Here I am in the 18th grade and I’m still going on school field trips, but this one was different from the rest.

I know what you’re thinking. No, the difference isn’t that I took a plane instead of a bus like all my other field trips. It’s that I felt like the friends I made, the things I learned, and the inspiring people I listened to truly made me a better person.

The leadership and the passion were contagious at APTA’s NEXT Conference & Exhibition. And while I know that it’s the smallest national conference for the profession, my experience helped me start off on the right foot for all professional conferences that I’ll attend in the future.