to view entry paper!

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.