utie but still bleeding blue!

I thought i would explain everything here since I get asked about this a lot.

Even my own mother called me last week and said, 

"now, why did you apply to the U?"

I want to be a Child Life Specialist. 

What is a CLS?

Wikipedia explains it best:

"Child life specialists are pediatric health care professionals who work with patients, their family and others involved in the child’s care in order to help them manage stress and understand medical and various procedures.^[1] "The objectives of such services will be to minimize the negative impact of situational disruptions while maintaining individual growth and development and family relationships."

Awesome, right? This is what I did this summer as I volunteered at the Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia. I had a Child Life Specialist giving me assignments and helping me to get to know the kids and what to do with them. It was a blast! I played Mario Kart for 2 hours one day with a 16 yr old, got to basically be Santa as I gave free books to 6 year olds who acted as though they had none, and played Uno and Fifa with a 10 year old African boy who only spoke French - my kind of job!

So these are my requirements:

• graduate with a bachelors in Child Life, Child Development, or another related field
• complete a 480 hour Child Life internship under the direction of a Child Life Specialist at a hospital
• pass the Child Life exam
• then BOOM i'm a child life specialist!

Well I'm going to graduate in April from BYU in Family Life: Human Development emphasis (basically Child Development- the closest thing I could get to Child Life). But, because BYU doesn't have any Child Life classes I have to take 1-4 at the University of Utah (still trying to figure out how many) in order to get the internship at Primary Children's.  All hospitals have different requirements, but the only hospitals in Utah that have a CL internship are Primary's and Shriners (in the process of contacting Shriners for their requirements). 

So whether or not I even get the (very hard to get) internship at Primary's next year, this continuing of CL education will help to get an internship wherever we move for med school! I think there will be plenty of hospitals wherever we go! ;)


LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT - I'M STILL A COUG AND I STILL BLEED BLUE!!