Looking back on my first year, I’ve learned so much on a personal level, like how to best handle dorm life, and on an academic level, now equipped with the skills to take the triple integral of an paraboloid and code in MATLAB. Something that stands out the most is my decision to be a part of scholars– the community I’ve joined is irreplaceable and I truly don’t know what my college experience would be like without it.

Beyond that, I had some of the most meaningful experiences through the two Buck-I-SERV trips I went on. I mentioned in the G.O.A.L.S. section that I came into college wanting to focus on service, and these trips have given me the chance to travel while serving local communities. In December I traveled to Pinellas County, FL near St. Petersburg with a focus on costal cleanup. We spent the week traveling to several different locations near public hiking trails and beaches removing trash. The amount of bottles and other garbage we found was astonishing, especially since the tide can evenly distribute debris over  a huge area; below are some photos of the waste we removed. Another aspect of the trip was invasive species removal; the Australian Pine tree is an alien species in Florida, and we spent one day using machetes to chop down as many as possible, an experience I couldn’t have imagined having.

At the beginning of summer I went on another service trip, this time to ‘Once Upon a Time in Appalachia’ in Maryville, Tennessee. Our trip focused on learning about Cherokee culture and more invasive species removal, this time of honeysuckle. We hiked up to areas of the Smokey Mountains affected by the recent forest fires and helped clear and restore the trails. I remember putting in so many hours of hard work, but seeing how grateful passing hikers and the park staff were made the experience that much more meaningful.