Unlike her peers, Heidi Smith ’24 didn’t immediately start a new job a week after graduating in May. Instead, she delayed her start date to travel to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where she began a nearly 1,200-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail. For Smith, whose hiking background was mostly limited to day hikes, conquering the historic trail was the perfect untraditional experience to honor her transition to a post-college life.
Throughout her time on the trail, Smith discovered resilience while she learned to tolerate elements out of her control: “Sometimes it’s raining all day, and you’re sopping wet, and you can’t do anything about it because you’re on the trail and miles from town. You just accept, ‘OK, I’m uncomfortable now, but this will pass.’”
After 87 days of hiking through 11 states, Smith summited Mount Katahdin in Maine on Aug. 12. She has since settled in New York City to begin her new job as a software engineer with gratitude for her solo adventure on the trail.
“To me, it was more fulfilling than just traveling to another city and doing touristy things,” she says. “I think it was good to have that very self-reflective experience after college.”