The Pivot

Today is my first day back from Spring Break, here at Purdue University. I received my appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point a few weeks ago and I am hoping to hear back from the Naval Academy soon. I started the application process last Spring after my first spring semester here at Purdue. A frequent question I get is, “Why do I all of a sudden want to attend a service academy after two years at a civilian college?” The simple answer is that I genuinely want to serve my country. After multiple internships in high school and in college I realized that I am capable of working a civilian job and making a living. But is life even worth living if you are not testing yourself. My dad being a Naval Academy graduate was certainly an influence on my decision to pursue a commission through a service academy, but truthfully it was me and only me who decided to give it my all and apply. The application was no easy process for me and it certainly took a lot of work. Especially the physical fitness portion of the application.

The Academic Grind

Luckily, throughout my academic career up until I declared Electrical Engineering as my major at Purdue, I was a killer in the classroom. My GPA coming out of high school was a 4.0 unweighted and a 4.62 weighted. Although my school wasn’t the most academically challenging, and I probably didn’t deserve the A in AP Physics 1, I had excelled. Then I decided to attend Purdue University originally with the thought of studying biomedical engineering mostly because it was a combination of my parents interests (Medicine and Engineering). My first semester at Purdue I took 16 credits and maintained a 4.0 GPA, but that is likely going to be the last time I see a 4.0 in my Purdue career. The following semester I kept up my study habits and earned a 3.91 total GPA. The next semester I declared Electrical Engineering mostly because I heard it was by far the hardest major at Purdue and I can’t resist a challenge. I really had no interest in any of the classes I took that semester and I had to spend countless hours in the lab. After probably the most demoralizing semester of my life I got 3 C’s, 1 B, an A in an easy seminar class, and 1 W or withdraw on my transcript. Luckily by that point I had already done well in school, so my GPA was still a 3.52. This semester I changed my major from Electrical Engineering to Mathematics and Nuclear Engineering. Mostly because Mechanical Engineering is very difficult to transfer into at Purdue and I realized I had absolutely no interest in Electrical Engineering, but was still looking for a challenge. This semester so far is going relatively well, but my focus on my physical fitness and devotion to reading more books has caused a hit on the study habits that helped me get a 4.0 GPA my first semester. Really, I am just trying to survive to get a fresh start at a Service Academy where I will be devoted to Mechanical Engineering only (Although, that is not remotely close to the reason for my decision to transfer). The second part of the academic portion of the service academy is your test scores. Which I want to touch on briefly and I may make a post dedicated to standardized testing later on. I took the PSAT twice and the SAT 3 times with my best score being a 1420 (630 R&W, and 790 Math). My first PSAT was a 1010, so I had to study hard for this exam and if I can improve my score by that much so can you. Really, the best way to prepare for the SAT is to buy the College Panda Math and Writing books, along with Erica Meltzer’s guide to reading and go through all of them. Then I would do all of the practice exams on Khan Academy. That is pretty much then blue print to scoring a 1500+. I only went through the math college panda and the math sections of Khan Academy practice exams and improved my math score from a 510 as a sophomore to a 790 as a Senior. Academically, following the given steps for the SAT and paying attention in your high school classes should really get you academically prepared for a Service Academy or any civilian college.

Fat Check

Physically, I am a bit of a fat body to be attending a Service Academy, truthfully. In high school, I played JV basketball my freshman year, and started on the Varsity Baseball team all 4 years as a pitcher and First Basemen. Throughout high school, I always power lifted, and I am not sure if I ran a mile one time in my life. I continued my powerlifting in college, but the endless supply of dining hall food bulked me up from 5’10 170lbs all the way up to where I currently am at 5’10 ” 200 lbs. When it came time to taking the CFA I did some physical preparation involving running my first mile at about a 9:40 pace and doing the occasional push ups and sit ups alongside my weight training. After a few months I organized the CFA with a local baseball coach and threw the basketball 78ft (Thank you baseball), performed 10 pull ups, ran the shuttle in 9.8 seconds, did 45 Push Ups, 30 sit ups, and well threw up during my mile and ran an 8:43. After that embarrassing sequence of events I realized I needed to dedicate myself to truly train for this event (This is when my grades started taking a hit). I bought Jack Daniels Running Formula Book and began running about 10-20 miles a week which is about where I currently am. For the other events I lifted using Tactical Barbell and would do 2 minutes of Push Ups and Sit Ups every night before going to bed. After another maybe 3 months I retook the test and threw the basketball 76ft, did 11 pull ups, ran a 9.1 shuttle, 56 push us, 61 sit ups, and ran a 7:55 mile (My best was a 6:52 in training, but the sit ups really killed my hamstrings). Those scores were passing and I still felt out of shape likley due to maintaining my 200lbs frame and only scoring in the average tier of the CFA. After my appointment to West Point, I received new fitness goals including a 2 minute plank, 5 pull ups, 45 push ups, and running a 2 mile in less than 15 minutes. I have accomplished the plank and pull ups. But I am still working towards 45 Hand Release Push Ups and running a 15 minute 2 mile. My current best 2 mile is about 16:50. This brings me to the first set of goals and hopefully series of posts for my blog.

Goals and Countdown

My current fitness goals are to max out the AFT and hit all of the standards given by West Point. Now my means of accomplishing these goals are following Jake Zwieg’s training plan (Running/Lifting/Calisthenics). I will be following and documenting his plan for the following 12 weeks in preparation for I/R day. Simultaneously, I will be using the LoseIt app to get down to around 170lbs. I am also trying to do my best academically for the remainder of the semester, which will likely entail some posts about various academic topics. The last goal I have is to wake up at 4:30am for the next 12 weeks to accomplish as much as I can during the day.

Now, after hours of traveling by car from Purdue to my hometown in Maryland to West Point back to Purdue. It is time for me to sign off for the evening and get a good night’s rest before my next update tomorrow.

Keep Killin it.

Your Friend,

Braden