By Marilyn R & Samantha P, staff writers
After 7 years of being a graphic designer, and school counselor, Ms. Shu ping realized this career wasn’t for her and she took off for a year, traveling all over Europe, in order to figure out what she wanted to do. During this time, she thought a lot about how much she loved her high school experience and realized what she wanted was to work with students.
Even as she approached finishing college. Ms. Shu wasn’t completely certain about her career. After graduating from college with an architecture degree, Ms. Shu ping knew she wasn’t going to work as an architect. But since she was already a senior in college, she just decided to just finish and get her degree.
However, Ms. Shu ping did want to get a job that was close to architecture, so she decided on graphic design. “When you try to think how you can make money as an artist, graphic design is kind of it”, she said, “It was just practical, it wasn’t like I wanted to be a Graphic designer, It’s what just sounded interesting enough to try”.
As a graphic designer, Ms. Shu ping often felt lonely and isolated. When she decided to take time off though, it helped Ms. Shu realize that she wanted a job where she could interact with people. Ms. Shu said, “During that time [when I was traveling], that’s when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do, oddly enough, I thought about how I loved high school. I liked all the clubs I was in; one of my favorite clubs was community service, we would just help people and that’s when I realized I liked helping people, which is when I decided I wanted to work with students,” said Ms. Shu ping.
After coming back from her travels, Ms. Shu ping came back to the Bay Area, working at the Boys and Girls Club for about a year. During that time she decided to go to graduate school for counseling. “It was horribly hard, super hard”, she said, “When you’re going to grad school, you shouldn’t be a full-time student and working full time. When you’re an adult it’s different.”
After Ms. Shu ping graduated, she worked as an intern at Visitacion valley middle school for a year, and then ended up getting a job at Balboa Highschool as a school counselor. Following an unhappy feeling she felt of not being able to help all the students she had while a counselor at Balboa, Ms. Shu decided to become a school therapist. Ms. Shu ping left Balboa to become a therapist at Galileo. She said, “It’s okay not to have things figured out, it’s more important that you’re willing to try and that you’re curious about it, you don’t have to have things figured out”.
