I'm a rising Junior at the University of South Carolina from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina studying Civil Engineering.

During my time at USC, I've gotten involved with Pillars for Carolina, The Fort Club, the Close Family Emerging Leaders Program, Capstone Scholars, and am employed as a Leadership and Service Advocate for the Leadership and Service Center.

Being a Capstone Scholar, I attended many Hot Cookie Fridays and become closer with the Capstone community, which was tremendously beneficial during my first semesters at school. Additionally, it gave me the opportunity to take the Capstone Scholars Leadership Program course, where I developed valuable leadership skills that enabled me to start The Fort Club on campus.

Before starting my Capstone Scholars experience, I was a student who was afraid to get involved beyond what was necessary for me to reach my goals in high school. I came into college knowing I wanted to change that, but not knowing how or what the best route for me to do that was. All I was certain of was that I wanted my college experience to be more than solely academics. Being in Capstone presented me with a lot of opportunities to get involved on and around campus that made that process a lot easier on me. Very early I redefined what success would look like for my next 4 years, understanding that the only way I could consider my experience successful was if I found ways to branch out of my comfort zone. That started early, as I made efforts to go to Hot Cookie Fridays, Residence Hall Association Events, and events hosted by my Resident Mentor thanks to the ease of access I had to them. Even so, there were a lot of events and experiences that I passed up on. But looking back, I can see a difference in my attitude towards missing those events. In high school, I would've made an active choice to miss out on things like tubing down the Congaree or Service Saturdays, but pretty early into my first semester in Capstone, these were things that I either wanted to do or seriously considered signing up for, but couldn't find a way to squeeze into my schedule. By the end of my Freshman year, my approach to getting involved and making an effort beyond academics had completely changed for the better, which has ultimately found me an enthusiastic student in all facets of life at USC. All of these new experiences have helped me build up a lot of confidence over the last 2 years, leading to me living on my own for the summer of 2024 completing my first engineering internship in Charleston, SC.