As a child, I remember saying what most children say: “I can’t wait to grow up!”. Being a kid, as trying as it seems when you’re ten years old, is the easiest part of life. You don’t have any major responsibilities, nor any bills to pay, or jobs to go to. It’s an easy life of dodgeball and multiplication tables. A life that I sometimes yearned for during my last four years of college. There were nights when I would be so incredibly sick of doing projects, and building websites, and figuring out the complexities of algebraic equations and the pythagorean theorem (I was never that great at math…).

However, no matter how much easier that life appeared, it was always critical to remind myself of the life that I’ve created for myself. I’m now a graduate of a school that taught me much more than how to create a website — I was taught how to communicate with others, how to compromise when clients were unwilling to, how to choose typography and color that complemented each other, how to be the best designer I could possibly be, and above all, how to appreciate what I have. I’m a twenty-two year old college graduate with her bachelor’s degree; I’m healthy, albeit slightly overweight (in part due to stress, and partly due to a poor diet for much of my college career); and I also have an incredible support system without whom I would not be here today.

For all of that I am eternally grateful.

I think one of the hardest struggles for a lot of people in the last academic year of college, because it starts to hit home that it’s almost over. The end is nearing and we’re soon going to be expected to figure out what we want to do and who we want to be — and for a lot of people, that is difficult. Not for me, though.

Over the last year, I have slowly come to the conclusion that I don’t want to do what I’ve spent the last few years of my life doing. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy what I do, because I enjoy it quite a bit. It’s that I’ve decided that I want to be more than just another twenty-something that sets out into the big bad world with a backpack full of dreams. I want to be part of the something bigger.

I want to join the United States Air Force and serve my country.

Upon coming to that conclusion, I have frequently been asked questions, such as “Why would you want to do that?”, or “Oh, that’s surprising…”, and even the occasional “You want to throw away the last four years?”.

I most certainly do not. I think that the last four years has helped guide me to this point in time. If I hadn’t gone through everything that I’ve gone through, who knows if I would even want to join the military? Nothing is guaranteed. I do know that I am one of a small percentage of Americans that is even willing to sacrifice some of my own freedoms in order to protect the freedoms of others, and that I take great pride in knowing that I will be protecting my loved ones. I intend to do everything in my power to achieve my dreams, and this is the avenue that I have chosen to do so.

As a child, I had a great admiration for those in uniform that kept us out of harm’s way, but I never thought that someday I would want to join them. But I do, more than anything. Now, as an adult having reached a high level of education and deciding what I want to do with my future, I am no longer one of the wandering few that has to figure out what they want to do. I know where I’m headed, and what I have to do to get there.

I am proud of myself and all of my fellow graduates of the Class of 2014.