In the fall of 2013 I met with my high school counselor to talk about my future plans for one of the last times. I had met with her the previous year with not much of a plan in mind and so I was told to meet with her again. In this final meeting, I had told my counselor that I was going to be attending Taylor University for social work. Her response was the absolute opposite of what I was expecting; my counselor told me that I wouldn't make it. She told me that I would end up back in Missouri before the end of my first year and there was no way I could make it as a social worker. Let me break down these two statements.

In the town that I lived in, many of the residents were born and raised there and choose to stay around long after graduating. It is very much a family based town where you stay where you're planted, and there is nothing wrong with that. I though, moved there when I was 11 and did not think the same way. I wanted adventure, and I wanted to move out of a small town and into a place I'd never been. Secondly, what kind of person tells a student that he or she is going to fail at their career dream? The reasoning my counselor gave for telling me that I wouldn't make it, was because I was too soft-hearted and I would be chewed up and spit out. If anything, being soft-hearted makes me more qualified because it enables me to really be able to channel empathy, a key social work quality.

Now that I am finishing up my junior year at Taylor University in Indiana as a social work student, I just want to tell my counselor that she was wrong. I have never been happier and I have already finished one practicum where I was working as a social worker in the Bahamas. Not only did I find my adventure and successfully leave home, I am becoming the social worker that I knew I could be. I will never let anyone tell me I cannot do something, because I will defy all odds and do it, even if it is just to prove them wrong.