When I was 23 years old, I was accepted to a full-time Masters in School Counseling program at Wake Forest University (go Deacs!) It was a two year program, and it was fully covered by scholarship.
Yes, you read that correctly.
I had a free ride for the masters program of my dreams at the school of my dreams.
And a month later, I found out I was pregnant.
It was not planned, nor was it unwelcome, but it did mean that there was no way I could be enrolled in a demanding, non-stop program.
I was blessed to receive a deferral, with admission secured for the following year's cohort. My son would be 8 months old, my husband would be working, and I would be a full-time graduate student. My mom lived nearby at the time and was even available to babysit for free. Things were looking great!
Except they weren't.
My mom was living nearby because she had left her marriage to my father. She was also undergoing treatment for breast cancer. In addition to those stressors AND graduate school, I had to suddenly wean my son to take a strong antibiotic. I didn't realize until several years later what a profound hormonal effect this had on me, but it really sent me into a tailspin. A month into my program, I started having debilitating panic attacks and suffering from major depression.
Ironically, I had to drop out of counseling school because I needed counseling, myself.
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Almost seventeen years later, I have never lost sight of the idea of trying to earn my graduate degree. But where, in what subject, and more importantly, why?
Periodically I will look into programs at nearby schools, or programs with significant scholarships (student loans are NOT an option for me right now), or programs that I could complete entirely online.
I have looked at counseling programs, education programs, generic fine arts programs where you don't specialize in anything in particular, adventure therapy programs, and even theater for costume construction,
But here's the thing: I don't know what I would do with a master's degree, even if I had one.
Many jobs I have wanted to apply for at Elon require a graduate degree, and that was holding me back.
I don't want a job, though. Or if I do, I don't know what it is or how to go about getting it.
I know that I don't want to be a full-time classroom teacher in a traditional public school. I can't deal with all of the administrative bureaucracy, but I love teaching. Substitute teaching has been a great fit for me in many ways, but I am not always well-utilized and it's often more babysitting than it is teaching.
I am too old to be earning my degree in college student affairs, but I absolutely love the work that is done within student life programs at universities like Elon.
I could spend two years earning that much-coveted school counseling degree, but would I want to use it? I'm not sure that I could operate much better in a guidance counselor position than I could in a classroom.
I'm 41 years old. I have 2 sons who will be heading to college within the next two years, and a third not far behind. They, along with my husband and aging dog, need me to be available for them. I am living in a state that I do not intend to stay in for a minute longer than I have to, so I don't want to commit to an on-campus program that will tie me to a specific location. I have no disposable income and will not go into debt for a degree that I cannot prove that I will use.
I'm stuck holding on to a dream, and I'm not sure if it's time to let that dream die or if I'm just in a long dormant phase. I need to not look at what my Facebook friends are doing and achieving. I need to focus on what I want and need.
I just don't know what that is.
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