Carpe Diem Designs - Learn to dream, believe and achieve!

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"I still do not have a precise idea of what I want to do in life ... In the end, I just want a job that I can look forward to going to each morning."

My name is Megan and I am currently an undergraduate studying Political Science in Washington, DC. I was born and raised in Kansas and currently spend a couple months out of the year visiting family in Kansas. However, I will be moving out to DC permanently next May.

I opened Carpe Diem Designs partly to satisfy my inner entrepreneur and partly to help pay for the enormous student loan debt I am accruing each semester. Living in DC is an absolutely amazing opportunity for a political science major and has already provided me with priceless experiences that I would not have been able to have if I had stayed in Kansas. However, those opportunities are very costly. I am fortunate enough to have qualified for a scholarship that covers some of my tuition, but even with the scholarship...the cost of living in DC is quite high.

I still do not have a precise idea of what I want to do in life. My plan as it stands now is to take advantage of internships in the area and hope I find a field that clicks. In the end, I just want a job that I can look forward to going to each morning. In my life, I have only met a handful of people that enjoy what they do. Far too often I come across people whose jobs make them miserable which has an incredibly negative impact on their overall lives and those around them. My goal is to find a job that I enjoy. If I can do that, I will feel that the costs of college have paid off.

Dream, Believe, Achieve was one of my first designs that wasn't cancer or anti-smoking related.

Basically, it more or less sums up my entire life philosophy. Or, at least my most important one. In fact, it even resembles my email (dream.believe.achieve AT gmail.com). There are three steps invovled in having a fruitful life and in creating the type of world that we want to live in. 1) Dream it 2) Believe it 3) Achieve it

It's up to every individual to keep dreaming, then believing, and achieving. It all starts with the dream, but it can't stop there.

Share the message:
Dream...
Believe...
Achieve...

Over Christmas break, I took part in an alumni panel at the high school I graduated from. Every year, my former English teacher holds the alumni panel so that the current seniors have the opportunity to hear first-hand advice from last year's seniors. A lot of great advice got tossed around during the panel. Throughout the course of the day, all of us experienced a bit of disorientation and touches of deja vu as we repeated the same stories and lines over again at each session. In that respect, I earned additional appreciation for teachers as they have to go through the day teaching the same lesson countless times.

Anyways, as I mentioned, a lot great advice and tidbits of information was given during the panel. I feel as though it is advice that all high school students should have the opportunity to hear and therefore I have decided to share it. I'm sure all of it has been said before and those of you who are going to be attending college soon might be sick of hearing it but I wanted to share it anyways just in case.

1. When I was in high school, I knew what my grades were at all times. Not only my overall class grades, but also my grades on my individual assignments. The last two years of high school we had access to an online system, parent connect, which allowed me to see all of my grades at any given moment from any computer with internet access. All teachers were required to update the grade information weekly. In college, however, I rarely knew any of my grades. I never knew my grade for the class, let alone my grades on individual assignments. Without knowing how I was doing, it was rather difficult to calculate how well I could do on future assignments to maintain an acceptable grade as I didn't even know whether my present grade was acceptable. If you are unsure of how you are doing in a class...go to your professors office hours. Don't be afraid-that's what their office hours are for.

2. If you are going to college, live on campus your freshman year. Personally, I would recommend living on campus, or at least in campus facilities (ie: campus apartments, etc) at least two years. But if you are only going to do one year of on-campus living, live there your freshman year. I promise you that it will make a world of difference. It adds to the entire college experience. College IS more than just the classes. It's your LIFE. Living on campus makes meeting people 100 times easier, plus you will automatically be placed in the center of campus life. Getting involved will come naturally and you'll be surrounded by a world of activities. Trust me, it's worth it.

3. Try not to procrastinate. I know, for those who procrastinate it sounds impossible. I'm not saying that you will always manage to do things in advance, but make an effort to try more than you did before. In high school, putting assignments off was a lot easier than it is going to be in college. Have a big test coming up? Try studying three or four days in advance to save you from having to pull an all-nighter. In the end, you'll get more sleep, feel more relaxed, have more free time, and get better grades.

4. Even if you haven't been outgoing in the past, try to step outside your comfort zone and be a little more assertive. A lot of time in college is spent outside of your comfort zone. After all, you have just been thrown into a completely new environment. But if you lock yourself up in your room and never meet anyone other than your roommate, college isn't going to be much of an adventure. Remember, college is a fresh start. Nobody cares what kind of a person you had been labeled in high school. You get to be YOU.

5. Apply for as many scholarships as possible. A lot of people pass up scholarships that are only offering $100 to $300, but small amounts can quickly add up and some free money is better than none. Keep in mind that smaller amounts, such as $200, can almost cover your books for the semester.

6. If there's still time, go on a few more college visits. Even if you have always planned on attending a certain college make an effort to visit other campuses. Don't rule anything out until you have seen all of the other options. I know of several people who were positive they knew which college they were meant for and didn't take the time to explore other options. After a semester at what they thought was supposed to be the college of their dreams, they realized that it wasn't the college for them at all. It just wasn't a good match. Just don't close the door on your other options until you have reviewed them with an open-mind.

That's it for now ;) There was a lot more discussed at the panel but this post is getting a little lengthy so I think I'll save it for another time!

Happy college hunting!

Originally, I had planned on writing about the importance of communication. But I have decided to postpone discussing my thoughts on communication in lieu of encouraging everyone to make mistakes.

It seems to me that many people are so terrified of making an error in their life that they never take a single chance. They never take a risk or step out of the comfort zone. My question for those who are terrified of making a mistake is this: How are you supposed to grow as a person if you never mess up? If you never make a mistake and have the ability to learn from it? Or, how do you justify a life void of adventure and full of monotony and loathing?

I cannot even begin to estimate how many people I have come across in my lifetime who are completely and totally miserable. They might hate, for instance, their job. They dread waking up every morning because they know that they "have" to spend the next eight hours performing tasks that they loathe. Their misery spreads, as ill feelings often do, and their frustration is often misdirected towards those around them. How many times have you heard some motivational speaker tell you that little things, such as giving someone a small compliment, make a huge difference? How big of a difference do you think constant negativity has on a person's life? How do you think your hostile remarks affected the cashier at the store who might already have been feeling down? I'm sure almost everyone has heard of pay it forward%u2026the last thing this world needs is to be spreading more hostility around.

I am not by any means advocating making continuous mistakes or making uneducated decisions. It is important to be aware of all of your options in life and to weigh the pros and cons. But I am saying that occasionally, it doesn't hurt to live a little. To try something new and different.

What is important is that you LEARN from the mistakes you make. There is no excuse for making the same mistake twice. If you give something a try and it turns out not as well as you had hoped, there is a chance to learn from your mistake and to grow. You gain experience from decision making.

So here is my challenge for you: Go out and take a chance today! Step out of your comfort zone and do something different for a change.