I am a planner. I like to know what my schedule looks like for the day, week, and month ahead of time. It is safe to say that my color-coordinated iCalendar and three agendas – which have every obligation, assignment or errand I need to run – are my most dear possessions. Whether it is breaking my next day down by minutes, planning my academic and extracurricular goals, or revising my extensively researched 1, 3, or 5 year plan, I am always looking ahead. Due to this part of my personality, I find that I am someone who places emphasis on the importance of foresight and preparedness. My tennis coach in high school always told us that “success is when opportunity meets preparedness.”

However, I would not contribute all success to being obsessed with planning ahead or meticulously spending hours researching every opportunity out there that would benefit my career goals. Almost all of my most enriching and rewarding experiences have come about by accident or due to “my plans falling through.” I believe that being flexible, trusting yourself and going into everything with an open mind and open heart is essential to success.

For example, this summer I had the experience of a life-time, when I spent 5-weeks living and interning abroad for U21 Social Entrepreneur Corps in Guatemala. The first thing that I could tell you about my decision to study abroad and work in Guatemala, is that I did not plan for it. I have no prior Spanish speaking experience; I was planning on travelling to Rishikesh, India with UConn Empower in the upcoming winter and also had applied to two competitive public health research internships for the summer. It was not something that I had included in my 4 year plan at UConn. I simply read an email from the Honors Program asking for applications from students who wanted to study abroad in Central America for a four-week program smack in the middle of summer. Interested in seeing if the program would be beneficial to one of my UConn Empower members, Continue reading →