Prompt: What specific experience (honors or not) in the past year have had the most impact on your personal and professional trajectory? Articulate specific personal and/or professional goals for the next year.
During the Fall 2017 semester, I was in Greenville, Ohio excited to apply to a study abroad seminar. I first applied to the Roman Experience. As a lot of individuals applied to this study tour, I unfortunately did not get chosen. As I continue to explore opportunities, I began to look at other Study Tour’s still accepting applications, and my first thought was why did I only apply to one opportunity when I had many to choose from. I quickly took the chance and applied to Vienna as The City of Music, and got accepted into the Study Tour. From this experience, I had two big take aways, that will impact my decisions in the future. The first lesson I learned is to take advantage of all your opportunities. I almost missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity, because I was so focused on my first choice, and not my second or third choice. As I approach the end of college career, when I begin looking for jobs, I need to consider all my opportunities and not just the ones that I think will be best for me, or the ones that I think I am most equip for. My goal for next year, is to look at every opportunity, and be open minded. I think the more that I look at the big picture, the more likely it will be that I am able to utilize all opportunities available to me. After going to Vienna, I realize what I have been missing out on by not engulfing myself in another culture. I enjoyed being able to experience a new culture, and a new language. The biggest thing I notice was how I have deprived myself since I do not know another language. Going forward I hope to begin learning new languages/attempting new languages, and understand the importance of learning these new languages early. I also want to learn about different cultures, for personal and professional. Personally, I want to learn about other cultures so that I can better understand how to relate to others. The experience that I had in Vienna, opened my eyes to the different cultures that I could experience. Professionally, my biggest goal is to travel to different places. I think in my full time job after college, the more I have traveled the more that I will appeal to a company because I am willing to travel, and willing to learn. Another big goal that I have and want to try and accomplish is learning a new language. As I talked about above, it is important to learn the language to help in other countries, but I think professionally, this will help me appeal to global companies that are based in Germany. Overall, I hope that my experiences, that I have within my co-ops, and within my honors experiences help me to better understand the things that I want after I graduate college, and the goals that I want to accomplish while in college and after college.