Personal Narrative: My Experience With The Montana Conservation Corps

In the summer before my junior year of high school I spent 4 weeks tearing down fences, cutting saplings, staining buildings, learning about my goals and ambitions, and building fences across Montana. When I put in my application for the Montana Conservation Corps I thought it would only be benefit my life by filling up my summer and doing manual labor. However, the first day with my crew proved that assumption wrong, for I learned how to make unlikely friends, how to work hard, and how to be a steward of the land. My experience with the Montana Conservation Corps split my high school experience in half. My first two years I was unmotivated, lazy, and impressionable but through those 4 weeks I learned how to be myself. It feels good to do work the way I do it. All my life I have been a creative person; I find a way to complete tasks that usually involves trickery or cutting corners. There was no room for this in

I did not have many friends before simply because I was too scared to try to relate with people mostly because I didn’t believe in people, and that was a mistake. I found out that summer that people are so much more than they appear to be. My crew was made up of a hippy, a hick, a soldier, a nerd (me), and a brainy girl. I learned so much about them and sure, there were some arguments, there were times where I didn’t know if it was going to be okay, but there were more times when I realized just how much i needed and appreciated each of them. During our work, I filled many different roles; I learned from this because the next year I took initiative and filled the role of tuba in the top band at school. Having the ability to be flexible is a skill that has benefited me greatly, and as it turns out, tuba is something that I’m skilled at! My crew members made me want to talk to more people because they helped me realize how important true friendship