Liz '10, English (concentration in Creative Writing)
Librarian. Fearless failure-facer. Joyful learner.
How does the prop you brought represent you?
The prop I brought represents me in a few ways. I’m a librarian, so we deal with not just books, but facilitating learning, and gathering information. More granularly, The Hobbit was my absolute favorite book growing up, and helped foster my wild imagination, and my love for fantasy and adventure stories.
How would you describe courage in one sentence?
Courage to me is not only being brave in the face of failure (one of my biggest fears), but embracing failure as a natural part of life, and treating failure as a learning experience.
How did getting your degree require courage?
Getting my degree required courage because the process challenged me to no end. I had to leave home, a place where I felt comfortable, make new friends despite my social anxiety, take classes on subjects I knew very little about (easy A’s were suddenly a thing of the past) and learn how to exist in the world without the safety net of my parents picking up the pieces if I made a mistake.
How does your current job or career path require courage?
My current job requires courage because in order to be the best librarian I can be, I have to meet, train, and engage with new people on a daily basis. My social anxiety could easily hold me back from saying yes to new challenges, and accepting new public speaking engagements, but every day on my commute to work I tell myself, ‘You’ve got this,” and my courage gets me through. After one year as assistant librarian at a federal courthouse library, I was promoted to branch librarian at one of our satellite libraries, so I’d say my morning pep talks are working!
How did EU help you become more courageous in your thinking and actions?
Eastern University helped me to become more courageous in my thinking and actions because it was the first place in my adult life that I found “my tribe”, or a group of close-knit friends that pushed me to see viewpoints that were different from my own, and inspired me to become a better person.
Where do you hope courage will lead you in the future?
In concrete terms, I hope my courage will lead me to publish my first novel, a dream that I’ve had since I was a child. In more general terms, I hope my courage will constantly push me to live a bigger, fuller, happier, and more fulfilled life.
