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Alum
Laura Rose Is Residential Counselor
Helping Patients Better Their Lives
2/13/12
West
Windsor, N.J. - Students come to Mercer County Community College
for a wide variety of reasons. For Laura Rose, '08
(A.A., Humanities and Social Science), it was to make a fresh
start for a new career in psychology.
Arriving in Princeton in 2004 with a background in real estate,
Rose, then Laura Soltesz, first came to New Jersey from Greeneville,
TN, when she married a Princeton University Ph.D. candidate.
Unsatisfied with the real estate market in the Northeast,
she decided it was time to go back to school and pursue a
career for which she had more passion.
"It was just time for a life change," Rose said.
She chose Mercer because it was the best option to fit her
schedule and financial needs. "When I came to Princeton,
Mercer was recommended to me as a great starting point,"
said Rose, adding that she took a job as a nanny while in
school. Through her nanny job, she was able to combine work
with her studies by conducting an eight month developmental
profile on the toddler she was watching.
Rose excelled at Mercer. She was a member of the Phi Theta
Kappa International Honor Society, as well as the Alpha Mu
Gamma National Collegiate Foreign Language Honor Society for
excellence in Spanish. She was also the 2008 recipient of
the Phillip Schein Memorial Scholarship for academic excellence.
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Laura
Rose '08
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She attributes
much of her success at Mercer to one of her English professors,
Dr. Ed Carmien. "He is fantastic. His ability to engage
the students and inspire them to think is truly a beautiful
thing," Rose said. "He encourages and fosters learning
in an extremely open-minded way. He doesn't focus on the negatives
of his students, but on their strengths. He is an asset to
his students and to Mercer."
After
graduating with her associate degree, Rose went on to earn
her bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Critical
Sexuality Studies from Rutgers University. While at Rutgers
she served as a research assistant for six different studies
on social attitude formation and reaction with regard to racisim,
sexism and gender role performance. She graduated from the
college in 2010, magna cum laude.
Rose was hired straight from Rutgers to work as a residential
counselor at the Carrier Clinic, a mental and behavioral health
treatment center in Belle Mead, where she assisted 13- to
18-year-old adolescent females in a psychiatric community
residence program called the Sunflower Lodge.
After 18 months she moved on to her current position at the
Children's Home in Mount Holly, a non-profit organization
that provides special education, residential and emergency
shelter services. There she works exclusively with troubled
and at-risk adolescent males.
Now that she has had a few years in the field, Rose says that
her real-life experience has added significantly to her textbook
learning. "If you go into a career in psychology, be
prepared for what's coming. It can be very stressful at times.
You don't really think about that when you first decide to
pursue psychology, but when the textbook comes to life, it's
very surprising."
She adds that students considering the field must have the
heart, the patience and the passion for serving others. "At
the end of the day, it's about helping people live the fullest
and best life possible for them," Rose observes. "We
want them to become healthy, well-adjusted, functioning and
effective members of society. If not while under my care,
hopefully they will carry the tools I've offered and utilize
them when they're able."
Rose is
currently researching schools where she can pursue her master's
degree this fall. She plans to eventually earn her doctoral
degree in clinical psychology.
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