Graduation Trip.

Hi everyone and thank you for looking into my project.

 I am a Senior Psychology major at the University of Memphis and I am graduating in May! I have worked very hard over the last four years to be able to graduate with multiple honors, a great GPA, and with a research thesis. Ever since high school I've been a hardworking student - I even graduated early. And since starting college I have given it my all by being involved in multiple student organizations, volunteering in the community, teaching leadership, and working with local Boy Scout of America Troops.

 Here are some of the things I’ve been doing over the last 4-5 years:

-Volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America: taught at week long Cub Scout Day Camps, taught at summer camps, taught week-long leadership courses, taught weekend-long training courses for adults and youth, volunteered at numerous Scouting events, served as President and Vice President of my Crew, helped with 5+ Eagle Projects and led my own conservation project.

-Volunteer at my university. These opportunities included helping at nursing homes, community gardens, local park clean ups and zoo event volunteer work.

-President of Psi Chi – an international honors society for psychology majors

-Vice President of the Memphis Boarding Club – an organization that promotes outdoor recreation to college students

-Worked as an English Camp Counselor in a small town in Germany

-Psychology Honors, University Honors, and Alpha Lambda Delta Honors societies’ member

-Worked in a cognitive psychology lab on campus and was published on multiple papers.

-Internship for Naval research

-Currently working on my thesis which explores military students and their belonging on campus. I hope to help develop programs to make military students feel more at ease and more welcome on our college campus.

-Have presented at multiple conferences: Mid-South Psychology Conference, Works In Progress Symposium and more. I have also been chosen to present at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research.

-Am an Emerging Leader. This is a scholarship program on campus that teaches leadership, social change, and personal development. Through this program I have attended multiple service projects and leadership workshops.

(Also, please feel free to check out my Linked-In to see all of the work I have put into my education!)

After graduation I hope to go to graduate school to work on my PhD in counseling psychology. My goal is to become a counselor for military families. I want to help service members transfer from military life to civilian life - by working through combat related stress, helping to find jobs, etc. One of the most important things I want to work on is reconnecting families - helping marriages that have been stressed due to deployments or other long separations, rejoining parents with their kids and helping rebuild those relationships and anything else that military families need help with.

 Now, my goal with this fundraiser is not to ask you to help me pay for school (though it probably should be). Instead, I would like some help to do something fun before I head back to school again. I am hoping to go on a small trip to Gulf Shores, AL to hang on the beach for a few days to relax from the work I've done these last four years and prepare myself for even more work I will be doing in the coming years. I want to do this now because I know graduate students do not have a lot of money or time.

So, I hope I have convinced you that I am deserving of this trip, and if you would like to help me out - I would greatly, greatly appreciate it! Any donation will help! And if I am able to go, I would love to be able to send a beach-y token of my appreciation to everyone who donates over $50.