My counseling was an education in itself. It was once a week, every week for five years, not unlike the various classes I was taking.

I was just beginning my junior year when I had an epiphany. Previously, I knew a friend from the fraternity where I was living who said he thought restaurant management might be more interesting to him, but he felt that engineering at Georgia Tech was more prestigious. I listened intently and with compassion, as my skills in this area were increasing, i.e., active listening skills, and empathy skills.

I finally asked him if he "wanted to be an engineer for the rest of his life." He would end up leaving Georgia Tech for his preferred professional direction. Then it hit me out of the blue. I asked myself the same question from a very practical and pragmatic standpoint. "Do I want to be an engineer, myself?" The answer was not immediately obvious.

I was thinking that I should discuss this with my psychologist. I had been seeing the same psychologist each and every week since my first year at Georgia Tech, so he knew me very well.

This was part of my self-discovery. I would think about how amazing psychology is. I had taken psychology courses and they seemed so very practical to me.

Anyway, I showed up at a session said to him, "I don't think that engineering is a good match for me. I think I might like very different things."

My counselor explained that there is a psychological test that is very popular and useful in finding answers like the ones I was asking. It is the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (or the Strong Campbell for short). The idea is straightforward, and it looks at your interests in terms of how you like to spend your time in order to see how they compare with others who are in various career fields. This includes all ranges of careers, not just those that require advanced degrees.

The Strong-Campbell test gives results that are broken out into specific careers and the themes that might describe certain careers. The themes are "Realistic", "Enterprising", "Artistic", "Social", "Investigative", and "Conventional." Engineering is a career area within the theme of "Realistic."

The themes where I scored highest were "Social" careers and "Artistic" careers. My specific score for Engineering was just an 8. This means that the percent to which my interests in various activities matched those of an engineer was about 8%. It was among the lowest scores I received for any of the listed careers. I have almost nothing in common with engineers.

No one is a carbon copy of another person in the same field. However, it was easy to understand that a good match for a career was not among the careers with a "Realistic" theme. To say that this confirmed my suspicion that I was in the wrong field is an understatement!

My counselor was very helpful as I considered what career would be a good match for me. A counselor doesn't tell you what is best for you, but they help you figure that out for yourself.

We considered psychology since the "Social" theme area, as it was described on the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, was of interest or a match with my interests, i.e., the activities that interested me matched those who worked in those types of fields. I also was getting a minor in Psychology at Georgia Tech.

With further careful consideration over a long period of time, I landed on social work as a proper and appropriate career path for me. I applied the logical and rational reasoning skills that were helping me get through Georgia Tech to help me with this major decision. I had to be certain that I was right. Let me expand upon this idea.

I had seen how much the ideas from psychology had helped me deal with my shyness. I had gone from being so incredibly shy to feeling like an extrovert. I was also getting a minor in psychology. I found psychology to be absolutely fascinating and practical. I studied social psychology, personality theories, theories about human development, and abnormal psychology.

I had noticed homeless and poverty for the first time in my life, as well. In a big city like Atlanta, this is very obvious. It seemed like an obvious moral problem for America, and I wanted to do something about social problems. I could sense that there was a need that I hoped I could address. I saw individuals – people. One of my friends joked that I might have more money if I didn't give money to the homeless – it was a joke because my opportunity for giving was very limited.

I learned that with a master's in social work, I could do the kinds of things that my counselor was doing for me. I also identified with the values of social workers. Even if I wasn't going to change society, I could still relate to these values and that was more important than the additional scientific education of a psychologist.

I came to know that I wanted to be a psychiatric social worker and to work as a psychotherapist. The more I learned about the job duties of people in this career the more appealing I felt this was to me. In a course about abnormal psychology, I learned about mental illness. Conditions like schizophrenia intrigued me for example. Maybe that isn't the right word since it can be debilitating. The idea of understanding unique people and helping others was what I mean. I could imagine doing that and it felt good and right.

We discussed getting into graduate school so that I could obtain a master's degree in Social Work (MSW). I figured out that with an MSW I could pursue my goals and dreams, so I could be successful in life. However, that was going to require that I get some experience after I graduated from Georgia Tech because of how different a career in social work was from engineering. I had to be practical. Just to get into graduate school, I would need letters of recommendation.

I started talking to my parents about an undergraduate degree in psychology at Georgia Tech. At first, I said I wanted to get an undergraduate degree in English, but they said they weren't going to pay for that additional education.

I was thinking about how I could get into a graduate program with a four-year degree in a number of different fields. It didn't seem relevant to explain this to my parents. I wasn't seeking their approval. I was an adult by now.

My friend Suzanne recently commented on how English isn't practical. I would argue that learning things that interest you and doing things that interest you is very practical.

My father acknowledged that he had long known that engineering was not right for me.

Now, I am frustrated at myself for even discussing this with them!

As much as I wanted to learn more about literature and psychology before graduating, I mainly had a focus on the goal that mattered most to me.

The freedom to make my own plans and live my own life these past five years had been so transformative. I had discovered myself and my interests. For the most part, I wasn't discussing my plans with them because they seemed uninterested. I just knew that they weren't going to pay for additional undergraduate studies or graduate studies.

I shared these plans with my best friends and of course, my counselor and I were discussing these issues.

I decided that I was going to live with my parents for a little while. I knew they were not going to pay for graduate school but that was fine. I had discovered that there was a state psychiatric hospital near where my parents lived, and I thought I could volunteer there.

Great, that gave me a very specific plan now. I could volunteer with the social work team at that state psychiatric hospital in Augusta. Just thinking about it was exciting. I would prove myself there and get the necessary letters of recommendation from whoever was supervising me on the staff there - letters of recommendation that would open other doors.

Everything was carefully planned in every detail.

I was seeing the same psychologist every week for all five years, and he was so very helpful. Having realized I had spent five years in the wrong field was a profound motivation for me to make sure I wasn't making any mistakes with my new plans.

My psychologist was totally and completely supportive of my plans to enter the field of psychiatric social work. I NEEDED to know that I had not just found what was interesting to me but that I had the right aptitude, personality, character, and other traits necessary for this new career direction. There are almost no words to describe the valuable nature of the relationship I developed with my counselor over these years I spent at Georgia Tech. Having someone to listen to me and to whom I could bounce ideas off was infinitely valuable.

I had overcome so many challenges and had so many accomplishments. I wasn't nearly as shy as I had been. When I started college five years earlier, I hardly had any social skills. Now, I felt rather competent in this area.

Make no mistake, I did not have all the skills and competencies to be successful in the field. I still had so much to learn and to do before I could get there.

Still, I was graduating without a job offer. I was interviewing with companies that came to campus but unlike other students, I wasn't getting any job offers. It was infinitely obvious to any employer that engineering was not a good match for me. I wasn't an actor. I couldn't fool any employer no matter how hard I tried.

My supervisor during my several years at Digital Equipment Corporation, Bruce Smith knew that I wasn't in the right field. During my exit interview as a co-op employee, he said "you don't seem like the other co-op students. I don't think this is the right field for you."

I answered, "yes, I have figured that out. I am going on to get a graduate degree in Social Work after I graduate from Georgia Tech. "

Anyway, on the day before my graduation, my best friend, Thomas Faison, and his wife, Jo-Lee, had come to see me graduate. I alluded to Thomas in the last chapter. He was my roommate until he graduated so for about two years. He had come from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to Georgia Tech and I had come from Connecticut, up north. Jo-Lee and I were best friends too and we hung out together all the time before joining Thomas in Massachusetts where he had gotten a job after graduation.

An aside – the wedding of my friends.

I was the best man at their wedding. It was interesting. I have one more story to tell here. I said I never only had one "date" through my undergraduate years a few chapters ago when I described asking out the girl from the post office where I worked.

There was one other girl that I went out with a couple of times. Around the time of their wedding, Jo-Lee asked her friend whose name I cannot remember, to show me how to dance for the required "dance" the best man would be forced to do. I felt sorry for Thomas who also had to engage in this ritual of a similar "dance" that he would hate as much as I did, I imagine. The only thing that stands out is the dresses that the brides' maids and maid-of-honor wore. The maid-of-honor held my attention though in the very revealing low-cut dress that made it hard to not notice her breasts.

She seemed friendly and kind as she tried to guide me, and she was acting considerate of my discomfort. Right now, I cannot even form an image of me trying to dance.

After the wedding, there was some event with many people over at the home of part of Jo-Lee's extended family. Jo-Lee was from the area. I was thinking about asking Jo-Lee about her bridesmaid, trying to find the courage to do this. I don't remember the details about how I came to find her attractive and I hate that the only thing that sticks in my mind is that she had nice breasts.

Anyway, then Jo-Lee pointed out how much her cousin Marleesa was interested in me. I noticed she was pretty too but don't ask me to describe her for this story. I just remember noticing that and I am considering what followed. At first, I was in denial, still doubting that any girl would be interested in me. I was a junior and this was before I asked the girl out from the post office, which I described in an earlier chapter.

Eventually, I started noticing everything that Marleesa was doing to be nice and show her concern. I remembered they had a dog at that house that was annoying. Marlessa noticed my annoyance and got the dog away from me. I then looked up at Thomas and Jo-Lee who had a look like "see."

Okay, so I started talking to Marleesa and she invited me to an Easter play in which she was acting through her church. It was interesting to be meeting the family for this first date after the performance. She seemed so interested that I thought I should kiss her.

She turned her head away and I was silent, and my face was red with shame. I had not done anything wrong other than read a signal wrong. The one time I had not invested hours doing my Cognitive Behavior Therapy homework with the three-column technique and I got it wrong. I felt like the air had been sucked out of me. I was frozen and silent.

For a while, I would reflect on this with shame as if I had done something wrong or broken a rule that I should have known. I had not been forceful at all and as soon as she turned away, I had shrunk within myself. I was just so confused.

She had been far more "aggressive" at the party with others around and here we were outside after dark where privacy might allow such things.

That was the last time I saw her. I wasn't mad - just confused. I don't want to give the impression that she owed it to me or that she was playing games. A girl can change her mind at any time. I just felt shame for MY mistake, like I needed to learn more about making a connection or how to deal with rejection.

Looking back over the past three decades of my life I have never had such an experience where I misread the desires of the female that I was with... no one has turned away.

I'll tell you about the decade after college but first, let's get back to my graduation from Georgia Tech.

As I mentioned, I was feeling bad about not having a job offer yet and I had been speaking to my parents. They weren't insulting me directly, but I had a vague sense of disapproval from my mother.

Thomas noticed that I didn't feel good about myself. Thomas said "you got through Georgia Tech and you didn't even like this stuff. Jo-Lee couldn't do this, and she loves this stuff."

Was Thomas saying that I was better academically than his own wife?

At about this same time period, I noticed something bizarre. It seemed like my mother was telling me (with my father joining her it seemed) that she expected me to work as an engineer first. It wasn't just a suggestion that I would have more money working as an engineer and could better pay for graduate school which they thought I could do part-time.

They were telling me what to do now, again, for the first time in years. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt nauseous. My heart was racing, and my hands were clenched as they hung by my side. What had I gotten myself into? What was I thinking?

Not only did they not care about my interests or want me to pursue them, as per our earlier discussions about changing my major. Now, it seemed that I had to find a job as an engineer despite the fact that I knew no one was going to hire me. In my mind, I didn't disagree with the fact that I could make more money using the education I just acquired but I knew I couldn't sell myself in an interview.

I did know a pre-med student at Georgia Tech. He said that almost any degree in science would be accepted as preparation for medical school. He didn't have plans to work once he got his degree from Georgia Tech.

Looking back, I realize that he didn't have parents telling him he wasted their investment and neither do graduates with four-year degrees in English have to be subjected to these kinds of attacks on their judgment or planning.

I also knew even then that the transition to social work was more complicated. I couldn't just work as an engineer and then hope to get into a graduate program in social work.

So, now that's all I have for a memory of this was a sick feeling of visceral disgust that I want to forget.