Sara’s Journey

Why Grinnell?

I’m from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee with about 40,000 people. Milwaukee is a mid-size city, so I’ve never been in a context like Grinnell, but I ended up loving it.

Sports have always been a big part of my life. I was always in three sports a year in high school. But basketball is a bigger part of my life now than it ever has been.

Even so, I didn’t think college basketball was part of my journey until my junior year of high school when I started getting recruited. As I looked into the Division III philosophy, the balance you’re able to have between being a student and being an athlete and doing both at a high level, I started thinking seriously about being a college athlete.

Grinnell stuck out because of the people I met here. I had amazing conversations with people from Grinnell throughout the recruiting process and throughout my admission decision process. The most impactful was talking with current students. In terms of finding a community where I felt like I could belong, that was also great.

One thing I’ve realized coming here is that the people who need to know Grinnell — employers, grad schools, people in civil society — think highly of Grinnell. The fact that people from my hometown didn’t know Grinnell — I’m glad I didn’t let that faze me.

First-Year Experiences

I think the New Student Orientation week was really meaningful. I remember it being a very informative week. 

I’m a pretty extroverted person. But as invigorating and energizing as it was for me, it was also a tough week, in terms of being in a new place. But I felt supported — my NSO leaders and the other support systems around campus kind of understood what we were feeling. Because of Covid, it was a big shift for folks, and everyone was coming to campus for the first time. There was a sense that it was something new for everyone, and we all went through that together.

I took Professor Wayne Moyer’s tutorial (a class all first-year students take). I enjoyed the content so much. The tutorial was called Coping with Climate Change: How Science Ethics and Politics Interact. It did its job in preparing me for the academic rigor of Grinnell, as well as sparking my interest in studying political science and environmental studies. Great class!  

It was a strong group. We would go to get coffee together after class. We also went to Professor Moyer’s house on Rock Creek for a meal. He cooked this whole barbecue meal for us. He baked pies. It was sweet. Then we played croquet in his backyard. 

He’s a good baker. He would bring cookies to class a lot.

My tutorial classmates and I still say hi to each other in the halls. I also met one of my best friends at Grinnell in my tutorial class. He and I have been friends now all throughout our time at Grinnell.

Choosing My Major

Along with my tutorial, I also took Intro to Political Science with Professor Barry Driscoll my first semester. Poli sci had me hooked right away. Since then, Professor Moyer has been such an amazing adviser and mentor. I feel fortunate to have had him as a professor. I also enjoyed the other faculty members I met from that department.

I knew I wanted to major in political science coming in. I think it’s kind of rare to end up majoring in what you said you wanted as a first year. I’m still taking political science classes. I love it.

I think my concentrations have been valuable, too. I am concentrating in environmental studies and education studies. The individually advised curriculum has been great, not only in terms of getting those concentrations, but also, I wanted to continue my German language studies here. I’ve felt empowered to take as many German classes as I want.

Internships and Advocacy

After my first year, I went back to Menomonee Falls to intern at my home congregation over the summer. I got to see behind the scenes at a place that I’ve been going my whole life. 

What was especially meaningful about that internship was that I planned a service-learning trip for our high school students in the city of Milwaukee. We were able to engage in some complex conversations with the high school students and encourage them to be an active part of their community. 

After my second year, I worked as a legislative intern for a Wisconsin state senator at the State Capitol in Madison, which was so fun. I also got to do some canvassing in the senator’s Milwaukee-area district and meet people face to face, which was great. Knowing they might have a different opinion and trying to approach it from a position of ‘we want to hear your concerns to bring them back,’ I gained a lot of value from that about navigating challenging situations. 

Last summer I was here in Grinnell, working in an AmeriCorps service term at the Grinnell Community Early Learning Center, teaching literacy to first through fifth grade students. That was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had. I liked getting to know the kids. I see them around town now all the time. Building relationships with those students was special. I had a chance to connect with students one-on-one while still having other teachers in the room to support me. We had a lot of fun. I also see so much value in the power of connecting with kids through sports, and that was something I was able to do a lot.

It was probably my most impactful work and service experience in the sense that I had been doing a lot of education policy work, and I had all these ideas that in terms of advancing educational equity. But without understanding the realities of what teachers are facing, what schools are facing. If I’m not thinking about that as a policymaker or as a lawyer hoping to advocate for students, I can’t do the best work. That’s something I am going to continue, even as I move into policy and law spaces. It’s so important.

The Center for Careers, Life, and Service (CLS) staff has supported me as I looked for internships, especially in terms of getting my cover letters and resumes set up. CLS has been so great. They’re one of my favorite resources here on campus, not just from the jobs perspective, but I’m also preparing to apply for law school. So, their support throughout that has been invaluable. 

CLS also helped me apply for several global fellowships and awards. I was a national finalist for the Truman Scholarship last year alongside three other Grinnellians, which was amazing.

Research

Education has now grown into my primary interest. As a concentrator, I felt incredibly supported by the education department. I wanted to do an independent research project on school choice policy and legislation in the 21st century. I asked Professor Paul Hutchison in the education department and Professor Andreas Jozwiak, our policy studies professor, to co-advise a research project for me. They were both so willing and they’ve been so helpful as I’ve started my research project this semester. They’ve challenged me to grow my scholarship in a lot of ways, too. We’re planning a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) for next semester. I hope to conduct a survey experiment to see how parents are thinking about school choice decisions within the context of voucher programs or educational savings accounts, especially as it becomes a growing nationwide movement.

I’m excited to see what that will result in.

Activities

I am currently the co-chair of our Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). It’s a strong organization. We do a lot of great work. Right now, we’re conducting our food drive for MICA (Mid-Iowa Community Action) for the holidays. 

We’ve also hosted some amazing events with our partners at Special Olympics, and we’ve come up with some neat ways to support our student-athletes and get more people to turn out to our games, while also creating a space for advocacy in the student-athlete experience. We’ve also built a strong connection with our athletic administration that I’m proud of, where student-athletes have a forum to have their voices be heard. 

I’m proud of the work the SAAC organization has done.

Admission

I love my admission work, especially now. I gave tours for two years, which I enjoyed. But now as a senior interviewer, I can sit down with prospective students and sort of talk through their questions and hopefully quell any fears or concerns they might have and help make sure that wherever they end up is a good place. And Grinnell is a wonderful place where you’ll grow and develop and become a stronger academic, but also a good contributor to your community.

Course-Embedded Travel

I did course-embedded travel with Professor Viktoria Pötzl in the German department. The name of our class was Jewish life in Central Europe in the 20th Century — it was a great class, with a great group of students. We looked at Jewish life in this region, reading a lot of books, watching a lot of films, dance, music, theatre — you name it. 

We traveled to Austria, Poland, and Hungary for 10 days, and it was an amazing trip — definitely a formative experience. We connected with members of the Jewish community in each of those cities. We saw not only the history, but also the present-day reality of Jewish life in those places. That was a cool experience. 

I think I could only have seen the city in that exact way by going on this trip, coming in with the information I had.

Balance through Basketball

For me, basketball at Grinnell has been such a great addition. I’ve never been on a team where everyone genuinely likes each other so much.  I’ve never felt any sort of tension or awkwardness that can’t be resolved with conversation. It’s such a tight-knit group of women — we’re all friends off the court, too. We spend so much time together, not just at practice, but also, I know everyone I’ve played basketball with now is a lifelong friend. I’ve felt so supported by my teammates and by my coaches throughout my time here. It is a big time commitment — we’re all balancing our academics and social and personal lives. 

Basketball has also helped me to maintain balance. I think the mind-body connection is so important. You can’t do anything if you don’t have your physical health. That has been great for me, to have an outlet every day. 

When I’m in season, my time management just gets better. As a senior, I am taking a reduced course load, but I’m preparing to apply to law school and I’m working more on admission than I ever have. And now that I’m in season, I do have to be disciplined about how I use my time. But for me, it’s easier when there’s the external pressures to get things done.

I love the sport. I have gotten so much more into it than I ever had before.

Just for Fun

I make a big point of trying to get out into the town of Grinnell as much as possible. I’m a regular at Saints Rest Coffee Shop and I enjoy going to lots of the restaurants downtown. 

The basketball team spends a lot of time together off the court. I’m living in a house off campus with the two other seniors on the team this year. And we have the rest of the team over a lot. We have movie nights and game nights, and it’s a neat group of people. 

I can’t say enough good things about our first-year class this year. And every class that has come in through my time here — they’re excited to be part of the team. And that’s something we project during our recruiting visits. We want them to know that if they come here, they’re going to be part of the team.

Last year we took a team trip to Florida and played two games. That was an experience our program hadn’t had for a few years, so that was a lot of fun. It was over winter break too, so it was lovely. We could wear our T-shirts and we had time to explore the city.

Hopes and Plans for the Future

Professor Moyer, my academic adviser, has been so encouraging and supportive of every opportunity that I talk about with him about. He’s been encouraging and always instills confidence in me. When I was looking at who to write my letters of recommendation for law school, I felt like I had more than enough professors I could ask. That reflects the strength of relationships I’ve had with professors here, where it felt like a lot of them could speak not only to my academics, but also to my future passions and interests.

In the coming years, I plan to apply to law school. I think half of the schools I’m applying to are in the Midwest, and half of them are on the East Coast, and then one in California. I love the Midwest and it’s where I hope to end up, but it’s nice to experience something else, too.

Now that I’m looking at law schools, I realize how important time management skills are. I feel very confident in saying I am skilled at allocating my time to get things done and done well. I feel certain that my time at Grinnell will have prepared me for the academic demands of law school.