This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at DePauw chapter.
Our next profile is a first-year from Batavia, Illinois. She’s a girl who didn’t see college as a part of her future until the beginning of her senior year of high school when she was thrown a curve ball in the game we all call life. Meet Sam Mele!
It all started when she was three years old and asked her parents if she could start dancing. No one knew that one day that curious toddler would become a famous ballerina. In the fifth grade, Sam began homeschooling to allocate more time to intense training. Some of her accomplishments include being named ‘Dancer of the Year’ in 2009 by American Dance Awards and placing 12th at The World Ballet Competitiion in her age division in 2011. After being ranked 12th, she started riding a train from Batavia, which is the most western suburb of Chicago, to the city for training on average six days a week at Ruth Page and The Joffrey. She also spent her summers abroad at Miami City Ballet, American Ballet Feeder and San Francisco Ballet.
Unfortunately, when she was just 16, she suffered a stress fracture in her talus bone and her doctor instructed her to rest. But as a teenager at the peak of her ballet career, she was determined to keep practicing. A year later, she broke her ankle and tore three ligaments and a tendon. It was then that she was told it was the end of ballet career. She would need years of recovery to get back on stage in order to audition for employment, and would then be too old.
With no other options, she enrolled at Batavia High School just in time for her senior year and began building a new life. This new path ultimately led her to DePauw. While at a dentist appointment, she was told to check out DPU in her college search, and it turns out it was the first and only school she visited. She told Her Campus, “College was unexpected and is something I thought I would never get the opportunity to do.” Now at DePauw, she dances for DPU POMS; a group that performs during halftime at football games.
With such a promising ballet career ahead of her not long ago, we’re definitely lucky to have her here at DePauw! Don’t hesitate to ask her to show off an arabesque or a pirouette the next time you see her!