No Sophomore Slump
November 23, 2007
My daughter Sydney has been pretty busy in what is her sophomore year at Washington State University. Sydney is not only going to school full time, but is competing on the WSU Crew squad, and has put together a huge charity project for orphans in Malawi Africa. After a tough freshman year where life away from home was a tough adjustment, Sydney took it upon herself to not have a sophomore slump.
Sydney began her college transformation by taking on a tough summer of work painting homes to earn money towards college. Syd was only the second female to make it through an entire summer with her painting company. In fact, she did so well that they promoted her to crew foreman and offered her a possible position within the company. Painting houses all summer was a difficult job. Sydney worked 12 hour days, six days a week. When painting the houses the crew uses rollers and brushes…not spray! You can imagine how sore her legs, back, shoulders, and arms were those first couple of weeks. In fact, I told Syd not to accept the job when she applied because I didn’t believe she could handle it and make it through an entire summer. That was a challenge to Syd, and she was not about to have anyone tell her she couldn’t do something.
Not only was Sydney working her painting job six days a week, but she also worked Sundays as a waitress at a local establishment. Needless to say, Syd was ready to go back to college just so she could relax.
Did I say relax?
Once Sydney got back to WSU she decided to try out for the Women’s Crew team as a walk on. Syd had this idea the previous year, but thought better of it. This time, Syd was feeling good about herself and decided to take on the challenge.
Syd went to rowing tryouts and found herself not only competing to make a spot, but did so well that they placed her on the first novice boat (essentially the Junior Varsity team). This means that she will get to go on the road and compete with other colleges around the Pac10. The funny thing is that Syd is the smallest rower on the team. She is small enough to be a coxswain (the person who steers the boat), but strong enough (probably all that summer painting) to be a rower. Practices are early in the morning every day of the week.
In the classroom Sydney is excelling as well. One of her professors, Andrew Appleton (director of Global Studies), presented to his class a need in Malawi Africa where he had just spent some time. Malawi is a landlocked country on the south eastern area of Africa where the AIDS epidemic has hit the population hard. There are thousands of children who have been orphaned due to loosing parents from AIDS. These children are in desperate need for many things, one of them being simple things such as shirts.
Professor Appleton was hoping that some of his students would take this issue head on, and Sydney took this as another challenge.
Sydney has been working on a campaign called “Take your shirt off for Malawi”. The idea is to collect as many shirts as possible and ship them to an orphanage in Malawi Africa. The idea seems simple enough, but to make it happen a lot of things must come together.
Now Sydney had to figure out how to market the idea, collect the product, move the product, and finance the whole thing.
Syd began making phone calls and meeting with the right people. With the guidance of Professor Appleton, Sydney and an expanding group of students began spreading the word throughout campus. Syd was able to get the on campus shipping department to offer their services for free. They agreed to pack, shrink wrap, and ship all t-shirts collected.
Syd was also able to get the on campus news station to cover the campaign, get a web developer to make a website, and was able to get a commercial shot to promote the campaign that was played during halftime during the last WSU home football game (check it out by clicking play below).
Many positive things have happened for Syd her sophomore year, and it is only Thanks Giving weekend. So what’s the difference this year compared to last…Syd has taken charge of her education. It’s simple, you can either be a spectator in life waiting for things to happen, or you can take on life’s challenges and get right in the middle of the action.
I’m so proud of you Syd.
One Response to “No Sophomore Slump”
Leave a Reply
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
December 14th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Wow! Your daughter is a busy body! She has a great life ahead of her, the way I see it. She’s so caring! For example, the way she puts orphans, she doesn’t even know, before herself. Also, going to school and having a full-time job of painting houses with rollers and brushes. Finally, I would never make the rowing Junior Varsity team. What a good athelete!