When the COVID-19 pandemic shut businesses down, Samantha Kubik was briefly furloughed from her job at a jewelry house in New York City. What could have been a setback instead became a turning point: she started thinking about how she wanted to invest her energy long-term. Samantha has a long history of volunteerism and is the go-to person her friends call for advice. She wondered whether her talents for supporting others belonged in a different kind of work.
“The other big thing is, having alopecia,” she adds, “I grew up having to be in tune with other people, watching and understanding people and reading the room. It was like an innate skill for me to have to go through life in that way and be nonudgmental of people, because I don't want to be judged. All these little things were an undercurrent in my daily life.”
Reconnecting with What Matters
Samantha took the first step and applied to graduate school but soon realized she needed to gain more experience in the mental health arena. She started volunteering every week for the Samaritans crisis hotline and was reenergized by helping people. Meanwhile, she went back to work remotely for the jewelry company.
She was soon accepted into the Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH) program, and she and her partner moved to Minnesota (he was attending the University of Minnesota Law School). However, they ended up moving back to the East Coast when Samantha got a promotion.
Consulting with CCAPS advisors Tom Hegblom and Eugene Hall, Samantha realized she had already fulfilled the requirements for the MPS in Addictions Counseling, as it comprises the first 30 credits of her initial master's program. She just needed to complete an internship to graduate! “That was really exciting to me, because I thought I was going to have to start all over.”
Now back in New York, on the same street where she lived originally, Samantha is currently interning at an intensive outpatient facility for adults with substance use disorders.
“It really was something I wasn't expecting to get into,” she says, “but I really do see these evidence-based practices working with these clients, and there just is so much work to be done. It is something that is really interesting to me, and I think I will pursue it long-term for my career.”
Applying Mindfulness to Recovery
Earlier this year, Samantha was awarded a National Board for Certified Counselors Minority Fellowship. The fellowship supports master- and doctoral-level counseling students who commit to serving underserved populations.
The fellowship will allow Samantha to connect with more people in the field and gain research experience under experienced mentors. She will also be able to attend conferences and work with the Hazelden Betty Ford Center.
Her independent project will focus on mindfulness-based relapse prevention. “I meditate every day,” she explains. “I had dabbled for years. I think it's one of those things, where when it's your time, it just kind of clicks. So I feel like that was my clicking point.”
Her now-daily practice has opened her eyes to how meditation could be a helpful tool in relapse prevention—specifically, dealing with impulse control, difficult emotions, cravings, and other challenges.
Samantha will be taking mindfulness-based relapse prevention teacher training in order to offer that service to low-income and post-incarcerated people.
“It's such a vulnerable population, and pretty much all of my clients right now are coming out of that system. It’s so cyclical and broken, and anything we can do to give them moments of freedom is something that I'm interested in.”
Samantha says that the education, training, and licensure process takes patience, but now that she has found her purpose, the journey is worth it. She says, “I was never really a school person, but now that I'm in school, I love it.”
Memorable Course
Group Therapy with Fiyyaz Karim
"There's a level of connection and lived experience that clients can offer to each other that feels so compassionate, which sometimes doesn't feel so authentic coming from a counselor. Watching that unfold in the room and being able to echo it, is something that I've noticed is really important in the treatment and recovery process. Looking back, that course was definitely something that was super important, and now doing it in practice, I can tell I learned a ton."
Advice for Grad Students
"People always ask, what do you want to do with this? It's okay to say, I don't know yet. I think one of the things I was so drawn to about this field is the ability for growth, in the sense that your interests can change and you can follow that. Look for what you really love and know that there is room to explore. Be open to that."
Mia Boos is a writer and content strategist with the College of Continuing and Professional Studies, covering the College’s graduate programs and undergraduate individualized degree programs. She joined the CCAPS Marketing team in 2014 and has worked for Thomson Reuters and New York University. Connect with her via LinkedIn.
