As previously noted, I once thought I would get a PhD in psychology. After working in the field, I was discouraged by my doctoral-level colleagues who felt that the time and money spent on a PhD in psychology could be better spent in other fields with more lucrative results. I took heed.
When I decided to leave my career in the mental health field, I enrolled in chemistry and physics at UTA, thinking I would try to complete the prerequisites for medical school. HA! There was a good reason I never took those math-based sciences in high school or college. After a few weeks of rather frustrating attempts to keep up the pace in those large, weed-out undergraduate science classes, I decided I had endured enough.
I remember to this day driving from my office at Dallas County MHMR to UTA to withdraw from chemistry and physics. I was intensely in the moment. I arrived on campus and parked near the records building. In my head, I was truly done. I wanted to get out of those classes and NEVER go back to school again. I marched into the building, filled out the forms, and marched back out to my car. DONE. I already had a master’s degree. I didn’t need to go back to school anyway. I was irritable and ashamed that I had even tried something as foolish as enrolling in chemistry and physics. Real math was never my thing anyway, so what made me think I could tackle physics?
I got in the car, sat down, put the key in the ignition and turned it. The car would not start. The tension increased. I tried a few more times. Nothing. I waited, took some deep breaths, tried again. Nothing. I was mad. I had a company cell phone with me, one of those old fashioned large ones. I called a friend to come and get me.
My friend and I worked together. She had been my supervisor. But, we both wanted to go back to school and needed to reduce our work hours to do so. We were able to negotiate a special arrangement with the director of child and adolescent services at MHMR to enable us to share a position. Together, we oversaw the therapeutic foster care program that I had developed and managed for several years. She was going to Dallas Theological Seminary for a master’s in Biblical studies, while I flopped in those awful undergraduate science classes. Anyway, luckily, my friend was at the office when I needed help escaping from UTA, and she agreed to come and get me.
I sat there in the car, waiting, and trying to decrease my irritability before my friend arrived. A clarity came to me suddenly. My attitude was all wrong. I was not supposed to leave that school with the decision that I was done with education. I was going to get more education. Honestly, it made no sense to me. And, it was NOT what I wanted to believe at the time. But, I knew that it was reality. And, I knew I needed to accept it. So, I just cleared my head and agreed that I would do what seemed right, including more education, if that truly seemed correct and the opportunity came about. Sigh.
So, I tried the ignition one more time. The car started. I drove off, while calling my friend to cancel the pick up. Clearly, I got the message I was supposed to get. I knew then it was from God. But, I didn’t have any details.
That message stuck with me. I enrolled in chemistry twice more at two different junior colleges. The second time, I withdrew on the first day of class. I can’t even recall why. The third time, I started the class, barely. The second week, we started a lab and I knew that I did not want to be in there. I dropped chemistry for the last time. Medical school was clearly not the plan.
Determined not to be defeated, I enrolled in anatomy and physiology. I had always liked the biological sciences. I figured I could pass that one, and I needed the mental boost. As it turned out, it was a breeze. I made As on everything. Actually, I made over 100 on tests and lab quizzes, consistently. I even wrote a paper for extra credit, which I obviously did not need. I was driven to ace that freaking class. As we approached the final, my grade was so high that I could make a zero on the final and still get an A for the semester. I suggested to the instructor that I might skip for that reason. He scoffed at me, obviously thinking that was foolish. So, I agreed to show. But, on the day of the final, I emailed him and said I had decided to skip it after all, and thanked him for the A in advance, which I earned. I like telling that story, especially after the chemistry debacle. I never took another science course. Why ruin the perfect ending.
However, I later enrolled in a doctoral level psychology class at UNT. I withdrew after a few weeks, not because I didn’t like it, and not because I couldn’t do the work. But, the class was getting intense quickly. I had gotten special permission to try out one class. But, admission into the program required full-time study. I was married and had a mortgage. I realized that I was not willing to go to school full time.
Later still, I went to Texas Wesleyan School of Law for a year, part-time at night. A wife, two kids and a full time job left me juggling a lot on top of law school. But, the material was very interesting and kept me going. I attended school four nights per week. I studied all day Saturday and Sunday at my office. I made the Dean’s list in the fall and the spring semesters.
That spring, I totally blanked out while trying to write the appellate brief for legal writing. Writing had always come easy for me. Throughout college and grad school, I wrote all of my papers in a fast-paced stream of consciousness, always getting As, never a problem. In fact, I even ranked first in my legal writing class the first semester. But, in that second semester, in the middle of that big paper, I was completely stuck and a strange panic ensued. For me, that was a clear sign that things were not working. I had a serious conversation with God at that moment. Sadly, I knew then that I would not finish law school. But, I simply did not want to go out with a flop in a writing class. I bargained with God. I asked for the ability to finish the appellate brief and get through the semester, but I agreed to be done, if that was His plan, when the moment was clear the next time. I finished my prayer, got up and wrote the paper with ease, no more brain freeze. Interestingly, there was a strange snafu. The paper that I submitted was not the final copy. Somehow, in my editing, I did not properly save the final edited version. An entire section of explanation was omitted and there were mistakes in a paragraph that I had fixed. Oddly, I did not even realize this when I printed and bound the paper. I realized it after I turned it in, but the final version was nowhere to be found. This was odd, as I had been saving duplicate copies of my edits as I went, and even emailed myself most of the versions to avoid losing anything. Consequently, the work was not quite up to my standards. Still, I tied for second in the writing class second semester.
I scraped by with barely a C in my summer class, Civil Procedure. Uh oh. By the fall of my second year, I was exhausted. My Constitutional Law professor was new, and took the Socratic Method very seriously. I was stressed. In order to keep up, I was going to have to give up my one night off. Marian and I had dinner together and watched movies every Friday night. I could not continue to do this and keep up with law school. That was irritating. Also, I had advanced in my role at work. I was making more money than when I started law school. There was potential for more responsibility and even more income at work. But, with school, I was reluctant to take it on. Then, my uncle came into town. I wanted to hang out rather than go to school and study all weekend, missing the visit entirely. It seemed like there was no time for important things in life. But, I went to class. The Con Law professor was grilling students. I just knew I would be called on. Although I had done all the reading, as I always did, I did not feel prepared. In the heat of the class that night, I felt my time was up. A nudge from God, so it seemed. During class, I told God I would withdraw, and asked Him to get me through that class without getting called on. I didn’t get called on. When class was over, I told my study buddies I was done. I withdrew the next day. Admittedly, I had some regrets afterwards, but that was due to all the work I had put in. I was confused by the experience, but it was the right choice. So, I thought I was done with school. My plans to get a doctorate were over, no PhD, no MD, no JD. No more school!
Lately, I have been giving serious thought to what’s next for me. And, after a lot of focus on God to attempt to discern His intentions, it seems clearer to me than ever before that school is still in the plan. Admittedly, the details of the logistics are not completely clear to me yet. But, I believe I will in fact be going back to school, though not for a doctorate.
I applied to Dallas Theological Seminary last spring. My goal at the time was simply to take Bible study classes online. I had no intentions of another degree and no plans to change careers in that direction whatsoever. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I deferred my enrollment, as I thought I would be dealing with her illness when school started. As it turned out, she died last summer. But, I was not prepared to renew the enrollment plans in time for the fall. Then, as talks to sell my company progressed further, I decided not to enroll in the Spring semester either, as I felt I should first figure out my career plans before pursuing a personal interest side endeavor.
As I considered career options, I learned that DTS offers a master’s in Biblical counseling. The program prepares students for state licensure as an LPC. The license enables private practice as a counselor. In college, I imagined I eventually would work in private practice as a psychologist. However, a PhD is required for licensure as a psychologist and I never got the doctorate. With my master’s, I obtained the psychological associate’s license, which seemed to offer no real value. The counseling track permits master’s level clinicians to be fully licensed. The seminary coursework includes 30 credits of Bible study that interests me personally. So, now, my plan is to go back to my roots in the mental health field.
On the one hand, this plan to return to school seems potentially a bit crazy now, at my age, with four kids. On the other hand, it seems clear to me that this is God’s plan. Admittedly, there is an awkward aspect to this realization, especially after all of the educational foibles described above. Yet, I have no intention of ignoring the message. As long as God keeps opening doors in this direction, I plan to pursue it. If He does not intend this, I believe he’ll make it clear.
The next step is to meet with the program director to put the pieces together and move forward.