IMJR: Psychosocial Health Studies
Current Pursuit: Youth and Young Adult Program Development
Why Individualized? I was so grateful when I found the IMJR program. I constantly searched for a degree program that felt right for me during my undergraduate career. As a freshman at UConn, I was a music major on the pre-teaching track and hoped to meld my degree with another field to become a music therapist. I wasn’t sure what that path would look like at the time.
When I became a counselor at a local summer camp for kids with serious illnesses and experienced the magic of a different kind of (holistic) healing, one that extended beyond music, I began to reimagine what healing could look like. I jumped from pre-teaching to pre-nursing to business, psychology, and allied health—minoring and majoring, and constantly seeking answers and ideas.
Finally, during my junior year, I was introduced to the biopsychosocial model of health in a psychology class. Around the same time, I discovered the IMJR program. I envisioned how all my passions and interests could come together through an interdisciplinary degree to prepare me to serve communities holistically and offer different kinds of healing. The IMJR program made that vision a reality.
Most memorable course or project from your major? I remember the moment I committed to pursuing an individualized degree. Cultivating my course list and writing my proposal felt deeply personal and empowering, and the process filled me with joy. Finding my three faculty advisors who would support me through graduation was a major highlight of that experience.
Another standout memory was my capstone course. Alongside my W courses at UConn, I gained valuable exposure to an extensive research paper with a consistent throughline connecting my studies to content I was truly excited to explore. My capstone, Youth Program Development and Serious Illness: A Biopsychosocial Perspective, helped me reflect on my learning and ultimately prepared me to speak confidently about my experiences, earning me my first full-time role in the field.
IMJR life impact? My individualized major and capstone laid a wonderful foundation for me to build my career. Upon graduating, I earned a full-time family and community outreach role at the non-profit that first inspired my connection to a different kind of healing and helped shape my degree program.
A year into my full-time career, I was inspired to return to school after visiting several camps for kids with serious illnesses. Using my IMJR capstone paper as a writing sample, I applied and was accepted into an interdisciplinary Master of Science program at Clemson University to study Youth Development Leadership.
Since earning my MS, I’ve served diverse communities of youth and young adults in the camping industry and community-based therapeutic centers, collaborating with families, schools and universities, and other community partners. I continue to bring holistic care to my interactions and have learned to apply an outcomes-based perspective to my work.
I’m currently back at Camp, now serving as the Program Coordinator. I support young adult staff as they begin their own journeys, just as I once did. I hope to be the kind of mentor my professors and advisors were to me. I can’t wait to see where their paths lead, and I look forward to discovering what’s next for me, too.