Lauren Croissant MRGS'16

Lauren graduated from MRGS in 2016. Below she shares what she has been up to since, and how attending Gov School played a role in that.

Post Graduation:

"After graduating from gov school, I went to William & Mary, where I double majored in biology and environmental science. I've had two different jobs since graduating from college. I worked for an environmental education nonprofit in Maryland through the Chesapeake Conservation Corps for a little under a year before switching to more hands-on environmental work. I currently lead conservation crews for Appalachian Conservation Corps, a nonprofit based in Harrisonburg. Our crews take part in a wide variety of work on public lands, including building and maintaining trails, chainsaw work (cutting lots of invasives and dead trees that pose hazards to people!), building campsites, restoration projects, and projects that improve accessibility to public lands. ACC works all across Appalachia, so I've gotten to travel a lot and see a lot of beautiful areas that I wouldn't ordinarily have gone to due to their remoteness."

Gov School Memories:

"I think a lot of my favorite gov school memories have to do with how creative MRGS students are. One of my English seminar group projects featured a dodgeball game to recreate the sinking of the Spanish Armada. Another one featured a homemade haggis that Mr. Kohrs escorted into class while playing the bagpipes."

How MRGS impacted where Lauren is today:

"When I first started gov school, I was convinced I wanted to become a physical therapist. Although it wasn't gov school alone that convinced me to pursue a career in the environmental field, I think it was what sparked my interest in it. It definitely made me find and embrace my inner tree hugger.

I think the biggest thing I took away from gov school is confidence to speak to groups of people. I came into gov school as a shy 16 year old who sweat profusely at the thought of giving presentations for at least half of my junior year. But for the remainder of my time in gov school and continuing throughout college, I hardly gave presentations a second thought. And that skill has served me outside of academia, whether it be talking to groups for college clubs, teaching at my old education job, or communicating with my crews at my current job. In addition, gov school helped me to think creatively to solve problems and think outside the box. This has helped me so much with my current job, where tools break, plans change, and various problems arise on the regular. Gov school helped me become a better problem solver. "

Closing remarks:

"Overall, I'm incredibly thankful I had the opportunity to go to gov school. "

"[I'm] grateful for the low-stress, creative, fun, and collaborative environment that gov school provided. I'm grateful that the teachers recognize that learning is not just filling out worksheets and taking tests, but actually applying concepts to solve problems. I'm grateful I learned the power of collaboration as well as independent study. Also, those extended break hash browns were legendary."