The Beginning of the end

Hi, my name is Jade Braden. I am currently a senior at Saint Xavier with one more semester to go before I finish my undergraduate education. Although I go to school at Chicago, I used to live at Ohio for 8 years; before that, I grew up in Florida for 7 years and for the first 3 years of my life, I lived in California. I've constantly been on the move throughout my life, shuffling between states, so my motto is "pack light, travel far;" In other words, I'm all about practicality. Not many people can tell from looking at me but I'm half Filipino from my mother's side and I'm a quarter Ukrainian, an Eighth German & Irish from my dad's side. Also, I have small portions of Spanish and Chinese in my blood from my mom's side. I've been an athlete for the past 8 years professionally, the majority of my sports being Cross Country as well as Track and Field. I've also been a part of Volleyball, Soccer, and Fencing but I find those sports to be more of a hobby. Some other hobbies of mine include Japanese culture and entertainment, reading, playing video games, and culinary arts.

I'm pursuing a major in Psychology clinical counseling as well as a minor in biology and art. By the end of this semester, I should complete a B.S. with a possibility of high honors if I continue working hard this semester. Now, one may wonder why I am going for a B.S. and biology minor when I'm pursuing a Psychology degree. The reason is that I originally wanted to go into Physical therapy so I poured myself into a ton of science and biology classes, only to find something else that I had more passion in. I still enjoyed learning about biology so instead of wasting my credit hours, I used them towards a minor and Bachelor of Science instead of the Arts. With my psychology major and art minor, I plan on using it towards Art Therapy at my first graduate school choice, the Adler school of Professional Psychology. I want to help children who may have difficulty communicating verbally which is why I considered adding a Visual Communication class for my last semester. There are more ways to communicate than just verbally expressing one's thoughts and feelings, rather, I plan on showing that visual communication is a powerful way to communicate with others.