This past semester at UMass Amherst, Stockbridge was very different than I expected my first semester of college to go. I stayed in an off-campus house and attended one in-person class a week. Other than my one in-person class the rest were online. This made for a very challenging semester as I prefer to be in a classroom. My in-person class was one of the best parts of this semester, it was an arboriculture tech class where we climbed trees. Every Friday I would meet my class somewhere on campus and we would pick out trees to climb up. Since UMass did not offer any intermediate spots this semester I found a hockey league to play for in a rink near my house. We played every Sunday and it was a great thing to look forward to every week. Living in a house off-campus was definitely a learning experience. Making good meals for myself everyday and budgeting my time effectively took some time to figure out but I have slowly been able to get better at both. I have reached out to a couple arborists hoping to get an internship over the summer. I have found the field I chose to be more interesting than I thought and I am very excited to get back to classes. I'm very grateful for the opportunity MVYouth has given me and am very thankful for all the support.