Sabrina Lugo thinks she has always been a bit of a therapist.

As an undergraduate student at Pace University, Lugo started her own business doing nails and noticed that clients she had never met before were opening up to her in very personal ways during their sessions.

At the time, she was a struggling biology major thinking of going to medical school. But after taking her first psychology course, she quickly changed her major.

“I liked connecting with people in that way,” Lugo remembered, “Giving them the space to feel safe and share has been something I value about myself and that people seem to value about me.”

Things fell into place for her after that. Lugo entered the Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling program at Rutgers SHP after hearing it was challenging but offered great professional support.

“I have a 5-year old daughter, and Rutgers was very attentive to my needs when it came to finding a job placement,” said Lugo. “The director of practicum made it a point to find opportunities where I could get hours with clients and be paid for my work.”

Lugo now works with a mostly older population at Brownstone Wellness Center, which often involves shifting their perspective on what counseling is and how it can be beneficial to them.

Sabrina Lugo, 2025 Convocation Singer

“I love a challenge,” she said. “They’re often resistant at first but once they open up, they learn so much about themselves. It goes to show it’s never too late to change.”

As convocation approached, that attitude to keep challenging herself reappeared when Lugo saw applications to sing the national anthem at the ceremony. Growing up, she sang in choir and smaller performance settings but hadn’t performed publicly in years.

“Music has always been a form of self-care and something I carry with me,” Lugo reflected. “I wanted to show that there’s more to us all than what we’re studying in school.”

More than that, she was motivated for her daughter to see her perform as a culmination to all the stress and hard work of her degree and to show her that she could do anything she put her mind to.

She was chosen to sing the national anthem. She received high praise for her performance from her harshest critic. “I was so nervous, but she told me I did a good job,” she concluded with a laugh. “And she would have been brutally honest if I hadn’t.”