Since I am a Leadership Advancement Scholar, I am given a mentor from the LAS Cohort above me. Our mentors are there to guide us and help us and be our big siblings away from home! My mentor is Stephanie, AKA the coolest person I have ever met.
Each year the new Mentor/Mentee pairs go on a Mentor/Mentee retreat for a weekend where we do team building exercises and really get to know each other. Before the weekend I had met Stephanie and got food with her a couple times, but I didn’t really feel like I knew her too well yet. After the weekend, however, I feel as if I had met my (slightly cooler) twin.
We were asked to each make a giant road map on a poster about our lives, and to bring it with us to the retreat. When we first got to the retreat we broke off into smaller groups and shared our road maps with each other. My road map was the outline of a giraffe(my favorite animal) that was filled with all of the things that help make me who I am today.
After sharing our road maps, each group went off and did different smaller leadership activities or conquered the high ropes course. That night Steph and I got picked to go on a big group canoe trip that ended up being a memory I will never forget. The trip started off a little hectic as our bus ride to the river turned out to be a little on the dangerous side. When we got to the river, we were given our canoe, and it didn’t take long to realize that our canoe had a leak and was taking in water. We were told to continue on the trip anyways and hope that our canoe would stay afloat. The first hour was as close to smooth sailing as you can get when you have a sinking canoe. The view was beautiful and the company was amazing. After about an hour the sun began to set and our canoe was still filling with water at an alarming rate. We began to scoop the water out of our canoe as we moved along the river in the dark. However, scooping the water out of the canoe became pointless because we then were stuck in a giant rain storm in the dark. We couldn’t see very well and we got stuck on a rock and had to get out and push our canoe to deeper water. When we finally got out of the river, everyone was soaked and freezing. The best part of this whole unfortunate trip, however, was that we laughed the entire time. All of these things were going wrong, but Steph and I kept a smile on our face the whole time because we knew we were making the best memories.
The retreat really helped me bond with not only my mentor, but with my whole cohort. I loved getting to learn about everyone and learn how amazing and fun my mentor is. I cannot wait to see what memories I make with everyone throughout the years as a Leadership Advancement Scholar.
Ashleigh Varney 