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Kate Littlejohn

ACE in China: 2019
School
Stanford University
Class
2022
Team
Rowing (Women's)
Hometown
Hamilton, New Zealand
Major(s)
Undeclared
Profile View Kate’s Student-Athlete profile on gostanford.com

“The ACE program provides a unique opportunity to potentially impact the lives of others by building meaningful relationships. At the same time, I will be able to develop  a greater worldly perspective and appreciation of my own life. I am extremely excited to work towards making a positive contribution to the local community with fellow student-athletes.”

Kate Littlejohn’s past experience with service includes volunteer coaching younger kids for netball and rowing. Alongside other senior students in high school, Kate was a part of the Over the Fence Ministry, a service initiative to spend time with kids from the local community.

ACE Ambassador Profile

woman sitting down in front of lawn

Kate is a sophomore on the women’s rowing team. She is undecided between Human Biology, Psychology or a combination of both, but hopes to combine her passion for helping people with a medical related career. One of her life goals is to maintain a broad perspective of the world. ACE in China provided an amazing opportunity to continue to do this through service learning, meeting new people and experiencing a new culture. Her ACE experience has encouraged her to begin completing long time personal goals, like completing a cardinal quarter, and be a resource for future participants.

Want to hear more about Kate’s ACE experience? Contact Kate.

Dear Future #ACEathletes,

  • Best advice for learning about ACE: If you have teammates who are ACE alumni then I highly recommend chatting to them. This was how I got most of my initial information about the programs. My other recommendation would be to attend at least one information evening. It shows that you are interested and invested. I was one of the few students looking to apply who attended.
  • Best advice for getting started at your program: The first few days were all about getting to know me fellow ACE teammates and getting familiar with my surroundings. We were fortunate to have a partner organization (VIA) who organized and sent a member of their team, who came with us. She was a great point of contact and someone we could turn to if we needed. IF your program has a similar person, I highly recommend utilizing them and getting to know them.
  • Tips for getting to know your community: Make and effort to learn names and show an interest in learning. In my experience, we had many opportunities to listen and ask respectable questions, in order to learn and get to know the community members. Throughout the ACE experience I have learnt have to be a more effective listener. Not just hearing words but really trying to understand what message the speaker is trying to portray.
  • Tips for training: I loved being able to train with athletes from different sports. It made it easier to stay motivated to train after long days. I found that setting a plan at the beginning of the week/day made it easier to stick to it.
  • Tips for bringing ACE back to your team: I am yet to get back to my team, but I hope to share my experience with my teammates and encourage more to get involved with the program. I would like to use my experience to try and get some service initiatives going for my team to do together.
  • Reasons for staying involved in ACE: I think that transformational service is an undervalued type of service. This program has reenforced its power and beauty. I hope to encourage more student athletes to get involved and use my learnings from the program to further my service learning experience.