As a young boy I grew up in the small coastal town of Plymouth, MA, known for its rich history of being America’s hometown. Many people come to see the Mayflower and the more well known, actually unimpressive, Plymouth Rock. My days of youth were filled with long days at the beach located less than a 10 minute drive from my house, where there was always a kite flying high and a cold lemonade in the cooler, as well as other beverages that I wouldn’t find out about till later on in life. I was a very active child always playing soccer, riding my bicycle, or my favorite pastime, terrorizing the neighborhood on my big-wheel. As I got older soccer took a strong foothold in my life, with my dad as the coach of the team I always had the support to do my best. In the 4th grade I began to expand my horizons and started to play the saxophone with the school’s band. Although that progressed very slowly and could never take away the enjoyment and love of soccer that I had. Moving on to middle school I found myself in a vastly different role within the school walls, while my home life stayed pretty much constant. A much bigger school meant many more people from many different places. I had always been very outgoing as a child but soon I began to sit back and just watch other people so that they would not be watching me. Always being a friendly and personable kid I had many friends but never liked attention much. This mentality carried on throughout my middle school career. When moving on to high school I was presented with the opportunity to join the marching band, knowing that it would require quite a commitment I decided to join. Trying to do both soccer and band kept my very busy but was a great experience. This is when soccer finally lost out to my love of music and, strangely enough, performing, albeit with 150 other people at the same time, performing none-the-less. Still maintaining the relatively drawn back attitude in school my freshman and sophomore years went by without a hitch. It wasn’t until I had the crazy notion to dye my hair black that things really started to change, in my opinion the dye went straight to my brain. This change happened almost immediately, I felt as though I could take on anything, what a feeling it was. High school finished up relatively uneventful; I knew most of the school but would never consider myself popular, had a few New Years parties and began to develop into much more stable person.
Applying to colleges I wanted to go to a school far away and with a lot of people I didn’t know, my choices were Penn State and the University of Vermont. Now over the years I had learned to ski and did enjoy it immensely, but not enough to warrant me to go to a $32,000 a year school, so I ended up in State College. That first year was more of a nightmare than anything else. I despised it here. I never went to class and generally was a waste of life. Needless to say I wanted out, and out was moving to Colorado. My brother had already been out there and I had a place to stay if I wanted, so I told my parents I would go back to school if they just let me go and take the year off. They agreed and I was off. While out there I skied 75 days in 5 months, worked at a Ritz-Carleton and had the time of my life. I also realized that I did need to finish up my higher education and returned to Happy Valley the next year. I am now a Geography major and am loving school more than I could have imagined. I am 6’3”, have red hair, and my name is Andrew Young.