Total Life Update!

So I am not very good at updating this right now. Hopefully I get better at that as time goes on! A lot has happened since my last update…

OPE was absolutely amazing. I have seen pictures from OPE recently and it reminds me how much I miss it. Driving to OPE I was so incredibly nervous, but once I got there and got through my first interview I realized how much fun it was. OPE might be the only place where your "competition" claps and cheers for you as you get called back into your next interview. Everyone there interviewer and interviewee really wants you to succeed. It was a crazy couple of days and 29 interviews later, I am so glad that I went, that I did well and most of all that I wasn't nervous at all, just confident. Coming home from OPE was hard because I hated having to be patient to hear from schools. 
Going into OPE my top 3 schools were : 
1. Western Illinois
2. Ball State
3. Central Missouri
Coming out of OPE my top 3 schools were:
1. Texas A&M
2. Western Illinois
3. Nova Southeastern

On Friday evening, March 7th, I received a call from Texas A&M saying they would love to offer me an assistantship in the department of Residence Life as a Graduate Hall Director as well as a spot in their SAAHE program. I was absolutely stunned. I had not thought in my wildest dreams that they would accept me. The thing that still boggles my mind sometimes is that on average they get 400+ applications and they only accept 15 people a year, and they chose me. Once I was able to catch my breath while Kelli was telling me about their timeline for me to accept my offer and stopped the happy tears from flowing, I was overwhelmed. Not only had I gone to OPE and done well, I had been offered 2 on campuses (Western Illinois and Nova Southeastern), gained an acceptance to Florida International University, Missouri State and now to Texas A&M! My head was spinning at the outcome of OPE! I had my dream come true, to have my choice of where I wanted to go and what was best for me. 

After talking myself and my friends and family in circles over spring break about my decision, on Monday March 17th, I formally accepted my Texas A&M Offer. I couldn't be happier with my decision. I think it is exactly where I need to be in order to grow the most. 

Since then, I have completed all my 2013-2014 RA programs for the year, attended my very last staff meeting as an RA, and my final evaluation meeting is in 4 days. My year is basically over. I also received my senior spotlight letter written by a dear friend of mine on my staff. I swear I have been so lucky this year to have had the chance to work with some truly amazing individuals. I will miss them all, but I know we will all still be in each others lives! :)

Looking forward from here in the next couple weeks is the NRHH Banquet where I finally get my graduation cords, the RA Banquet and of course graduation with my very last RA duty night ever in their too. Thats all. This year is coming to a close incredibly quick but I'm trying to soak it all up before its too late. 

Some big life changes are coming in less than 105 days. I don't know if I'm ready for this cross country move, but I'm going whether I'm ready or not! Should be an exciting time for me coming up. I've worked so hard to get to this point and it is paying off big time. So thankful for my never wavering support system of friends and family! :)

To OPE and beyond!

I am overwhelmed with interview offers right now, however, I am proud to say that my first grad school acceptance letter came yesterday. I got accepted to Florida International University! This is good news, but also overwhelms me and stresses me out at the same time. 

It is so incredibly nice to feel so wanted by so many Universities because I know that not everyone is having the success that I am. However, it puts that much more pressure on me to be an amazing candidate during the interview processes. Thankfully enough though, I have an amazing support system of family, friends, coworkers and mentors! I'm blessed by all of them. 

My ONEWORD 365 was confidence. This word is something that I am striving to exemplify in my daily life, but I know that I still have far to go, which is okay because it is only February 5. 

Rambling Thoughts

I welcomed in 2014 with open arms. This is the year I finally get my Bachelors degree and hopefully start work on my Masters degree. Today I officially have my first OPE interview scheduled, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. They have some things I really like about their program and offerings and somethings I wish were a bit different but I'm going to interview anyway. The only big downfall they have is that if I get offered an assistantship, I have to take the GRE in order to be in their program since I haven't taken it. I haven't scheduled an interview with Central Missouri yet, but I know I will have one. The University of North Dakota contacted me today to interview with them as well so who knows. 

I hope that in the coming weeks, the schools I applied to begin to let me know if I have done well enough to be selected for an interview with them. As for the time between now and then I have come to the conclusion that I need to work out what is most important to me and what my non negotiables are. Is the most important thing location? Stipend? Health insurance? Start date? Assistantship? These are only some of the items I've been looking at throughout this process. 

Good luck to everyone who is going through this process with me or anyone who will go through it soon.