Learning to Let Go for Success

Oftentimes, college isn’t just about classes or picking the right major. It’s also about growing as a person. Sydney Schmitt, an environmental sustainability and Spanish/Hispanic studies double major and four-time Distinguished Scholar on Earlham’s NCAA field hockey team, can personally attest to this.

The Distinguished Scholar award is given by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association annually to high school and undergraduate players for academic excellence, specifically a 3.9 or higher GPA during their fall semester.

“The Distinguished Scholar award is an honor, but honestly, there’s been some challenges with my academics. I’ve always tried to push through and succeed,” says Schmitt.

Her time here at Earlham has been eye-opening. She’s learned how to grow in the classroom while balancing the demands of being a student-athlete.  

“Earlham’s taught me many lessons, many of them social,” Schmitt says. In high school, she didn’t socialize as much as her classmates, opting to focus on grades, “but academics aren’t the only thing – friendships are important too – and so during my time at Earlham, I tried to balance grades with the socializing I didn’t always do in high school. I feel like in my final years here, I’ve finally found my people.”

One particular experience that she had with Earlham, an excursion to Spain as part of a study abroad experience, really solidified for her not just her next career moves or how she best works, but also who amongst her she could count as a true friend.

“It wasn’t really until a trip to Spain that I started finding my people,” she says, explaining that part of college for her has been figuring out who amongst her was a real friend and who wasn’t. Prior to her trip to Spain, most of Schmitt’s friends were fair weather friends. Schmitt found herself constantly being the one to reach out and ask to do things, giving more effort than she was getting back. It took finding new friends via this travel experience and remembering her self-worth to really find her footing socially.

Which, naturally, included an Earlham-funded internship as part of her Epic Journey as an environmental sustainability major. For Schmitt, after the study abroad trip to Spain, and finding newfound friends, she decided to tack on the internship after the Spain excursion with her teammates. So while her friends headed back to the States, she stayed in Spain to work for Co2Zero, a consultancy company.

“I was able to work in Spain after that trip, and ended up working for a company called Co2Zero, a carbon footprint consultancy company,” says Schmitt. “The internship was offered in either Spanish or English but I chose to have it entirely in Spanish because I thought that would help me more. I ended up translating presentations about how to calculate carbon footprints, for example, or what life cycle assessments are, from English to Spanish. I won’t lie, the presentations were a little frustrating because I’m a perfectionist and don’t like making even the smallest mistake. But my boss gently coaxed me to loosen up, be willing to make mistakes and give a less polished presentation. He ended up loving it. I reworked six different presentations to teach to future clients and interns. I also had the chance to perform an audit for their emissions and ended up catching an error that nobody else had caught, which of course delighted my boss and he said they would implement some of my findings next time around, including fixing that mistake. For a mid to large size company, that’s huge.”

Towards the end, Schmitt was helping her boss find and contact clients for a government program about reducing organic waste.

“My boss had this idea to use black solider flies to eat organic waste, leaving clients with zero waste when trying to get rid of the organic waste that they produce,” explains Schmitt. “I was helping him find clients to buy in to that idea, so everyone from wine companies to juice and jam companies.” She says that the whole experience helped her to hone in on her path post-graduation.

While Schmitt isn’t totally sure where she’ll land after she walks across the stage, she knows she wants to make an impact and has newfound confidence to get her there.

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About Earlham College 

Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion foster a collaborative learning community that inspires and motivates students with transformative opportunities and experiences so they can become catalysts for good in a changing world. Located in Richmond, Indiana, Earlham is one of U.S. News & World Report’s Top 100 national liberal arts colleges and offers one of the top 20 classroom experiences in the nation, according to the Princeton Review.