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Graduation and Grad School

Hello Internet world! Sorry for the long hiatus from blogging. Life has been a bit crazy for me, finishing up my last semester at Baylor and all. I'm in a bit of denial that I'm going to be a graduate of Baylor University in about a month and a half. It seems like yesterday I was a freshman, still unsure of what I wanted to do with my life or who I wanted to become. And yet here I am, a twenty-two year old woman, confident in the direction my life is going and trusting God to lead me every step of the way. Wow, these four years have gone by fast.

I'm not finished with school when I graduate, however. I am going to get my Master's of Science in Speech Pathology at the University of Texas at Dallas. I start grad school in August, and I am so excited to actually put my textbook knowledge to good use and learn the practicalities of speech path! 

When I was trying to decide which grad school to attend, I honestly struggled more than I expected. When I was in high school and got my acceptance to Baylor, I knew I would be at Baylor without question. I loved everything about Baylor, and I had no doubt in my mind that that was where I was supposed to be. However, I did not have the same confidence with grad school. I applied to both Baylor and UTD and got in at both schools. Both have amazing speech path grad schools, and I knew I would learn a lot at both schools. For so long, I had been convinced that I would attend Baylor for grad school. I was comfortable at Baylor, I knew all the professors, O had friends who would still be around, and I love Waco. In many ways, Baylor was the easy and obvious choice. However, when I got my acceptance to UTD in February, I began second guessing myself. UTD is one of the best grad schools in the country for speech pathology. I would have a lot more options for practicums and would get to learn from new professors with different insights. I would get to experience a new city and new people. After visiting UTD last Monday, I felt an unexplainable sense of peace. UTD felt right, and even though Baylor seemed like the more logical choice, I knew I needed to follow my heart and my gut. On Tuesday, I accepted my offer of admission. Going to UTD is a leap of faith for me. I do not like change at all, and I struggled with all the change that occurred with the transition going from high school to college. I won't know very many people in Dallas, at least not compared to how many people I would know in Waco. I'm going to have to start over looking for a church and a community after having an amazing experience at Highland Baptist Church. I'm going to be four hours away from my parents instead of two hours away. The scariest thing about moving to Dallas is I'm going to have to take over all my medical care. I have been so blessed and thankful that my parents have gradually taught me to take responsibility of my CF. They have slowly handed over the necessary tasks I need to do to take care of myself. But I still am not fully independent. When I get to Dallas, I will need to take over ordering prescriptions, keeping up with refills and appointments, going to doctor's appointments on my own, and doing IV antibiotics without Mom or Dad coming up to help me as frequently as they have in the past. It terrifies me that I'm going to have full responsibility of all this stuff, because I can't help but wonder if I'm capable of doing it all. But this is as good of a time as any to transition since I will have more time to learn the ropes than I would if I had a full time speech path job. 

I'm so excited to see what God does for the rest of my time here at Baylor and then for five semesters at UTD. I know He is with me and will never leave me, even when everything around me is changing and my head is spinning from the fast pace of life. Thank God for His constancy! 

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