Finally. It’s been a long and incredibly challenging road, but I FINALLY have graduated from the University of West Florida with my Bachelors degree in Psychology. I’ve known I wanted to study psychology since I was twelve years old. I’ve only had 12 more years and several minor and fleeting variations from that path, but now I finally have something to show for my time and effort. I have a diploma cover (I won’t get the ACTUAL degree until this July after I complete 2 more credits). But I walked across the stage and shook hands with some people and was clapped for, and that’s what counts for me right now. I’ve had something to celebrate.

Now, I get to look to the future. Everyone expects great things from me, myself included. I want to get a doctorate and do real, legitimate, publishable research that may make a difference in someone’s life. For the moment, I am focusing on increasing my knowledge base so that I don’t feel like such an impostor when I do make it into a graduate school; I will be taking my GRE and the GRE subject test in Psychology this summer, as well as learning Python through CodeAcademy. I have also got a very large stack of books and articles about the psychological and linguistic development of deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

Barring a better option presenting itself elsewhere, this fall I will be continuing my studies as a non-degree seeking student at UWF, taking a graduate level class and a few more undergraduate classes. I (pending my accepted application) will also be doing some post-baccalaureate classes in linguistics and speech & hearing sciences through the University of Florida. Hopefully, by this time next year I will be looking at moving somewhere with a PhD program… I’m aiming high.