There are two highlights in my life, I feel made me mature into the person I am today. It was the difference between being an eighteen-year-old and a nineteen-year-old or learning about the person I could become with these opportunities: traveling and competing in the Miss America Scholarship Organization.
Through my experiences with competing in the Miss America Scholarship Organization in the Teen division for three years, I learned how to refine my interview skills, become a better performer onstage, maintaining the hard work I put behind my grades, and holding my composure in the spotlight. I learned numerous skills, especially the interview, that helped me become more prepared for adulthood. Not to mention, the time management and organization skills I learned when I would make appearances as Miss “XYZ” during the year. It also helped me to gain a better sense of community and become a public servant to increase awareness of my own platform, Diabetes Awareness.
When I first traveled by myself, I flew into LaGuardia Airport from Roanoke Regional Airport to go to New York City to stay with a friend for the weekend. It was a liberating feeling at eighteen, knowing I was abandoning a small town and my family and traveling to a big city all by myself. During the weekend, I was fairly on my own as well which helped me to adapt to being an adulthood. When I interned for Tim Kaine’s campaign for U.S. Senate, I moved immediately away from Roanoke and my family for an entire summer post-graduation and right before I moved to GMU. Every penny I made from owning my own company to working even before that was what I took with me to live off of for the summer. Also, moving to GMU and turning nineteen.. while living so close to DC has taught me even more about myself… I do not even want to consider what the next two-three years here will bring.
Chart one incorporates the time spent traveling to each destination and the sizable impact it held on my life. Obviously, GMU has the largest circle since it did have the largest impact on my life. The second chart revolves around how many times I tried for the specific title per year. Miss Virginia’s Outstanding Teen was the largest, because I tried for the title each year after I would win the local title.