Ringing Strathclyde Tuesday

Heard back from the Director of the Diploma program toward the end of last week and I'm calling her tomorrow. Spent a good amount of time at the UNCC library reading Dave Mearns' book to ensure that I'm fairly well informed. I've a lot to say about what I learned, but no time now to really post about that as I have some things to do before I have to be at work for the night shift tonight. I'm having to relearn how to work in my life around work - which seems silly but I wasn't terribly productive when I had nothing to do and now I have even more and I know I USED to be productive even when I had tons to do, but I don't remember quite how I pulled that off. So - relearning. Excited and a wee bit nervous about ringing Strathclyde tomorrow - but it should be good, anyway!

Emails and whatnot.

So... I've sent emails to bunches of people at Strathclyde - and finally heard back from one of the administrators who thinks I've done the right thing in sending an email to the Director of the Diploma program. At least it was a response! (And I sent one back saying essentially Thanks So Much For Responding! At least I do know now that I have sent an email to the right person and have some prayer of getting my questions addressed.) In other news on that I'm starting to panic that I'm not going to be able to make it work and have started looking - again - at all the other courses offered at the Unis (I want to put an apostrophe there but it's not “Uni is” it's “Uni plural” so I'm leaving it off) in Glasgow and trying to find anything that seems like it could be a good fit. Determined to move to Glasgow, who me? Remember, Tenacious I think is one of the better words to describe me when it comes to things like this - though Obsessive might be more accurate. I'm going to get a wee bit of lunch, finish my tea, finish getting ready and head to UNCC where I know they have a book that is mentioned as containing more specifics on the selection criteria for the postgraduate diploma course at Strathclyde. *see note on tenaciousness above. Moreover, the book was written by the director emeritus of the program. Checking it out would cost $35 to get a library card as I'm not a student, so I'm planning to get lunch and then go spend a fair bit of time there with the book. Then come back here and work out. That's my afternoon plan.

The Bottom Line - and how I got here.

What I want is to go back to Scotland - to Glasgow and the Counselling Postgraduate Diploma couse at Strathclyde in particluar. That's the bottom line. Everything else is just a stepping stone on this path - at least until I hit an insurmountable obstacle. But also given my "Never Say Die" attitude about some things it will be a good while before I get to that point. (Tenacious is good word - obsessive might be more accurate.)

My plan for some time was a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology - but since May or June the idea of signing on to anything for a 5+ year course just doesn't feel like the right answer. I'm not in a position where I want to make that kind of a commitment - particularly not that kind of commitment to living anywhere in particular, and certainly not living somewhere in the US for 5+ years. Having come to that conclusion and knowing for years that while I enjoy research, my real love is in helping people (or helping people help themselves), my next thought was a Master's degree in Counselling. So I began doing some research...

I loved being in Glasgow for the all too brief 6 months I was there and I want to go back more than I think I've ever wanted anything in my life. So it isn't much of a surprise that though I was looking at local programs and programs in the US generally, I also kept skipping back over to .ac.uk sites in addition to the .edu sites. My beloved Glasgow Uni does not have any counselling programs and neither does Glasgow Caledonian (not accredited ones, anyway), but Strathclyde does. The way the course is set up, I would have do the Postgraduate Diploma course and then upon successful completion, take on the Masters course - which has now become my goal in life.