The Students of MSPP

Aziz Nashef—Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology

Disenfranchised Children Are His Passion

Something happened to Aziz Nashef in 2006 that confirmed the direction of what he now hopes will be his life’s work. That summer, he traveled to Iqaluit, Nunavut, a place above the Arctic Circle in his native Canada. There in Apex, a village of 200, he worked with Inuit children in a summer day camp. His job was to create academic, recreational, nutritional and other programs for children, many of whom were victims of sexual, substance and physical abuse.

“Here I was in this isolated place responsible for everything. I took all the knowledge I had from books and put it into practice. And, I felt I was able to help these kids who were really suffering,” he says. “It was a pivotal experience, which ultimately led me here.”

Although the most intense, it wasn’t his first practical experience. While earning his Bachelor’s Degree in Child Psychology at Ontario’s McMaster’s University, he worked in inner city schools and at the Ronald McDonald House.

With a dad who is a clinical psychologist and a psychiatric nurse mother, “I think I had ideas about psychology and children by late high school,” he says. “What appealed to me about MSPP is immediate integration of class and practical experience,” he adds.

One of the first to enter MSPP’s new Counseling Psychology Master’s program, he has been “from day one” in the field. At Roxbury’s Edge Program, he helps kids who have been neglected, abused or involved in criminal behavior.

For Nashef, who eventually wants to earn a doctorate, MSPP has offered him a path to achieve his cherished goal of working with “disenfranchised children”
in a more skilled way. “This is exactly what I want to do,” he says.

Updated 1/3/08