Get to know Courtney!

October 5, 2011

Hi everyone! My name is Courtney Lee and I am currently a senior majoring in environmental biology and minoring in Spanish. This is my fourth year at Saint Mary’s and I absolutely love it here. I am involved in various activities on and off campus. I work about four jobs on campus, which is a little ridiculous, but a girl’s got to pay off her college debt somehow. Am I right? I’ve worked as a ropes course facilitator at our new challenge high ropes course, as a scientific technical writer for GeoSpatial Services; I started working at Campus Safety this year and now as a blogger for the Ambassador program. I am involved in campus clubs and activities such as the SCUBA club, Outdoor Leadership, intramural sports, assisting at Mass, and singing in choir. I am originally from Apple Valley, and I have a wonderful family residing there. Once I graduate I hope to put my SCUBA certification and love for conservation to use in marine conservation.
Why I chose Saint Mary’s, well I ultimately chose Saint Mary’s because they offered me the most scholarship money than all the other schools that I had applied to for college. Why I was drawn to Saint Mary’s in the first place however, was because of how strangely familiar this place was for me. I actually kind of stumbled onto Saint Mary’s, I originally came to Winona to tour Winona State University, but didn’t like it. On our way out of town my mother had suggested that we stop there. I actually resisted quite ardently, but she was driving, so we ended up here. It was a big weekend for tours, and I had missed everything. There were still some ambassadors lingering around and a girl offered to take me around. Everything about this place was familiar. I felt like I was at home. There were familiar smells, faces didn’t seem so foreign and the girl that gave me my tour reminded me of my best friend that I would be parting with after eight years of friendship. Looking back on it, that was a strange way to judge a school, but it has been the best decision I have made in the entirety of my life. I have become the person that I had always wanted to be.