Dane Showalter Email & Phone Number

I am a senior at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and I am just beginning my search for real world applications of Psychology. My goal is to pursue my PhD in psychology and eventually own my own business to work with children. For me, children are precious and I want to be a guiding hand that is available to them when they meet adversity so they can continue to smile and go about their lives.I have taken several classes ranging from social psychology to behavioral neuroscience, and have begun to take classes primarily focused on different stages of life as well as clinical/counseling psychology. I also have worked several years in the customer service field to better improve my communication skills as well as leadership, teamwork, and listening. I would love to work in any area that allows me to work with children and youths so that I can grow in this area and put my knowledge and skills to use.This semester I have been working on developing my skills that will help me when I am working in the field of psychology. Most notably, I am trying to develop my active listening skills as well as my oral communication skills. I have been able to practice these skills both in class and at work to customers and my work friends. I have also been working on improving my emotional intelligence as well as my self-awareness so that I can not only find any biases that I wasn't aware of before, but to also practice working on them and not letting them disrupt my relationships with people I speak to.One of the things I got the opportunity to do this semester was volunteer for a few hours at Heartland Mental Health. This was the first time I actually got any physical experience in the mental health field and I would like to say it was an awesome experience. One of the people I met there was a man named Eugene. Eugene said he only goes to Heartland once in a while, so it was very lucky that I got to meet him. He was a very soft spoken but incredibly friendly man that I got to speak to for at least an hour, and in that short time he made me laugh countless times, enough so that other students who were volunteering worked up the courage to come join in the conversation. I know that we were supposed to be there to try to help out Heartland and it's clients, but Eugene ended up helping me get over my nerves and I am very grateful to have met him. Hopefully I can learn to be more like Eugene in the future.