When I was nine years old I decided I wanted to be an obstetrician. In high school, I took health occupation courses and dual-enrolled to get my Certified Nursing Assistant certification. Junior year I was looking at colleges and comparing pre-med programs. As a senior I visited Georgia Southern and was impressed by the stats and biology department professors. It was raining (of course) on our tour of the campus, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with this school.

SOAR came and went and I was so pumped for college. I was so pumped, in fact, that I signed up for BUILD and came here two weeks before classes started to volunteer with GSU. My family moved me into my dorm and classes started that Monday. I quickly realized that a major in biology was not what I enjoyed. I tried to stick it out my second semester here, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I am the extrovert of extroverts; I thrive on social interaction. I had two friends from back home I grew up with, one of them was my roommate, but other than that I hadn’t really made significant connections with any other people. After a long conversation with my mom I decided I wanted to do something that would let me meet and communicate with new people. I changed my major to public relations and picked up a minor in Spanish.

This decision not only changed the course of my college career, but my entire life. From that point I began to look at things with a new perspective. I joined The George-Anne where I’ve helped students tell their stories. I’ve planned events and managed social media to help Student Media share its stories. I learned how to swing dance. I’ve made some of the best friends and had some of the best times of my life. I’ve taken the opportunity to study abroad, which has been the best experience in my 22 years, all thanks to this one decision.

So in this first and last column I’d like to say to my family: thanks for being the best, most reliable support system. To my professors: thanks for pushing me to see things from different perspectives. To my Student Media family: thanks for the skills, the laughs, the fun, the opportunities, basically everything. To my Swing Cats family: thanks for the trips, the crafting, the all around great times. To my roommates: thanks for showing me what friendship really means. To GSU: thanks for becoming my second home for what seems like has been forever.

President Obama once said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Change is different and can seem terrifying, but what happens as a result can be exciting. And that excitement and not knowing is the beauty of it. Embrace the change head on. Make the decisions that seem scary but also give you butterflies. And do all this with your head up.