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"Did you know I was wished for on a wishing star?"

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"Did you know I was wished for on a wishing star?"

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I come from strong roots. My childhood experience was not traditional, to say the least, but I look back at my upbringing with overwhelming gratitude for my family. Many of my core strengths come from modeling behaviors of people like my grandmothers, my parents, and my sister. From Pre-k to first grade my mom would make me say every day before I left for the school bus, “My name is Sammie Jones, and I can do anything!”. I was a jack of all trades before age 8 due to this mindset, and my family scraped every cent together they could to keep up with all my passions. From Ice-skating lessons, to dance class, cheer practice, and piano practice, I was the busiest 7-year-old you had ever met! Any other free time I had was always spent in my dad’s office, either crafting to make gifts for my family, reading, or baking at grandmas.

My family’s love is unconditional, but I want to mention that providing me with the experiences I am still grateful for to this day was a part of their own healing process. I was born 3 years after the loss of my older brother, CJ. Although my family suffered deep loss, it taught them love and gratitude deeper than anyone I have ever met. My family was coined as the happiest family the doctor had seen the day I was born, which was the first time they were likely described as that in a long time. Being the child after the loss of a child heavily impacted my childhood experience, but it also heavily impacted who I am as a person in ways I am so proud of. The beginning of my story starts as this; My father told my mom on the second year of trying for a child that it was time to call a quits (she was 41, after all!). My mom was sitting on the back deck to look at the stars like any other night and saw what she calls a wishing star. She wished for a baby, and before she knew it, she was pregnant with me and gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby at age 42.' Meaning making' found me at a young age and followed ever since!

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Middle school and high school also were not greatly traditional for me, whatever that means anyways. When I turned 11 , I remember it felt like the entire universe changed without catching me up. I had a difficult time connecting with anyone or any of my curriculars that I once effortlessly thrived in. Writing stories, ironically to this project, was my way of coping with the not so typical tween issues I was enduring. When I think of age 11 , I remember beginning to romanticize my life through my story telling, making it sound much better than I thought it was. Little did I know this skill some consider escapism was my first time "manifesting", another quality drilled into me by my mom.

At the time , I would never have given myself the credit I am giving past me now. I was an angsty tween/teen as everyone else was, but I also had a tweenhood filled with great memories and achievements . The only thing I truly lacked to see this was confidence. I spent a lot of nights asking my mom, "Are you SURE I can do anything?". I had an image of the version of myself that was everything I wanted to be and hated that I was not that. Oh, how I would love to go back in time and spoil the story for angsty Sammie, and let her know the girl she's envisioning is within her already!

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My Junior and Senior experience of high school were, you guessed it, much more adverse than the average student. Even though everyone was suffering through covid, It looked a lot different for me (and this time marker is where Post Traumatic Growth starts sneaking it's way into my life story by the way) as my mom got diagnosed terminally ill at 16, and the first ever GENUINE support system I experienced unfortunately became my first (and not last) abusive partner, and any underlying mental illness I was experiencing busted through the seams.

I used to have a hard time sharing my story up to when I turned 18, because adversity is uncomfortable, but I cannot convince myself to look back at my story and want to change ONE thing. I would never want to sugar coat my story because the good parts come from my muddy roots. Here's a little example, a story from my senior year of high school;

About two weeks before my mental adversities hit the fan and I was put in inpatient, I was nominated for a leadership scholarship at Thiel. I never labeled myself as a leader before being suggested for this. On the way to Thiel my dad and I discussed all the ways I have taken leadership roles through my life, then he sent me off for the interview process.

"How did you do?" my dad asked as I walked towards him in the auditorium after.

" I think I won." I said casually.

Two weeks later, I found out I placed first place, from the psychiatric unit. I sat there and told myself "I don't know where Thiel will take me, but I maybe I really can do anything I put my mind to."

If I knew one thing about myself at this time I knew I was lost. I also knew what I wanted to change about myself. I wanted to be kinder than I was through my high school years, to others and myself. I wanted to fall in love with learning again. And I wanted to understand why psychology and sociology made my brain tick in my senior year semester. I was not set on anything, but psych counseling was the start!

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The first time I saw a future for myself that brought me genuine excitement was when I conducted my first research project independently, with factors I was deeply interested in like personal and cultural values, and resilience to adversity. I had taken two research classes before, and always found them to be my favorite courses; but never put much thought into it considering I am not a math person .I also never thought I would be capable of doing something like this without direct instruction, in a classroom setting. When a professor suggested I get independent research experience under my belt for my transcript I thought I was going to struggle the entire semester and resent the project through and through.

Little did I know, I would fall in love with the process of research.

From investing in the previous research, to the creative process of operationalizing variables and finding a means to collect data, it did not take long for me to see a future with research. After this project, I started investing in different career paths outside of clinical psychology with a newfound confidence. This project also was part of the experiences of my undergraduate that sparked a curiosity in positive psychology by researching resilience and post traumatic growth so closely.

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Trauma resellience cultural values FINAL

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Dr. Deets , my academic advisor, was my mentor throughout college. I met her through my course curriculum and advising meetings and was inspired by her in any class I took from her! She helped me shape and build myself as a student, and her patience and understanding of my struggles and adversities of my undergrad is something I deeply appreciate, and credit my early graduation date to!

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Beige Minimal Blur Transparent Thank You Letter

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I was a pretty involved student in my undergraduate experience, but it took me a few years to find what stuck. My first organization I joined was the Thielensian, but left after my freshman year because I did not enjoy what I was writing about but it did sharpen my writing skills greatly. Greek life was also short lived, but I learned a lot about leadership and compromise through them which I am thankful. If it was not for my experience in greek life, I would have struggled much more to restart the art club. The art club, and running it for half my undergrad is something I am deeply proud of! It founded a lot of my confidence in my leadership skills and thought me to problem solve more effectively.

Employment is on and off throughout my undergrad. I had a job in the faculty office for a short amount of time, but my greatest growth came from home depot. I learned how to communicate with angry people daily, and work under physical and mental pressure. Being a woman in a hardware store taught me how to effectively communicate with groups that did not respect me, while respecting them.

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First year me, vs. senior year me, are so unbelievably different. My first year I was so timid and anxious all the time. I had such a negative mindset about the present, and was always looking forward to something better. I let everyone tell me who I was and believed it. I had no self confidence or self love, and let people walk over me and use me. School work was not something I was passionate about but instead something I dreaded, and I always put myself down as stupid.

Senior year me can not relate to first year me at all. How I feel about myself everyday is dependent on the person in the mirror and nobody else. And to be honest, I do not know what changed with my passion for academics, or when. But I could not imagine dreading school now, it's my peace. Not the people even (although they help!), its learning. I LOVE to learn and I LOVE that I am passionate about what I want to do with my life. I look forward to my career. I still want to grow as a person, but I love who I stand as today. I am so incredibly proud of the accomplishments I carry and the person I am. This semester is the first time I can say all of this and MEAN it to my core!

College was just the beginning of my story, I cannot wait to shock myself with how far I have came over and over ! :)

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Colorful Clean Rainbow Project Plan Kanban Board Brainstorm

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"my name is SAM Jones, and I can do anything!"

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"my name is SAM Jones, and I can do anything!"

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How full circle that the mantra my mother said to me everyday before sending me onto the bus is something I tell myself in the mirror everyday! Confidence in myself is a major struggle of mine on and off throughout my life. Whenever people hear self confidence they usually think of looks, not ability. I was always pegged as the 'dumb friend' or the 'airhead' or 'ditsy' or 'clumsy'. When I was a kid, to me these were all just fun quirks who made me who I am. 'So what I live in my own little world? I'm having fun.' was around the lines of how I felt.

I am proud to say I have came full circle with this too! I always have someone in my ear telling me to take something off my plate and I never listen. I love being busy, and in my own little world. I value well being deeply, and this little mantra hits all five categories of PERMA for me! Heres a breakdown :)

P(ositive emotion)- I do what makes me happy without the judgement of others.

E(ngagement)- Having hobbies in the arts (piano and painting) make it hard to engage without confidence. Confidence helped me deeply in both

R(elationships)- I created meaningful relationships outside of my bubble due to living life authentically.

M(eaning)- Feel like the project answers this one

A(ccomplishment)- Same as above:)

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The tricky thing about being a December graduate is I cannot tell you what school I will be attending, or what job I am going to have besides Home depot. But my plan is to apply to the masters programs for research I have looked at (which I need to look into deeper), and apply to the PHD program I looked at even though the chances are slim. Right now, my main focus is getting to what this step wants me to answer, but this is my game plan.

Upon graduating in December I will work at home depot to have an income while I job search for something better fit for my future, and wait for my grad school applications to come in. I was hoping to have a Job in psych lined up post graduation but I was denied from every job I applied to so I took a break to focus on schools. I have a plan to have at least 6 school applications in before I graduate! I will apply for more after likely. Once I have enough applications in for schools is when I will greater invest time in replacing my Minimum wage job. I have also contemplated seeing if I could work part time for a family friend clinical psychologist just for now!

After getting either a masters or PHD, I hope to find a Job in positive psychology and research although I have not fully shaped how yet! This section honestly terrifies me, because my game plan was flipped upside down this semester. I feel more behind than I ever wanted to be, but I can make this work!

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I reflect often on what I have learned in undergrad by highlighting the values and life lessons that seep through them. When I learned about how other cultures used excitement to heal instead of calmness in 'Global Mental Health' with McCurdy (The Bushman tribe, aka the inspo of my solo research project)I started honoring my energetic like personality . When I learned attentive listening skills in Micro skills, I used it to be a better friend. (more info on stuff like this on my transcript section!)

This class, senior sems, however I credit to the main driving force of my success coming December 13th. If I did not learn about stress mindsets, I would NOT have graduated. The reading assignments were like my mantras, and my reflections were how I executed what I absorbed from the chapter. I tell EVERYONE they should read the upside of stress. Shifting and Persisting was my follow up slogan for this portfolio because of how often on a weekly basis I have to remind myself to do so. I feel genuinely blessed to have had this course at the time of my life when I did !

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Throughout my time at Thiel college, there were a lot of times that I would not have graduated if it was not for my professors and advisors being so empathetic and supportive of me through all of my adverse situations throughout my undergrad. There are classes that at a big school I would have failed but I passed with an A because of my professors.

Although I would love to pay it forward by becoming a professor one day, I am not dead set on that career path. I do however, want to pay it forward by always having empathy when working with or hiring college aged adults. Although my professors are who I owe my success to mainly, my internship bosses also helped me grow. I was taught many skills because these individuals were willing to meet me where I was at and help me to get where I was meant to be.