Elsie Lewis is a senior at Muscatine High School, she has been in numerous activities throughout the four years.
What have you accomplished throughout high school?
Softball Varsity
Wrestling Team Captain
Reporter for FFA
Secretary for FFA
Secretary of the Student Activities Leadership team
President of the Muscatine FFA chapter
President of the National Honor Society
President of students activities leadership
Homecoming court
A Muscatine rep for the Iowa Girl scholarship
What are you doing in college?
I’m going to Iowa State University, I’m going for animal science. that’s what I’m going to major in because I want to be a veterinarian. That’s the reason why I chose Iowa State as my college because the campus is nice, I like how close it is, whereas UI is more spread out and things like that. The program that I want to go into is amazing at Iowa State. I got several scholarships, especially with being an FFA for throughout high school and even in middle school, so that was probably the best route for me compared to other colleges.
What advice to you have for incoming freshmen?
Think about your future, because everything you know, everything you do, impacts your future. Being kind to others all the time is important, don’t act out or do dumb things just to think because you think it’s cool, it’s not cool. Focus on your academics, and don’t mess around in classes, because when you’re a senior and you messed around freshman year, you’re gonna have to retake classes you don’t want to retake.
Stay focused and your classes and focus on your academics to be successful.
What is your best techniques for staying focused through your academics?
I always got my homework done, meaning I didn’t procrastinate. I just got my homework done when I had free time after sports practices or even if I had had time after school. I just got it done so that I didn’t have to worry about it or I made a mental note or sticky notes and things like that, so I wouldn’t forget the assignments I had to do and I never turned in anything late and I did it to the best of my abilities. So just completing things on time and in general.
How did sports impact you? How does it define you and do for you?
Joining sports has taught me how to branch out of my comfort zone, and talk to people I would not have talked to. It allows me to be more social. But it also like helps build life lessons, too, such as communication skills, responsibilities, and multitasking. It helps me learn how to work/work well with the team because that’s big in sports. It teaches me how to build up my confidence and focus on myself to make sure that I’m the best athlete or person I can be.
Being on a sports team is much more than just the game, cause when you put on a jersey, it’s more than yourself. It’s about who you represent. So it also allows you to think of other people in a way, too, because of who you represent to hold yourself well.
Specifically wrestling it’s like a way of life because wrestling, I mean, it’s debatable personally but, I think it’s the hardest sport. It’s super physically and mentally demanding. Our practices, we probably run no joke like at least ten miles of practice. It’s constant movement. It’s hard, especially in the winter times, it is dark and just kind of gloomy. It’s a long season too, especially the weight part of is hard when you add cut out certain foods or water sometimes. I think wrestling teaches you to just keep pushing yourself and keeping that mindset that you need to have in life is just like, keep striving for success
It helps you overcome all obstacles too, because nothing in life doesn’t stop for you. You have to keep pushing and learn how to overcome the obstacles, which I think wrestling does a good job of because it’s you versus you out there on the mat. It’s only you out there by yourself, which is also different from most sports. In most sports, you’re in a team, but wrestling is just you on the mat. So it also is more like if you didn’t put the work in, it’s gonna show, so it kind of makes you have a responsibility too.