Lauren Evron, junior at URI, had always made dancing a part of her life. From the time she was a little girl, being a dancer was the biggest dream of hers until she came to college.

            After graduating high school, Lauren realized becoming a dancer was going to take a lot more than just practicing a few times a week. It was going to take much more dedication, and she was afraid her education wouldn’t be a priority anymore.

            Since dancing was not going to be a huge part of her life anymore, Lauren explored other options that could fill the void. During her freshman year of college, Lauren started taking yoga classes to relieve some stress when school became too much. Taking these classes became more and more apart of her life and she really wanted to take another step forward.

            Attending these weekly classes just wasn’t enough for her. Lauren started research the benefits to yoga and how this could positively affect her life. She learned about the effects yoga has on someone’s body and this inspired her to change her life.

            Along with taking these classes, Lauren changed her eating habits to be a healthier person. She also used this new passion for yoga to fit into her busy schedule and found a way to manage her schoolwork, social life, and this new hobby that she didn’t think she originally had the time for.

            Yoga became a huge part of her life the way that dancing did, in such a short amount of time. Attending these weekly classes was fun for her, but she still wanted more. She decided to take extra classes to learn how to become a yoga instructor herself.

            After weeks of training, and class after class, by the middle of her freshman year Lauren was a certified yoga instructor and was able to hold classes of her own. This became one of the proud moments in her life.

            Right away, she jumped into teaching and started holding weekly classes in the new gym at URI. She was able to rent out a room once a week for an hour to give other students the same joy she got from attending yoga.

            During her junior year, Lauren studied abroad in Italy for a semester. This didn’t put a stop to yoga for her during the months she was gone. While in Italy, Lauren learned more about the cultures and taught people yoga for free during her spare time.

            This gave Lauren the opportunity to give people the same happiness she gets from yoga while being half way across the world. She was able to learn about them and give them a piece of something that she lives in her daily life.

            After college, Lauren doesn’t know where her communications major will take her, but she has a back-up to keep yoga a part of her life. She plans to continue holding classes and hopefully find a way to connect her major with her passion.