<ong>Name: Bonnie Melville ’92
Major: Economics
What are you doing: VP of Channel Operations at GeoLearning (building and supporting partners who resell our software solution)
Activities you were involved in at Carleton: Syzygy, IM’s and ACT
What is your favorite story from your time at Carleton?
All of my favorite stories revolve around Ultimate. Most of us on Syzygy had never played Ultimate before and came from various sports backgrounds attracted by the awesomeness of the sport and running the team ourselves. We designed the training, drills and strategies, and we took care of the administration of getting funding, entering tournaments and arranging associated transportation and logistics. We made Nationals every year and were semifinalists at Nationals three of the four years I played, competing against D1 schools and D1 athletes. The time with my teammates at tournaments and the van rides to and from the tournaments are some of my best memories.
What was the best part/worst part about the year after you left Carleton? How have you and your friends kept in touch? Did you move to places close to one another? How have you made new friends?
The best and worst part about leaving Carleton were the same thing…the culture shock of no longer being surrounded by bright, curious and interesting people 100% of the time was the worst part of leaving. But the best was…without that environment I could escape my mediocre academic performance and return to the general population being significantly above average.
Playing Ultimate allowed me to stay in great touch. It helped that with a contingent of CUT/Syzygy players intermarrying, including me and my husband, we continued playing Ultimate, living with each other, seeing each other regularly. The annual alumni game helps, and a group of us rent a house for a weekend each year with our families.
I also kept in decent touch with non-frisbee friends through email, visits every few years and Carleton reunions.
Making new non-Carleton friends right out of school was wrapped around Ultimate again as I played for a club team. Dan and I moved to Des Moines 6 years ago, and it was harder to make Carleton-caliber friends here. We met most of them through meeting other parents at our kids’ preschool. Recently the Carleton contingent in our demographic in Des Moines has grown, and we have recently made friends with another Carleton family from the early ‘90’s. In fact, Todd graduated my same year, and we never knew each other existed!
Looking back, what is the single most influential/greatest/useful lesson/thing you learned at Carleton?
Procrastination is bad.