The summer before I began college at OSU I received a letter that I had been accepted into a new scholarship program at known as the Freshman Research Scholars program. The program included a small scholarship, a one hour course on research, and an opportunity to gain hands on experiences doing research at the university. During the research class, one of our assignments was to identify a professor on campus conducting research in our area of interest and contact them. I really don’t know how, but I ended up in the Human Development and Family Science department of the College of Human Environmental Sciences. My major was in a different department in an entirely different college, but I found myself talking to the head of the department of HDFS asking about professors’research interests. She informed me that there was a new professor in the department who just happened to be the newest faculty member in the MFT program and would be willing to meet with me. I visited with Dr. Topham briefly and he agreed to help me fulfill the class requirements. During the following semester, I learned about his research project, attended his research meetings, and even helped code some videos for his project. At the end of the semester we met one final time to talk about my experiences in the Research Scholars program. During our conversation he asked what my plans were after graduation (still a very long way off). I told him that my plans included pursuing a master’s degree in most likely some sort of counseling field. He encouraged me to look into Marriage and Family Therapy when considering options after graduation. I hadn’t heard of this program or field previously, but I remember heading back to my dorm and researching some of the websites he had given me. It looked interesting and more narrowly focused to my particular interests than other master’s programs I had looked into. But I was a freshman and applying to graduate programs was still several years away.
Even though at the time, I wasn’t sure which Master’s program I would complete, I still planned and worked toward having an impressive application throughout the next couple years of college. I maintained good grades, studied way too hard for finals, completed requirements for an honor’s award, helped with research projects in the department, built relationships with professors who would write letters of recommendation, worked part time jobs that were relevant to my field, and completed a senior honors thesis, all things that I knew professors of graduate programs were looking for in potential students. During my last year of my undergraduate degree, my path crossed once again with Dr. Topham who was hiring students for research positions for a huge grant he and other faculty had received. He hired me and supervised me during the semester I worked on the project.
During my last year of college, I got serious applying to graduate programs. At the time Matt and I were engaged and had a wedding date two weeks following graduation. I applied to several programs around the state including OSU’s MFT program. I remember going on interviews and looking at the curriculum of other counseling programs and just not being interested in most of the classes. Matt had a great job in Stillwater that he had been at for a couple of years and had been given the option to stay on after graduation part time. He accepted that position and also decided he wanted to pursue an MBA at OSU, so staying in Stillwater after graduation became a great option. Over Spring Break of my senior year in college, I received a letter that I had been admitted to OSU’s MFT program. I was ecstatic! OSU’s program is the only nationally accredited MFT program in Oklahoma, and being accredited was a very big deal to me. I knew the training and education would be top notch because of the strict requirements. OSU’s program was definitely my number one choice, but I knew they were very selective and only admitted between 6-8 students per year, and I needed other options in case it didn’t work out. Thankfully, it did.
The following August, I began the most intense and difficult 2.5 years of my education. I was a newlywed thrown into a majorly time intensive program that left me with class, clinic or work commitments almost every night of the week. During the next 2.5 years, I completed 55 hours of coursework, read thousands of pages of text books and hundreds of research articles, wrote countless papers, observed thousands of hours of therapy, completed over 500 hours of direct client therapy, commuted to Edmond for eight months for an externship, worked as a graduate research assistant, and graduate teaching assistant, and wrote an 80 page creative component evaluating Oklahoma’s Foster Parent Training Program. I also was challenged in my beliefs and views of therapy, my weaknesses were exposed, I developed lifelong relationships with fellow students and professors, and learned how to be a marital and family therapist. Then I graduated and set off on the next step in the journey.
During my last semester of graduate school I applied for jobs and was given a job offer as a school-based counselor with Youth Services on the day of graduation. With a fresh degree and a new job, I applied for licensure with the Oklahoma State Department of Health. I rounded up letters of recommendation, got fingerprinted, printed off transcripts, and interviewed LMFT supervisors. Once my application was approved and I had nailed down a supervisor, I could officially begin work as an LMFT candidate. Over the next two years I passed a national written exam and a state oral exam, met weekly with my supervisor to process cases and other professional issues, and submitted paperwork to the licensing board semi-annually, praying they would count all the hours I had earned (They are not always the easiest people to work with).
Finally, more than seven years after that chance meeting with Dr. Topham , I received this little piece of paper in the mail…
This is a major accomplishment for me and a goal that I've worked harder and longer for than almost anything else so far in my life. I am now officially known as Angela Baugher LMFT.
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