Amy Deal:
CLASS OF 1995
Hamilton High SchoolClass of 1995
Milwaukee, WI
Marquette University - Graduate SchoolClass of 2005
Milwaukee, WI
Cardinal Stritch UniversityClass of 2000
Milwaukee, WI
Amy's Story
Life
After graduating from Hamilton, I had a variety of jobs and changed majors twice. Now I am happily married (since June 2005) and look forward to starting a family of my own in the next few years. My husband Brian and I are currently living in West Allis, although we are thinking seriously about relocating to another state. In my spare time, I love to read books, go shopping and watch movies. Most of my free time is spent with my husband and our close friends and family. We are not your clubbing type of people... we'd rather go out to dinner and a movie or stay home and play games.
As for other life goals... I'd like to go back to school in a couple of years to get my doctorate in either Counseling Psychology or Clinical Psychology. My ultimate goal is to one day here someone call me Dr. Deal. That will be AWESOME!
School
High school seems to long ago... I think that I would do it all over again only if I could have changed who I was. I think I missed out on some of the most "wild" parts of high school -- but I certainly made up for it once I started college.
I guess, if I really think about it, the teachers that inspired me the most would be Mr. Schulz, Ms. Janusz and Mrs. Prost - the English department super team. They taught me everything I needed to know in order to succeed in both my undergraduate and graduate studies.
The happiest moments I remember from high school are all about the people. I remember the guys shooting each other with staplers; Misty Ellen and I made up a fake family tree - Mr. Schulz was our father, Ms. Janusz our grandmother and Mrs. Prost our aunt... as sick as it sounds now, we thought it was pretty damn funny back then; I remember hanging out at lunch time and poking fun of people. It was all about forming an identity of our own.
As for crushes, I don't know how safe it is for me to reveal that even 10 years later. But... I did think Steven Vang was pretty hot and it would have been nice if Jason Olson and I were more than just friends. But in the end, I'm glad the way things turned out because if my life had not been the way it was, I never would have found my wonderful, caring, loving husband.
As for my years at Cardinal Stritch University - there are so many things that I learned about myself and about others. I figured out who I wanted to be and who I didn't want to be. I made some of the best and worst life decisions at Stritch... and each one of them has allowed me to be the person I am now - and I like who that person is. Sometimes I think that I wouldn't want to experience the Stritch years again but then I definitely would lose a big piece of myself. Stritch is the place where I was first introduced to paying my own bills and getting drunk for the first time and deciding what I wanted to do when I grew up. It was the place where I learned who to trust and who not to trust... it was a time in my life where I experienced so much growth and discovered a lot about myself.
As for my years at Marquette... well, there isn't much to say about them. I entered graduate school as an adult. There was no partying, no bickering with my peers, no late night cramming. I had a full-time job, successful relationship with my future husband and school was an ends to a mean. I wanted to advance my career so I could finally say that I grew up and knew what I wanted to do with my life. Marquette was about getting my homework done and my courses completed. Stritch was more about trying to get papers done and doing some studying in between hanging with my friends, squeaking out a meager living with part-time jobs, and bitching about not having enough hours in the day to do them all.
College
Well... I kind of revisited my college days at Stritch in the school section but I guess I can do some more here. My first roommate was the weirdo nerd of all weirdo nerds. She had no volume control of her voice, woke up to a "Lion King" CD and wore bright red lipstick that I suppose she thought made her beautiful. S...Expand for more
he was scary! I would wake up in the morning sometimes and she'd be staring at me. Needless to say, I tolerated her for a year and had no problems parting with her at the end of the school year. Of course, that doesn't beat my second year roommate. We started as friends and ended not talking to each other... but that probably had something to do with her having sex in the room while I was trying to sleep on the top bunk.
I do have to compliment Stritch on their cafeteria cuisine... thanks to it, I lost weight during my freshman year instead of gaining weight. I never had to deal with the "Freshmen 15." I did, however, have plenty of those fun nights where I stayed up writing papers that were due the next day. At Stritch, I do not think that I ever grasped the understanding of proofreading. Once the paper came out of the printer, I collapsed in my bed for a couple of hours of sleep and then woke up the next morning, prepared to hand in a paper full of grammatical errors (which was bad because I was an English major).
What I loved the most about college was the freedom that I felt I had. In high school, I didn't go out and party. I didn't sneak alcohol at home or at a friend's house. I was as straight as you can be... but not at Stritch. I finally realized that I didn't need my mom and dad's permission to go out. And I learned, through trial and error, that nights of binging on alcohol and pizza usually lead to headaches and the shits the next day. After a few visits to the porcelain God, I learned that maybe the old saying, "Beer before liquor, never be sicker" might actually contain a grain of truth in it.
At Stritch, I got my first credit card (which I used quite unwisely), my first car, my first hangover, my first checking account, my first taste of adult life. It was a time of great change - sometimes painful, sometimes enjoyable - but definitely a time that I would never want to go back and change. It made me who I am today.
Workplace
I did start my "official" working career flipping burgers. There's nothing like working at McDonald's for a couple of years. I learned so much - especially that I did not want to be doing this for the rest of my life.
My work history includes working in a variety of places during my undergraduate days. I worked at a book store, a children's toy store, a community center, an office supply store, a retail store and some miscellaneous work study jobs at Stritch. Every night, when I got home from those jobs, I prayed that the rest of my career life would not be like this. There's nothing like being overworked and underpaid to recognize how nice it would be to work somewhere that actually offered benefits and offered more than mininum wage.
After graduating with my degrees in psychology and English literature, I started working at the Medical College of Wisconsin. I actually graduated on a Saturday and started work at MCW that following Monday. Not much time to adjust from school life to working 40 hours a week. But when I got my first paycheck, it was definitely worth it.
I worked for 5 years in the Department of Psychiatry at MCW as an administrative assistant. I did everything from answer phones to designing and implementing new clerical procedures. There were days when I got pretty sick of my job but it was great experience. I knew I wanted to be a psychotherapist and so I was able to be in daily contact with people that were struggling with mental illness. That was a pretty cool learning experience.
After five years with the Dept. of Psychiatry, I left MCW for a couple of weeks to graduate from Marquette, get married and go on a honeymoon to Jamaica. Surprisingly enough, I was called by the Department of Neurology soon after returning from my honeymoon and now I work in the Division of Neuropsychology administering neuropsychological tests to children ages 2 to 20. It's hard work but it can also be lots of fun. And I am learning so much.
Military
Me? In the military? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
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