by Alana Aamodt ’18
The Block Plan provides flexibility for students to pursue and combine their interests, and in the case of Noelle Edwards ’19, this means balancing school and competitive snowboarding.
From the beginning of her college search, she knew she wanted to continue snowboarding competitively, but didn’t want to sacrifice the quality of her education, factors that led her to CC. Now a sophomore, she spent her first two years at CC traveling and training during Blocks 5 and 6, while simultaneously completing independent study blocks.
Edwards rides a 22-foot half pipe and is sponsored by GNU Snowboards and Woodward at Copper Mountain. This past season, she placed second at the Mammoth Mountain stop on the U.S. Revolution Tour, 15th in the Copper Mountain Grand Prix, and competed at the U.S. Open in Vail, Colorado, riding with some of the world’s best snowboarders. To end her season, she competed at the FIS World Snowboard Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain.
Edwards shares, “this year, I was able to work with CC’s very supportive staff to design two independent studies that would challenge me and advance my academic studies while also allowing me to train in Mammoth Lakes, California, during the winter months.”
One of those courses was Economic Discrimination in Sports Based on Gender, where Edwards conducted research and wrote a paper analyzing the wage gap between professional athletes based on gender. Her independent block was an English independent study based around travel writing, which studied well-known travel anthologies and helped hone her writing skills amid her travels.
Edwards is a film and media studies major as well as a news reporter for the Catalyst. She says she hopes to combine her interests in film and storytelling with her other passion, snowboarding. “I’ve wanted to work in the action sports industry for quite some time and coming to CC I wanted to be a film and media major from the very start,” reveals Edwards. “I think a combination of the classes I’ll take at CC and my snowboard experience will guide me to the ideal career path.”
Edwards is back at CC for Blocks 7 and 8.
Pictured is her second place performance at Mammoth Mountain (Edwards on the left).
