The first time I visited Middlebury I drove in from the middle of New York State. I had fallen asleep during the drive (as I am want to do) and was woken up by my Dad’s voice saying that we were 30 minutes away.  I looked to my right — farmland. I looked to my left — more farmland. I looked down at my phone — no signal.  Where was I?  I got on campus, took the tour, heard the information session, visited with a professor and fell in love with the school.

That drive through the tip of New Jersey, three hours of New York State, and the ending 45 minutes of Vermont is one that I have done numerous times over my four years.  I know the drive well. I know which rest stops are best to stop at and make the same punny jokes everytime I pass certain stores. Friends that have been in the car with me and thus heard the jokes before groan, new passengers give a polite laugh, and I’ll admit that sometimes I even say them outloud to myself when I drive alone.

I am a huge proponent of the liberal arts education.  Anytime anyone asks me what I am studying, while I say my major, what I really want to say is, “an incredible set of skills.”  I think at the heart of these skills is the ability that I have gained to pursue opportunities with a passion backed by both intellect and integrity.  A big critique of the liberal arts that I have not only heard, but at times used, is “all you do is talk.” In some sense, yes. We fiercely debate issues, learn new ways of thinking, and push our boundaries in discourse.  However, we take what we learn from these conversations and we apply them to the real world with a strong factual background and what I refer to as the liberal arts stamp. This stamp is the inability to hear any speech, news broadcast, or opinion without questioning its content, perspective, and argument.  This stamp continues in the way liberal arts students talk to each other. I catch my friends and I having the most academically worded conversations about the most inane things.  We’ve learned how to argue with a pure motive and how to only speak when we have the knowledge to back it up.  But, these conversations and the ability to speak mean nothing if not put to a good use.

I have thoroughly enjoyed and found great meaning in independent work here at Middlebury College. It allows me to take these conversations and do research and projects that mean the world to me.  This semester, I am working on a project dealing with Veteran Affairs.  My goal is to find how Middlebury College and its students can become involved with the Veteran community, how Middlebury College can be more intentional regarding the hiring and support of veterans in the faculty and staff, and to create educational opportunities for local veterans.  Whenever I mention what I hope to be working on, people are enthusiastic to share their own stories in return. It seems that almost everybody knows someone who has served or questions the treatment that veterans receive upon returning to the U.S.  As a Marine Corps officer candidate whose Grandfather was a career Marine, I keep this topic near and dear to my heart.  I want to generate a venue through which students can engage with these veterans while also learning from the veterans’ stories that are often times overlooked. I would love to leave Middlebury knowing that this school, which commits itself to community engagement, actively seeks to honor and make life easier for those who served our country.

Having the basis in research, discussion, and organization I acquired at Middlebury, having a passion to apply those skills to and then the chance to explore that passion, epitomizes not only the resources available to students, but also the deep seeded support and trust for students with a goal.

J-Term is an awesome Middlebury tradition that allows students to enjoy a alternate form of study for a month. That alternate form of study can be just one class that meets almost every day, an internship, an independent study,  or one of the numerous opportunities available for students during this really special time of the academic year. During my time at Middlebury I have used my J-Term’s to attend the American College Theatre Festival. Each year Middlebury sends roughly 8 acting nominees, a few costume designers, and usually 1 or 2 playwrites to compete in this festival.

Those that attend spend the entirety of our J-Term working hard on our material so that it is audition ready on the first day of competition. Audition type performances are tough because there are a lot of feelings when one enters an audition room. The room is unfamiliar, you know you’re trying to make a good impression, you hope the scene goes well, and you have only three minutes to show them your stuff. Kind of terrifying, but ultimately kind of fun.

No matter whether we win or lose, ACTF is always a joy to be a part of. You get to spend your J-Term working with very talented people, doing scenes tirelessly, and always finding room to improve. You get the opportunity to travel with members of your department and all compete against each other, and then as people get moved on and others don’t, support each other with fervor.

The first time I went I was a freshman. I was so excited to be working so seriously with older members of the department and having the opportunity to have such serious acting conversations with the faculty. I loved spending time with the older majors and I got to know them and thus got to know the department. I felt welcomed, excited and part of this big thing with my new theatre family. I hope in some ways as a senior on this trip I can provide a similar experience for the underclassmen with us today.

So cross your fingers that a Middlebury student will win!

This past summer I worked for a company called Overland that leads outdoor trips for high school students. While November is a little late to be writing about a summer experience, this job has had a profound impact on how I comport myself on a day-to-day basis. I was tasked with leading Service trips over six weeks in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The students’ overarching goal was to stretch their personal comfort zones while serving others. The definition of “comfort” varied, as each teen brought his/her unique perspective.

My female co-leader and I were wholly responsible of managing every aspect of the service trip, 24/7, as we were the only Overland personnel on the island, including shopping for and preparing all meals, management of housing, identifying and training for worksites, transport, addressing mental and physical health concerns, creating social activities, interfacing with the local personnel, and running aspects of the service projects.

We enjoyed two weeks of hard work and fun in the sun on the island of St. Croix. We split our time between two rainforest locations. For the first week we volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club in Christiansted on the east side of the island reading with the kids, playing team building games, and acting as strong role models for the young kids of St. Croix. We spent the remainder of our trip volunteering at an organic sustainable farm, harvesting fruits, cooking meals with food straight from the farm, and learning about the challenges behind sustainable farming. Our days off were filled with swimming, scuba diving, and sea kayaking in a bioluminescent bay. We even got to see a live turtle hatching and helped the little guys make their way to the ocean!

I learned some incredibly important lessons from being wholly responsible for a group of high school students. One of my major takeaways was to celebrate the yards, not the touchdowns. These trips were about growth and each student had a different starting point. It was very important to celebrate every minor improvement not just the major ones.

More than anything, what this experience taught me was that I can handle anything that I put my mind to, and I can make reasonable, responsible, mature decisions. In essence, this job was a checkpoint towards adulthood.

With the explosion of fall foliage reflecting in our wide eyes, and the sun glistening off the lake on our right, we pulled into a parking area in the White Mountain National Forest. I had planned our hike down to every last detail. The group I was with was going to hike up Falling Waters, make a right along the ridge and hike another 1.8 miles to the Liberty Springs Campsite where we’d meet up with our other two friends. The next day we would retrace those 1.8 miles, hit Haystack, Lincoln and Lafayette before we descended down Greenleaf and onto Old Bridle path. Meanwhile, our friends were set to do the entire Pemigewasset loop.

I had this all memorized.

And I had a hand written copy of the itinerary in my pack.

And a map.

And an extra map.

And I made sure I charged my phones in case we needed GPS.

I was prepared. I was going to crush this thing. We stepped out of the car, donned our layers, hoisted on our packs, synched them to our bodies and started to walk. To where? Just about 10 steps before I lost total confidence that I was in the right parking lot. For all the effort I made to figure out what was going on once we got on the trail, I had failed to figure out how to get us to the trail. We had just gotten lost on the highways and were roughly an hour behind schedule as it was. We decided to wander around with our packs until we saw a definitive sign that we either were or weren’t in the right spot. We went up a trail for 10 minutes and turned back having no more or less indication that we were where we were supposed to be. We were in New Hampshire, we were in the white mountains… that’s all I knew. Without great signage and the inner feeling that I let my whole crew down I decided to begin problem solving. I opened up the map that my friend’s dad had given us. It was no less than 30 years old. I found the parking area we were supposed to be in on the map. So now where the hell were we in relation to it? The lot we were supposed to be in didn’t have any exceptional geographic landmarks around it to help us navigate. None! No lake! This meant now I knew for sure that we were wrong. This was great news, because our period of total inactivity had come to a close. We threw our bags back in the car and drove maybe another half mile until we found a very obvious, incredibly well marked parking area. Perhaps my planning ego had grown too big, so the universe did a really nice job of totally crushing it before we set off. The hike was absolutely gorgeous, the weather was prime, and the company was ideal. We marveled at the waterfall, the oranges, reds, yellows and browns of the leaves and made our way to the campsite. We were about two hours behind schedule at this point due to my oversights in planning. This along with the fact that the other car was being driven by a speed demon caused me to think that that we were going to roll into the campsite and see our two buddies waiting for us. Not the case. As we descended into Liberty Springs campsite (which is .3 miles straight downhill after the false relief of the sign that says campsite) we were greeted by many campers. Each platform was full of tents cramped together. We wandered around for a while looking for our two friends or an open spot, whichever appeared first. A big hello came from behind us from a man with a worn red puffy and a clipboard. He introduced himself as Declan, the caretaker. We said we were a group of six total and he brought us up to a platform that we had not been able to find ourselves. One of the last platforms still available. Before he left I asked, “Has an incredibly energetic blonde guy and an athletic looking Asian kid rolled through here yet?” He assured me that they had not, for he would have remembered them. Where could they be? We were very delayed getting in and had about the same distance to hike as them. Within 15 minutes we all heard the discernable jubilatory shouts of our friends. We could not see them, but the “yahoos” and “Parkour!” could only really belong to our friends. Before we even had a chance to go down to help them find us, we saw Declan. “These have got to be your friends,” he said as he led them up to our platform. We smiled in agreement and began chatting with Declan about his responsibilities as caretaker. This was my first time ever camping at a site with a caretaker so I asked, with zero tact, “be straight with us, are we supposed to tip you?” Declan said that usually people don’t tip. So we gave him five dollars. The trip was an absolute blast full of a failed attempt at making one giant pancake, freezing cold winds, Siracha on tuna, and some incredibly spectacular views. It was so hard to convince myself to go back to campus instead of doing the whole loop with my two other friends. They ended up doing their four day trip in two and a half days. I highly recommend hiking the Franconia ridge or doing the whole loop. And if you stay at Liberty Springs… tip your caretaker. They stir the compost all day. They deserve it.

I can remember freshman year, navigating a brand new social climate, introducing myself over and over again, trying to achieve the college version of myself that I had always pictured and getting a feel for my new home. I look back at sophomore year – making new choices, regretting them, learning, growing and  accepting that friends were becoming family. My junior year brought new responsibilities, freedom, introduction of life decisions, and the solidification of who I was on this campus. And now senior year… a year where I find myself looking back while still experiencing Midd. A year in which every moment I spend with my friends, my new family, is bittersweet as I wonder where we will all be next year. I watch as my friends, usually clad in ill fitting old tshirts and flip flops, walk confidently in dress shoes and suits as they attend interviews. The breakfast conversations have shifted from stresses about classes to pragmatic discussion of the future. As I go through this year I find myself analyzing all of the amazing ways that Middlebury has helped me grow into the person I am today and given me the opportunities to think critically and fully about the world that I will be entering into. I know that I will miss my experience here and that my college family will be spread throughout the US and overseas next year, but it is felt with a sense of gratitude for my experiences and hope that I will be able to put the Middlebury stamp on whatever I do after.  I want to live in the moment during my last year here, for I am currently living the final 25% of my college experience. I watch the leaves change and the gorgeous fall foliage transform the campus and I smile. I smile a smile that is wrapt by its beauty and is aware that this is my fourth and final time starting a new year at Middlebury – incredibly excited and nervous about what this year and my next chapter will bring.