A physics major and studio art minor at Colorado College, Alana Aamodt <\/b>is from Minnesota. She came to CC for a good education and for an exciting adventure. She\u2019s found both.<\/p>\n
In her first physics class, she and her classmates played hockey every Thursday, something she describes as \u201cone of those things you can only do at Colorado College.\u201d A short list of the \u201cnine million things\u201d she\u2019s done at CC includes an array of academic, intellectual, physical, creative, and collaborative ventures.<\/p>\n
She founded and co-chairs CC\u2019s club for Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to provide a supportive space for women, who aren\u2019t always well represented in science and mathematics courses. She says her motivation to create this club came from a feeling of self-doubt compounded by isolation, a sentiment she realized many other women students in STEM shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a crash course in running a club,\u201d Aamodt says. \u201cThe first year was exploratory. Then, I focused on my leadership style.\u201d<\/p>\n
She enjoys backpacking, rock climbing, and canoeing. After high school, she enrolled in the National Outdoor Leadership School. Part of the reason she chose CC was to explore the Rocky Mountains. She\u2019s continued her outdoor pursuits at CC as a leader with the Outdoor Recreation Committee and a wilderness first responder.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to lead first-year students on a FOOT trip to Mount Sneffels, a fourteener near Telluride,\u201d she says. (FOOT stands for First-year Outdoor Orientation Trips.)<\/span><\/p>\n And, the adventures continued. Thanks to funding from the Ritt Kellogg Memorial Fund, Aamodt was able to join three other CC students on a 16-day, 400-mile canoeing trip in the Yukon last summer.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rivers move so fast. The sun didn\u2019t set until 11:45 p.m. or midnight each day,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n Her academic pursuits have included plenty of exciting experiences as well. One field trip took her to a mosque designed by an Egyptian architect in the middle of New Mexico. Her architecture and design course gave her the opportunity to work on a model tiny home. And her class presentation? She gave it around a wood-burning stove in her professor\u2019s mountain home he had designed himself.<\/p>\n Additionally, she\u2019s played several intramural sports, including broomball, softball, water polo, and hockey. She\u2019s a research assistant for a CC professor researching retention of women in physics and a writing intern for the college\u2019s Office of Communications.<\/p>\n In Summer 2017, she was a member of a Quad Innovation Partnership team working on solutions for homelessness in Colorado Springs. The partnership is an innovation incubator that includes CC, Pikes Peak Community College, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and the U.S. Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Quad program allowed me to form connections in the Colorado Springs community. I learned about a lot of local nonprofits, and I met people who weren\u2019t like me. I realized there is diversity here; it\u2019s just spread out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n As a Venture Grant recipient, Aamodt studied the engineering design process and design\/build science of toys. She plans to enter her toy design in the college\u2019s Big Idea competition next year.<\/p>\n Aamodt has received the Patricia Buster Scholarship in Honor of Statie Erikson, Horace H. Work Endowed Scholarship for Music, Crown-Goodman Presidential Scholarship, and the Walton Family Foundation Scholarship. Additionally, she\u2019s received aid from the Ritt Kellogg Endowed Memorial Fund and Keller Family Venture Grant Program for Student Research. She\u2019s forthright about the role that financial aid and scholarships play in her ability to study at CC and immerse herself in the CC experience.<\/p>\n \u201cA single scholarship was my gateway to the seemingly infinite opportunities CC has to offer. Without con<\/span>stant, looming financial stress, I was able to explore my interests, just for the sake of trying and learning. With each urge to try something new, there was always an avenue to do it: another scholarship or grant, which helped pave my way in whichever direction I chose. One scholarship was all it took to open up more, so long as I was willing to work for them.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduation, Aamodt is planning to pursue a degree in engineering or design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A physics major and studio art minor at Colorado College, Alana Aamodt is from Minnesota. She came to CC for a good education and for an exciting adventure. She\u2019s found both. In her first physics class, she and her classmates played hockey every Thursday, something she describes as \u201cone of those things you can only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":952,"featured_media":12527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[26,63],"class_list":["post-12578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2017","tag-features","tag-peak-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2017\/12\/CC-BUL-WIN17-01-ScholarshipFeature.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/952"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12761,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12578\/revisions\/12761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}