Talks in Tan-dem

This piece is lucky number thirteen, and it’s an especially wholesome one. It’s about one of my dearest friends, Lindsey, and just as the title hints, it tells the story of how she went back to school (or college, or university, depending on where you’re from). I first met Lindsey through her partner, Berk, who moved here from Texas in 2017 to join the same department where I was completing my Master’s. Although Lindsey and Berk were long-distance at the time (and some of us know all too well how challenging that can be), we were lucky enough to eventually get to know her. When she finally moved here in 2021, we quickly grew thick as thieves. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been deeply inspired by and proud of her bravery, especially as life threw its inevitable interruptions her way (I wish my high school English teacher could see my alliteration right there). I’m excited to share her story with you, hoping it might encourage someone, somewhere, to finish something they once started, even when life gets in the way.

Beginnings aren’t always straight lines

Lindsey first started university the practical way – at a community college. In the U.S., your first year is mostly filled with general education requirements anyway, and community college is a far more affordable place to get them done. She could save money by living at home, transfer her credits later, and buy herself a little time while she waited for her younger sister to finish high school. Their plan was to move to Austin together, which they eventually did in 2014.

When she first enrolled, Lindsey thought she would major in psychology. But once she began working with children – rotating between jobs caring for infants and teaching in preschool settings, she realized that primary education was where she felt most at home. So she switched majors to pursue Early Childhood Education.

That decision, though absolutely the right one (I am a big believer of standing by your decisions and trusting you made them for a reason), came with a cost: many of the credits she had already completed no longer counted toward her new degree. At the same time, she was juggling full-time classes while working around 20 hours a week. And if she was being honest, she often preferred the work over the studying. Looking back, it’s clear she was overextending herself. But it was also the beginning of her figuring out who she wanted to be, and what kind of life she wanted to build.

Life, interrupted

Just as Lindsey was finding her footing, life shifted without warning. In 2017, her mom, who was living in Houston at the time, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Lindsey and her sister both made the decision to leave university and go home and be with their family. It was terrifying for all of them, but especially for her mom, whose own mother had died from ovarian cancer when she was just 21. Old wounds and new fears collided all at once.

During this period, Lindsey picked up whatever work she could, like babysitting – anything that kept her going while they focused on their mom’s treatment. Her sister enrolled at the University of Houston, but it never felt right for Lindsey; the campus was too big, too overwhelming, too impersonal at a time when she needed stability more than anything.

Her mom underwent a double mastectomy and was later thankfully declared cancer-free. Relief should have followed, but instead, another crisis surfaced. Her mom’s mental-health medication was stopped abruptly due to worries of interactions with post-cancer medication, and without proper oversight, this sent her into a downward spiral. She didn’t receive proper mental-health support until a breakdown landed her in the hospital months later, making it a heart-breaking and deeply mishandled chapter. She hadn’t been connected with a psycho-oncologist (a specialist trained to support the emotional and psychological impact of cancer and its treatment) and the absence of that support made everything heavier.

In the midst of all this, Lindsey got engaged and started planning her wedding, trying to build something joyful during a time that felt unbearably fragile. The emotional weight of surviving cancer, combined with watching her daughter navigate her own challenges, was overwhelming for her mom. And for Lindsey, it was an equally emotional season defined by love, fear, resilience.

New beginnings

Lindsey married Berk on March 7th, 2020 – a moment that should have marked the start of a brand-new chapter. Instead, the world was quickly shutting down. In the U.S., people had only begun talking seriously about COVID two days before the wedding, and by the time the celebration was over, everything felt uncertain. They had a simple plan of getting married and moving to Switzerland together. But the pandemic had other ideas. Between travel restrictions and the slow grind of bureaucracy, the move was delayed until January 2021. 

Once Lindsey arrived in Switzerland, she pieced together a new life in the most grounded way, by working as a nanny, pet-sitter, dog-walker, whatever allowed her to settle into this unfamiliar place. I still remember those early days. She seemed shy at first, a little cautious – and understandably so, after uprooting her entire life and landing in a new country where everything looked (and sounded) different. But even in her quietness, there was something instantly warm about her. We liked her immediately and had this unspoken feeling that we would end up being close. 

With time, she opened up, and we discovered the version of Lindsey we now know and love: an introverted extrovert who comes alive around the people she trusts, someone who gives energy as much as she gets it. Although it was originally Berk I was friends with (thank you Berk!), Lindsey became one of the people I grew closest to here. 

Coming full circle

In 2024, over a decade after she had first started, Lindsey made the brave decision to go back to university and finish her bachelor’s degree in psychology. Walking into classrooms filled with 19-year-olds wasn’t easy. At first, she felt out of place, even a little embarrassed, and it took time for her to shake the feeling that she somehow didn’t belong. But she kept showing up, and slowly, she settled into it.

A lot of this confidence came from the conversations she had with her therapist. They had been talking for months about her returning to school, and her therapist, who had also completed a master’s in counselling at Webster University, was incredibly supportive. That connection is how Lindsey even learned that Webster existed. It felt like fate: they had a psychology programme, they would accept the credits she had earned years before, and the campus was close to her home near Geneva. Plus, she knew she wanted a physical classroom, not an online course, and Webster’s small classes were exactly the environment where she could thrive.

In choosing psychology again, Lindsey returned to the dream she had at 18 – one she had once felt too overwhelmed to pursue. Back then, she was already working with children, and early childhood education felt like a more tangible, familiar path. Plus, it was still a helping profession, one she loved deeply. Children are psychologically flexible, open, curious; teaching them was its own form of healing work. But over the years, Lindsey witnessed what truly good therapy can do, and how the right support at the right time can change the course of someone’s life. She saw it in her own family, she experienced it herself, and she wanted to offer others the same kind of care that had lifted her up.

I always come back to one of my favourite quotes: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” attributed to Seneca, a Roman philosopher. Lindsey prepared quietly and steadily, through everything life threw at her. When the right opportunity finally appeared, she had the courage to take it.

She’s now focusing on mental health and plans to continue with a master’s in counselling after her bachelor’s. But she hasn’t done any of this alone. Her therapist may have helped spark the decision, but her support system including her partner Berk, his mom, her family and her friends, has carried her through the process. This support has meant the world to Lindsey, and it has deeply shaped her ability to chase goals she once thought were out of reach.

In the longer term, she’s also realistic about what a career in counselling looks like in Switzerland. Here, the rules around titles are strict, meaning her counselling master’s will allow her to be a counsellor, though not a therapist. That distinction determines who she can help: counsellors aren’t covered by health insurance here, so they generally can’t work in hospitals or more acute mental-health settings. Even so, the degree opens many meaningful paths, and it also allows her to practice in the U.S., which gives her even more flexibility. Her dream job is to be a school counsellor: a role that blends her love of working with children and her passion for mental health (cue Best of Both Worlds from Hannah Montana). 

Lindsey will graduate before the summer of 2026, and we absolutely cannot wait to celebrate her. After all, coming full circle is no small thing, and she has earned every bit of the joy waiting for her at the finish line.