• #BearsOfBaylor — “It’s probably just God taking you a different way than you’re expecting…”

    “There were several times I was thinking I was never gonna make it to graduation, because I was struggling. I kept pushing, and calling my dad crying because I was stressed out. You just gotta keep going, no matter what… I think it was my first year, spring semester. I hadn’t really found my group to hang out with, and I was just really with my roommate. She rushed into a sorority, so she found her group, and I had less time hanging out with her. So I was in the room a lot. [My fiancé] was going to Texas State, so I wasn’t able to see him. My classes were getting harder, and I wasn’t doing too well. I was going to tutoring, trying my hardest, and I just couldn’t get my grades to where they should have been. But then [my fiancé] started playing quidditch at Texas State, so then I joined the quidditch team here, just to see each other! And I fell in love with the team; they became my closest friends. So I had the best years because of them. Things practically changed because I had a support group. We got to go out and do things. I wasn’t just stuck in my room. It wasn’t even big things. We’d go to someone’s house and just play games and talk and have fun together. …

    “I did my internship with the VETS program… My mom, she’s former military for the Air Force… If the world was perfect, I would be able to come back to Baylor and help out the veterans here. With the internship, I was so happy being able to meet all them and help them out through the smallest things. We planned events for them to meet each other. One of the girls actually had an arrow to her knee during the war, so she got medically discharged and she has trouble walking now. I was able to help her get connected with OALA and take the golf carts around. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known about it. She wouldn’t have had that opportunity. I actually had to push her a little bit, because with military vets, they want to do it on their own. I was like, ‘There’s things to help you!’”

    [Any advice for the students who follow you here?]
    “Just don’t give up on dreams… Even though it doesn’t look like you’re going that way to meet your dream, it’s probably just God taking you a different way than you’re expecting… There are so many different things that God has in place for us, and you just never know what He has in store for you. So just keep on going, no matter what.”

    #BearsOfBaylor

    [Every Baylor Bear has a story; #BearsOfBaylor brings those stories to you, one by one. These stories, these people… This is our Baylor.]