When I first applied to colleges, the University of Mary Washington was not on my list. It wasn’t until right before the May 1^st deadline that I applied. I had applied to 19 colleges and suddenly I decided that I didn’t want to go to any of 16 I had gotten into. None of them were right. I had applied to them with the intentions of being an art major and I came to the realization that I no longer wanted to be an art major. With the help of my mother and my counselor, I applied to two more colleges: Longwood University and University of Mary Washington.

Mary Washington had me do a phone interview with someone in the admissions office before applying. Longwood said that I could just apply. Within a week I had been accepted into Longwood and was waiting to hear from Mary Washington. Being the slightly impatient woman I am I emailed Mary Washington and asked if there was any way they could let me know, whether formally or informally, what the decision was as I needed to get back to Longwood soon. Two hours later I had my answer. I had been accepted!

Back row, on the left, third person in.

Four years later I don’t completely regret my decision. My freshman year I participated in New Experiences for Students Transitioning or NEST (see picture above). Little did I know when I signed up for the program that it would change my life for the better. I, along with 68 other incoming students, moved in before the rest of our class and were all divided into small groups with a student leader (a participant from the previous year). My student leader, Lukas, was great. He was more than willing to deal with the craziness that turned out to be his group. I made new friends and had a lot of fun.

The next year I was a Student Leader and guided a group of seven Nestees (our nickname for those who participated) through the program. The next two years I took on a different role: I was one of three Program Coordinators. Together we created the program for the next year. We planned the event; picked where we would go each day, assigned students to groups, helped with the registration, and planned meals. Along with meeting a lot of new and wonderful people, NEST also lead me to the job I am at today.

Since October of 2016 I have worked in the Center for Honor, Leadership, and Service. I continued my work with NEST until a few months ago when I passed the responsibility on to someone else. But enough about that.

When I came to Mary Washington my intent was to be an English major. At one point I still dabbled with the idea of being an art major, but after one art class and two art history classes I determined I had made the right decision to not be an art major. Sometime during my sophomore year, I came across information about the Women’s and Gender Studies major (WGST) and in May I will graduate as a Women's and Gender Studies major and a Sports Management minor.

Nineteen colleges and three majors later, I can say that I do not completely regret the path that I have taken. There were many, many bumps along the way (a roommate fiasco freshman year, another one junior year, a friend group fiasco junior year, advising fiascos freshman and beginning of sophomore year…the list goes on), but I know that as cheesy as it sounds, everything happened for a reason. For example, without the advising fiascos I would not have selected a random adviser for spring advising sophomore year. If I hadn’t picked a random adviser, then I may have still been an English major. During that advising meeting I mentioned that I was considering majoring in WGST and she contacted the department chair who contacted me, we had a meeting, and thirty minutes later I was signing a major declaration form.

There continued to be bumps in the road, but the more I reflect on them, the more I realize that I am where I need to be and that I will make it through all of the future bumps that may occur. I have made friends and lost friends. I have tried new things (like rugby), hated other things (like math class at 8:30 a.m.), and learned a lot of things. All in all, I have grown a lot in the last four years and I wouldn't be who I am today had I followed the original path I set out on.