From Feeling Lost to Finding Her Calling: Mt. SAC Alumna Lauren Kalmar Finds Career Path Helping Others
When Lauren Kalmar was finishing up high school, she had a lot of interests, and she wasn’t sure which one to pursue. Enter Mt. SAC, the perfect place to find one’s passion. Additionally, Lauren was motivated by her cousin’s positive experience at the College and the affordability factor. And of course once she was on campus, she was sold. Any stigma that she had previously attached to community colleges fell away.
Lauren’s experience at Mt. SAC was positive from day one. She was impressed by the well-kept grounds and the overall “university” feeling. She was proud to attend the school and concentrated on studying psychology and child development. Her professors had that mix of real world experience and academic acumen that distinguishes the Mt. SAC faculty. Lauren explains that “anytime a professor can relate what we are learning to real world experiences makes a bigger impact.” There was “never a dull moment” in the psychology department.
Through her classes and getting to know her professors and their experiences, Lauren realized that her passion was in helping people. The more psychology classes she took, the clearer her vision for her career became. She eventually transferred to the University of La Verne and earned a Psychology degree and then a Masters in Educational Counseling with a PPS credential. These days, Lauren is working as a Counselor at El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera.
The growth and clarity that Lauren was able to achieve at Mt. SAC has turned her into a Mt. SAC evangelist. She even convinced her brother to attend the school and study civil engineering. She’ll be forever indebted to the Mt. SAC community for how it embraced her when she was “feeling a little lost” after high school. “I want other young students to know that you do not need to know exactly what you want to do in life as long as you can start somewhere that will nurture those interests and help you grow,” she says. “Mt. SAC did that for me.”