MATTAPOISETT — When Old Rochester Regional High School alumna and Rochester native Carly Drew graduated from high school in 2021, her siblings gifted her a bracelet with the saying “great things never come from comfort zones.” 

Drew carried this mantra with her to Anna Maria College where she suddenly found herself with more free time than she knew what to do with.

“Especially my freshman year, I’d kind of look down at my wrist and be like, ‘Okay, start pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, Carly, you don’t have to stay in your room all the time,’” Drew said.

With her college graduation just weeks away, Drew is considering sharing this central theme with her classmates as student commencement speaker.

“I hope that I inspire them a little bit to kind of really push through this next chapter and be focused on that,” she said.

Drew said another theme she’s thinking of threading into her speech is that “it’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay to ask for help.”

“I know it’s not always the easiest thing, but I hope that they can take that away from my speech and just really be more present and kind of push themselves to be better people overall and really take those opportunities that are given to them,” she said.

Drew attended Anna Maria College's past three graduation commencements and knew she "would definitely be interested" in applying to be the student commencement speaker for her ceremony.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I think this would be really cool and really something that would be monumental to shape out the rest of my college experience here,” she said.

When Drew first arrived at Anna Maria, she went from starting high school at 7:30 a.m., going to practice, doing her homework and having dinner and doing “the whole thing again” to only taking classes and playing ice hockey.

“Freshman year was definitely hard for me,” she said. “It was a lot of free time for me.”

With “great things never come from comfort zones” in mind, Drew forced herself to go to events, get involved in campus life and embrace her newfound independence.

“I was able to find myself and not rely on my parents or other people around me,” she said. “Just kind of be like, ‘Okay, you got to do it yourself, Carly.’”

At Anna Maria, Drew majored in psychology and minored in both sports management and education, which Drew said was inspired in part by working in Old Rochester Regional School District’s Project GROW preschool program.

“I’d always worry about, like, little Johnny falling behind in my class instead of focusing on all 20 [students], so I explored some options where I could do more one-on-one stuff,” she said.

Drew said she chose to major in psychology because she has always been interested in how the mind works and how everyone thinks differently and wanted to dive deeper into these subject matters.

She shadowed a psychologist during her internship at Paxton Center School, an elementary and middle school near Anna Maria, which inspired her to combine her interests and pursue a master's degree in school psychology from Worcester State University.

“For the future, I just hope that I’m able to support children getting through education,” she said. “I just hope to make an environment that is inclusive and friendly and a place where they do want to come and learn, even for those that do have disabilities.”

In addition to her academic studies, Drew also plays on Anna Maria’s ice hockey, lacrosse and field hockey teams, is a resident assistant, works for as a student admissions ambassador and is president of the American Cancer Society on campus, in addition to several other activities.

“I think for me, I’ve always been very busy,” she said. “I just love to stay busy, like I hate staying in my room and whittling away to nothing.”