I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with one of UNT’s counseling interns – he has chosen to remain anonymous. I took the time to pick his brain and ask him some questions. Read on to hear some of his musings on life, including his favorite school subjects, career goals, style influences and more!
1. Name, age, and what do you do/study? I’m 26 years old. I’m currently a student counseling intern here at the UNT Wellness Clinic in Chilton Hall on campus at UNT, and I’m also a graduate research assistant in the UNT Digital Library. I’m studying rehabilitation counseling, I’m getting my master’s in that.
2. What aspect or aspects of counseling do you like best and why? I think for me, the part of counseling that I like best is getting to work alongside people who are struggling and getting to help them to not struggle anymore. To see people go from the dark to the light, I think there’s a real beauty in that. I don’t think it’s necessarily [that] you make that trip once. I think you make that trip several times over the course of a lifetime, and for me it’s just a blessing to be a part of it.
3. When did you know counseling is what you wanted to do with your life? I think it was probably when my own mental health issues came to a head and I changed my major from exercise and sports science to psychology. I just realized that I was putting a lot of things in the place of happiness but wasn’t really doing anything towards building up happiness in and of itself. So that’s when I just wanted to work on my mindset and help others to do the same.
Who or what inspired you? There weren’t necessarily any counseling role models, but I did have one pastor who was very much in to helping people and I wanted to help people like I saw him do on a regular basis.
4. If you weren’t on your current career path (counseling), what else could you see yourself doing with your life? Interestingly enough, I don’t think I’ll be a counselor. I think I’m going to get my PhD and teach. I want to do drug policy research to kind of advocate for legislation reform, decriminalization, things like that. But I do like to work with individuals, so maybe I’ll work part time on the side doing group [counseling] or something like that. But I would have definitely been a football coach had it not been for my own experiences with mental health.
5. Your favorite subjects in school? Spelling has always been my thing. I’ve always been like a Grammar-Nazi, so I’ve always really enjoyed writing. History is another big one. I’m a big fact buff; I just like to know all these little things about all different sorts of stuff. I’d say I know a little bit about everything. So I think I’m going to go on Jeopardy or something one day. And then psychology is really just what I fell in love with.
6. What advice would give you students who might be struggling with the idea of what
they want to do post-grad? I think it’s not only important to look at the options of degrees you can pursue but look at what people are doing with those degrees and see what their day looks like day in and day out. If that’s something you could see yourself enjoying doing, then I think it’s worth pursuing or at least following up with. I think a lot of [the] time people get a degree in something gearing towards an ideal position that that degree could use but often end up doing something far different within the same scope. So just kind of be realistic with what your options are when you get that degree or of the degrees you’re looking in to to see what will you likely be doing when you finish with that.
7. You’re obviously a pretty fashionable guy, who are some of your style influences? I don’t think I have any one, I think it’s anybody. Whether I’m walking around Denton and I see the hipsters or I’m in Uptown and I see the sugar daddies and whatever they’ve got going on. I try to take a little bit from everyone, so it just depends. My dad always had horrible fashion and then my mom was always really fashionable, so she’s always been an influence. And so was my dad because I was like ‘I don’t want to look like him.’
Favorite fashion brands? I would say that Express and Perry Ellis are my go-to, for sure. I definitely get my suits from Perry Ellis.
8. If you could sit down and talk with any historical figure, living or dead, who would
you choose and why? That’s a really good one. I think probably George Washington because I would be really interested to talk about our current state of affairs, our current political state. And to see what his response would be and to see how far our current political climate has fallen from what the forefathers intended for us. Because everyone’s discontent in the current environment, it doesn’t matter if you’re the party in control or the party advocating against the heinous things being done by the people in control. I think it was supposed to be much more about coming together then it’s been, [and] we’ve been pitted against each other at this point. See what good old George has to say about that.
9. Favorite movie? I think my favorite movie is A Knight’s Tale, with Heath Ledger. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a knight. I always thought I was born in the wrong era, and then I took history prior to 1700 and I was like ‘man everyone died before they were 25…,’ and so I don’t think I actually would have done so hot. I like to think I would have been royal born but I probably would have died of scurvy.
TV show? Probably Rick and Morty, something like that. I like to keep it light when I turn on some TV shows. I really like documentaries and docuseries and things, so I like to just break it up with something a little more monotonous.
10. Who is your inspiration in life? My dad is my inspiration, there’s no doubt. We’ve had a really rough relationship throughout my life, but I know he’s always wanted the best for me and he’s very much a rags-to-upper middle-class story. A guy that worked for everything he’s ever had and hasn’t always done things right but has always strived to do better. That’s what I strive to emulate because I know I’m going to mess up, but to be able to own those [mistakes] and move forward and continually improve myself, I admire that. And then of course the man has an unearthly work ethic and that’s always been something I’ve admired too.