Summer of Landscaping
For this experience, I spent my whole summer doing landscaping! My summer consisted of mulching, pruning, seeding, planting, and much more. This experience was important to me because before I started, there was so much negativity in the world with COVID, racism in society, and political attacks. By no means was me landscaping going to solve any of these issues, but I set out with a mission to bring some happiness to the world and make it a more beautiful place.
Over the course of the summer, I got the opportunity to meet so many new people and hear all of their stories. There was one house in particular that I worked at that I will always remember. At this house, me and the guys I was working with were just doing a simple mulch job. It seemed like no problem for us, but the lady who lived there came outside and started talking to us. She told us about how her husband used to do all of the outside work until he died a couple years ago, and that she was not in any condition to do it herself. The lady started crying as she told us her story, and she kept telling us how much she appreciated the work we were doing. Her story helped me realize something that I think a lot of people should know. Sometimes something small and simple can make someone's whole day, week, month, or maybe even more. It's up to you to go and do those small things to make someone happy! There were countless other houses that I worked at over summer where I got to hear the stories of the homeowners and see how happy they were when they saw the work that we had done at their house, and these are memories that I will cherish forever.
Not only did I get to help other people with this experience, but this experience also helped me. Before I started landscaping, I barely knew the other guys that I was going to be working with, and I didn't expect to like them much. But, over the course of the summer, I began to enjoy their company and they became really good friends of mine. A lot of times, the work we were doing would be either boring or difficult, but we always found a way to have fun with it and it felt like we were just hanging out with each other. I got very close with them, and it made it difficult for me to stop landscaping at the end of the summer. They helped make this experience a memorable one, and I hope to never forget the memories we made together and the lessons we learned along the way. My first honors experience was one of the best times of my life. I am grateful to be a part of this program, and I can not wait to see where it takes me in the future!
Before and Afters
Fun Pictures :)
Why I Chose This Sample
I chose this sample because I talked a lot about how I wanted to make the world a more beautiful place and take away from all of the negativity going on right now. Obviously, not the whole world gets to see the work that I did, so I thought I'd put lots of pictures on my website so that more people could see. I chose to do a before and after slideshow so people could see the differences that have been made, and maybe they will get inspired to do the same thing themselves! I also wanted to include some fun pictures in my sample so that people could see the fun that I had along the way, further inspiring them to possibly also do landscaping! Also, I just wanted to include some of the people I worked with in the pictures, because they really made it an enjoyable experience for me and deserve credit for the work that we did together :)
