As a new Penn State student, life has completely shifted. In the past four days, I feel as though I’ve experienced every emotion. Sadness, excitement, nervousness, eagerness. As a shape into an adult, I look forward to navigating my way through the amount of freedom I have, but also the amount of responsibility I hold. Although adulting is exciting, something I have always been horrible at is public speaking. I get too in my head, my heart starts to pound, by voice breaks and my face turns bright red. Nothing I hate more, although, I hope to learn how to ease the nerves and have more confidence in my words.
Now that I am a college student, I quickly realized how different it is then High School. I am now sacrificing my time to put work into my academics and strive to exceed. I have also taken into consideration that the only person I have full control over is myself. Only I can push myself to be better, and only I can hold myself back. Some goals I have for myself are: managing my time to the best of my ability, not draining my brain too much, and finding a trustworthy friend group. By my third semester of my freshman year, I hope to hit the mark on all three.
Why am I at Penn State? What is my motivation? To put it simply, for my brother. Sloane Mooney, and previous Penn State student was a Criminal Justice major, an RA, and also volunteered in directing traffic and helping students around campus. When he came home from school, he would gift me all kinds of clothes from PSU and told me about his service and how much fun he’s having at college. From that point, I decided that Penn State was where I wanted to attend, and my decision never changed. Around Sloane’s sophomore year, he was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancerous brain tumor. He was forced to skip his junior year in place of chemo therapy. He survived, recovered, and returned to Penn State to finish his junior year. Soon enough, the cancer had crawled back, even more aggressive than before. It was then necessary that he had to drop out of college and do online school at West Chester University. He fought long and hard for two years, and lost. I am here at Penn State, to finish what Sloane couldn’t.
