How Olivia Achieved Her Goal—Or Didn't?

Sometimes a goal can be to find goals. This is true for a freshman at Penn State named Olivia Martinez. Coming to Penn State, her goal was to find her passion or passions and then pursue them. She had spent the last eighteen years of her life unsure of exactly what it was that she absolutely loved what she would want to do with the rest of her life. In a large university such as Penn State, the possibilities are truly endless.

As nearly everyone, Olivia wasn't new to community service coming into college. Also, community service is a large part of nearly everyone's experience at Penn State because of the largest student held philanthropy event called THON. It is incredible to be a part of raising money for Four Diamond families. Olivia went above and beyond when it came to THON and applied and joined a THON committee—Rules and Regulation. Right from the beginning she was dedicated to her goal of finding where her passions lay. From her past experience with community service and from what she had heard of THON, she knew almost instantly that it would become one of her passions. This did become and reality and she hopes to move up in her committee in the future, further pursuing one of her passions. Community service was not the only activity she pursued, however.

Coming in to college, Olivia knew she wanted to go into business, but she had no sense of where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do with business. Feeling unsatisfied with figuring out a major based on courses she liked or disliked, she decided to join Women in Business in the fall of her freshman year. Her intention was to learn more about different fields and hopefully find the one that she was most interested in. Since joining Women in Business, she has attended countless company information sessions to learn about different business sectors and discover which she was most interested in. Still yearning more professional advice, just this semester she rushed a business fraternity—Alpha Kappa Psi. During the pledging process, she has attended even more company information sessions as well as spoken with countless brothers about each sector of business to discover which fit most with her interests. Even though she hasn't yet settled on anything, she is not planning on continuing to look for her passions that she plans to pursue in the near future. However, it was not always easy for her.

For her, the most difficult part of talking with recruiters and brothers were taking what they had to say with a grain of salt. She had trouble at times remembering that they are bias toward their field or work or study. She said that some people would try to force you to go into a certain direction and that she was the type of person that if someone told her that they thought she would be a good fit for a certain area then she would lean towards that area even if it wasn't something she wanted to do. It also worked in the opposite scenario. If sometime told her she would not be a good fit for a certain area, she would start believing them and changing her own opinion. So basically her setback was paying too much attention to what others were telling her rather than just listening to herself. It is important to listen to what others have to say, but do not let it compromise your own values and aspirations. This is what can be taken away from Olivia's experience. 

Everyone can learn from Olivia's path to success by understanding that talking with people older than you can be very helpful and beneficial toward your own success. However, you have to remember to be confident in yourself and weed out the biases. This is just helpful tip toward anyone achieving their goals.