“I knew it would be stressful to come to college. In my late teens I had a lot of anxiety. I had some depression issues, some health issues that were going on. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a long time. I felt like if I didn’t have a clear purpose, I wasn’t going to do very well in college. So I just waited and waited, and the wait got longer. But finally I just decided I wanted to do it. I wanted to expand my horizons.
“Through Lee College’s Honors Program, I’ve been able to take a lot of my papers to academic conferences and present them. It was a challenge. It was a big challenge. When I was first doing presentations, the biggest thing was that I had to speak up. They said I’m not loud enough, they can’t hear me, I seem too nervous. I would just get horribly, horribly nervous. But it’s such a great opportunity to be able to present your work, that I kept doing it. My work was good enough that they always wanted me to go to these conferences. So I’ve kept it up, and it’s gotten easier over time.
“I think it’s easier now for me to talk to people. It’s never super easy, but I feel a lot less nervous than I used to. And I’ve gotten a lot better about ignoring the nervousness that I do feel. It doesn’t mean that it’s gone away. But it doesn’t impede my life the way it might have in the past.”
— Emily Blumentritt, 25
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