I have always been an ambitious person. When I was younger, you would always see me playing some sport or in some type of performance.

I had big dreams for myself that started at a young age. When you are younger everyone tells you to chase your dreams, but once you get to a certain age it's like everyone expects you to stop dreaming big. When I used to say I wanted to be President someday, everyone would smile and say "go for it honey", but now whenever I talk about doing something just a little outside of the norm, I get those disappointing stares.

I have been contemplating on careers for as long as I can remember. When I was seven, I wanted to be a doctor. When I was twelve, I wanted to be an actress. When I was fourteen, I thought I decided on becoming a teacher. Then when I was sixteen, I decided to go to a career-technical program in my district for two years to pursue a dental assisting career.

During this time, I decided that this is finally it. I was going to be in the dentistry field my entire life and I was okay with that.

I loved being a dental assistant. I had a great instructor who taught me a lot, not just about dental assisting but also life. After a few months, she taught us about specialties and one really stuck out to me, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

I was immediately intrigued by this field.

I spent my entire junior year with the mindset of spending the next nine years to become a surgeon. My family thought it was risky to spend all this time and money, but in the end, they thought I would be successful and continued to support me.

As a Junior, we also spent time at The Ohio State College of Dentistry of our clinical period. We spent a total of 24 hours assisting the students with dental procedures. I loved it. I was nervous at first because these were actual patients and one wrong move would embarrass me to death. For the first two days I assisted with regular procedures, but then past that, I started being assigned to the Emergency Department.

My favorite aspect of this was you never knew what you were going to get. It would range from removals to a root canal. I felt even more confident in my skills to actually continue my education and do this for a living.

I started applying to colleges that summer to continue my education and ultimately become an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon.

As Senior year approached, I was feeling ready to graduate and get my certification for dental assisting. We were preparing for the eight-hour exam we would take prior to graduation to determine if the past two years gave us the certification we needed.

It was a few months into senior year that I started exploring sports. I had always been a huge sports fan mostly inspired by my stepfather. Whether it was football, basketball, hockey or even NASCAR, I was always interested. I had started getting involved in social media a few years prior but really had a burst in followers that year after being featured on MTV with the cast of Teen Wolf. Being involved in something huge like that definitely had me second guessing if I truly wanted to continue with dental assisting.

In November 2014, I attended a day with the Columbus Blue Jackets meeting the ones behind the magic, including the social media team. As they explained their job and duties, I found myself more and more interested.

My peers were more focused on figuring out where we would go for dinner prior to the game while I was asking questions about how to get involved. My teachers even expressed to me how nice it was for me to be showing so much interest.

I continued to research opportunities like this. I knew I was good at the social media aspect and I definitely kept up with sports a lot more than others my age, let alone my gender. Then I started wondering, why not? I had nothing to lose. Sure, I spent the past two years studying a completely different field, but it was not like I was already completing college courses. This was still high school, the time where you are supposed to decide what you want to be.

When I sat my family down and explained to them that I would not be continuing with dental assisting, they immediately asked why. When I explained to them I wanted to study sports they were confused and asked why.

So I explained to them the exact same thing that I had been explaining to myself, that this was my dream. I had started to think that dreaming was off limits and I had to choose a steady career, but that is wrong. I can still dream like the little girl I used to be, but this time the dream actually has a reality of happening.

So here I sit, a full-time student with a full-time job and a passion growing every day to work in the sports industry. I have developed my photography skills over the past few years and now have even been featured on several athletes Instagram pages. Being a woman seeking a career in the sports media industry can definitely be scary, but I have no fear. Because I know I can do this.