It is an honor to be nominated for the 2010 Outstanding Senior Award. I began my career at Kennesaw State University in the summer of 2007 as a Modern Language and Culture, Spanish major. I was a non-traditional student in my mid-thirties, who decided to make a career change and return to college. I knew that I wanted to do something that I loved and be able to help people in my community at the same time. Having a family and working at the same time as being a fulltime student was more than a struggle, however my education and the experiences I had at KSU will remain with me forever. Along the way I volunteered on a regular basis at my son’s school, volunteered at a nursing home teaching a resident basic Spanish, attended a town hall/community meeting with two professors and my family in the hopes of helping to bring two groups of residents together, presented at the Latin American Symposium in Birmingham, Alabama in April of 2009, presented at the KSU Student Scholar presentations that same month, studied abroad in Ecuador during the summer of 2009, was named on the Dean’s List and President’s List multiple semesters, was inducted into Sigma Delta Pi, National Spanish Honor Society, and was the recipient of several scholarships including the Mary Jo Isakson Scholarship, the Anne Greider Dean Scholarship, the Global Learning Study Abroad Scholarship, the Arliene M. and Glenn R. Bergert Scholarship, and the Hope Scholarship. I was determined from the beginning to graduate with honors, however there were many times I did not think it was possible. With the many challenges (and there were many), plenty of hard work, enthusiasm, devotion, inspiration, and wonderful examples that all of my professors in the Foreign Language Department set for me, I was able to fulfill my goal. I graduated Sigma Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA on December 15, 2009.