My best skill right now is my ability to dance and teach others how to dance. I am constantly improving on this skill through the classes I teach and rehearsals I run each week. I have been dancing since I was only three years old, and I am currently 22. Within my 19 years of dance training, I have spent almost five of those years teaching students at my studio how to dance. Of all the classes I have taught, I have been able to help close to 150 students continue their dance training. I teach dancers as young as three years old and as old as 21. Along with teaching multiple dance styles during weekly classes and weekend rehearsals, I also make sure to carve out a little bit of time for my own dancing during the week. I make sure to continue to train my own body in dance just as I am training others. I am taking an adult ballet class in order to keep working all the muscles that are required for dance. Overall, I spend around 15 hours every week in the studio. Most of that time is spent teaching and leading rehearsals. Although it has been years since I have performed on stage myself, I continue to train and improve at a less serious level while still helping the next generation of dancers find their passion in this art form.

One experience that has shaped who I am today happened during my senior year internship this past Spring. I am a criminal justice major and I did my internship with the NC State Bureau of Investigation. Although I have been studying this field for many years, I was never able to experience it in a real way until my internship. I know the dangers of the job and I understand the consequences that come with taking certain actions but seeing real, violent things with my own eyes certainly changed my perspective on the job. On a day that we were supposed to be helping an agent do interviews for a case, there was a shooting on I-95 and we responded to it. We showed up as the last ambulance was pulling away. I had never seen as many law enforcement vehicles in one place as I did that day. Though I don't think I can go into many details, there was an officer-involved shooting with two officers and a suspect. Everyone involved lived but the amount of blood we saw on the highway and the vehicles will be an image that stays with me forever. That day completely changed who I was and what I wanted to do. I still loved the CJ field and wanted to be a part of it, but I knew I needed time to mature and experience life before jumping into a job like that. For now, I am doing other things but hope to go for my Master's in criminology or criminal psychology in the next two years and get back into the field I've admired for so long.

These are my babies, Eve (dog) and Penny (cat). We found Penny as a stray at my dance studio back in 2012 and originally took her in as a foster. We ended up keeping her and continued to foster other cats and dogs. Our fostering journey led us to taking care of Eve, her six siblings, and their mom in December of 2015 when Eve and her siblings were just 2 weeks old. In April of 2016, I got her back for good and she has been my baby girl ever since. They love to cuddle and play together!

Mental health is extremely important to me because I have seen too many of my friends and family struggle with it. Although I sometimes have mental health issues of my own, I always make sure to check up on my friends and family. It is important to me to make sure they are not in a place that they wouldn't be able to come back from. I grew up dancing from the age of three until I graduated high school at age 17. Now I am blessed enough to be able to teach at the same studio for my fifth year in a row. Through my many years of dancing and teaching, I have met many girls and boys that have confided their struggles in me. The biggest mental health struggle in the dance world is related to body image. For the longest time, every ballerina has been expected to be thin. Once the conversation about mental health in dance started to open up, I believe that teachers and studio directors began to be more accepting of all body types. I think this has allowed more people to come into the dance world. I also think it has made dance a more comfortable setting for those people that have been a part of it their whole lives. Mental health is important to me because no one should feel inadequate in the sport, hobby, or job they love to do. Mental health is important to me because it is so important to make sure every student feels comfortable coming into dance class. Mental health is important to me because I believe every body is a dancer's body.

I am a mentor to children every day as their dance teacher. Not only do I teach them how to dance, but I am also teaching them confidence, body positivity, and social skills. This will be my 5th year teaching dance and continuing to mentor young boys and girls coming up through the dance world. I believe the biggest impact I have on children in my dance classes is the ability to bring out their self-confidence and body positivity. Too many times there are horror stories of young dancers feeling inadequate among their peers in class. There has always been an expectation for dancers to be thin. I am trying to make sure every student I teach knows they can be any shape or size and still be an incredible dancer. I hope to make sure each one of my students feels comfortable in dance class since they all deserve to be there. I hope to continue having a positive impact for the rest of our current dance season and in the future, with any other students I may teach. Although I am their teacher, I want them to continue to see me as a mentor as well. I believe that showing positivity and confidence in myself will help my students feel it for themselves too. I will continue to preach self-confidence and body positivity in all of my classes in the future in hopes to continue inspiring the next generation of dancers.

My name is Nicole Munson and I just finished my 4-year degree in Criminal Justice. My next big goal is to be able to pursue my Master's Degree in Criminology and after that, I hope to work with the FBI as one of their field agents. I plan on doing this after obtaining my Master's Degree to hopefully stand out from other applicants. Along with achieving this career goal, I also hope to continue my volunteer work. For almost 10 years, my mother and I have been volunteering with an animal rescue group that helps save dogs and cats from our county shelter. We care for and foster each animal that comes into our house until we can get them into a "fur"ever home. Although I was young when we started this volunteer work, I continue to be interested in it. I want to be able to help reduce the overflow of animals in shelters and get them into loving homes so that they can have the blessing of a kind family that I have given to all of my pets. The thing I find most exciting in this world is the opportunity to continue learning, even outside of school. I find the most interesting kind of learning to be immersive learning. While I do believe textbooks and lectures can give good information, I think that living and learning in different places and experiences is an even better way to absorb knowledge. The idea of flying to another country and learning their culture and language in real-time is so exciting and, quite honestly, unreal to me. I was going to do a study abroad program through my university that would have taken me to the United Kingdom, Italy and Amsterdam. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for the summer of 2020, and because of COVID-19, it was canceled. It was rescheduled to summer 2021, but since the 2020-2021 school year was my senior year, I did not have the ability to apply for it again. I hope one day that I will have the financial stability and time to travel on my own and fully immerse myself in other cultures. My biggest plan on giving back to others and my community will be to continue volunteer work in any way that I can. As I previously wrote, I would like to continue my volunteer work in animal fostering. While most of my volunteer work has been with animals, my dance studio has allowed me to volunteer with children in the Boys and Girls Club in our hometown. These opportunities have opened my eyes to how many facilities like the Boys and Girls Club of America need extra volunteers to make great experiences for kids. I hope that in the future I can continue to use my knowledge of dance and choreography to one day get back to the Boys and Girls Club and do volunteer work with teaching dance classes for kids that don't have other opportunities to explore the arts.