Catherine Fisher | Alumni

Finding Purpose

My first-year seminar Campus Sustainability 101 swept me into the world of environmentalism and led me to one of my greatest discoveries at DePauw: Working for the natural world with like-minded people gives me incredible purpose. Soon after that course, I was accepted into the Environmental Fellows Program, joined the Sustainability Leadership Program and started working at the campus farm, a place where I’ve spent hundreds of hours since. While interning there the summer after my sophomore year, I felt a happiness that I had never experienced. We worked long, hard days and I gained a connection to the local food, weather, environment and people of Greencastle and DePauw. This love for hands-on work led me to study abroad in Peru with a field studies program. The Amazon rainforest and Andes mountains were my classroom and I was surrounded 24/7 by energy, passion and friendship. I’ve found these same connections every day at DePauw, too, through interdisciplinary environmental classes and conversations with friends, professors and staff.

I wouldn’t have arrived here without the campus farm that showed me the joy of working with the land or the creative writing classes where I wrote stories that strengthened my connection to the environment. After four years of these types of moments, I’ve realized the importance of holding on to all of these things. It’s beautiful to be surrounded by the people and places that inspire me the most.

Major: English writing
Involvement:  Environmental Fellows Program, sustainability leadership program, DePauw Ullem Campus Farm
Study Abroad: Costa Rica winter term; Tropical Ecology Nature Writing; Peru semester abroad; School for Field Studies, Biodiversity and Development in the Amazon