It's pretty much official. I survived college. Phew. While I don't think I ever really believed that I would take longer than 4 years to graduate, I did worry a bit that cold, winter day my freshman year that I stepped on the mythical seal of the WPI campus.
Those unfamiliar with the myth would probably like to know what I'm talking about, though you probably have an idea. The seal placed in the middle of our quadrangle is supposedly cursed. When it was installed in the early 1990s, a student tripped on it and did not graduate in time. Blaming the seal for his misfortune, he cursed the seal and anyone who dared to step on it. From then on, all WPI students walk around the seal to avoid its curse. In the 90's and early 00's, the method for breaking the curse was to have sex on the seal, but due to the heavy course loads associated with pretty much any WPI course, finding a private opportunity to have sex on the seal just wasn't possible. Graduation rates plummeted, but then stabilized as students realized the curse was a real deal. After months of work for an IQP to find a new way to break the curse on the WPI seal, there was a breakthrough. The IQP team realized that if you run and touch the goat statue -- which had been installed in the late 00's -- within thirty seconds, you can break the curse. One day, I hope that another IQP team will find the secret to completely breaking the curse. Not just at an individual level, but they must get to the root of the curse on the seal itself. Perhaps they will have to track down the student who cursed it in the first place. Perhaps he is long gone. Perhaps we will never know.
Three and a half years later and I'm a week away from the commencement ceremony planning a relaxing vacation at Rumney while putting off cleaning and emptying my room out. With classes being over, I did take some time to sleep, but my work is not done. I've been slowly catching up on the work I've been needing to do for my internship with Sol Power. I promised I would set V0-V8 in the CAVE, but I haven't finished yet. I've set 5 routes in just under 4 hours. If I could just get bigger block of time to set, I'd be able to set the remaining V2, V4, V6, and V8. I haven't been skipping certain grades on purpose, but when I wrote out the distribution list, I tried to space out the grades. The ladder ended up staying in the same place and 4 of the 5 routes I set were on the same wall. I'm definitely one of those people who uses vacations to get things done. I'm not sure what else I'd do, but I've definitely learned to get rest.
Earlier this semester, I burnt out. Burning out is totally a real thing. Here's how it started. I finished junior year strong. A few days of packing and a weekend of traveling later, I arrived at my first day of internship with sitting in the car being my vacation. Even if I am not driving, I have this tendency to scan the area looking for anything that could cause an accident. Things rarely show up, but it's good to be alert. I took a vacation during my internship for about two days in order to have my wisdom teeth taken out, but that was pretty draining. After my internship, I went straight back to school to start working on my MQP (senior year project). It was a really cool project, but it spilled over into the next semester. Coming into the spring, I was finishing up my MQP, and taking four graduate level classes. Not to long after I started to feel the burning out and it kind of just went from there. While I don't suggest just coasting during the final semester of your senior year, it just doesn't look good and if you don't take classes related to your major, you may forget things, if you know you have a big project like an MQP or a senior thesis or anything like that, it's totally acceptable to plan ahead and take a reduced course load just in case your project does spill over.
I've come a long way since my freshman year getting back into climbing and doing outdoorsy things. When I was younger, I was a girl scout, I made it to Junior status, but I never really got as much as I wanted out of it. I quit the summer between fifth and sixth grade and never really went hiking between then. Every once in a while I would go out to Rochester to go rock climbing at rock ventures. I actually wanted to compete, but I decided against it because I didn't want to injure my fingers since playing music was a huge part of my life. My freshman year, I went to the CAVE the first time. That was my first time ever bouldering. One time I made it up the overhung part of the wall. Just as I was about to grab the finish, I slipped and landed onto the mats from the top of the wall. That freaked me out for a bit and I stopped climbing. Over the summer, I decided that I was going to get better at climbing. I did pull ups mostly because I wasn't all that close to a climbing gym.
During my sophomore year, I got an email from some weird freshman through the Outing Club looking for people interested in going to Lincoln Woods. I replied back eagerly and got to climb outside for the first time. Being pretty new to bouldering, I didn't find much success climbing the routes. I was pretty scared of falling even though we had crash pads and climbing outside can seem really hard. It can be difficult to find holds outdoors when you don't really know what would be good. I got to know the weird freshman way better (we started dating) and my climbing really developed. I worked my way up to V2 and projecting V3/V4. In addition, I learned to lead climb for the first time. I also started setting for the first time. The route started with crossed hands and a layback to a rail. From there, you worked your way into standing up with a somewhat dynamic move to a sidepull, got your feet up and then finished the route. I was really proud of it.
Junior year got pretty busy for me. My main focus climbing wise was with my IQP (Interactive Qualifying Project - junior year project). My IQP was to create a climbing class at WPI. I worked with two other people, Ian and Mak. We were very successful and there will be a climbing class at WPI this fall. During our project, we created a curriculum, wrote out lesson plans and then tested it out on a bunch of newer climbers. It actually worked out really well because the newer climbers got to learn a lot about climbing and we got to clean up our plans and make them more reasonable.
During the summer, I got a pair of rock rings and kept up with general fitness. Coming into my senior year, without having climbed anything for almost three months, I showed up being able to climb most V3s. During my junior year, the grades got a bit stiffer in an effort to more closely match the difficulty of New England rock, so even though I hadn't nominally been improving grade wise, I had been getting stronger. I signed up for the Heist, trained for a month, and then somehow managed to come in third in the beginners category. I was pretty surprised by this since I had flashed 4/5 of my routes used for my score and none of the routes I climbed were in the beginner category. During my senior year, I worked really hard to be able to set lots of routes. I contacted Steve Wong about setting clinics for the CAVE. My climbing and my setting improved a lot. So did the overall setting of the CAVE.
Now that I'm graduating, I'm hoping to be able to keep setting at the CAVE and set at other gyms in the area for general resets and comps. My big mid term goal is to be able to set for the Heist. I've been practicing and focusing on my weaknesses in climbing and in setting. I've come a long way since my Freshman year, though I haven't grown (in height) at all.
Jenny
At the CAVE we can usually fit 20-30 routes, so resetting 8 routes is a huge change. For me, the setting process for the comp went as follows. First I set a bunch of things I thought would be really cool. Then, realizing the wall that I was on was really close to being done, I decided to finish it off. I realized later that I probably shouldn't have done that (it reduces the variety of routes in that wall area). I finished setting the rest of the routes on that wall on the second day I set which was actually the last day I put completely new stuff up. The last two days, Thursday and Friday, were mostly forerunning and tweaking. Despite my decision to set mostly in one specific portion of the wall, I actually did get to set a decent variety probably due to the number I bothered to set. 
I set Problem #1 the ladderiest ladder of all ladders. I hope everyone who climbed got up it if they wanted to because it was a 5.5 and my goal was to get everyone up it. We still called it a V0. I also set an actual V0 nearby it got slightly modified as I still have no idea how big kids are. I really need to work on that. In addition to that, I was able to set two V1s, one V2, two V3s, one V4, two V5s, and a V9 with help from Flannery and Shane. Unfortunately, the problem got broken by pretty much everyone in the open category.
I actually have a bunch of awesome news and I'm not sure which news to start with. I've known this news for a bit now, but I honestly couldn't believe either of the things that happened were "for realsies." I'm so glad to be able to share this with you all.
This route challenges newer climbers with a pretty slopey start. It may not seem hat great, but once you get your foot on the huge footchip under the boob, you immediately realize how solid it is. It continues on with a bump for each hand to some crimps. You then bring your right foot up switch the heel hook to a toe and bump you left hand up to a pinch. From there you mantle off of the no shadow hand sloper and get the most amazing no hands rest -- you could stand there for days if you have nice friends to bring you food. The route so far has brought you over the most awkward part of the boob to climb -- the boobiest part of the boob. From here, you carefully lower yourself down to another great foot cross hands and lay back for the finish. I have to say the end was pretty scary. The left hand crimp is solid, but really only lets 1/4 to 1/3 of the pads of your fingers to hold on. You trust it, lean back, and reach for the finish. My hands were shaking as I reached for the end. I set an extra foot so climbers could adjust their hands to either climb back down or jump more easily.