The Full Story
About Me
Personal Background
I would describe myself as someone who enjoys tackling new experiences and problems, as well as someone who really values working with a team. For this reason, I enjoy interacting with new people. I am someone who cares about those around him and am willing to go the extra mile for my friends, family, and those around me. One of my most important sayings in life is, "go with the flow" which, to me, means not to stress about things that you can't do anything about and instead do the best you can with what you have.
In life, we go through moments that we will keep with us forever, which shape us into the type of person we want to eventually become. Below are 2 examples of experiences that have molded me into the type of person that I am today.
Life
Changing
Experiences
Childhood Sports
During my childhood my parents put me in a lot of sports, including: soccer, football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, swimming, and even gymnastics. To the left are a couple of my childhood sports pictures! Little did I know that they were cultivating a love of sports that I would keep with me forever.
Through sports I met many key important role models who I felt like have helped shape me, one being my football coach nicknamed Big T. Unfortunately, Big T passed away in 2018 from a heart attack, but he coached me from 2009-2012 and made our football team win 4 division championships. T taught me that no matter what you do, you must always try to persevere through the hard times. The quote from T that always sticks with me is, "even if you think you can't do it, there is someone out there who thinks you can" this quote gets me through hard times and encourage me to keep persevering.
Childhood sports are what fuels my love for working with kids and why overall I think we should start as early as we can to encourage kids to be as active as possible. The more active you are as a child and a younger person, the more active you continue to be.
College involvement
Being a First-Gen College student was hard for me at first. I didn't think I was going to go to college to being with. The high school that I came from wasn't the biggest high school and because I was in a very niche program I had been around the same 20 students my whole life in school. This didn't give me a lot of space to branch out, so I became bored and honestly quit a lot of the extracurriculars I had previously enjoyed.
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Then, when I came to college I was given the chance and ability to find myself. One of the most enjoyable programs I have been involved with at IUI is OTEAM. Without OTEAM I do not think I would be in this major or where I am at today. I didn't start at IUI as an Exercise Science student, but they believed in me and my dreams.
OTEAM is the team of people who run the orientations at IUI. Being on OTEAM was the best experience of my first year in college and I would recommend it to any person. Throughout this job I was able to help a gigantic amount of freshmen & their families apply for classes, enjoy their orientation, and feel secured in their future. I was also able to make new friendships, gain copious amounts of campus knowledge , and learn ways to be an effective mentor.
When I came to college it was hard to start getting involved, but through OTEAM I have found a passion for mentoring. This experience landed me into getting a more permanent position as a communication specialist for OTEAM and landed me a peer academic advising job (details on the experiences page).
Overall, my biggest take away from this experience is that sometimes you need to take a risk to find somewhere you belong and/or to find something you like.
