Well, it’s that time of the year again. The holidays have come and gone, winter is now in full swing and school is back in session. Come every January, college students around the globe say farewell to their parents, grandparents, childhood friends, cousins and everyone else they’ve known to head off to another three months of collegiate adventure.

Isn’t it weird? Living in two places back and forth each season for four years. It’s almost bittersweet, simultaneously enjoying the warmth of your home and frequent calls from your mom intertwined between the cold fear and excitement of independence and exploration all while living on your own. How interesting it is, that so many people choose to move on from the comfort they’ve grown to know and love to pursue a track that has never been explored and may never be ventured again.

Every morning the sun rises, and we are afforded the opportunity of a brand new day. Each day. we all mark a trail that is uniquely our own. Each path is linked solely to the one marking it. Each road is so specific to the life of the person leading it, that it has little impact on any other, yet is vital to its creator.

How amazing is it that we are able to follow our dreams, through the coldest winter, the hottest summer, across states, countries, even continents to do whatever we aspire to do? January is that time of the year when dreams begin to flourish once more for students of any age. How phenomenal is it that nothing, not ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, race, social, or economic class can stop us from following our dreams?

As you sit in your class, no matter if it is math, science, language or art; whether it be your first semester in this small world we call college or your last step in completing the educational journey of a lifetime, I ask that you remember the power you have.

As students of the world, we are also stewards of the world who are each offered a so genuinely, unique and important opportunity to alter the world. The decisions we make will be not only ours to bear, but those of our children and their posterity to come. You have the power to change the land in which we all live. You have a spark in you that can only be made brighter.

No one but you can control the future you paint, the paths you take, and the change you make in every life you encounter. We each have the power to make the world of our dreams a reality. We have the ability to work to be the change we wish to see in the world and I challenge you to do just that.