Humble Pie

I'm going to make this brief (I hope).  I met with an admissions counselor from Wheaton on Friday.  All went well and the program would be amazing.  Wheaton is somehow prestigious and viewed highly by most.  A masters from there would be fantastic.  I meet the requirements, I did well enough on the GRE, and I'm pretty sure I would have some great recommendations and essays.  The biggest problems for me right now are pride and money.

As I sat there on Friday and got super excited about the future and hearing how the clinical psychology program works, I started to feel proud.  However I realized on my drive home that attending Wheaton, being good enough to be one of the 20 students admitted per year, and hanging up a degree with that name on it was what I was focusing on.  Yes, the education I would receive from Wheaton would be superior in a lot of ways, but if my main concern is what other people think, that's a problem.  

The reality is that 10-20 years down the road when I'm practicing... whether here or abroad, I don't believe my success will have anything to do with the name of the institution on my degree.  I can learn the same material and fine tune the skills needed at any number of schools.  I was a bit ashamed of how proud I had become about attending such a highly acknowledged school.  

My undergrad cost me nearly $100k... which I am still paying for today.  It seems financially irresponsible to add another at least $40k on top of the debt I already have just because of pride.  So I'm going to grab a slice of humble pie and look into other options.  Not to mention that I still have about 4-6 prerequisites to take seeing as though my undergrad wasn't psych.  I'm hoping to get those pre-reqs done asap so I can start a masters program.  The latest I want to start the program is Fall 2013.  It'll be a 2-3 year commitment. 

Even that short time stresses me out because there are other things I'd rather be doing, but I do believe that the Lord has called me back to be a student for the time being.  I've looked into and found numerous ways to get back to Uganda asap to be in full time ministry there and a few of them are fairly easy.  It's no secret that being here in the States is a struggle for me and I'm anxious to get "home", but I will abide.  AND maybe once I'm established in a program I'll be able to do some online courses and spend a semester or summer back in Africa.  It's heartbreaking to think that the next time I'll be on African soil is when I've completed my masters, but we'll see.  

In the mean time, I'm still job hunting and will probably take a retail job until a ministry position opens up.  More humble pie.  God is good.  "Remain in Me."