Ramblings trying to trace my decision from being a physical therapy Billiken to becoming an art education Boilermaker!

The way that I was raised helping others became ingrained in me, a way of life. My parents and both sets of my grandparents (well actually my Grandpa Ludwig is Episcopalian) are all Catholic and live this out in their daily lives. I know that helping others is not exclusive to Catholicism, but I do feel it is a big part of it most other religions as well. I feel they have encouraged the selfless giving and helping others in my life by the example they lead and encouraging me to participate in any opportunity that arises. 

My grandma and grandpa Ludwig have been especially influential to me. I grew up in their house from kindergarten to the end of middle school. My grandpa was an ophthalmologist and my grandma a pediatrician.  These were both helping professions, but even more than that my grandma helped to start the Well Baby Clinic where she saw all of her patients free of charge. I believe they are where I got my interest in the medical world. I love my grandparents and wanted to be just like them. The best was when we learned about the eye or other health related things in school and I got to have my grandparents come in as guest speakers! I can remember this happening in fourth grade in Mrs. Kirtley's class and in my biology class my freshman year of high school. 

My senior year in high school I took health careers. It was one of my favorite classes and was always my motivation to get up and look forward going to school (because it was at the very beginning of the day). I loved this class, especially when we got into clinicals and got to see so much stuff first hand. Some of the other students came in knowing what they wanted to do and stuck with that during the whole year, but I still wasn't really sure what interested me. I think another major impact on my life again came from my grandparents, this time my dad's side. My Grandpa Demeter passed away January 2008 from leukemia. I can remember telling him goodbye and that we loved him at Christmas time when we went to their house, then the next and last time I saw him he was in a coma in a hospital room in Iowa. We had known that he was sick, but his death really hit me hard. I had never had to deal with someone I loved passing away. Then, a few years later in my senior year of high school my Grandma Demeter passed away. She died ultimately of heart failure after being in a hospital for about a week. This was especially hard because nothing appeared to be wrong with her health. I wasn't ready for either of them to go, but especially wasn't when she suddenly died on my 18th birthday. The heart break stuck with me from both of their deaths and during clinicals I easily ruled out a career where I would find myself in the ER or the ICU. I knew that I could help a lot of people, but the possibility of death within my daily job was very unsettling. Eventually I think this is what drew me towards physical therapy, I could still help people and it was medically related, but my patients most likely wouldn't be near death, just have a physical mobility limitation. 

I applied to 5 colleges my senior year, one of them being SLU. That November I got a call saying I was accepted! I had applied as undecided, general admission, and asked what I would need to do if I wanted to declare a major. The man on the phone said I would just need to tell him. I told him I was kind of thinking about physical therapy and he said I needed to decide within a few days and get back to him because the deadline was quickly approaching for that. I did a little more research and decided I might as well. He also helped convince me, saying that I might as well try if I was even a little bit interested because I could always change my mind and drop the program, but if I changed my mind later and decided I wanted to do that I wouldn't be able to enter into the program.

My freshman year at SLU was good, but it was kind of a struggle. The classes were difficult, not that interesting, and I was just pretty homesick. I did make good friends that I am thankful for, but I was still always counting down the days until the next time I got to return to Cville. I also remember in the spring when I was picking out courses to register for the fall of my sophomore year. I purposely chose to wait on the IPE (inter professional education, a program for all of the medical majors to take classes together and start intercommunication among every health professional from the beginning in hopes to diminish the 98,000 annual deaths to do human medical error, mostly miscommunication). I just wasn't so sure about physical therapy still and didn't want to have to take that course if I wasn't going to stick with it.

During the summer I worked at the hospital doing laundry and through that got to spend a few days shadowing physical therapists. I was bitter going into it because my two days off were spent shadowing and not getting a break. I enjoyed it, the physical therapist, physical therapy aids, and the patients were all really fun and friendly. However, I found it overall kind of boring and slow paced. It seemed to be repetitive and not have much variation. 

When it got time to go back to school I wasn't excited like all of my other friends at SLU. For a few days I was pretty down and grumpy, feeling like I had wasted my summer away working and didn't even get a chance to relax and enjoy it. Not to mention, I missed my family and friends from home when I went back to school and just really didn't want to take more science classes and other courses required for the physical therapy major. I finally told my mom what was going on inside of my head and we had a long talk. She said I should give it another semester because I might feel different with a better living arrangement, but that if I didn't like it I could look into other schools and find somewhere else to go where I thought I would be happy. I don't really think it was SLU that I was unhappy with, so much as the major, but since college is an education and it was centered around that major it just seemed like maybe it was the school.

A few weeks into the school year I just knew that I couldn't really do it anymore, especially physics. I set up an appointment with a career counselor and explained to her that I just didn't want to continue with physical therapy and was thinking of something along the lines of art or writing or counseling related, but definitely something where I could still help people. These appointments are described more in depth in older blog posts. 

I think another strong impact came from my English professor during my spring semester. I had always loved to write, before I even physically could. In preschool when we had free time I would sit down with the aide and tell her my stories, then she would write them down for me and I got to illustrate them. I continued to love my English classes and writing all throughout school. Once I got to high school it was really difficult, especially with the heavy constant reading load. My freshman year I had Doc who was always joyous and encouraging, always finding something positive to write on my papers and ways for improvement even if the letter grade at the top was a C. Then my sophomore-senior year we have a different teacher that I just didn't get the same vibes from. I know she meant well, but she just didn't have the same uplifting effect that Doc had when I, or the class overall, did not do so well on assignments. I knew my writing was good and I still enjoyed it. I did well in different essay contests, but not so well in her class. I was down on my writing, until I took the class at SLU. On our first big research paper my professor wrote on my rubric, “Maddy: Your paper is nearly flawless. This is by far the best piece of writing I have seen from a student in all of the classes I teach (not just ENGL 190). And, I don’t just mean this semester. This is the best paper I have read since I have been teaching at SLU. You are an excellent writer. You should consider a career that will allow you to utilize this unique talent.” Instantly after I read this my confidence was back, and boosted to a level never before. It was not just confidence in myself as a writer, but just in all of my capabilities. While I did not choose something that will incorporate a lot of writing, I felt that this comment liberated me to feel as if I was good enough to also do something with art, as both art and writing are my strong suits and allow me to be creative, and I never thought seriously of either as a career path before, thinking that I wasn’t good enough to make a break through because I knew it was a lot harder to do well as an artist or writer than as a physical therapist or other health profession that is currently in demand.

I have also recently stumbled upon a text conversation with Josue back in January when I first started Professor Crews' class. I retold to Josue that our professor told us in class about how he first wanted to be a doctor, but found that wasn't going to work so he thought of the next money maker and wanted to be a lawyer, but saw that it wasn't as glorious as the movies and television portrayed it to be. He was in business for a while before deciding that he would rather be happy as a teacher and poor than making money. But that you aren't as poor as you think you would be, okay well you are pretty poor. I remembered this story, but didn't remember what was said next. I had told Josue that hearing that just made me want to be an art teacher. I didn't really realize that it was what I wanted all along!

Though I definitely did not have the support or encouragement from the career counselor, which I still believe is kind of ridiculous and defeating the purpose of that career, I had my heart set on being an art teacher. The more I thought about it the more I wanted it. I even started looking on pinterest and thinking of projects I could do with my students. Over my fall break I shadowed the art teacher at my mom's school and had a lot of fun! She talked to me about her career and wanted to do whatever she could to help me become an art teacher as well, even if it meant convincing me to do it, but my mind was pretty much made up. I just had to figure out the schooling. Tracy recommended I contact the professor in charge of art education at Purdue because 1) he was her professor and awesome 2) he was very involved and full of knowledge and would be able to answer my questions. Eventually I applied to Purdue as an art education major and then spoke with him over the phone the following day and knew that that is what I wanted to do. No one at SLU or anywhere else had answers for me of what steps to take to become an art teacher, and here was Dr. Sabol not only explaining it all to me in detail, but asking if I had any questions and to let him know whatever he could do to help me. I had never really thought much of Purdue, but the more I learned about their art education program and thought about being there and closer to home, the more I hoped that I would be accepted. I checked my application online every day until finally one Sunday before Thanksgiving break I saw that the decision no longer said in progress, but said offer admission. 

It was difficult telling my friends at SLU because I really do love them and will miss them, but I couldn't help but have the biggest smile on my face as I told them. I am just really excited! I never felt this way about physical therapy, when someone asked why I wanted to become a physical therapist I kind of gave a logical explanation about wanting to help people and about those patients not being deathly ill. I wanted to do it because of what it wasn't, but not because of what it was. This is not the same when people ask me why I changed from physical therapist to being an art teacher. I love art and being creative. Before SLU I had always been in art classes and they were my favorite. Completing a project, and doing well on it, was way more fulfilling to me than doing well on any exam in any other class. While I won't be physically helping people with this career, I think I am still going to be helping people. Being an art teacher will give me the opportunity to help others by being a positive, caring influence on the lives of my students. I will encourage them to be creative and express themselves as they learn valuable lessons about life from the art room. Academic classes can be challenging for some students, but I truly believe everyone can excel in art, not by being the most artistic student necessarily, but just by trying and putting effort into something they worked hard on and can be proud of. Art is really important to me and I think it can be beneficial in everyones life. The first year at SLU I was really at a loss with nothing to create in any of my classes, nor did I bring any artsy or creative supplies with me.

I am so, so excited to start as a student in January at Purdue in their art education program! There are things I will definitely miss at SLU including the people, but I know this is right for me and where my heart really is longing for. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to do what I wish and to have so much strong support and encouragement from my family and friends that realize that this is what I want to do. The biggest compliment I have gotten recently is when I tell people about my career decision change and they tell me they could totally see me as an art teacher. It just feels so good and I am so excited!