As a junior at Turlock High School, Devin Day has already taken some major leaps to jump start his future endeavors after his high school days are finished.

One of his summer adventures led him to the West Point Military Academy for a week-long journey which included waking up at the break of dawn to run, taking academic classes and learning more about the campus.

“I am looking at all the opportunities for my future,” Day said. “The military has a lot of options after serving. I am not much of a military guy myself, but they have a lot of options available.”

Day was one of 1,100 applicants who were selected out of 4,000 applicants that applied for the Summer Leaders Seminar.

The SLS offers juniors the opportunity to experience life at West Point. The attendees get to experience what it is like to live in the cadet barracks, eat in the Cadet Mess, and participate in the academic, leadership, athletic, and military workshops.

“The one-week seminars are designed to help juniors with their college-selection process, while giving them an idea of the importance of leadership and sound decision-making in their education, careers, and lives, in general,” according to a statement released by the SLS program.

Day’s daily activities started at 5:30 a.m. with an hour of physical fitness training ranging from running to pull ups and pushups, he said.

“The first day felt like football practice,” Day said.

The physical fitness wasn’t so hard for Day, but keeping up mentally with the physical activity was challenging for him.

“A lot of it is mental and believing you can do it,” he said.

During his time there, he got yelled at a lot, Day said.

“The yelling is to weed out those that can’t be strong enough in America’s military,” he said.

In between the running and yelling, he also got to learn how to march, learn the different rankings and got divided into squads, Day said. He also took three classes that were an introduction to show what college classes are like.

Out of 20 classes, Day decided to take English, math and behavioral science. His favorite was the behavioral science class because he said he is “a thinker and likes to analyze people.”

According to Day, his most exciting part of the trip was meeting new people because he likes to learn about people, their behaviors and habits, he said.

One of the main things he took back from his journey at West Point is that “you really have to be full-hearted in what you do,” Day said.

He doesn’t feel like the military is his cup of tea, but he learned a lot about the options that are available to him and what he truly wants to do.

“You really have to put everything you can to do what you want to do,” Day said.

He isn’t sure what colleges he wants to apply to next year during his final year at Turlock High but he is probably going to stick with his passion for people and go into psychology, he said.

To contact Maegan Martens, e-mail mmartens@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2015.