Hannah Fuller, a sophomore from Portland, Oregon, found her place at Cornell when she became an Outdoor Odyssey guide. Though she did not participate in the Outdoor Odyssey pre-orientation program as a freshman, she immediately connected with this “goofy” group of people, and has embraced her role as a guide in the program. We met with Hannah to learn a little more about what Outdoor Odyssey, her experiences with the program, and her personal interests and passions.
What is Outdoor Odyssey, and how did you get involved?
Outdoor Odyssey are pre-orientation trips for freshman run through Cornell Outdoor Education, a center that seeks to provide experience based education in the outdoors to the Cornell community. The trips we lead are challenging both because they are outdoors and also because freshman are new to Cornell and coming to college is an intense experience. I like being a guide because you have to have interpersonal skills as well as the hard skills of knowing what to do or how to survive.
I didn’t do Outdoor Odyssey myself, but I met a bunch of people and they were all really cool and had all done Outdoor Odyssey. I was like, “well this is a common denominator.” And so I applied on a whim, this time last year, and I went for it. They accepted me, which was awesome. For a lot of people it is more than just the trips – the trips are great, and that’s how people get involved, but afterwards it becomes this really awesome community on campus. Everyone who has done a trip is so grateful because they come in with friends already. When you’re a freshman, having someone to go to RPCC with is really great. It is such a goofy, quirky community of people. It is a really great way to make Cornell feel a lot smaller.
I didn’t have a whole lot of experience prior, except for day hiking or camping with my family. A really cool thing for me with Outdoor Odyssey is that I gained so many skills. Even though they don’t pay us, we gain so many skills. We are all wilderness first aid or first responder certified.
Do you have a favorite memory from being in Outdoor Odyssey?
A trip that I just took in August to the Catskills was really awesome. It was six days in the Catskills. It was insane – we saw a bear. I know that’s something that everyone associates with going out into the wilderness, but it normally doesn’t happen. The first two days were spent in thunderstorms and we had to do these lightening drills where you spent time on the ground for hours at a time. My freshmen were such game on team players, which was awesome to see. It was really fun.
One moment – so as guides we are supposed to teach about how to appreciate the environment, and as we were walking along, one of my co-guides told our group “guys smell the trees,” because the trees smelled really good. They were pine trees – they smelled like christmas. The trippers were so into it. They went up and smelled the trunks of the trees, which was not at all what she meant. I was like they’re so into this – I love it so much.
What’s one outdoor excursion everybody should do in the Greater-Ithaca area?
So, we sort of did this, me & Maddy. There is this Finger Lakes Trails and some branches of it go close to Cornell so it’s really basically out the backdoor. And it has a bunch of “Lean-Tos” which are these three walled structures. Those are really great because you can go there in the snow, or anytime of year. It’s a really easy way to get off campus really quickly and I think there are countless spots on that trail that are just awesome. It’s so convenient we are so lucky. Like, I had a friend who went to Washington University in St. Louis and she was complaining because there just is not anywhere to go that is really close by, whereas here you can go to Treman for a day, it is hard for me to think of just one that you should definitely do. But yeah the Finger Lakes trail is so close and it stretches all the way to the Catskills, which is like two hours away. Actually, on my Catskills trip our path hit the end of the Finger Lakes trail.
How can you get involved in Outdoor Odyssey if you didn’t participate in one of the pre-orientation trips?
Applications are due October 12th. They are always due basically right after Fall Break. So yeah, that is one way, you can apply to be a guide. We are just looking for who you are as a person and trying to find a diverse group of people. But you can also take any Cornell Outdoor Education classes and apply to be a Cornell Outdoor Education staff member, which means you can teach classes. They don’t train you as much, so you often have to be a bit more qualified. But if you take a class you can often teach it the next semester and the classes are great. There are a lot of really cheap ones, as well as some that are free. So, Backpacking in the Finger Lakes, you go backpacking three weekends in the fall or in the spring and it is free if you still need a PE credit. So it’s really good for freshman, or anyone really. And there’s rock-climbing and caving, so there are a lot of different classes and it’s really fun.
What is your dream career?
Oh my gosh, hard question. It changes everyday. I’m taking this class on food justice and it is about the role of healthy food in people’s lives and how much different systems of inequality and social justice tie into the way that we provide food and so I really want to do something with that. However, because it is a really complicated issue there isn’t really a given solution or a given path, but yeah, I’ve really been interested in that. I’m a plant sciences major but I also like the humanities and want to do something good with it. So the class that I’m taking focuses on community gardens and things like that so that is a path that I’m looking towards right now.
What is your must take class at Cornell?
Kate McCullough’s “Feminist, Gender and Sexualities Studies” course. She is unbelievable. And I’m somebody who has always considered myself a feminist but being able to sit down in that class, you become so much more well-versed in the subject. And she is really inspirational.
Favorite Professor?
Yeah, so Professor McCullough is definitely one of my favorites. But also Marvin Pritts is the head of Plant Sciences and is just the sweetest man ever, so him too.
