Evolving to AddedEducation

“I’ve always known I’d be working with high school kids”. A line I typically tell any student not to begin with when writing their essays, but sometimes it’s true. When I was a freshman in high school I knew that I wanted to work as a child psychiatrist – I felt I had the right skills, the right temperament, and discipline to get there. Fast forward almost 30 years and although I’m not a medical doctor I am doing what I thought I wanted to do, helping individuals become better. As an educator, I’ve felt that this was probably the most important thing I should be doing, helping them be better than yesterday. Doing what I do for the last 16 years has taught me that there is no typical day. Although there are the standard questions of who am I? what do I take up in college? Where should I go? The approach is different from client to client and that’s what makes it enjoyable.

I knew of AddedEducation when they first started out 8 years ago. In some ways, I’ve watched them grow into what they are today from the outskirts and fringes and realizing that they are doing things slightly differently from some of their other competitors. Most counselors don’t get involved with sports counseling very much but because I used to be a sports recruit, a D3 swimming program, I would always bring it into my school counseling jobs. Now with AddedEducation I’m able to learn more about an area that I knew a lot in theory. Aside from gaining knowledge I loved the evolving philosophy of the company. From purely working with student-athletes to students in general, it provides a broader reach and I am happy to be part of that evolution.

I look forward to the different atmosphere that the company has to offer. I think that change is a wonderful thing and it promises to teach me a great deal of other things that I may have been restricted from doing in other settings. I’ve already been able to conduct a number of trainings to share what I know, listened to a number of workshops by colleagues expanding my horizons, and had a number of wonderful discussions that have allowed me to share counterpoints and agreements in other areas such as technology development that I would never have done in the past.

Paul Yap, Senior Lead Counselor