day researching schools and reading the Princeton Review in an attempt to get into schools not only in Canada, but in America as well. 

And now comes the back story:

   I've been an overachiever my entire university career.  I'm not talking the "oh I raise my hand in class" overachiever, I'm talking president, vice president, and student government representative in the same year overachieving.  I made a name for myself.  Albeit, at times not a good name, but a name none the less.  I was known for being "the psychology student" a lot of the time.  I sat on panels for parents, prospective students and guidance counsellors.  I participated in curriculum committees and stated my honest opinions about courses and textbooks.  I ran events and fundraisers and started feuds with other student governments.  I worked an on campus job in some capacity since my second year and lived on campus my entire four years.  I was known. For good and for bad.  But needless to say my identity was strongly tied to Amanda Howlett - undergraduate psychology student at the University of Guelph-Humber.

   So March rolls around, and Easter comes around, and I end up in a meeting with my program head about some upcoming events our psych society was going to do.  He asked the question everyone had been asking me for weeks; "what are you going to do when you graduate?".  My work experience did not scream a career in psychology so I responded with my honest answer I'd been giving everyone of "I'm probably going to become an office secretary or something". He looked at me puzzled and said:

"Why don't you do a fifth year?"

  

I understand at some universities, this wouldn't be a big deal.  Many students take five years to complete a program.  But when your school has the motto of a "university degree and college diploma in four years" five years doesn't really pop into your mind.  To make a long story short, my program head and me discussed a plan about how I could come back, take courses and up my GPA, write my GREs, and apply to grad school.  I left to go home the Thursday for my long weekend, and by Easter Monday I had cancelled my university graduation.

There's more to the story about how I've come to the point of accepting that I'm "that fifth year student" but I'm sure that'll come later this month.  

But overall, through my months of uncertainty, and my moments where I want to throw in the towel and quit, I feel like this was the best choice of my life.  There's no better investment I could of made then to be working on improving my GPA in an environment that is encouraging and supportive of the grad school process.

So welcome to my journey.  Of being a fifth year undergrad student, a grad school hopeful, a dreamer, a believer, and an overachiever.  

Cheers,

Amanda