...In September I received an email from my contact at WOAR #1 requesting that I return to speak at the volunteer training later in the month and #2 passing along a request she received from a colleague of hers that was a professor in the Nursing Dept. at the University of Pennsylvania. She was seeking a sexual assault survivor to speak to her Victimology class for the Fall semester. I couldn't reply to her email fast enough accepting the request to speak at WOAR again and the offer to speak to students as part of their course curriculum. I got the professor's contact information, drafted an email to introduce myself and tell her about the groups and events I had given my speeches to date so far. I also included a link to the ABC News special for her to review. This would prove to be valuable later. The professor emailed me back and told me she was aware of my case as I would later learn she has a background in training the SAFE (Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner) nurses and dealing with sexual assault victims and advocacy. She told me a little bit more about her class and invited me to be their speaker. I was excited and flattered. This opportunity would take me to the next level as her class has between 100-150 students which would be the largest group I had ever spoken to and expand my resume even further.
In preparation for the class Professor Brown asked if I would like to arrive and sit in on the first hour of her lecture. I thought this was a great idea because I could get a sense of the message she was teaching. It turned out I was able to take some notes and made edits to my speech prior to going up in front of the class. I then offered to bring along the ABC News interview DVD which Professor Brown thought was a great idea because the students have available to them a blackboard website where it would be posted for only them to view.
The last weekend in September was very busy for me as I spoke to the WOAR advocates training class on Saturday, volunteered for the Make-A-Wish Walk for Wishes on Sunday and on Monday spoke to the Penn Victimology class. That afternoon as I arrived to the Penn campus I'm not going to lie, I was a bit in awe. This is an Ivy League school and I would be speaking to some of the most brilliant students in the country. What I did have to offer though was my life experience and hopefully it would be valuable to them as part of their studies. The college I attended was smaller (5,000 students), non traditional and set in the NJ Pine Barrens on a beautiful campus. Penn's campus is right outside center city Philadelphia, many times larger and is right next to the Drexel campus. The nursing school building was new though and the classroom had an impressive auditorium layout. I'm glad I sat in the room for an hour prior because it gave me time to adjust to my surroundings and center myself. The speech went very well, they asked a lot of questions, some even as they filed out of class and the professor was also very happy.
After giving my speech that day I began to think that maybe I would consider doing this full-time. I was getting a lot out of each speech I gave personally and always received valuable feedback. This along with the variety of questions I answered from the groups I was enjoying what I was doing. On the other hand I was very unhappy with my current job where I had been working for almost 4 years. There were a lot of changes to my position and the company and things all around were going in the wrong direction as far as both were concerned so why not consider doing something I enjoyed full-time and help other people as part of it.
A few weeks later I received a very nice thank you note from the counselors at WOAR and an email from Professor Brown requesting that I speak to her Spring semester class. That was great news! There was also a project I was working on that as a result would lead to something I would never see coming that would change my life forever...
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