School Starts for Dana

Dana Starts Utah State University
Master's of Psychology/School Counseling
August 25, 2009

Last night I started my new hobby for the next 2 years, attending school as a Utah State University Aggie. I am in the School Counseling program. It is interesting that it has come full circle. When I graduated from High School I wanted to attend Utah State. I was offered a scholarship to attend there. I decided to stay home where I didn't have to pay rent and I went to BYU. So now, years later, I am a Utah State student.

Last Friday I went up to the Utah State campus for an orientation. It is a beautiful campus in Logan Utah. Here are some pictures of the campus.

This year (and every 2 years) the Masters in School Counseling is taught at satellite campuses. I will be going to class every Tuesday at 5:15 to 10:30 (unless they let us out early) in a classroom at the Utah Valley University Education Building. It is really close to my office so I can leave work at 5:00 and get to class on time. These are pictures of the building I attend class in.

There are a lot of satellite campuses across the state (probably about 10) for this program. Some of them have 1 person, and ours in Orem is the largest group with 21 attending the first class. It will be great to have so many new school friends and study buddies. When we go to class we see a broadcast of our teacher on 1/2 of the screen in the front of the room, and any power point or other computer generated information on the other 1/2 of the screen. We have microphones on each of our tables so that we can actually have conversations with our teacher who is teaching from the Utah State campus. We just turn the microphone on and it is broadcast to the teacher and all of the other sites. We also have a camera on us so our teachers can see each classroom and we can see each other when discussions or questions are being asked from the different sites. It's amazing what can be done with technology. There are about 70 students in my cohort that are scattered all over the state.

My first classes are Developmental Psychology which is about the different stages in a person's life from birth until death, and Psychometrics which is all about testing. They both seem to have great teachers, but lots of homework. I will have to work hard to keep up and do well in both of the classes. It would be about right if I could do just one class at a time. But, I will have to do my best with both.

Go Aggies!