When I first started college my freshman year, I joined as an early education major. I declared this to be my major because I loved working with children and knew that was the closest job I could get to working with children. I stayed in this major for the entire first year of my college career. The summer after my freshman year I worked at a summer camp for children with disabilities. This was my first time ever working with children with disabilities and I was extremely nervous and scared to work this job because I did not know what to expect. After working my first day, I knew that working with children with special needs was my passion. I worked for this summer program for the entire summer, and once school started back in the fall I changed my major to Early and Special education. I was very confident at the time that that was the major I was going to stick with, and eventually have a career on the teaching path.
After learning about the different opportunities there are by talking to a friend in the school psychology program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, I decided that that might be the right program for me. I did extensive research on School psychology, I decided to then change my major to psychology and pursue higher education. From there on, I started taking psychology courses and learning how much I really enjoy the major. Enjoying the different psychology courses that I took over the past two years as a psychology major reaffirmed that I am heading down the career path that is in fact the right one for me.
Since I knew I wanted to eventually go for school psychology, I decided that I should be more active during my schooling. That was when I found out about McNair. It sounded like an amazing resource for me to use, and I thought it would have been wasteful if i didn’t apply to the program. After getting accepted, I knew that I still needed to do more so I could stand out compared to the other candidates applying for school psychology, MA. I then decided to do my own research with the McNair program helping me go through the process of researching. I also decided to have an internship through the Academic Intervention Clinic. Now I am about to start applying for the Fall 2022 school psychology and I could not be more excited! I am hoping that all of my experiences help to put me above the other applicants, and after changing my major many times, I am very glad that I finally found the one that is right for me!