I have never considered myself a risk taker. Even up until recently, I considered myself to be very calculated and to be someone that had to know what was going to happen before it happened. My entire life has had a plan. When I was fourteen, I planned to go to law school (and at 22, I still do). At eighteen, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to go to a 'big' school like I had planned for my under graduate degree, and decided on the Community College of Rhode Island instead. I saw going to CCRI as a risk, but I knew it was something I had to do in order to get to a successful point in my life. It was a risk, but it was a risk well worth taking.

In May of 2017, I graduated from The Community College of Rhode Island with an Associates in Liberal Arts, something most wouldn't see as much of an accomplishment. President Meghan Hughes of CCRI, however, thought differently. President Hughes based her commencement address on the topic of calculated risk taking. She spoke about how important it is that as students, professionals and humans avoid being stagnant. She spoke volumes to how crucial it is that we never get comfortable. She based this theory on myself and another student, as both of us had faced some serious adversity, challenges and taken some great risks in our collegiate career to come to a point in our lives that led us both to that stage on May 19th.

In life, taking the risk of getting experience is everything. Every summer during the first three years of my collegiate career, I worked in an internship. They were always risks, but they all turned out to be well worth it. I started off in a marketing related internship because I thought that might be something I was interested in. Turns out it was the farthest thing from what I thought I might want to do. But what I gained from this, although I never wanted to use the skills I learned there, was that I wasn't pursuing a business degree. The following summers, I interned with a state political party. It was a risk to pursue these things because it was a field I had never really played in. However, those calculated risks I took turned into something so incredibly great. They turned into a life long passion for me. They turned into me finding what puts the fire in my soul and the light in my eyes, and for that, I'm forever grateful.

The point is, if we never take risks, we never grow. We stay stagnant, and we never find what ignites our souls and makes our hearts pound. I beg of you to go out and take the risk, take the chance and never look back because you may very well find the adventure that you've been waiting for.