Scholastic & Professional

My scholastic and professional life, although not all that exciting, is worth elaborating on:  I went to a very good public high school on Long Island called Sanford H. Calhoun High School.  It was definitely quite an experience, especially considering that I had just arrived to the United States and didn't speak much English at the time.  There, I had my share of laughs, good friends, good and bad grades (although overwhleming majority were good), and good times.  I had a particular class named ESL (English as a Second Language), which not only helped me learn English, but helped me grow as a person.  My teacher there, Mrs. Cristoffel, formerly known as Ms. Smith, was the primary reason of why I enjoyed that class so much--it was more than a class, it was a community of ESL students all connected by one common bond--we were all immigrants trying to adjust to a new language, a new culture, and a totally different lifestyle.  Mrs. C taught me a lot, and without offending anyone, I can safely say she was the absolute nicest and most wonderful teacher I've ever had.  Oftentimes I look back upon my years at Calhoun with a feeling of nostalgia--I miss the simpler times and the much easier classes and the significantly lower amount of work...but, most of all, I miss the people there.

So, without lamenting on about my high school years (which now seem like such a long time ago), let me tell you a bit about Washington University in St. Louis, which is where I ended up after my years at Calhoun.  Here at WashU, I started out as a pre-med student, aspiring to become a doctor.  However, since then, I've changed my mind half a dozen times as to the major and the career I wanted to pursue.  I've decided that I never really had any great desire or a pressing calling to be a doctor, and that I'd be much happier doing something I actually like.  The bad part about this is twofold: Now I have to figure out what I really would like to do, and I've already wasted the first 2 and 1/2 years of my college career taking classes I really wasn't interested in, and frankly disliked (especially the organic chemistry).
As I am writing this, I am more than halfway through my first semester of my junior year here at WashU.  Finally, I think I have figured out what I would like to do:
First of all, I have always loved languages, and when I came to WashU, I took many French courses b/c I wanted to continue learning this beautiful language in the hopes of speaking it fluently someday.  It payed off, b/c not only did I get to go to France two summers ago (summer of '98), which was a total blast, but I am only 9 credits away (I think) from making it my major.  So, I thought, what the heck? I might as well major in French as my first major.
As for my second major, I have thought long and hard about it.  At first, I thought I could major in Biology, and go into research.  Then, that idea fell through, and I thought I could possibly do International Business, which, coupled with my extensive language skills, would be a good idea.  However, I've never been very interested in business or thought of myself as a business woman.  So, I recently finally made the decision to major in something I have always liked and enjoyed--namely, psychology.  So, starting next semester, I will be taking lots of psych courses in order to try to get that major done by May of 2001 (my graduation date).  When I was in high school, I took some psychology college courses at night b/c I enjoyed the subject so much.  I am lucky that those courses will now count towards my future major here :)

Next, I guess I ought to say something about my work experience.  Over the years, I have worked as a saleswoman and cashier in 2 different shoe stores (which both went out of business), as a page in a library (for those of who don't know, that means just putting books away and arranging the shelves), as a photocopy assistant in the interlilbrary loan deparment of the Bernard Becker Medical Library on the med. campus, and now as a reserach assistant in a molecular oncology lab doing cancer research.  Needless to say, I enjoy my present job more than I ever have any of my previous ones.  It's incredibly interesting, it has much variety, and I can make my own hours, since I work on my own project.  All the people in my lab are incredibly nice, and it's just a great environment to work in.  That's actually where I first got the idea to make research my life's passion.  However, I don't think that I would be able to do that for the rest of my life, b/c I would much rather enjoy working with people, interacting with them, and helping them.  Although doing research I could be helping people indirectly, there is not much human interaction at all involved in such a job;  Therefore, I thought psychology would offer me more possibilities to do achieve that human interaction, and to help people directly and be able to see their progress firsthand.

I think that about covers what I've done thus far in my scholastic and professional life. I hope that in the future I will either be able to work as a professional psychologist, or maybe be able to utilize my language skills for something such as international relations, international business, or a travel-related career.  Or, who can tell the future? Maybe I'll end up doing something totally different from what I had planned or thought I'd end up doing.

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