Letter to My Teenage Self

Letter+to+My+Teenage+Self

Hi there,

I hope this letter leaves you thinking a different way than when you first started reading this.

By now the only thing that seems important is getting straight A’s, playing volleyball, getting involved in almost every club, performing on stage, having a large group of friends, having a boyfriend, and graduating with a good GPA.

Little did I know that I was rushing away from my high school career, I started looking at colleges when I was a sophomore and committed to a college at the end of my sophomore year. Crazy right! At this point, the only thing in my mind was to keep getting straight A’s, remaining active in clubs and organizations, and running for almost every club that I could to become Treasurer. ​

I knew when I was a freshman that I loved math and wanted to either be an accountant or an accounting teacher. One of my inspirations was Mrs. Bushey the way she taught people and the way she interacting with her students really showed me how fun it could be to be a teacher. She inspired me to join Future Educators of America where I decided to help tutor 5th-grade math. I was so scared to step out of my comfort zone and teach these 5th graders. I thought, what if I didn’t know how to explain something well enough for them to learn? Instead of believing in myself to overcome my fears I backed out instead of trying again.

I wish my high school self would not have been so afraid of what people thought about me.

In high school, I walked the halls knowing that people talked about me and that they judged every move that I made. Sometimes you just have to keep moving even when it’s hard. Ever been around a group of people that you have known your whole life, but you feel intimidated to go up and say hi? If I could go back and just stick up for myself and say hi I guarantee that I wouldn’t be so shy and quiet as I am today.

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Don’t let other people put you down just because you weren’t “popular” enough to be in their group. To be honest, you will probably never see them or talk to them after graduating from high school.

Secondly, I know you play some type of sport or do it outside of school and that is great. I encourage staying active but I would not let sports outplay your grades. If I could have done things differently I would have better managed my time. Instead, I was a-part of a few clubs, enrolled in the school musical, sang in the choir, and played volleyball. However, I wish I would have realized that giving your all for a sport isn’t entirely everything.  I played volleyball for 6 years, 2 years of which I had severe concussions where my performance wasn’t so great that I missed some school, started slacking on work, and got myself in a very dark place.

Part of the reason for the concussion is because I hated missing practice and I didn’t know how important it was to heal when something was wrong. Now I suffer from headaches almost daily and have a hard time remembering some things. If I would have just taken time to let the concussions run its course rather than rushing around because I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to get recruited in college.

​Getting recruited isn’t everything I personally was going to college to focus strictly on my career and then was planning on joining some sports team from there.

​I was going crazy from not being active that I tried cross country and I absolutely loved it. I wished that when I was in high school that I didn’t dread running the mile in gym class because I would have definitely seen my potential in high school if I would have given it a shot. If you are interested in something to go for it, just because your friends aren’t doing it doesn’t mean you’re not “cool”.

Looking at colleges I wanted to start fresh and not be around the same people that I see for the past 13 years so I decided to move to Pittsburgh and attend a small Catholic college called La Roche College. Probably haven’t heard of it, but I found it by going to a job fair down in Pittsburgh. Probably one of the best decisions I have ever made was so I could start over to where I can be myself and not follow anybody else footsteps.

​Since being in Pittsburgh I have had 9 jobs throughout college that included tutoring, work study, Pittsburgh Steeler Marketing Ambassador, and three accounting internships. I know I talked about managing my time better, but I promise once you get started getting busier it makes managing your time so much easier.

I graduated from my undergrad a semester early and went immediately into my Masters of Accountancy. I recently graduated this past December and I started at one of the Big 4 Accounting Firms in Pittsburgh as a Tax Associate.

I vividly remember sitting in Senior Seminar where we were asked to write down where our dream job would be and why we wanted to work there. I researched on Google, Big 4 Accounting Firms in Pittsburgh and I jokingly said, “I can dream can’t I?”

​Goes to show if you take things seriously and work your butt off you can do anything.

I will leave you here with your dreams are never too big if you take baby steps towards achieving them. Don’t let others pull you back just because they aren’t doing it too. It’s certainly not the end of the world to fall a couple steps back to get back on your feet and restart if you didn’t like the journey it was taking you.

It only gets better from here.