You all are very young, but I am sure that you all have dreams of what you will do one day. I encourage you all to hold those dreams in high regard and shoot for the stars, but I also hope that you do not feel that you have failed if you do not achieve the dreams you set out for.
Serving in the Peace Corps has built my resiliency. I now expect the unexpected, and I'm okay with going with the flow and being present. This is an ever increasingly useful skill, as the future of the world is becoming less and less certain with each passing day. When I started out in university at the age of 18, studying computer science seemed like the surest path to a great job after college. By the time I was 22 and graduating, A.I. and other technologies had completely transformed the field in which I thought I would comfortably be employed. I am sure I could’ve found a job if I had looked hard enough, but plenty of my peers a year ahead of me who had performed at the top of their classes in college looked for months and months with no luck. I saw the Peace Corps as an opportunity to continue learning, to make an impact on the world for the better, and to give me time to think and reflect on what I could potentially spend my life doing. After years of dreading writing essays and other assignments for class, I realized recently that I really enjoy writing, both for myself and for others. I saw the opportunity to work with you all as a chance to improve my skills as a writer, to connect with all of you and share the culture of Paraguay about which I am so passionately learning, and also to reconnect with the teacher whom I vividly remember first teaching me to write essays. I am not sure if she has changed in recent years, but the Mrs.
