"UNOH Made My Dreams Come True"

Posted on Monday, May 04, 2020

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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

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UNOH Public Relations
 Email
 419-998-8854


Last updated: 05/04/2020