Closing in on Graduation Take II

      There have been some pretty significant changes in my life over the past couple months. You all know how I took that internship last Winter where I took the semester off from classes and moved back East to work from the office in Ann Arbor. The internship was with Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting. Thomson Reuters is an informational solutions company that resides under an umbrella of different industries. TR has branches in Tax and Accounting, Finance, Health Care, Media, etc. You may be familiar with Yahoo News? Or Reuters News? That's us! It's not my specific department, but same company. I hadn't realized, prior to starting my internship, the magnitude of this opportunity. All I could see were the dollar signs in my eyes and the potential to boost up my resume. But now it is clear that this internship has given me a foot in the door to an amazing company. TR is located in over 100 countries world-wide with endless possibilities of job types.
      So, I started the internship in December of 2011 and in just a little over four months, it was over! They offered me a full-time position, but I had school to finish up so I knew I had to decline. However, instead of turning down the position outright, I made a few adjustments to the offer and turned it back around on them. I asked them if I could continue working as a part-time employee while still taking classes. However...instead of working from the office in Ann Arbor, if I could work from my apartment in Grand Rapids. The idea traveled through a series of meetings with HR before finally being approved as a second internship. I was ecstatic!
      I continued my internship all the way through the summer where I then applied for a full-time position, based on part-time hours, still working away from the office. To my surprise, I got the job offer! So, since October, I have been working as a true Thomson Reuters employee out of my home, while still enrolled as a full-time student. I was able to do all of this while being paid a salary! I've even opened up a 401(k) to start putting away for my future. I have to say, the extra income has been so good to me, yet sadly, I don't have much money in my savings to show for it. I'm still working on that bit.
      Despite my failure to save money over the past few months, I am finally forcing myself to cut back on my unnecessary spending for an upcoming trip. It's not just any old trip, really. It's an experience. I have been officially accepted to the GVSU Study Abroad Program! Ladies and Gents....I'm going to the United Kingdom!!! It's going to be a tight fit with my work schedule. I'm going to have to use almost my entire year's worth of paid-time-off, but I'm going to make this work! I am so unbelievably excited.
      So this brings me back to classes..and graduation. A few posts ago I told you guys that I had registered for my final year of classes...which I had. Until I decided that one major wasn't enough. I have selected a second major and decided upon a fifth year of college!  I've missed out, a lot, on the things I wish I would have done socially during my college experience. It's nobody's fault but my own and nobody's job to fix it, but my own. So here I am, making up for lost time during my final (my true final) year at GVSU. I thought I had missed my chance to study abroad by taking that internship. I thought I had reduced my chances of meeting new people by taking this job, heavy on the work hours and light on the social aspect. But that's not the case at all! This is the one life I have been given and it means too much to me to let myself travel down a path that leads to regrets later in life. I'm going on this study abroad trip, which not only will fulfill one of my biggest dreams...but will also bring me closer to a group of people whom I cannot wait to meet!
      Travelling to a new country will open my eyes on so many levels. Of course, it will bring out another part of me I never knew I had. It will provide me with stories and memories I can take with me for the rest of my life. It will teach me how to adapt, to learn on the fly and to live true to myself. But it will also give me a bigger scope of the world, introducing me to new people, new lands, and new cultures. I cannot wait to just be there!!
      Well, it will take me five years to graduate from this place. This place that I have learned to call home. This place that has taught me the most important lessons of my life. This place that has helped me grow and shaped my perspective. Most people aim to graduate in four years. But most people don't graduate in four years with an internship that lead to a full-time position before graduation, as well as fit in a study abroad trip. In five years, I will have managed to take a semester off for my internship, study abroad, and walk away with two bachelor's degrees. I'd say that's a job well done.
     I raise my glass to you, year five. We are going to have one hell of a time.