HC: What is your major/minor?
Melissa: My major is business management and my minor is psychology
HC: Your expected year to graduate?
Melissa: May 2018, and it’s not expected, it’s gonna happen.
HC: Are you leaning more towards grad school or going out and working?
Melissa: If I can keep my GPA so I can get at least 50% off tuition, then I’ll stay for grad school.
HC: What are your campus involvements?
Melissa: Right now I’m in DSP as a regular member, Society for Resource Management, Linked through Leadership, and I’m starting nonprofit called Empower by Design. I’ve kind of taken a step back this semester because I’m going on SIE so I have a very busy class load, and then on top of that I’m working about 30 hours a week. With that and family and home I had to tone back the involvements.
HC: What was your favorite experience at school so far?
Melissa: I like the Link Through Leadership programs and to pick just one moment would be really really difficult. I liked Change and I liked Learn, both for very different reasons. I feel like overall, though, it was not just about me learning more about myself but also seeing that you guys were learning more about yourselves. So like for me it felt hopeful that as I grow older and you guys are in charge of the world, that there’s actually hope that people still do care. I guess the epiphany moments that you guys have are like my favorite. The touchy feely moments are my favorite.
HC: Why did you come back to school?
Melissa: Because I got hurt. I got hurt in my backyard and I couldn’t walk 15 miles a night and be a retail manager like I was before. SO, while I was going through that whole healing process, I couldn’t walk for a very long time. I’m not somebody that can sit still and do nothing, so I started going back to school online through my local community college for a year and then when I was able to walk I transferred to Bryant.
HC: What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Melissa: When I was in highschool, I originally thought I wanted to be a physical therapist or a landscape architect. …I did neither. I garden, but that’s hardly making a landscape architect, and I’ve done enough physical therapy at this point! But I’m not dissapointed that I didn’t do what I thought I wanted do to.
HC: What advice would you give to students about to go out into the real world?
Make plans, but understand that there’s always going to be something that modifies it. Whether something happens, you have a change in heart, or someone lets you down. Those moments, they’re always going to happen and they’re going to interfere with whatever your goal is. Your personal goal should be to navigate through the adversity and realize that at the end of the day, as long as you navigated through it, it doesn’t matter whether you achieved that goal or not. It’s all about the lesson that you learned and your personal growth.