I came to Puget Sound a pre-med hopeful, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and it wasn’t even the middle of my first semester when I realized I was heading toward a dead end. Pre-med just wasn't for me, and with this realization came so much confusion. The biology major was out, chemistry classes could stay … maybe math? Lost and confused I found myself in a no man's land, unsure of myself or what lay ahead for me, I just knew that I had to go on until I was somehow inspired.

In my second semester, that inspiration came. One day at lunch there was a table in the student center advertising for Student Field Studies, an environmental, research-based study abroad program. In my head things began to click left and right. So many experiences that I had already encountered now made sense in the grand scheme of this new life picture. I was born to be an environmentalist; how had I not seen this before?

Now that I had a plan, I needed to gain some experience. In the summer between my sophomore and junior years I traveled to Alaska to be an events intern at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center (NAEC) in Fairbanks. I worked closely with the arctic coordinator to plan an annual run aimed at raising money and awareness about the issues facing the Alaskan arctic. I also worked closely with the Fairbanks community to plan booths for the local farmers market and writing fact sheets about climate change and renewable energy.

When the Al Gore blockbuster An Inconvenient Truth came to town, we wanted to have a screening with our members followed by a discussion at a local coffee shop. There were quite a few people who showed up to the movie and a good percentage of them came for the discussion afterwards, as well. In the discussion a number of ideas were thrown around about different things happening throughout the state and at the university in town, and the groundbreaking geothermal power that was opening at the hot springs 50 miles beyond the city limits. Big things came out of this meeting: NAEC’s commitment to organizing a climate discussion group within the membership and the decision to try to start a citywide task force involving people from all different areas of life, as well as a second epiphany for me.

As I was sitting there listening to what people had to say about climate change, and as my mind churned over the footage I had just seen, I got antsy. I was frustrated, not only for myself but for the people who couldn’t see what was happening, for the people who were researching what was happening, and for the lack of resolution at the end of the film, to give some sort of guidance as to what we could do every day to try and make the slightest bit of difference. Through this frustration I realized that this was something I wanted to work on directly, and that I would probably spend the rest of my life dedicated to it.

When I returned to Puget Sound in August, I was determined to see something happen on campus. In the midst of Orientation Week I kept trying to connect with one of my environmental studies professors to talk about what it would take to get a climate change and renewable energy speaker on campus. My head was filled with different ideas of who it could be, but I knew that this was a project I could not take on by myself. After talking to a few of my professors in the first few weeks of classes, I was directed to the newly formed club, Students for a Sustainable Campus (SSC), a group then made up of five sophomores, but whose membership quickly grew as the year progressed.

In the spring my vision of having a climate change and renewable energy speaker was fulfilled with the first-ever EcoFest, a week-long festival celebrating all that is the environment. There were speakers on a wide variety of topics, many of which focused on the issue of climate change and green energy in higher education.

Since the completion of the week’s festivities, I have continued to work with the SSC to pursue the purchase of green energy here at Puget Sound, and to strike a behavioral change to be a more environmentally conscious campus. We reached a success point when President Thomas signed the Presidents Climate Commitment, and are now following the example of our fellow Washington schools that participated in the EcoFest panel discussion “Green Energy in Higher Education” to set up a formal resolution to gather the support of the student body for purchasing green energy.

You never know where life will take you, and since coming to Puget Sound my life has taken a direction that makes perfect sense for me. It has taken me to Alaska, and shown me that I want to be a part of the greatest battle of our time, the fight against our changing climate. It is through experience and opportunity that we learn, and with my experience here at Puget Sound and the opportunity given to me in Alaska, I am focused and determined to make a difference in the world around me.