This summer was completely awesome.

One of the coolest things I got to do was go to the Gainey Ranch in Montana. 

Every freshman at Hope College (and many other universities and colleges) are required to take an introduction to college class. Here, we call it First Year Seminar (FYS). Since the inception of FYS, modifications have been made. Currently, there are 56 different sections with different topics and themes, each with 20-25 students each. 

What’s really cool about Hope College is the mass amount of emails about cool things that you can do that you receive every day. One such email came at the beginning of spring, inviting all students to apply to have the chance to go to Gainey Ranch to help develop and improve FYS classes. Well, long story short, I got accepted, along with 18 other Hope Students and 18 Hope Professors. We made the journey for a week to a private, invite-only alumni ranch that had better accommodations than any “camping” excursion I’ve ever taken part in.

When you spend a week with 40 people in the confines of the emptiness of Montana, you become very good friends with them. Along with a lot of development work and important discussion time, we had a lot of time to bond. I’m so proud to say that I made many friends, students and professors alike.

This past weekend we had a REUNION! A math professor, Tim Pennings, offered to host the reunion at his house and we had a giant potluck BBQ.

Check out some photos of our trip and BBQ below:

xoxox -A