(uplifting music) - My American dream is genuinely, to just be happy, to live a life that is fulfilling and just, you know, makes my soul happy in the end of the day, and that's something that's just so important and possible here in America.

(poignant music) My role as Miss America has provided me with the opportunity to go to school and get a higher education.

I was someone who never thought about going to grad school but now as Miss America, I've earned almost $68,000, just over $68,000 in scholarships that will be put towards a grad school education if I so choose.

When I was competing for the role of Miss America, I prioritized making sure I was happy with what I was presenting on stage.

Competing for Miss America is quite literally a once in a lifetime opportunity.

You can only do it once.

I wanted to make sure I left everything out there on the stage because I knew if they chose me to be Miss America, I wanted them to choose me for who I was and for what I stand for, not me trying to be someone else, not me trying to be, you know, the ideal Miss America, but they would choose me because of who I was as a human being, and I'm really excited that they did.

You know, I'm here today, but truly, I feel like every day is a question of, is that dream threatened?

Is that something that, you know, I can walk into?

Absolutely not, but it takes hard work and it takes a lot of determination and tenacity to continue to make that dream happen for myself.

I don't think it is something that's handed out.

That's one thing that is awesome about America is, it's something that rewards hard work.

(poignant music) As a woman and as a nuclear engineer and as Miss America, part of being happy means knowing I made a difference in the world, and it doesn't necessarily mean I change the entire world but sometimes that means making the one connection that will change that one person's world.

If I know I've done that, that's so important to me and will lead to a lot more fulfillment in my life.

(poignant music) My different interests definitely play a major role in my dream and in my life because one, they're the things that make me happy, but two, they're things that I just genuinely want to be a part of.

I get really frustrated a lot because sometimes people make incorrect and drastically wrong assumptions when they see I'm Miss America or when they see I'm a nuclear engineering student, but the thing is, I am so much more than that and the women involved in this organization are so much more than that.

We're the women who can.

We can do anything we set our minds to.

If we dream it, we can do it, and that's something that's powerful.

With enough hard work and enough tenacity, that can come true.

As a classical violinist and a competitive water skier, they actually feed a lot into my role as Miss America, and as a nuclear engineering student.

I credit a lot of my violin for the patience it taught me.

I wasn't a natural at my violin.

I had to work at it.

I had to sit down with the metronome, and if you're a musician you know the frustration I'm talking about when I bring up the metronome.

I had to really force myself to work on it and to not give up and to do it over and over and over again until I got it, but that's something that has played into my role as an engineering student, because the whole engineering process is try and try again and be okay with failure.

I think sometimes people fear failure, but failure is an experience that we can learn from, and water skiing is similar to that as well for me.

You know, not only do I get to go out on the water and have a great Wisconsin lake day but I also am trying to learn new tricks on my trick ski, and when you fall and hit the water over and over and over and over again, yeah, it gets exhausting sometimes but it has really fed it into who I am as a human today.

(poignant music)