Bella Threlkeld

COE Impact Profile: Bella Threlkeld ‘24 

Cornell Outdoor Education (COE) offers students a unique opportunity to broaden their educational experience beyond the classroom, allowing them to develop essential life skills like leadership, teamwork, and resilience while engaging in outdoor activities.

Immersive experiences, ranging from rock climbing and backpacking to canoeing and skiing, encourage students to step out of their comfort zones, fostering personal growth and confidence. By embracing the natural environment, students enhance their physical fitness and mental well-being, all while forming lasting friendships and a deeper connection to nature.  

In her own words, Bella Threlkeld ‘24 describes her COE journey of adventure, community, and growth, enriching her Cornell experience.

Experience impact

“COE unequivocally changed my college experience. During the Spring semester of my freshman year, I signed up to take Basic Rock Climbing, and it changed what could have been another sad semester shaped by the pandemic into a time where I gained a lot of confidence in myself and formed so many friendships.

“My instructors were kind and motivating, creating a space that was really about having fun and getting away from all the pressures that most Cornellians face. I had always been quite competitive and held myself to a high standard when it came to all things academic or athletic, so I feel so fortunate to have learned so early in my college career to let go of this compulsion to be good at climbing, and to just enjoy the sport for what it was.”

Skill building

“Each semester after this first Spring, I have taught Basic Rock Climbing and aspired to create this environment for my students, having conversations about how they’re doing in between warmup climbs, and really trying to engage them in class so they don’t think about outside stressors. My sophomore year, I became an Outdoor Odyssey guide, and the following year became one of the coordinators for this program. The first pieces of advice I received were from my former BROC instructor and Outdoor Odyssey coordinator, Rollin Leavitt, who said 1) “never attribute to malice that which could be explained by a mistake or ignorance” and 2) follow every guide, especially the Guides in Training on Instagram, talk to them and get to know them.  

“This was important for me to hear because I am not a very patient person but have become much more generous over the past year, and connecting is what I’m best at, but with all the chaos of odyssey, I could have easily forgotten that this was important. Aside from the leadership skills I gained during my time as coordinator, truly in a “fake it ‘til you make it” way, my co-coordinator and I saw many logistical errors and things go wrong in the field that we gained an adaptability to.”

Failure, growth, and connection

“Perhaps unlike jobs in the “real world” though, COE knows this is a student-run program and supported us so much through our mistakes. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to fail and to become better for it. At its core, Outdoor Odyssey and COE are organizations that welcome and support people. They have given me technical skills that I use every time I camp, rock climb, or canoe, which these days, is pretty frequent.  

“I have been supported in my growth and been able to support others in theirs, and perhaps the most important thing I have learned is this: just as I have not remembered all the behind the scenes work and accomplishments of the many hard working full-timers at COE, the behind the scenes work I have done as an instructor and coordinator is not what those in my community will remember, but rather the way I made them feel. COE is a place that prioritizes connection and having a good time, so don’t be afraid to reach out and get involved! There is no other space like it on campus, and being outside with others is one of the most fulfilling experiences I think anyone can have in college.”

Finding Community

“My first semester joining the climbing community, I pushed myself to come to the climbing wall during Open hours because well… I was obsessed with the sport and couldn’t get enough of it. It was still early in the semester, so I still had not gotten to know my classmates and didn’t really have anyone to climb with. I showed up to the wall on my instructor's shift, and one of the [monitoring staff] there was kind enough to belay me the first time I came, but I knew I would have to find a climbing partner at some point.  

“The next time I came to climb, I was asking my instructor to go about finding a belay partner when someone named Kate asked if I was also looking for someone to climb with. She was a senior and I remember she had great advice for school and for climbs I was working on. Inspired by Kate’s confidence in asking a stranger to climb with her, the next time I found myself solo at open hours, I bolstered the courage to ask a girl I recognized from my rock climbing class, and before I knew it, Allison and I had an in and out of class belay-tionship.  
“As the semester went on, I got to climb with friends of theirs, all of whom were in their final semester reflecting on their time at Cornell. This was the first place I was able to really put myself out there in terms of meeting people (an experience most freshmen have during orientation week), and it was a social push I was craving. I finally felt like I was making friends on my own and we all had a shared love of climbing.

“After they graduated, I had the skills and the confidence to meet many new climbing partners and the culture of Lindseth is such that befriending strangers in this way is normal. I am so appreciative of Lindseth as a space that allows for such connections and the space to grow into them.”