Major Change + Someday Certifications

    Right now, as most of you are aware, I am spending an extra year in Undergrad because of a recent change in major choice.  For my first three years of college, I was a Youth Ministry, Family, and Culture major here at CIU.  The reason why is because God had other plans than my own for my life and I felt Him give me a passion for ministering to youth, particularly high school teenagers and young adults, but I never really knew why.  Even with all of the excellent training I've received in the past few years, I never felt like God was equipping me to be a youth pastor, or anything like that, so I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to do with my life once I graduated.

    As you might probably remember, I wrote a post about what I felt my calling was: Counseling.  I truly believe that the gifts God has given me throughout my life has led me to desire counseling others and helping them where I can as a professional.  I like for people to trust me and ask me to help them work through their problems.  I still feel that ministering to youth is involved in this.  I want to work in a school district in this area that allows family therapy counselors to work with teens, then stay late afterwards to have counseling sessions with their families.  That's how I feel I can help people and still minister to youth - this is my calling.

    What's that got to do with my major change?  I spent this summer praying and thinking and seeking wise counsel in a short amount of time, and decided to switch my major to......drumroll..... Psychology!!  I feel like everything I was supposed to learn from Youth Ministry, I have learned.  Now I feel like the training God has for me in the near future would best be given through the training I would get from my Psychology classes.  I loved being a Youth Min major, but I'm just as excited about being a Psych major!  And although Psychology is not required to enter the Counseling program, I feel that it's a better stepping stone than Youth Min would have been.  So there you have it: I'm a Psychology major now, and I'm proud of it!

    So by the time I've finished Undergrad, I would have stuffed four years of college into five!  And every minute is totally worth it.  So now I'll be here a year longer than most of my classmates.  However, I'm not alone!  My friend Anna will also be graduating in Spring of 2015, so we will be partying together all the way through!  We've talked a lot about what we want to do in life and what kinds of things would be really cool to have the skill of doing.  And we've talked about doing a few things together B)  This is where the certifications will be coming in...

    Individually, Anna and I have wanted to learn how to do different things just so we can have some sort of side skill apart from what we're doing in life already.  What would be the harm in that?  So when we talked about it, we decided we could work to get these certifications together.  Although I think welding and carpentry would be pretty amazing, I don't think I'd be able to get that certification... however, I still could.

    What are some of the certifications we've talked about getting someday?  They include:

• Hair Stylist (probably from Kenneth Shuler)
• Nails Technician license
• Massage Therapy license
• Just an overall Cosmetologist
• Personal Trainer license (I don't remember if we talked about this one, but it'd be fun)
• Carpentry (I would like to do)
• I would like to take some classes in design and decorating for anything to do with interior decorating
• and maybe a few others...

    So while we're finishing Undergrad, both in Psychology, we can start looking at what it would take to get at least a few of these licenses!  I know I'll be going to Grad school for Counseling.  Anna says she is also going to Grad school.  These license things could probably be a small part of our grad school life!  Then, by the time we've finished getting our master's degrees, we can do what we majored in, fix and cut people's hair, do their nails, help them get in shape, and help them with small things to fix up their house!  Who knows what else we would be able to do!  I am honestly pretty dang excited about this, and I hope there really is a way for us to do this :)