Week 3-- Master's Program

Here I am in the student center after my class at University of Phoenix.  Usually it is around 9:30pm at this point, but tonight the instructor let us out at 7:45pm.  What a blessing!!  I haven't been feeling very well AND we have a 10 page paper due next week, along with an oral presentation.  This past week was stressful, emotional, and exhausting, so now I only have 1 week to do everything and it's a little overwhelming.  But the instructor felt like we all could use this extra time to work on our papers, and after observing us doing our interactive "interviewing" with other classmates, she thinks we're good to go for now.  THANK YOU. 

I was looking forward to coming to class today because I feel on track with everything and engaged in what I'm learning. Usually, in high school or at BYU, I hadn't finished reading the assignment or didn't quite understand what we were learning, so I never felt quite up to par in class.  But I have more confidence now-- at least FOR NOW-- and I don't dread coming to class.  That might change in a few months :)  but so far everything is good.

We took one of those personality tests to see which category you fit in, and how you might interact with other "colors" of people.  It's a 10 question survey called REAL Colors (Orange, Green, Blue, Gold) and you have to number your preference for the different options they give you for answers.  After taking the test and tallying up my points, I learned that I am very much a BLUE person. Last week, when my instructor was telling us about it, she casually added that she would assume that I am an ORANGE person.  I wasn't sure what that symbolized, but my second dominant color is ORANGE, which I am happy about.  BLUE is very much an emotional person-- someone who is empathetic, dependable, cares about others, etc.  ORANGE is active, spontaneous, free-spirited, adventurous, etc.  It made me happy to think that my instructor pin-pointed me as an ORANGE person last week-- she must see my personality shining through.  :)  The majority of us were BLUE people in the class;  3 others were GREEN, which are more logical, organized, etc.  Something I am totally not. :)

We talked about a few other personality tests and what we can learn from them, and how they help us work with others.  This is the kind of information I need to include in my paper.  I also need to explain why I chose to go into counseling, what skills I have, what personality traits do counselors need to have, what my day will be like as a school counselor, etc.  So it's actually kind of a "fun" paper because I get to make it personal, but of course it still needs to be in APA format and I need to use references, etc.  If I just set my mind to it and start writing NOW... I'll be okay.  That's my plan:  after this blog post I am just going to start typing and see what comes of it. 

Anyway, we also practiced interviewing each other and applying those 5 basic skills that we learned about last week.  I liked being able to watch others as we took turns playing the role of the interviewer, client, or observer.  One girl even cried in her role as the client because she's had a hard week and really was just being herself.  It made us all cry too.  Oh, look at us BLUE emotional people who care about others. :)  I usually don't like role play stuff, but it's necessary to learn.  It's like being in the MTC or participating in mission district meetings.  Initially, you don't really want to role play, but once you've done it, you were probably touched by the Spirit and felt better afterward.  So that's how I felt about the interviews tonight.

This Portfolio class is half over.  These first 3 weeks were the "soak it all in" period of what we're learning.  These last 3 weeks will be more intense, as 2 more instructors will join us and will observe us and evaluate and assess whether or not we are fit to begin the actual counseling program. It's a pass or fail decision. I feel confident that I'll be fine, but it's still nerve-racking to know people are watching you!  I will need to "dress for success" next week, bring my 10 page paper, and have a nice 5 min. presentation with some kind of visual.  I'll be thinking of something creative... and in the mean time I need to get started on this paper.

Wish me luck!