Student Showcase

JOEL HORST, COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGY CLASS OF 2022

Q: Why did you pick psychology as your major?

A: I was considering a number of different degree tracks prior to coming to Liberty, but after taking AP Psychology in high school, I knew that this was the field the Lord was calling me into. My counseling psychology degree encapsulates some of my favorite fields of study (including human behavior, psychopathology, and crisis intervention), while also providing a solid biblical foundation.

Q: What has been your favorite class at Liberty?

A: The most important lesson I’ll take away from my psychology classes was one I learned in Dr. Logan’s Crisis Intervention (PSYC 317) class. He shared how the knowledge and training we get through our education act as a “hazmat suit” — not only to help protect us from all of the traumatic, incomprehensible situations individuals we counsel go through but also to allow us to get into the mess with them while they continue to process and grow from the distressing circumstances.

Q: Did you do an internship this summer, and what did you learn from it?

A: I had the amazing opportunity to complete my PSYC 499 internship within Lives Changed By Christ (LCBC) church’s student ministry in York, Pa., this past summer. This internship could definitely be seen as unconventional for psychology students, but I discovered that caring for people in a ministry setting involves a large amount of psychology principles. With the help of my amazing supervisor and other campus staff, I learned to see how the lessons I’ve learned in my psychology courses impacted the direction of my ministry, specifically from counseling students who were experiencing difficult family situations to writing engaging lessons to share within our high school ministry environment.

Q: What are your plans postgraduation?

A: My plan is to apply at my home church (LCBC in Lancaster, Pa.) and hopefully be hired in a student ministry position at one of the church’s 18 campuses. This has been a dream job of mine since middle school, and I had the great honor of being able to do my PSYC 499 internship at the York, Pa., campus this past summer. It was during this time that God strengthened and further confirmed this calling of vocational ministry in my life, while also providing me countless opportunities to use the skills that I learned from my courses to interact with, relate to, and care for the 5th-12th grade students a part of our different ministry environments.

Q: What advice would you give to first-year psychology students?

A: First, the biggest piece of advice I’d give a first-year psychology student would be to always ask the question, “How are these things I’m learning related to my faith?” It has been a great joy learning from such biblically minded professors within these psychology classes, but the major steps of growth in my personal walk with Jesus have come out of my excitement to understand how each new concept or theory points me back to the Creator of our psyche. Psychology is so much bigger than definitions and famous experiments, and if you take the time to prayerfully ask the Lord to guide you through your studies, I can guarantee that you will discover and understand Him in ways you’d previously never imagined.