Cindy Shen

From post-practice dinners to long bus and plane rides to tournaments, I have spent so much time and share so many memories with my teammates that it's almost impossible not to get close. Of the three of my closest friends on campus, two of them are on the fencing team. (One of whom is pictured above)

This is a pretty obvious benefit to joining any club sport, but fencing is one of the most competitive club sports on campus, so we have a training schedule that has been compared to some varsity teams (upwards of 10 hours/week + weekend competitions). A fellow teammate told me that she actually lost 15 pounds over the course of this year.

Fencing is probably a sport you've never thought about doing... Which is great! Because college is the time to try new things. About half of our competition squad consists of people that have never fenced before college, many of whom are freshmen.

Because we don't have a coach, we need to rely on each other more than we might have to otherwise. We're responsible for making everyone feel included and welcome. We do lots of fun activities together in the fall, including picking pumpkins together and going on a scavenger hunt across campus!

This year, we won nationals! 
(Beating out our rivals University of Michigan and Cornell)