Welcome! My name is Taylor, and my journey here at Longwood University has been quite the adventure. Freshman year was full of surprises, new friends, and amazing opportunities. Rooming with the freshmen of the Women’s golf team was a fun experience that introduced me to many other student athletes. I expanded my social circle even more when I continued to meet other honors students and students in Greek life. As a freshman, I started my educational path in the pre-Athletic Training field. There, I met more athletes and other honors students with the same ideals as myself!
Second semester freshman year, I joined the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority and found my life long sisters. The Greek community has expanded my horizons in many ways such as leadership, scholarship, and community service. Furthermore, I applied to and was accepted into the Longwood Athletic Training Program. This was the most stressful and anxiety inducing interview of my entire life. Athletic Training is my ultimate passion, and I have no idea what I would do without it. I am truly grateful to have been accepted and to continue my studies in this field.
Sophomore year brought more growth in my social and academic life. Learning how to balance sorority life and athletic training was a very wholesome experience that made me better at time management and planning out my daily activities. I was voted into Vice President of Chapter Wellness in Alpha Gamma Delta, and that has been one of my greatest accomplishments in Greek life. I was able to bring my sisterhood closer together every day with different events and sisterhood retreats throughout the year. Furthermore, as I grew in my leadership experiences, I would also grow in my academic achievements. I continued to learn more and more each semester from my athletic training professors as I prepare to enter the field of sports medicine after college.
Half way through my second semester sophomore year, I, along with many other students around the world, had an incredibly unique educational experience. Unfortunately, we had to navigate through the difficulties of a worldwide pandemic on top of every day stressors of learning and growing. I honestly think the pandemic brought me more than it took away from me. It brought me closer to my real friends who kept in touch through the long distance, and it introduced me to online learning. Junior year was a lot to navigate on its own, but new experiences through the pandemic helped me improve my knowledge of not only athletic training but of myself as well. My clinical placement all of junior year was at Hampden Sydney College, and I learned a lot from that place. I learned how to deal with my anxieties and become a better version of myself. Although it beat me down while I was going through it, I can look back on it and appreciate my junior year for teaching me about how to take better care of myself.
Senior year seemed to fly by. I tried to make the most of my senior year, as much as I could, considering I lost an entire year and a half of normal activities due to COVID-19. I would say that I improved on my anxiety immensely in the first semester, and ten times that in the second semester. This is important to me because I am finally beginning to enjoy my profession again. Senior year has given me the confidence to make decisions that I have always been hesitant about. I got to experience an incredible internship second semester with the University of Richmond’s men’s and women’s basketball teams. I also took my Board of Certification exam to become an athletic trainer AND got accepted into an online graduate school! Overall, I am eager to graduate and begin a job while simultaneously taking graduate classes. I am so grateful for all that Longwood has given me, and I would not be the person I am today without it.