A beautiful campus, small classes, and a reasonable distance from home are the factors that initially brought Jamie Rothenberger ’20, M’22 to LVC. That has since evolved to include amazing faculty and a new master’s program that is helping her take the next step on her career path while staying at The Valley. And, she didn’t have to apply to another school, find housing in a new town, and learn how to interact with unknown faculty and students at a new college.

Rothenberger earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology in May and was contemplating a master’s program in counseling—perfect timing as LVC launched its new Master’s of Clinical Mental Health Counseling degree this fall. Rothenberger enrolled as part of the first cohort.

“The benefits of staying at LVC are that the class sizes are relatively the same as undergrad, I am familiar with the course load, I know what my professors are expecting from me, and it’s  a place I can still call home,” she said.

After her first semester, Rothenberger is happy with her decision, citing friendly classmates and flexible professors. She has completed courses in Abnormal Behavior, Human Growth and Development, Orientation to Counseling, and Social and Cultural Diversity.

“I learn something new every day,” she said. “We do a lot of role-playing activities to gain feedback from our classmates and teachers, and that has been the best thing we have done yet because I think that is the best way to learn.”

Along with the knowledge she is gaining through the master’s program, Rothenberger spent time in a real-world setting last spring, completing an internship with Domestic Violence Intervention of Lebanon County. During her internship, Rothenberger conducted interviews with health care professionals in the area to gather information on what they think the community knows about domestic violence. The goal was to provide feedback to the organization to create programs that raise awareness of domestic violence.

“In the classroom, we learn to be professionals and use our knowledge as best we can. The information I learned from Research Methods helped me organize the research I was gathering,” said Rothenberger. “Written and verbal communication were really important for this internship and will help me as I continue in my career.”