Until I moved to the United States last fall, I never realized how strange a concept it was for people to understand that I was neither born, nor was I raised here in the US. Not in Raleigh, not in the States, not in the country.

Not even on this continent.

So wait… was I American? How did I speak English? Did I even speak English? (Yes I am! I learned in school, and yes I do!) What's it like in Asia? Is it a lot different from here? What do people wear over there?

Question after question, thrown like catapults from friends, hall mates, sorority sisters… questions that I didn't mind at all being asked, on the contrary I was rather flattered; but also questions that I had never considered the answers to, because they were never questions that I needed to answer.

Growing up, I thought I was extremely “American" with all my English speaking and pop culture references. I thought that all schools were like my own American international early college school, and that when I eventually graduated and moved to the US to attend college that I would fit right in.

Then I finally moved here, and there came the questions.

I took a lesson away from this whole ordeal and came to a few conclusions that I've since reaffirmed as strong personal beliefs… and now my lesson to students. Which brings me to the whole purpose of sharing my abridged life story. I've been extremely, extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to live overseas, to have explored the world like it was my own backyard, and seen with my own two eyes things that others can't even begin to contemplate.

And if you set your mind to it, you can too.

We're in college, apparently the four best years of our lives. It seems like the last twenty years have blown by like leaves; so much has happened, we're all getting so old, and we're at a point in our lives where we're starting to make decisions that will ultimately impact our entire futures.

But what a lot of us never stop to realize, is that we're 18-21 years old… we're only 18-21 years old. We've lived approximately 20% of our lives, and suddenly we're hunkering down like we've had a nice long run and we're ready to settle?

What on earth has happened in the last twenty years that's convinced us that this is as good as it gets? Are we paying thousands upon thousands of dollars in tuition just to settle down, get a house, and get married? Pop out a couple kids? Ask other people the questions?

Why pay disgusting amounts of tuition to do the same thing you can with a simple intelligence, wits, determination and ambition? Why not pay gross amounts of money to become the person giving the answers?

In four years, or wherever path you're on to get your degree, you're going to be fresh out of college. You've got an amazing job in line, you're living on your own, making quite a solid amount of money, and it's at this point that I've come to realize that your life is only just beginning.

Have you always dreamed of backpacking across Europe?, or learning more about your fascination with Imperial China? See the Great Coral Reef? Have you always wanted to drop everything and move to New Zealand? Travel the world? Join the Peace Corps?

Since we were children we've had our future dictated for us: go to school, graduate from school, go to college, graduate from college, get a good job. But we're not children anymore, and suddenly we realize there' s no longer one path to take, but infinitely many.

My lesson: If you want to settle down and have a couple kids that's fabulous. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you want to travel, or do something outrageous and go where the wind takes you? If you want to find the all answers to all your questions, why not go out there and find them? What's holding you back now?

The only person holding you back is yourself. What you make of your life after college depends entirely on you. We need to stop thinking of college as a preparation for the rest of our lives, but preparation for the beginning of our lives.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not busting my butt for four years just to conclude my life. I will work hard every day, studying exactly what I've been told to study for the next four years so that I have the opportunity to learn about whatever I want to, wherever I want to, for the rest of my life.

I've traveled to over thirteen countries in the last nineteen years, and I'm definitely not done. How can I stay in one place when there's so much more to learn, so many more places to travel, and so many more people to meet? I've been given such a blessing to have the opportunity to travel as much as I have already, to immerse myself in so many different cultures, befriended so many different people, and to have attended college at such an amazing institution.

But this isn't the end of my life story, and this it isn't the end of yours. This is only the beginning.

So whip our your long forgotten/ "forget it it's impossible" bucket list and carpe diem my friends, because we're just getting started here.