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ROSIE PURVIS SETTLED IMMEDIATELY INTO THE
rhythm of college life except for one thing: the hours at
Prothro Dining Hall. She is training for the Modern
Penthatlon Junior World Championships in Buenos Aires in
November.
“As an athlete I’m used to eating between meals, so I keep
getting thrown off by the dining hall being closed,” she says.
Pentathletes compete in fencing (in which she qualified
for the 2011 Junior Olympics Championships), swimming,
running, pistol shooting and riding. Rosie is aiming for the
2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in modern pentathlon.
To maintain some balance, her extra-curricular activities
so far overlap with training. She joined the fencing and crosscountry
clubs, although swim team practice conflicts with
cross-country’s regular schedule.
For Rosie, who took some college courses her senior year,
a challenging academic program in engineering clinched her
choice to come to Sweet Briar. “Along with that, it’s a small
college. I won’t get lost in the crowd and my professors know
my name and face,” she says.
is semester her classes include calculus III, an
introductory engineering course and first-year honors seminar
on molecules, plus two languages. Along with engineering
science, she is thinking about a double major — maybe math,
but she hasn’t decided.
Rosalie Purvis, homeschooled,
Montgomery City, Mo.
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