I can so vividly remember touring Conn as an overwhelmed senior in high school. I aimlessly wandered around after my tour and info session trying to digest everything I had just learned. I had already applied Early Decision, so there was no more thinking about applications for me. I moved on to thinking about other things like: What would a major in? Who would my friends be? What even is a Pathway? It was easy to delete the thought of a Pathway from my mind—the last thing I wanted was to add something more to my plate. 

Less than a year later, I wanted nothing more than to start a Pathway. The Connections curriculum quickly became exciting as the initial overload of information wore off. Thinking about where I am today, I truly cannot imagine my college experience without being a part of the Bodies and Embodiment Pathway. My Pathway is a small, yet powerful group of 9 senior women. Our classes consist of meaningful, sometimes difficult conversations, but I’ve never felt more comfortable in a classroom than I do with this group. The beauty of our Pathway is how different we all are from each other. Our diverse experiences, majors, and interests are, I believe, what helped us to grow so much between the beginning of our sophomore year to completing our pathway work now, as seniors.

Now I am in my final weeks of Bodies and Embodiment. It’s hard to believe that I will present my past 3 years of work to the entire College at the All-College Symposium on Nov. 6. My animating question has developed into a concept that integrates multiple passions of mine—both my work in psychology as well as my interest for holistic care and my love for yoga. While we prepared as a group for the symposium, my classmate Ayana and I realized how similar our ideas were. By the end of our initial class this fall, we’d decided to pair up and present together. Despite not being able to present to everyone in person due to COVID-19, we are still trying to make it something special. Ayana and I have rented out the dance studio so that the two of us can still physically give the presentation together and incorporate our movement pieces within the presentation. My portion of the presentation focuses on disease (both physical and mental) and diving into awareness and ways to ease pain. Ayana is focused on the natural world and what we can learn from it to assist ourselves in growing after an injury. Together, we’ve got a dynamic project focused on the body and mind connection.

As our presentation approaches, it’s becoming very real that we’re seniors… and even more real that my Pathway has led me to my next step. Next year I hope to attend graduate school to earn my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. I look forward to taking the interests I’ve developed here and diving deeper into understanding the mind and body.