Cameron Griffin - Women's Volleyball
Cameron Griffin was a captain for the 2010 Carnegie Mellon
volleyball team. Cameron graduated in December with a degree in
Policy and Management.
During the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high
school, I remember the last thing I wanted to do was start the
college search. I knew it would be a long, arduous process,
and I really did not know where to even start looking. So to
kick start the hunt, my mom and dad gave me an enormous book of the
top 50 colleges in the country and told to narrow it down to 25
right off the bat. As an athlete, this was actually easier to
do than I expected! I knew that playing volleyball was
something that I wanted to continue doing in college, so I sent a
tape, waded through responses, and little by little the list got
smaller.
Aside from athletics, I wanted a more well-rounded school where I
could focus on academics as well; automatically Division I schools
were out of the picture. Secondly, I wanted a school that was
not only focused on the liberal arts or on the sciences. I
was completely unsure of where my future might lie, and I did not
want to be forced to choose the humanities over the sciences or
vice versa. After this realization, the list kept narrowing.
And finally came the requisite college road trip with my
parents. Driving all up and down the northeast, seeing campus
after campus and then taking the scenic route home.
After the third campus though, I remember all of the campus tours
running together and I was completely unable to differentiate
between them.
On paper, I knew that Carnegie Mellon has X number of students and
was ranked Y for academics, but I didn’t have a feel for the
culture and student body until I had my first overnight stay with
the volleyball team. As a recruit you hope that you will know
when it’s a right fit and lucky for me, I was able to tell
immediately that this was the place for me.
To this day, I have enjoyed every minute of my time at CMU.
As an athlete, I excelled on the court, being named to the
University Athletic Association all-tournament team for all four
years. As a team, we were able to win an ECAC championship
and we were the first team in CMU Volleyball history to make it to
the second round of the NCAA tournament. And one of the
biggest accomplishments for me was breaking the record for number
of career digs in school history.
But the success only starts with athletics. Academically, I
was able to study abroad, take interesting courses, and even
graduate a semester early. Not only did I enjoy my classes,
but they also prepared me for the real world by giving me a leg up
on the competition from other schools. Now I have finished my
time at CMU with a sense of accomplishment and a job offer.
In a search for the right school, it’s important to know the
campus culture and how you will fit in. Campuses, info
brochures, and tours vary little across schools, but the people who
make up the campus are the most important and will ultimately
decide whether or not a school is right for you. CMU was the
right choice for me because I was pushed to excel by teammates,
coaches, and professors.