Fiscal issues were the very first indicator that I wasn’t a liberal, but in fact a conservative. In 2012, a year before I was about to graduate college, I looked at my future in the real world. I was worried about trying to find a good job in an abysmal economy. Student loans had just surpassed credit card debt in America and my generation was proclaimed to be the first generation to be worse off than their parents. But NPR and liberals around me tried to convince me that my choice to vote for President Obama, not just once, but twice, was a good one.

I am a conservative and proud of it because I have seen liberal policies fail too many times. Whether it’s fiscal policies, free speech rights, or gun control, the millennial generation has had enough. Through my studies as a public policy graduate student and activist, the evidence has been clear— big government doesn’t work. I hope to spread that message because our future depends on it. As a woman who advocates for campus carry, I see the power of a conservative woman on campus. Real feminism is having the ability to protect myself. That’s why I founded a NeW chapter at my university in Texas. NeW sparked a passion in me for activism and has led me to the campus carry movement today. I am what a conservative looks like.