Posted on Monday, May 04, 2020
UNOH Student Brianna Smallwood laughs with Torque
Written by Contributing Columnist Brianna Smallwood, Class of 2022
During my senior year in high school, my dreams were set on a completely different path in life than the path I am on now. One day, we had a guest speaker visit our class. His name was Bruce Patton and he came by to talk about a college I had never even heard of located an hour north of me in Lima, Ohio. His presentation, at first, didn’t affect me. I was set on just going to a community college near me. As Bruce was talking about UNOH, I was looking through the booklet he passed out and the college really caught my eye. I went and looked on the school website, explored a little bit and started to fall in love with UNOH. The guy I was dating at the time told me if I went away to school, that our relationship would be over. Being young, and not wanting to lose my connection with him, I immediately stopped looking into the school. Nevertheless, despite what he told me, UNOH was all I could think about. I talked with my parents and we started looking into the college more. Soon after, the relationship I was in ended for various reasons and the first thing I wanted to do was schedule a campus visit!
On my college visit, the campus felt perfect. I felt like I was meant to be at UNOH. It was my home away from home. While I was on tour, I ran into the softball coaches. After talking with the coaches, I scheduled another day to travel back to Lima to tryout for the team. When I came back for the second trip, I had already made my mind up – I was going to attend the University of Northwestern Ohio. Then after my tryout, I sealed the deal when I signed papers to play softball with the Racers. I was beyond excited for going and reaching my dreams of playing college softball.
The past three years at UNOH have really shaped me into who I am today. Starting out in 2017, I was shy, dependent, and unorganized, and I was afraid to step out of my comfort zone and take advantage of opportunities. Within three years at UNOH, all of those traits have changed. I have embraced almost every opportunity that came my way such as, volunteering at the MLB All-star game, the Cincinnati Redsfest, NFL Super Bowl LIV, plus and I applied and was admitted into the Racer Leader program. Because I took advantage of all these opportunities, I made so many connections, met so many new friends, and learned new skills I needed to know for my future career.
UNOH has helped me figure out who I am and shape me to be the person I always dreamed of being. I figured out what I want in life, what career I want to chase after, and most importantly, who I want in my life. These past three years have been, by far, the best three years of my life. I achieved so many goals and dreams. And I have two more years to achieve even much more as I wrap up my degree in Sport Marketing and Management and complete an additional degree in Digital Multimedia Design.
Thanks UNOH, for everything!
Category: Campus & Community, Business, Health, and Occupational Professions
Keywords: Brianna Smallwood