A Career in Education
I enjoy working with kids. I have babysat many times and I also work a lot with kids in the classroom at my church. I consider myself a kids person and have been told by so many people that kids just gravitate towards me and my energy. I love teaching and helping students grow academically. I participated in many little buddy programs in high school and loved helping them with their homework. Therefore, when I started my student teaching, I fell in love with the environment right away!
Choosing Mount Union
I knew of Mount Union because of family friends who had studied at the University, but had no clue where it was. My senior year of high school I got an email from Mount's throws coach, Fred Brickner asking me if I was interested in pursuing my throws career in college. I decided to come tour the campus in December of 2021 and fell in love with it! Mount Union is definitely my second home because it's smaller and reminds me a lot of my hometown. You see the same faces every day, but you can always find someone new to talk to. Everyone is very welcoming and so amazing to be around.
Overcoming Obstacles as a Student-Athlete
An obstacle that I've had to overcome to get to this point would have been during my senior year of high school. My senior track season didn't go the way that I wanted it to go. I made it to state for the second year in a row for shot put and discus, but sadly I did not place where I wanted to. I fell short of where I planned to be and barely threw anywhere near what I had been all season. I was mad and upset with myself and very disappointed in how I performed. When I got here my freshman year I didn't have any confidence in how I would perform. I was so hard on myself that when I qualified for indoor OAC's I performed horribly. I was so focused on perfecting and meeting everyone else's expectations that I had forgotten my own. However, by the time that outdoor OAC's rolled around I had finally realized that I only had to meet my own expectations and that being perfect wasn't worth beating myself up. Now, I can say that I am doing better at making sure that I am only meeting my own and not so worried about whether or not people see me as a failure. While it 's hard to keep reminding myself about that I'm still learning.