My First Days at Vanderbilt

On Monday we had our first day of classes. They were exhausting but fun, and I’m happy to share my experiences with you.

The day stared with breakfast, where we sat with the members of our class. It was nice getting to meet everyone. 

Assembling the car

We then headed to class. The day was mostly introductions; we made bridges, marble runs, and went over our schedule for class. We’ll be modifying toy cars for eight kids whom have various disabilities, in hope of improving their range of motion and much more. Midday we had a lunch break, then we resumed our activities. The class went by quickly, and was over before I knew it.After class was finished we had our arête class, mine is chess. I was a bit worried about having this class as I have never played chess before, but thankfully they had the president of the Vanderbilt Chess Club as our teacher. She was ready to walk us through the game. My partner, Jack, was also helpful in teaching the basics.After arête we had free time, I played some card games with about twenty kids. It was a fun filled and exciting game, but alas all good things must come to an end. 

Next we went to dinner, where I sat with some girls from my floor. It was really good food, as always. 

After dinner we went on a photo scavenger hunt, I think we walked a few miles in the two hours. Some groups took it every seriously, running the whole time. I'm happy that my group was more for walking it, as I’m not the most athletic.

After dinner we went to bed, all tried after an eventful first day.

One of the little boys who we'll
be building a car for

On our second day my class went on a field trip to Belmont University where we met the children we would be working with and the woman who runs the program. She gave us an introduction to what their goal is, helping the children with different parts of their development though the toy cars. 

She explained a few cases to us, on was a girl name Paisley who couldn't walk at all and had little arm motion prior to receiving her car. After a year of playing with the carefully designed vehicle, she was walking. This story was amazing to me, I hope I can make that big of a difference in a child's life through the program.

We have two kids in my group for which we will be designing cars, each of them are just under two years old and have similar diagnoses. Because of this we will be able to modify the cars in similar ways, though each one will be slightly different.

After we were finished with our field trip we went back to VSA where we did our arêtes and another activity of our choice before having some free time as lights out approached. My day was fun and exciting, I cant wait to see what comes next.