Ryleigh Benson

Student at U.S. Merchant Marine Academy

Speaker

I was raised in a military family, and this experience has become one of the most influential parts of my life. My dad was a Navy helicopter pilot and my mom was a Coast Guard Captain. My family and I moved regularly. I have lived in Maine, Massachusetts, Georgia, Virginia, Puerto Rico, The Netherlands, and now New York at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Before college, I attended six schools and was home-schooled for three years, all in seventeen years. I adore living in different places and cultures, and I have made many friends along the way. My school in The Netherlands was an International School where the population was comprised of students from every continent many countries, and who practiced many different religions and spoke a variety of languages. We were like a mini-United Nations and we all thrived and got along well. Experiences like that, especially during my formative years, have made me realize that the world is so much bigger and full of opportunities and rich experiences than many of us think. We have lived both on military bases and within civilian communities, where I became aware of the Merchant Marine Academy and the idea for sailing commercially as a mate. This gave me interest in the maritime industry at large. The values that I have were provided by the opportunities that my parents afforded me, and this has given me a solid foundation upon which to base my adult life.