College is the time in your life when you finally get to make decisions for yourself, and one of the those decisions is what you plan on studying to later get a career in the field of your choice.

When coming to the University of New Haven, I planned to study communications and photography so that I could later become a photo journalist. However while that was my initial choice, it opened the door to so many amazing opportunities that I never could have expected.

I have studied abroad in one of the most beautiful countries (Iceland) for photography and photojournalism. I might be biased because that is the only country outside the United States that I have visited, but it truly and surreally is beautiful. It gave me a medium to work with that I would have never been able to predict or expect to receive in a classroom. It has further interested me in pursuing a career in travel writing and photography, because I am sure there are many more beautiful places in this world outside of Iceland.

Now I am welcoming my newest adventure. While I am staying in the U.S. for this one, I am just as excited about it. I knew I wanted to start writing for the school’s newspaper when I first arrived as a freshman. In addition to it being one of the many steps along the path to later becoming a journalist, it has strung the right chord, not only in preparing me for the future but truly finding what I love to do. I will be the Assistant Editor of the Charger Bulletin next year, and this is a risk I am more than willing to take.

This position will be challenging and it will be hard, but most of all it will be fun. I look forward to my late nights of putting a paper together for the study body at UNH. I encourage everyone to welcome a challenge. Make something that is easy just a little more complex, simply because it will test you. When you see that you can overcome that, you will soon see that you are more talented than an A on a test could ever prove to you.

Sliding by is fine for high school. But we are all in college now, and it is the time to take risks, welcome challenges, and either fail miserably or succeed to great lengths you never thought possible. I promise that if you want something bad enough, you can achieve it; personally, getting the Assistant Editor position is proof of that