It’s known that QUESTees tend to excel in their fields of study through the realms of business, engineering, the sciences, and more. However, outside of the academic environment, many QUEST students explore their passions through pursuing their respective hobbies of service, sport, and intellectual curiosity. This month, I was able to speak with two current QUESTees who are excelling in their respective fields of sport and service.

One QUEST student that exhibits this is Odessa Howera, a sophomore business management major in Cohort 38. Perhaps unknown to many, Howera is an athlete on ice. Her sport: curling. Her curling journey started when her mother gifted her father the experience of curling lessons at a local curling club. She would tag along with her father as he went for curling lessons, and soon enough, Howera started signing up for adult and professional leagues to compete at national tournaments. Twice, in her sophomore and junior years of high school, Howera competed at the national tournament located in Minnesota. Her crew also qualified for the national tournament in Wisconsin during her senior year, however, due to the pandemic, it was canceled. When asked about her most rewarding experience while curling, Howera discussed her third-place finish at the adult women’s national bonspiel (the terminology for a curling tournament). She explained that every year, the trophy transfers to the winning team’s club, and as such, it is rewarding to know that her legacy is engraved on the trophy as it gets shifted.  

While curling to many is not seen as a sport that requires the most athletic prowess, Howera insists that it still requires immense finesse and skill to compete at the highest level. The best way to describe curling, according to Howera, is “shuffleboard on ice.” There are eight rounds where two teams of four throw stones with the goal of getting the most stones the closest to the bullseye. Each person gets to throw in a preset order while the remainder of the team either sweeps the pebbled ice to smoothen a path for the stone or instructs the team on strategy. Contrary to many other sports, many professional curlers only start exploring the sport after college and tend to get better as they get older. Despite the strategy involved, there is not a high barrier to entry, and the tight-knit curling community is always receptive to new-joiners of the sport. Her club in Laurel, Maryland hosts “learn-to-curl” events which act essentially as an open house for anyone to learn about curling, gain first-hand exposure, and have fun. In college, Howera enjoys visiting her club during breaks to play recreationally or to spectate. While she does not currently intend on picking up curling again during college, she remains hopeful to get back into it post-graduation.

Odessa Howera (Cohort 38) Throwing Her Team’s Stone

Odessa Howera (Cohort 38) Sweeping Her Team’s Stone

In the realm of service, our next student spotlight is a regular in the QUEST Lab. Ryan Gerbes, a senior mechanical engineering major in Cohort 33, is the leader of QUESTServes and he has dedicated much of his college life to service. When asked about his inspiration to volunteer so actively in college, Gerbes quoted Marian Wright Edelman and said: “Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.” In spring 2020, Gerbes and a few of his cohort-mates started QUESTServes, using the QUEST platform as a home base to launch service initiatives in a community of highly-motivated students. Despite initial startup hurdles with the pandemic, the organization took off during the last three semesters, hosting events ranging from planting trees for Earth Day to providing meals to the local homeless community in partnership with Shepherd’s Table. Gerbes mentioned that his most rewarding moment pertaining to QUESTServes is still yet to come as the organization is just getting started on something amazing.

Outside of QUEST, Gerbes also volunteers with the Riverdale Fire Department, Station 7. His inspiration to join the fire department as a volunteer stems from his youth. When Gerbes was young, his father would take him across the street to the local firehouse to play with the fire engines and after his roommate mentioned that the Prince George’s County Fire Departments were recruiting volunteers, Gerbes fell in love with the work. Currently, he is working on completing his Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification, and during summer 2022, he will work to complete his fire certification. Gerbes described the process as tedious but rewarding. While he has been volunteering since December 2020, due to the pandemic, he was unable to start classes until September 2021. Despite the delay, he worked diligently to master skills such as throwing ladders on buildings, operating in an ambulance, hazmat training, and more to understand how his role on the scene works into the broader puzzle of emergency response. While this is just the beginning of Gerbes’ journey in emergency response, he says his journey has already been filled with “a lot of rewarding things – more blessings than he can count.”

Ryan Gerbes (Cohort 33) Taking a Picture of Himself Reflected in Side Mirror of a Firetruck