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Well here I am back home again and honestly, I can't even believe how much this experience has impacted me.  I set out on this adventure with really only one goal: to have fun.  I was looking for a new experience, to see the world, to experience new things.  But I wasn't trying to change my life or anything.  I wasn't try to figure it all out... I was just trying to have fun.  But I wanted it bad.  I wanted all of it really, really bad.  I wanted adventure, I wanted to just go out there and experience life.  So I worked really hard to get there.  The semester before I went was a nightmare but it was worth it because I was working towards something I really wanted.  When I got to Greece, it was seriously everything I had hoped for; but it was also so much more.  I never expected to get anything "real" out of the experience and not only did I have an amazing experience through my internship, I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.  It was like I put in all that hard work for a pretty shallow goal and it ended up propelling me towards something really meaningful.  Once I stared moving towards something, anything, I just kept moving and life kept moving along with me.  All of my usual distractions and safety buffers were gone and it was just me finding the world as I actually wanted it to be, the life I wanted to create.  I pursued adventure for the experience and thrill of it and found that sometimes adventure push you towards deep, meaningful things you never imagined.

The Good Life

We have had two meetings in our social skills group and it has been amazing. The students are ridiculously sweet and funny and have been opening up more and more to each other and to me. The first week we took turns introducing a partner and the second we explored the things that made us happy and the things we wanted from life. To be entirely honest, I have learned so much about myself by talking to these kids about their dreams and goals. It has been so interesting to hear a different culture's perspective on what's important in life; what the good life means to different people, the dreams different children dream- and those we dream the same. We are going to continue to talk about this idea of a "good life"and what we can do to build one for ourselves throughout our meetings. I think these are the most important questions for all of us, to search for where our hearts are calling us and what we need to do to make sure we get there. Seeing them wrestle with these things made me want to continue to wrestle with them myself. I feel so blessed to be able to help them explore their hearts and their dreams and the fact that I get to learn so much about myself and a different way of life while doing it is almost too good to be true.

How To Be a School Counselor Abroad 101

Hi everyone! My name is Marissa Marshall and I am a senior psychology student here at TCNJ. I am currently in Greece, spending my last semester of college completing a psychology internship abroad. This has been the most amazing, life changing experience and Dr. Leynes has been so kind as to allow me to share it with all of you through this blog. I have always had a ridiculous urge to travel and to see and experience different ways of life. Through a lot of help from the psychology department and aid from the Gilman scholarship, a scholarship specifically designed to help students interested in studying abroad, I have not only been able to travel abroad but have also been able to work in and experience my field in another culture. Being an intern in another country has allowed me to experience both a different way of life and a different perspective on the helping profession in a much deeper and more complex way than any other study abroad experience ever could. Working here in Greece has seriously been one of the most eye-opening and self-expanding experiences of my life.

My internship is with the middle school counselor at an American school here in Athens. The experience so far has been much more in depth and rewarding than I had ever expected. Two weeks ago I officially started working with students and was able to speak with them during individual sessions to discuss anything from bullying, to self-esteem, to anxiety management, learning difficulties, and problems at home. The experience was an incredible insight to cultural differences in the universal concerns of growing up and how those concerns are dealt with. The students were amazing, sweet, funny and sometimes way too cool for me, but most of them really opened up and seemed to be really comfortable talking with the guidance counselor about some very personal stuff. The guidance counselor is amazing and the students absolutely love him and I think that makes a huge difference in their ability to benefit from the guidance services. Next week, we will hopefully be starting a self-esteem group for about six students which I will be leading (yikes!). All six of them are really amazing kids and I really think this could be a great experience for them. They are all very open and really want to be a part of the group, I'm really excited to share this experience with them.