What do Cornell's Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) students do on their summer vacations?

Gregory Horn '10, current battalion commander for the Army ROTC, jumped out of helicopters and tore through the woods with an M16 at the ready and marched 26 miles in a New Mexico desert carrying a 45-pound rucksack. Alex Hydrean '10, battalion commander for the Naval ROTC, spent two weeks in a submarine after his sophomore year; last summer, he did barrel rolls in an F18 fighter plane.

Cadet wing commander Ben Polins '10 learned to parachute; Olivia Lawson, Air Force ROTC brigade commander for the Tri-Service ROTC Brigade, learned Portuguese in a cultural immersion program in Brazil.

But ROTC is a lot more than action and adventure; it hones leadership, teamwork and time management skills, said these seniors at an April 21 ROTC luncheon at Barton Hall.

"Unlike a lot of my peers, I wasn't completely sure I wanted to do ROTC," said Lawson, a biological engineering major in the College of Engineering. She joined ROTC for its scholarships and showed up at its orientation in a pink tank top, shorts and flip-flops. "I could do only 11 push-ups; I didn't really know my left hand from my right (so marching was just a tad difficult), and I didn't like telling people what to do," she said. "After the first day, I just wanted to go home."

But, thanks to friends and role models, she stayed; as brigade commander this year, she organized events -- including two blood drives that each surpassed the goals set by the American Red Cross, a military ball, ROTC's participation in a Veteran's Day parade, a Tri-Service Athletics Day, a POW-MIA run and even the appreciation luncheon -- for all three Cornell ROTC branches, Army, Navy and Air Force. Next year she will join Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as a developmental engineer.

Horn was drawn by a sense of duty and a desire to serve. But he also took pride in meeting the program's physical and mental demands, whether rising early for physical training, carrying a log across Barton's floor or sprinting to the vet school. Majoring in biological sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, last year Horn took five science courses and gained leadership skills as first sergeant, learning how to make decisions under stress and manage time and resources effectively. The rigors of ROTC, he said, have provided him with a "true appreciation" of his apartment and wife.

Hydrean, who majored in the science of earth systems in the College of Engineering, joined the Naval branch because it offered the chance to serve on land, in the air or on the water. His summer training involved working at an aviation base, spending a week with the Marines and traveling in submarines and on a naval destroyer. He eventually chose the submarine force, which requires great discipline, training and advanced math and physics. Soon, he is off to the Naval Nuclear Power Training School in Charleston, S.C., to become a submarine warfare officer.

Polins said that while the first two years of ROTC stress teamwork and followership, the last two emphasize leadership. As a mechanical engineering student, Polins said he's had ample opportunity to develop his time management skills. After graduation, he joins the Air Force, where he will eventually become a test pilot or flight test engineer.

At the April luncheon, Lawson said, "I'm not quite sure what exactly I will be doing [in the future], but I have no doubt that I will be thrown once again into the unknown and out of my comfort zone ... this time, I'm bringing along all those lessons I have learned while at Cornell, both in ROTC and in the classroom."