How a Freshman Year Elective Turned Into My Career

Summary: How do you define passion? For me, it’s simple. It’s the things I enjoy, the things I love, and the things that I want to do continuously. However, trying to figure out what those things are is not so simple.

Finding Educational Passion

How do you define passion? For me, it’s simple; it’s the thing I enjoy, the thing I love, and the thing I want to do continuously.  However, trying to figure out what was my passion and if passion was like “true love” (you can only have one) was not so simple.

Growing up in my house, education was a must. My parents stressed the importance of learning early.  My dad even had a saying, “When it comes to school, I don’t play.” Simple, but it always got the point across.  In my house, everything was a competition, and considering my older sister was a child prodigy, my twin sister was a writing specialist, and my mother had three advanced degrees (she would later add two more, show off), you can only imagine the pressure I felt to excel. I quickly found that I loved knowledge— random information to be obtained, stored, and utilized.  Understanding this helped me find my niche− technology.

Technology allowed me to be abstract and analytical at the same time.  Therefore, this became my focus in school. As high school was getting ready to end and I was trying to figure out what to do since I never saw myself going to college.  At that moment, my mom gave me two options: go to college or get a job that will support me and get out. I could not afford to get out, so math wins again, and off to college, I went. I attended Bowling Green State University (BGSU) with full intentions of majoring in computer technology because I wanted to do build the biometrics that the FBI uses in a real-life Jason Bourne scenario. However, when I got to BGSU, I learned that they had gotten rid of my major. They combined it with the computer science program but considering the only thing I despise more than coding is the Steelers #BrownsFanForever, I was at a loss.

            Nevertheless, I was only a freshman, so I figured I would finish out the year, complete my elective classes and transfer to pursue my computer tech degree. While looking for classes that fulfilled my elective requirements, my twin sister suggested that I take the class she was in, Nutrition 101 with Dr. Julian Wilford (aka Dr. Joe). She figured it would fulfill my requirement and if I hated it, at least several of our friends were in the class to make it worthwhile. I went into the class with only negative expectations. However, after my first class with Dr. Joe, I walked out of class, called my mother, and asked, “Hey, how would you feel if I was a dietitian?” That day I found my calling; I found my passion. From not wanting to go to college to graduating seven years later with a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics, a Masters in Food and Nutrition, and successful completion of my internship (all at BGSU — “Falcons Fly”). I ultimately became a Registered and License Dietitian.

I was able to find my passion, which I use to create a platform to educate others about Cystic Fibrosis,  the hardships related to CF and Nutrition, helping others Cystics conquer their nutritional deficiencies, and lastly, making sure people understand limitations are only as strong as the belief that you can’t surpass them.

I am Nicholas Kelly, CF Fighter. Thank you for letting me share some of my passion with you. Go out and find your passion and pursue it with abandon.