Hello y’all!

My name is Steve, and it’s great to introduce myself. I am finishing up my last first month of school and am very excited for the coming school year. As a senior, it is a tradition to reflect on the last three years and create a bucket list of all the fall/winter/spring activities I have yet to conquer. I decided that this year I want to share with you my entire senior bucket list which is a combination of very Middlebury and Vermont activities that I have yet to accomplish in my time here.

Bucket List:

Fall:

-Apple picking

-Swim Belden falls

-Hike Camels Hump

-Breadloaf Stargazing

-Visit Montpelier

-Finish the book East of Eden

Winter:

-Learn to Ski

-Dog Sledding

-Snow Shoe the TAM

-Read two non academic books during J-term

Spring:

-Camp out in the Organic Farm

-Spend a day in Montreal

-Visit the State Capital building in Montpelier

-Enter in the Middlebury Chili Festival

-Go on a sunrise hike

I think these goals are all super manageable and really span everything from things I’d love to see myself doing in general that would be fun, but also Vermont specific activities that seem super finite at this point during senior year. I hope to stick to these goals and I’ll check on in with y’all as these goals are being met.

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.

Hair. Make up. Costume. Poses? Different costume? Fix hair. More makeup. Different costume, again?

Every year, the Middlebury Dance Department puts on a photo shoot for all majors and minors in the department.  It’s an exciting time to work with a photographer who really knows dancers.  It’s also a time filled with indecision.  As I walked into the costume closet–hair a mess, makeup only half plastered on my face–I had absolutely no idea where to begin.  I’m almost certain some of those costumes have been in that closet since before I was born.  There was everything from silver unitards to oversized red blazers to dresses only a barbie could fit into, and I wasn’t interested in any of it.  Did I want to look pedestrian or full on diva?  Use the clothes I brought or be completely transformed?  And for heaven’s sake, what was I going to do with my hair?  It’s amazing how quickly such trivial questions became so vitally important when there’s a camera involved.

I was at the shoot with the three other senior dance majors, who were also trying on and throwing off costumes at an alarming rate.  Each of us was to decide what our solo shoot would look like, but also how we wanted to look for our shoot as a group.  Here we were, four very different dancers with four very different bodies, all trying to look like we fit together.  There were some serious, and thankfully some not-so-serious, decisions to be made.  Ultimately, we decided we would all don jumpsuits of varying colors.  My first thought: you want me to dance in this thing?

Once we were all together and under the lights, I had a second thought: this might be kind of neat.  I had done the shoot the year before but only as a soloist.  For the most part, solo shoots are all basically the same, because I know how I dance and what it feels like to be in front of the camera.  Shooting, and more specifically moving, as a group would prove to be an entirely new and surprisingly rewarding experience.  None of us knew where to begin, but we knew we had to start dancing eventually.

What happens when you put four dancers with different backgrounds in jumpsuits and tell them to move?  They move!  Although our collaboration typically starts and ends with us all being in the same room for technique class, there was a mutual understanding of each other’s strengths as both people and dancers that allowed us to create some truly beautiful images.  It was surprising how well we knew each other and were able to respond to each other’s movement.  All having to overcome the awkwardness of the clunky jumpsuits gave us a common enemy, and this created a level of comfort with each other we had never been able to achieve before.  At first, we were afraid to even get close to each other, but as the shoot progressed, we learned how to lean on each other for both moral and “oh my gosh, stay still, please don’t let me fall over” support.

Having completed both sessions, I can now say the group shoot actually taught me more about who I am as a dancer than did my solo shoot.  Being me is pretty familiar, but being me in a jumpsuit with three other dance majors, that’s a whole other story.

Like most Middlebury students, I’ve been developing an ongoing bucket-list in my head since my first day at Middlebury. And like most seniors, I am now hyper-aware of the time restrictions with which I need to complete my bucket-list. I haven’t been procrastinating too much; throughout my time at Middlebury I’ve been checking off these items one by one. Maple Run – check. Spend a summer in Middlebury – check. Sunrise hike – eh, close enough. Tell a story at the Moth – this Thursday! MiddCORE – umm…

For those of you who don’t know, “MiddCORE is a mentorship-driven, experiential-learning program that builds skills, creates opportunities, and expands networks for tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.” More simply: MiddCORE is a class you can take during January term (J-term). From my limited understanding of what MiddCORE actually is, I would describe it as an intensive training in real-world problem solving using a liberal-arts mindset. I realize that is equally as vague, so this is where I direct you to the link at the bottom of my post to learn more.

I have never taken MiddCORE (hence my umm…) and I know I won’t have the opportunity my final J-term. But it’s on my bucket-list for a reason. It’s intense, interactive, collaborative, goal-oriented, and all those other buzz words that make my (somewhat) career-driven-self salivate. I want to do MiddCORE, but I can’t.

Or so I thought.

Turns out MiddCORE hosts workshops throughout the Fall and Spring semesters. As the eager-beaver trying to plow through my bucket-list, I signed up for almost every MiddCORE workshop available this Fall, obviously thinking that by the end of the semester I could be a self-proclaimed MiddCOREr.

So first week of senior year I walk into the MiddCORE house (their headquarters) for Persuasive Speaking with Mike Kiernan. His biography online says he is an expert in “all areas related to communication” – how persuasive. If you read past the first sentence of his biography you will also learn that he has worked as a communication consultant with political candidates, physicians, and business executives. He is also a doctor. Really, there is nothing on the website that communicates how wonderful of a workshop he would host. He is a communication guru.

There were six other students in attendance for the two-hour workshop. We did all things in a circle formation, which included activities like:

• State the energy in the circle
• Overcome your subconscious consciousness
• Give a pitch (these ranged from why you should eat at Proctor if you are looking for Vegan deliciousness to how to invest sustainably)
• Listen to Mike Kiernan’s wealth of wisdom

It was a great way to kick-off the semester. Meet new people – check. Get a fix of the out-of-the-classroom learning (that happens all the time at Middlebury) – check. Practice speaking in front of strangers – check. Become a self-proclaimed MiddCOREr – almost!

Hello! Welcome to the Senior Admissions Fellows’ Blog. My name is Rachel, and I’m on the Senior Fellows. We’re here to tell you our stories about Middlebury. Whether you visit the college and listen to our information sessions, send questions our way, or read this blog, we’ll give you the student perspective on what it’s like to be a Midd Kid.

On this blog, you’ll find the ruminations, musings, and reflections from the nine Senior Fellows. We’ll write about our most delicious Atwater dinners, our most adventurous hikes, our most stimulating classes, and much more. We come from different places and backgrounds, and we’ll share our varying perspectives with all of you. Check this blog regularly to hear student perspectives about this campus. So, without further ado, let me give you an update…

Happy first day of school! The sun is shining, the quad is green, and the mountains look beautiful! We Senior Fellows are bustling around campus, enjoying our last first day of class. You’ll find us finishing up our majors, exploring new departments, and embarking on our capstone projects. You might also spot us reuniting with our friends and returning to our favorite haunts. We’re all still having new experiences too as we become acquainted with our new classrooms, professors, and classmates.

Personally, my year has begun with a good balance of the familiar and the newfangled. I’m living in a new building called Voter. It’s one of oldest buildings on campus, complete with built-in shelving and huge picture windows. There’s a spiral staircase in my suite! (It makes up for the small bathroom.) The five other people cohabitating with me all lived in my first-year dorm, Battell. We’ve been friends since we first started at Middlebury. My course schedule this semester includes some familiar selections too including the Senior Colloquium for my major and an English class with one of my favorite professors. I’m also trying to expand my horizons with a class on health policy, a new subject for me, and an independent study. In all, I’m looking forward to enjoying my favorite aspects of Middlebury as well as finding some new passions.

That’s all for now! I hope your first few weeks of school are going well. Don’t forget to check this blog again soon to get the inside scoop on what it’s like to be a Middlebury student.

For us seniors, May is a month of lasts. The last time you’ll hike snake mountain, the last time you’ll have chicken parm in proctor, the last Vermont sunrise you’ll watch over the football field before graduation. For many of our class, it’s also the end 16+ years of continuous schooling – the last time to be in a college classroom, the last paper you’ll ever write for a professor, the last exam you’ll sit in, that last powerpoint presentation.

As an environmental studies major, my last assignment at Middlebury College was a culmination of all these academic milestones. The capstone environmental studies course, called ‘401’ for short after the course, always consists of a group project with a community partner focusing intensely on one particular environmentally related issue. This semester, all our projects focused on environmental innovations occurring in Rutland County, about an hour south of Midd.

Therefore, for the past semester I have been working with a group of three other students from different foci and the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link (RAFFL), an organization that is devoted to fostering the farm-to-plate movement in Rutland County. We ambitiously aimed to make a video for our project based on interviews we conducted with farmers, restaurant owners, chefs, hunters, anglers, even insurance agents, about their connections to food and eating local. As a result, we took upwards of 10 trips to Rutland as a group during the semester, interviewed 12 people, conducted 5 short surveys, and attended several food-related events, like the farmer’s market.

Last night, we finally had the chance to present everything we’ve worked so hard on to our community parnters at RAFFL, our professors, and the rest of the Rutland Community. We did our presentations actually in Rutland, as opposed to here at the college per usual, at the Rutland Public Library. To max out on academic potential, we presented a PowerPoint presentation, turned in a 22 page written report, made a website, and finalized and aired our video (which was so nerve-wracking it certainly felt like taking an exam!).

All in all, the feedback we received and the positive reception from our professors and community partners made the entire semester worthwhile. All the long drives and long days spent editing video footage paid off in a capstone presentation of which I am truly proud. It was an appropriately ambitious way to finish out my final semester here. I can’t believe last night I turned in my last paper, presentation, and test. All good and satisfying lasts.

It is here. This “May” that I purposefully never flipped to in my planner for fear of my eyes wandering to that highlighted box – May 25th. May means that a count down is unnecessary; the date you write down on all assignments is a constant reminder of the ticking time clock.

Here is my bucket list:

1. Dunmore Day

2. Ben and Jerry’s Factory

3. Shelburne Farms

4. Climb Camel’s Hump…and Mt. Abe….and Mt. Mansfield (sorry calves)

5. Make a pilgrimage back to old dorms with my roommate (yes, I have had the same roommate every year and am already feeling the separation anxiety)

6. Sunrise from organic garden

7. Enjoy it all (this one is easy)

The funny thing is that Middlebury has felt like one giant check off the bucket list. While here, I have done so many things I never thought I would, things I had never imagined, and things I had no idea to put on my bucket list. However, it has all fallen into place because this four year experience has been so amazing. You literally get smacked in the face with the water pouring out of the buckets you are turning over nearly every day. Is that where the phrase comes from? I should look into that.

Anywho, it is Make It Happen May. Best to-do list ever. You all best hold me to this. Yes, you, reading this.

Something I’ll never quite get used to at Midd is the evening light. The “golden hour” which happens right after the sun goes up in the morning and before it sets in the evening is universally a wonderful thing, but I’ve never seen it quite as beautiful as it is in Middlebury. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t even necessarily require a beautiful day. Sometimes the best evening light comes from days with funky clouds or a little rain. Maybe it has something to do with the hills and dales the light seeps through, or maybe it’s because it catches you by surprise as you’re walking to dinner or to a meeting.

Tonight was a beautiful one. So we made some sandwiches and wrapped some pie up in paper napkins and walked out to the garden. Still a little chilly, especially as the sun went down, we snuggled together on the hill, ate walnut bread and avocado, watched the sun set, and talked and laughed.

We have three weeks until graduation and three more weeks of being bathed in these beautiful evenings. I hope these next few weeks are filled with lots of dinners outside in the grass.

As some of you might know, this Tuesday, April 22, was Earth Day! As the college with the oldest environmental studies major in the country, Middlebury loves a good planet-centered holiday. So much so, in fact, that two different organizations on campus have expanded it from a day to an entire week.

The Campus Sustainability Coordinators (CSC’s) and the Real Food Group are taking advantage of April 22nd to promote further environmental awareness on campus. Both are incorporating local food into the mix – Real Food had a dinner in Atwater dining hall on Monday and the CSC’s quickly followed suit with a delicious Atwater dinner on Tuesday (I’m still hoping for seconds of the roasted root vegetables. So good).

Both groups have also brought speakers to campus to talk about a variety of issues – tonight an executive at a large plastics company is coming to talk about inciting environmental change from inside a large, petro-chemical organization. As an enviro studies nerd I can’t wait!

And tomorrow is the grand finale… a spin bike challenge! Here on campus we have our own spin bike classroom where the bikes actually generate energy while you’re working out. Groups all across campus are making teams to compete on Friday to see who can generate the most energy. My friends and I are hoping to give the hockey team, last year’s winners, a run for their money.

So from all of us here in Vermont, Happy Earth Week!