UMW senior Brianna Kenealy, seen here in Paris, filled her four college years with the courses it took to find a meaningful career, along with plenty of travel abroad.
There’s a bit of a cosmopolitan thread that runs through University of Mary Washington senior Brianna Kenealy’s college career. It’s called “Paris.”
She first visited with her family the summer before sophomore year, returned on a faculty-led trip as a junior, then wrapped it all up with a stint at the American Business School of Paris this spring.
Back in Virginia – her plane landed just yesterday – she’s set to walk the Ball Circle stage at Saturday’s 114th Commencement on UMW’s Fredericksburg Campus.
That’s where a series of revelations began to unfold four years ago, catching her off guard but charting her course. It’s where, as a student-athlete, she found herself competing – and winning – against teams she hadn’t expected to play. Where she discovered a knack for business administration and declared a new major, then moved by an energetic professor, tacked on a minor in economics. Where she poured herself into a capstone project that proved she could build a career that matters and see the world.
“I want to have a job that can help people, and if that means I travel and make a difference for local businesses, I think that’s really cool,” said Kenealy, an Honors student who’s set to start a master’s program in global commerce at UVA this fall. Read more.