Full Circle

Life comes full circle.

Maybe it’s too cliche to say that, but today, as I logged on to see if my Profs had posted any grades for the end of the semester, and I saw I earned a 100% on my marketing plan, I thought, wow. I did this. 8 years ago, I started at Penn State University as an Advertising/PR degree, and 8 years later, I’ll graduate with an Associate’s Degree in Business. Mastering a Marketing class. I had a 94% as my midterm grade, and I don’t doubt that I’ll end up with close to a 95% for my overall grade. Can I be proud? Yes, I can.

Would I have done as well focusing on a journalism or music degree? One that followed my passions, not necessarily things that I excelled at immensely? Probably not. So I write freelance and blog, and I enjoy performing music on my own time, though not enough of it.

I’m proud of myself for finishing school. This Saturday I’ll walk the stage at the Harrisburg Farm Show Arena in front of my friends, family, boyfriend – all who have supported me in my journey to finish my degree. Ones who couldn’t believe when I first dropped out, ones who cheered me on when I enrolled back in school less than a year after losing Kevin. This Saturday I will graduate.

Despite all my fears of the changes that lay ahead in my future, this is something I can grab with my hands. I can be proud of something more than just surviving my life over the past 8 years. I can celebrate a true, hold in my hands, brag to my employers, accomplishment.

I love how marketing & business, for me, is not being used for big profits, but for awareness. The things that I have learned over the past two years, are to apply these skills to helping with organizations such as Team Sarcoma; to help friends’ businesses expand by giving them promotion; to network with other business people for good and noble causes. I didn’t want to focus on Advertising/PR at PSU after that first semester, because it seemed too vain for me. Now, I have so many great things to apply it to. I can use it for good.

I’m pretty excited today, hugging myself, cheering myself on for doing this. GO me.

Brenda Sieglitz

Brenda Lee Sieglitz is an author and public speaker whose topics focus on travel, grief, and nature. Widowed in 2008 at 24 years of age, Brenda is an advocate for sarcoma patients, the widowed community, and conservation through her volunteerism with the National Park Service, Lancaster County Conservancy, Pennsylvania Master Naturalist, Hospice of Lancaster County, Soaring Spirits International, Angiosarcoma Awareness and Highmark Caring Place. Brenda won the 2009 Associated Content “Content of the Year” award, and in 2011 was named one of Wyndham Women’s “Women on their Way”. Most recently her love and loss memoir, Ebb from the Shoreline, won 1st Place Editor’s Choice in Nonfiction at the 2014 North American Book Awards. Sieglitz holds a degree in business and became a Pennsylvania Master Naturalist in 2015. In her spare time, she adores playing with her two nieces, going on family adventures with her husband, stepdaughter and son-in-law, hiking, camping and is working to complete her bucket list dream of visiting all National Park units. Sieglitz has been married to her best friend Dave since 2013 and continues to reside in Lancaster County with their two beagles Scotch and Fina.

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