A very involved student with huge goals: Savannah Carter
Freshman year can be so difficult because there are so many new changes, but Savannah Carter is putting herself out there and doing an amazing job fitting into the Eckerd Community! Savannah has come all the way from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to study Geosciences. What brought Savannah to Eckerd was the community that we have developed here. She said that on her first tour, the guide said, “hi” to nearly every other person that she walked by and she thought that it would be nice to know so many people at your college. So far, the best event that she has attended at Eckerd was one of her recent dorm events where her dorm just made s’mores and hot dogs in the fire pit out back at sunset. She said it was a lot of fun to get to know more people in her dorm, and the food and view were a nice bonus. Savannah is involved in a ton of activities on campus including, being a member of the dance team, a research assistant of Professor Brooks, a teaching assistant for his Geological Oceanography lab, and, of course, a member of the Cheesy Dog club. She also just signed up to join a pottery club that does charity work at the last Club Fair. She will also be helping out with Dance Marathon the week after spring break, too. Here is a little friendly reminder to make sure you sign up for the Dance Marathon before March 28th!
Since Savannah is a freshman she just declared her major as Geosciences, but she might switch back to Marine Geology later. Impressively enough, Savannah already has a job as a TA on campus for Professor Brooks! This requires her to help the students understand concepts that will likely be important for their major. She said that in class, TA’s primarily just help set up, answer questions, and clean up. Out of class, she grade the students’ work. Now if you’re not already impressed with the amount of activities that Savannah is involved in, she also received the freshman internship this summer with Professor Brooks! She said that the internship was a bit of a surprise for her. She briefly mentioned last semester that she was interested in continuing to work for Professor Brooks after this year when the Freshman Research Award ended. When she met with him after winter break, he told her that he had gotten funding to run his BP Oil Spill project for another three years and had found money in the budget to hire her and her friend Jessie for the summer if they were interested, so of course she said yes! She’s only 18 years old and she already gets to work as a paid research assistant on a real research project with intelligent and experienced scientists who can teach her more than she would ever learn in a class! That is a huge accomplishment; congrats Savannah!
As far as her social life goes, being apart of the EC dance team is a huge commitment. She said that the best part about being on the Dance Team is the other members. She’s made so many friends since joining the team, and has had so much fun with them every day. In addition, she is learning a lot and becoming a better dancer every day. Her favorite dance routine that they have performed so far was the Uptown Funk rugby performance. It was a beautiful day, the dance was fun and energetic, and it was family weekend, so the crowd was bigger than usual. She said that they got tons of compliments from parents afterwards, which was really nice. For anyone who is staying on campus for spring break and wants to get to know Savannah better, good news she is staying on campus! Her friends decided that they wanted to save money this year, so they are all going to go on an adventure every day: sailing on the bay, kayaking through the mangroves, snorkeling by the beach, whatever. She thinks that they’ll have a great time, and all for free!! I strongly encourage everyone to say hi to Savannah when they see her and even try to get to know her better because she is super friendly and fun!