Life Is Still Young. Story 6.

Jennifer Liberty-Clark, 42, of Maple Grove, Minnesota, found her passion by just trying something out. Psychology class after psychology class, she became attached.

            Clark grew up as an only child with her mother and father in Cumberland, WI. While attending Cumberland High School Clark first worked as a dishwasher at a small town restaurant. She then worked as, “a dilly bar maker at the Dairy Queen and then on an assembly line at a bean factory, picking sticks, frogs, and muck out of Green Giant Beans,” stated Clark.

            After graduating High School she then continued her journey going to attend and eventually graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She got a degree in psychology and a minor in speech communications. Later on in 1995 Clark received her Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology and Vocational Rehab from St. Cloud State University. Clark said, “I knew when I started taking psychology that I wanted a degree in it. They were the classes and the content of material that was riveting to me, that made me want to read the textbooks, etc. I just kept going back for more!” As a little girl, like any other, she had big dreams of becoming an actress, but claims she just isn’t skilled in that department, psychology is now her dream.

            Clark utilized her psychology degree in various ways for many years. While she was attending graduate school she worked at a bank, in a huge office by herself. She knew then that she was not, by any means, an introvert, but an extravert. Which also applies to psychology. She then worked in a Level 5 Day Treatment Program, which is a type of sit in counseling. After that she then spent 8 years in training and development in corporate America. Starting in the fall of 2004, for the last 7 years Clark has been teaching psychology classes, among a few others at Anoka Ramsey Community College-Cambridge.  She began as a part-time, non-permanent position teacher for two years. In the spring of 2006, Clark was then hired full time.

            In life, there can be many hardships. In this sense Clark adds, “There really hasn’t been a ‘hardship’ in becoming and being a teacher. I think one of the most frustrating things about teaching with adult learners is that you can’t help everyone be successful. You can lay it out there for them, but in the end a student has to make the choices that gets them what they want by way of hard work and dedication. It’s frustrating when I lose a student to their negative life situation or to their lack of clarity about how to get from point A to point B. I’ve realized that there is only so much I, as a teacher, that I can do. The rest is really up to them!”

            Clark had many words of wisdom, and when it came to being successful and giving advice, she says, “Being a good teacher involves technique and heart. Both are equally as important. One doesn’t work w/o the other. I would tell anyone who is making a career decision to follow their heart/passion of what they want to do and the money will follow. If it doesn’t, but you’re doing what you love and you can feed yourself then you’re successful!”

            As Clark’s life begins to grow and prosper in many ways, she has become a successful teacher, friend, colleague, wife, and mother of her children Ahna, 11, Zach, 8, and Afton, 4. She is now living with her husband and three children in Maple Grove Minnesota while still being close with her parents in Wisconsin. She still strives to experience growth in each thing she is successful or not in. Many may perceive that she is successful because of her career, house, marriage, and her family life. But the truth behind it all is that Clark worked very hard for every single thing in her life. “There are many, many internal qualities that I have that I’d like to spend the rest of my life working at improving them. That’s what a life’s journey is all about,” added Clark.