Entry Paper Courtney Raske Major: Outdoor Recreation and Leadership Management Minor: Journalism Anticipated Graduation Date: May, 2018 All of my life, I have had a deep passion and an everlasting love of the outdoors. I find having peace and serenity in the natural world to be very therapeutic. I also find it to be thrilling and exciting. Most importantly I find the outdoor to be delicate, facisnating, and extremely education. My connection with the outdoors the past 21 years of my life continues to grow each and every day. Every time I spend time in the outdoors I learn something new through observation and curiosity. I would confidentally say that I have a great understanding of the outdoors and I have several outdoor skills. Some skills that I have obtained from experience are…                      Kayaking Canoeing Fishing Swimming Snorkeling Water monitoring for water quality Water purification Cooking Fire making Camping Hiking Backpacking Biking Longboarding Snowboarding Snowshoeing Decision Making Intuition Knowledge Sense of direction Compass Skills I have had incredible hands-on, personal experience in the outdoors such as being a camp counselor, short backpacking trips for a night or two, a great amount of camping, etc. The greatest outdoor experience I had was most certainly my 3 month backpacking trip to The Big Island of Hawai’i. I learned so much about survival and was able to create a fluent outdoor travel/backpacking system. It also gave me a great understanding of how to camp in different climates because Hawai’i has 17 different micro-climates on The Big Island alone. I still would like to expand my knowledge in the wilderness in all areas including thing such as: Winter camping, knowledge of plants and animals, and knowledge of the physical geography of our planet. I believe that every day we can learn something new and there is always challenges to overcome and better ourselves each and every time. To continuously improve my skills as an ORLM major, I plan to continue with the OLRM program at Northern Michigan University. As an individual, I am going to involve myself in and participate in as many outdoor recreation and leadership opportunities I possibly can. The outdoors holds endless possibilities and every day for the rest of my life I will be leading and educating others on the outdoors as well as learning more from interaction and hands-on experience.