The Suicide On The World Trade Center Occurred

During and immediately after my undergraduate course, I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer at the American Counseling Association and as a houseparent for an institution that houses mentally ill individuals. The association welcomes students and encourages them to offer voluntary services while they have an opportunity. My experience at the association, as a houseparent, and currently as a paraprofessional for mentally ill adults and children with behavioral problems provided me with a solid footing as well as the necessary resources to prepare for my career in counseling. The experiences gave me an opportunity to attend several conferences and workshops where I had the chance to meet and interact with other professional counselors. These opportunities opened me up and exposed me to numerous challenging situations that helped me to grow both personally and professionally. Interacting with more qualified and experienced people in the association, institution for the mentally ill, and agency that I currently work for has helped me to develop confidence in my work as I sought their assistance and guidance whenever I needed help. The experiences gained while working at the association was helpful to me as I could apply that knowledge and the skills learnt to help my church members. At my church, I was a youth leader and

It was during my senior year of college that I decided I wanted to become a school counselor. Up until my senior year in college at Penn State I did not know where I wanted to take my career but I knew I wanted to work in a school setting and I knew that I wanted to work with kids. When it came time to choose an internship site for my last semester, I chose an alternative school called Buxmont Academy in Bethlehem where I would be shadowing two of their school counselors as well as engaging with the students themselves. I got to work with these children on a more personal level, gaining an understanding of their emotions, experiences, and difficulties, as most of these children came from broken homes, and drug and alcohol related settings. I am interested in becoming a school counselor because I want to help. When I become a counselor I want to make a difference in a child’s life whether that be by simply giving them support that they might not have in their lives or helping them make changes to better themselves and their futures. A counselor has such an important role in helping to shape young children and that is something that I want to be a part of.

Ironically, I was not always interested in the psychology and counseling field. My first two years of undergraduate school I was a Mathematics major until I took Advanced Calculus and decided that Math was not for me. Then I began taking more and more Psychology courses as electives and realized that I had found the information interesting. After speaking with my father, I made the decision to pursue a career in this field while also following in his footsteps.

Mental Health Counselors are some of highest interacting people in the career industry. Having the highest ability to communicate with peers, you are faced with new challenges every single day. Many different types of people bring many different problems to the table. They are not expected to close the door due to the fact of not knowing how to help one. You will need a very high comprehension of the world around you, to be able to achieve high success rates in this career.

Senior year was quickly approaching and I still had one more spot left. I was indecisive about what other class I should add into my schedule. I researched a little and decided on AP Psychology. Little did I know how much I would come to enjoy the subject. From the beginning, I was interested in the psychology. Studying the way the brain works and why people behave the way they do have been topics I’ve been curious about before. Psychology is a subject unlike any other that I’ve studied before. Psychology studies the human mind and behaviors. It provides answers or theories of why people behave certain ways. It also includes bits of biology and and statistics, so the knowledge in other subjects help me understand it more. As I learn more about

Each person is unique with different gifts, abilities, and struggles. Counselors are committed to walk with individuals on their journeys to growth and healing without judgement.

I wish to pursue a career as a Mental Health Counselor, a person who talks people through their problems, diagnose patients and treats mental illness, so I can talk to others and help solve their problems. I have been interested in this career for a while now. I started to be interested in this career by being an office aid for the middle school counselor. When someone would go into the counselor's office and then come out it seemed like they were a new person. I want to have this job because I want to be able to change someone's life in a way and be able to bring them happiness.

I first knew that I wanted to be a counselor as a child. No one in particular inspired me to want to be a counselor, but I do feel that I chose marriage and family therapy due to the issues that my family has or had and never thought to seek counsel. There are many families out there that have issues but do not believe in therapy. My own parents do not see the usefulness of as they say, going to sit on someone’s couch and pay them to listen to your problems. As a child I can recall sometimes thinking if I just had someone to talk to that would understand. That is why I chose to become a marriage and family therapist, to help all the people that want help.

Since the attack on the world trade center on September 11, 2001 in the United States, we have shift our attention on Al Qaeda and other religious extremists. All the while extreme right terror groups are becoming a major problem in our society, but the media and government don’t address them until they carried out an attack on our citizens or government own properties. Extreme right are harder to detect by law enforcement because most of their attacks are carried out by two individuals or 1 person, making attacks unpredictable. When two or one individuals plan an act of terrorism is less likely to alert law enforcement, compare to when a whole terrorist cell plans an attack, because the more people involved the less secretive the attack. Furthermore extreme right are using firearms and other easily obtainable weapons, because acquiring materials to build a bomb is much harder, more time consuming and send red flags to proper authority.

During my depression it took me three years to build up the courage to seek mental health. While going through therapy my psychologist suggest to take some psychology classes on base with the University of Maryland, seeing as I was just working towards a general studies I thought either way it could help me get credits towards my degree. My teacher Dr. Hartman was excellent in drawing my attention to the subject, he spoke with such passion about his career and made it stand out even more to me.

An important factor in my choice of degree course is that of my career intentions. I hope to use my degree to become a Counselling Psychologist. This career fascinates me as I have interests in the human psyche and strongly enjoy helping others with hope to have a positive effect on their lives. My dad suffering from depression also influenced my goals and played a very significant role in which I have become as a person and amplified my interests into psychology. I was exposed to the aspects of clinical depression and the treatments of it. I saw how medicines and talking therapies really impacted someone close to me, which inspired me to want to help others suffering from mild to severe depression. It shaped me into more of an open- minded person and taught me ways to overcome negative thoughts, and help my dad challenge his feelings in order to better himself. These personal experiences made me realize how much I wanted to help others and pursue a career in Psychology.

The course that intrigues me most is Cracking the Code of the Human Brain: From Neuroanatomy to Behavior. I have always had a passion for the human brain, the way it functions and how that is imposed onto how humans develop thoughts and actions. If I could take any course in the world it would be exactly this one because of how curious I am about where thoughts and behaviors stem from on the molecular level. I am also quite interested in the different lobes of the brain and how they interact. The next set of classes that I am most interested in are the ones regarding the future of medicine, and current research. These would be the Introduction to Cancer: Diving into Research, The Promises of Regenerative Medicine, Introduction to Evolutionary

The major that I have chosen to earn a degree in is Psychology. I decided to become a therapist because of my own experience with depression. I began in middle school, we had just moved down to Kentucky from Illinois and I guess I just did not adjust well and slowly went from a happy, energetic girl into depression. In the beginning, I knew nothing about mental illness or that depression was even a thing, I just knew that I was really upset and could not explain why so I believed it was normal and kept what I was feeling to myself. It would get so bad that I would not leave the house, sometimes I would not even get out of my bed. My depression eventually led to me developing suicidal thoughts but by then I was scared to tell anyone because I knew what I was feeling was not normal. . I lived with this for at least two years without telling anyone how I felt. One day while I was waiting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office, I was reading some of the medical pamphlets they had and one of them was on depression. Most of the symptoms I could relate to and I decided to do more research on depression on my own which was probably more of a mistake. I learned some great information about depression and its treatment but I also found all the stereotypes about individuals with depression and the labels people associate with it and that made me want to keep it to myself even more. It was in tenth grade that I finally decided to tell my mom what I was feeling. I was tired of living

Falling in love with psychology was a bit of an accident. It started my junior year, one of the most stressful years of my life. I was having my academic conference with my counselor who I had just met for the first time. I had a multitude of classes to choose from, but despite all of my options, I couldn’t choose. My conference was coming to a close; therefore, my counselor urged me to choose a class. She pointed out Advanced Placement Psychology, “Lots of my students say this class is interesting...they typically come out of it loving it or hating it on a rare occasion.” I decided to give it a shot, hoping that the odds were in my favor with this class that I let a stranger pick for me.

I have learned with all the research and interview I have conducted that in order to be a counselor there should be a special love for humans and the desire to help them. Currently, I work as a Student Service Advisor at Valencia College, and I can truly say I love what I do. I get the chance to assist, advise, and guide student while the start this new journey or chapter in their life. Even though, I do not get to perform half of the duties a counselor deals with; the satisfaction of advising a student in their career path keep me motivated to become a school counselor. Many people might think that counselor isn’t needed anymore, but I can assure that when a student has their personal cheerleader their personal and professional life changes for