It’s hard to know exactly where to begin when I think about summing up the past few years of my life at SMU. So for starters, I’ll go back to where my mind was right before I began college.

It seems like just yesterday when the biggest concern of mine was where I’d being spending the next four years of my life in college. I grew up in Las Vegas, so for some reason my heart was always set on being in California…. It was a place close enough to home, yet, still not home. Yet, the second I visited SMU for my cousin’s graduation in May of 2010, I knew this was the place for me.

Well, three and a half years later , I can sit here and genuinely tell you and tell myself that there’s no other place I would have rather chosen to spend my college years than here in Dallas at SMU. 

From the amazing friends I’ve made, to the professors I’ve had the honor to learn from, to getting know the city of Dallas, SMU has opened up so many opportunities for me and has truly helped me grow as an individual and discover what I really want for myself out of life.

I could go on for hours about some of the amazing experiences I’ve had during my years at SMU, but if I had to sum up these last few years of my life in only a few words, I’d most likely say that SMU has helped me discover the kind of person I want to be in life.

I want to live a life of fulfillment. I want help others while bettering myself. I want to be successful, yet I’ve learned that success is relative… Success to me would entail living a life of happiness, and a happy life would entail living life to its fullest and never living in fear.

SMU has taught me the importance of overcoming my fears in order to achieve accomplishment. It’s taught me that failure is necessary and  helps to benefit a person’s path to success.

Overall, SMU has prepared me for the real world and I am so thankful for that. So, the biggest concern on my mind now… Figuring out where I want to spend the next chapter of my life in order to compare to my amazing years at SMU.