Hometown: Severna Park, MD
High School: Severna Park Senior High School
Major: Environmental Studies with an Economics Focus

Activities: Recreational and P.E. Sailing Coordinator, OINK Co-Coordinator, The Hunt co-chair

Study Abroad: I took a year off after my sophomore year and completed a 9-month internship in Kassel, Germany doing sales work for an electrical engineering firm.

Why did I want to be a Senior Fellow?

I've worked at the Admissions Office and been a tour guide since freshman year. It was time for a promotion.

What was my college search like?

It was more difficult than it should have been. I visited and applied to far too many schools, but in the end, I chose Middlebury because I felt very comfortable and felt like I had a lot in common with the students.

Why Middlebury?

It's all about the community: Interesting, fun students and brilliant faculty who love to teach are brought together at a beautiful, modern campus in the foothills of the Green Mountains.

What is life at Middlebury like?

Choosing a major

I was initially on track to be a Psychology major, but then I took ES 112, Natural Science and the Environment, with Steve Trombulak and it challenged my ideas of what I wanted to do with my life. Economics was a natural choice of a focus within Environmental Studies because I've always been stronger in math than in science or writing.

The biggest challenge in transitioning to college

Choosing a major was very difficult for me.  I took so many great classes freshmen year in different disciplines, I found it difficult to commit to just one academic focus. I think I could have been happy in any of five or six different majors. Fortunately, the Environmental Studies program is very interdisciplinary which has allowed me to take a lot of classes in different departments to complete my major.

Fondest memory of Middlebury

My sophomore year J-term was definitely the best month of college. I took an awesome course, The Architecture of Planning, which was an intensive crash course in basic architecture and urban planning. Within the course, we worked in groups to redesign the layout of downtown Middlebury around a new, large cooperative department store. In addition to that, I took a great workshop in Bike Maintenance and had enough time to ski at the Snow Bowl a few times a week.

Favorite class or professor

100-level German with Florence Feiereisen. Learning a language from scratch is such a kick, and Florence was the perfect professor for an intro-language course. Also, my course in the fall had six students and my course in the spring had five students. With a full-time professor. Four times a week. Awesome.

What I do in my spare time

I'm on the sailing team; this year I'm running the rec and PE program. Outside of that I spend my time biking, playing guitar, skiing, going to hockey/basketball games, reading horoscopes, searching 'funny cats' on YouTube, learning new keyboard shortcuts, and disapproving of Quidditch.

What I did this past summer

I stayed in Middlebury this summer which was an awesome decision. I worked at the admissions office part-time, did a GIS mapping project for a local lake, and coordinated OINK, our outdoor orientation program for freshmen. Summer in Middlebury gave me a much greater appreciation of the natural beauty of Vermont and the hiking and swimming available around here.