There’s a new face in the Counseling Department at Trinity. Ms. Maggie Kapp began a counseling internship, fulfilling required field hours as part of a master’s degree in school counseling from Spalding University.

Kapp, a 2005 graduate of Mercy High School and a graduate of Western Kentucky University, has always wanted to be a high school counselor. After graduating from WKU, Kapp taught first grade at Hazelwood Elementary. After three and a half years, she left Hazelwood to pursue her dream of becoming a counselor.

In addition to being an intern at Trinity, Kapp currently works as a pharmaceutical representative, which gives her the ability to be at Trinity during school hours while also attending classes at Spalding.

Kapp decided to pursue counseling when she decided she could “make an impact on high school students by being a role model.” She aims to do this by reinforcing respect, trust and positive guidance with students.

Kapp said she finds “creating positive bonds that lead students to successful academic outcomes” is especially rewarding. She said her drive to become a counselor stems from a lack of interaction with her past counselors. She wants to be someone who helps guide students and better prepare them for college and the rest of their lives.

Kapp wanted to intern at Trinity in order to see the difference between the all-boy and all-girl high schools, while also gaining experience in helping young men make good decisions.

It can be an interesting experience being a female counselor in an all-guys school, but it’s really not that big a deal, according to Mrs. Paige Davis, a former intern at Trinity who joined the Shamrocks’ Counseling Department. Davis said her internship at Trinity was incredibly helpful.

“When you work with really responsible and respectful young men, it’s really not challenging,” Davis said.

Department chairman Dr. Aaron Striegel echoed the importance of counseling internships. Striegel, who is overseeing Kapp’s internship, pointed to how he still draws from his experience as an intern at Franklin County High School years ago.

As an intern, Striegel came to the realization that ”every situation is different. Every student is different. Something that might look like a theory or a practice in a book is totally different when you are sitting across from a student.”

Striegel said another benefit is that interns “get to see different counselors with different styles of dealing with students.”

A typical day for Kapp ranges from meetings with core (academic level) teams and Counseling Department meetings to an occasional field trip, as well as observing other counselors’ work with students.

Kapp said that her internship thus far has been a really positive experience, and that she has has learned a great deal from Striegel by being able to “watch the way he works with students and develops plans and guides them in the right direction — to make good choices and develop men of character.”