I first noticed it my sophomore year. Walking from a rehearsal to a meeting, or from class to the library, I was counting my steps. Instead of banishing the numbers from my mind, I allowed myself to exercise my little walking-mantra.

With only one semester to go, I still find myself doing it. But now it is a countdown, a way to savor the energy of this place.

Yesterday — one, two, three — I arrived at my meeting with the Sunday Night Group (SNG), our campus' answer to the challenge of climate change. A group of us meets weekly in the Chateau, a student residential hall on campus. We talk, make each other laugh, and inspire each other to attend at least four events each week related to campus activism. Then we frustrate the efforts of any Chateau resident hoping to hit the sack before 10:30 p.m. because we always finish up with a loud song.

Last night, we reflected on the first full school year of SNG. I could measure that in thousands of steps: four, five, six - we marched down frosty, below-zero Montreal streets, seeking a response to climate change from the government and business leaders gathered at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Seven, eight, nine — we walked all around the Yale campus, meeting other students from the Northeast and learning from each other's successes in taking on the Campus Climate Challenge. This year, as a senior, I've been a part of more than 20 events focused on climate change, about one-third of them organized by Middlebury, with scientists, journalists, authors and faculty members all taking up the cause.

My first year, if I counted anything it was the number of pages of reading I'd done, and maybe, on the fingers of one hand, the amount of times I'd called home in a week. Then in April, the U.S. invaded Iraq. I remember the day and its aftermath well; my a capella group considered canceling our Madonna-theme show in order to watch Dan Rather's sobering broadcast, a few students met to try to raise the issue on campus, we held vigils, put up posters. We contemplated protest-theater in the dining halls. But we were few, and we were disheartened. I had expected Middlebury to be more politically engaged. For the first time, I thought about leaving the school I loved so much. Where was the concern about the world beyond our snowy sidewalks?

Ten, eleven, twelve — my friends rock-climbed their way across the United States in Project BioBus, a school bus powered by vegetable oil, making headlines in USA Today. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen — then they decided to do a similar trip, but with an educational focus, and I went along, taking off a semester to do so.

From that point on, the counting began in earnest. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen — we coordinated the Road to Detroit project, a youth-led campaign to highlight consumer demand for high fuel-efficiency, U.S.-made cars. That project has such an impact on me that I dedicated my thesis research to further study of the Big Three auto companies.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two — these four years at Middlebury seem like far more than just a fraction of my twenty-two years. I certainly feel like I've taken more steps forward here than anywhere else in my life. The steps that cause someone to grow as a human being — they are harder to measure, but they are the ones that really count.