TPC Journal-Vol 11-Issue-1

The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 1 123 1. What led you to pursue a degree in counseling compared to other helping professions? I didn’t have a typical path to my career. I was one of those students coming out of high school who didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted to do. I went to a small, rural high school and didn’t have a lot of exposure to things. Sports were pretty much my life, and when I was deciding on majors, I went through the sports programs and settled on sports management because it made the most sense to me at that time. I ended up going to West Virginia University (WVU) because it was close to home and I was around WVU all my life. My family had season tickets to the football games, and those were some of the earliest memories that I have. It was my second home. After my first year at WVU, I ended up taking a year off. I was very lost on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and nothing made sense to me. Every time someone brought something up as a suggestion, I struggled because I couldn’t picture myself doing any of those things. I knew I didn’t want to do something that wasn’t going to make me happy. During this time Texas hold ’em poker was big. I remember being intrigued by it and wanting to learn how to play. I started out playing for fun online with fake money, but eventually I started to play with real money. I had no idea what I wanted in life, but gambling gave me an escape from the real world, whether I won or lost (I lost more than I won). This year off was not a productive year for me, and I ended up becoming addicted to gambling and losing all the money that I had. It was at the point where I needed to borrow money from my friends that I realized I had a problem. I knew I couldn’t keep going down the road I was on and I needed a change of scenery. Then, I watched the movie Ladder 49 and all of a sudden, I had this urge to be a firefighter. So, I applied to fire school in Fairfax, Virginia, but it wasn’t meant to be—I failed the physical test by 2 seconds. So, I decided to go back to school, and I transferred to George Mason University for a year. Even though it was only a year, it allowed me to learn a lot about myself and who I was as a person. I had removed myself from the negative people in my life and learned I wanted more for myself. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something that was fulfilling and helpful to people. I ended up changing my major in my undergraduate degree seven times before finally choosing psychology. In all honesty, I think I chose that at the time because it was the quickest way to graduation. I had no idea what I was going to do with a psychology degree, but I was intrigued by it. I had thought about going into human resources and even went on a couple of interviews before listening to my mother’s suggestion to apply to the WVU hospitals and their mental health hospital. My first job after graduating was as a mental health specialist. I enjoyed the work that I was doing, but I knew that I couldn’t make a career out of it. So, with the support and encouragement of my girlfriend (now wife), I applied to graduate school to get my master’s degree in counseling. I was hesitant at first because the road to my undergraduate degree was long, but I knew this was what I wanted to do. I have a love and passion for working with people and helping make a difference in their lives, which led me to my counseling degree. I went the school counseling path because I felt like I could make a difference early on in a child’s life. From there, the rest is history.