Sept. 9, 2014
By Jerome Boettcher | Subscribe to Commodore Nation
For her final season of collegiate soccer, Cherrelle Jarrett wants to help lead the Commodores to destinations they haven’t been in a while – the SEC and NCAA tournaments.
Lofty plans are nothing new for the Vanderbilt senior. Just take a glimpse at her ventures from this past summer: travelling through three countries; interning at a interior general contractor company; and playing on a semi-professional soccer team back home in Atlanta.
“I’ve definitely done a lot this summer – I’ve covered it all,” said Jarrett, a captain who scored her first goal of the season on Friday against Rice. “I’m so glad. It has been one of the best three months for sure.”
Jarrett, a 5-foot-4 defender from Lilburn, Ga., began her summer by participating in Vanderbilt’s Maymester study abroad program. She spent the month of May in Belfast, Northern Ireland taking a class on sustainable infrastructure taught by a Vanderbilt civil engineering professor.
“Northern Ireland was probably the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen,” she said. “So many mountainous areas and seas  me and my classmates just laid down in the grass and stared for hours and hours. I took so many pictures but none of them compare to you being there.”
In addition, the class also featured several lectures and guest speakers revolving around the political unrest between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which escalated in the 1960s with discrimination, hostility and violence.
Jarrett drew similarities to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The 21-year-old said learning about the conflict in Northern Ireland was one of the most interesting aspects of her trip.
“We had mini homework assignments and traveled Northern Ireland to see the sights and see how the conflict between the countries affected the landscape and transportation,” Jarrett said. “That was very interesting to see.”
Her travels didn’t end with Northern Ireland. The Vanderbilt contingency also spent five days in Barcelona, Spain. While the group was in Barcelona, the Champions League Final took place between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid.
“That was so much fun to be there in that environment,” she said.
Finally, one weekend, she went to England to visit teammate, Ashley Oswald, who was in London for her Maymester in her trip. She also took a train ride to Birmingham, England to visit family.
“It was the best choice I’ve ever made,” Jarrett said of the entire international trip. “It was good to travel and meet new people. I made 10 new friends on the trip. So that was awesome.”
In June and July, she worked at HITT Contracting, Inc., in Atlanta. HITT specializes in interior renovations for retail, law firms and government workspaces. Jarrett contributed to several projects by pricing the costs of windows, doors and carpet and helping out with closing construction projects by collecting warranties and submittals. She also assisted on several job sites, requiring her hard hat and steel boots.
Engineering runs in the family. Her father works for Cisco Systems as a computer engineer while her brother is a structural engineer.
When she graduates in May, Jarrett hopes to follow suit by striking a balance between design work and management.
“Engineering is the best thing I think anyone can do because it is a fancy word for problem solving and that is applicable in any job,” she said. “That’s what is needed in the world in my opinion. Seeing both (my dad and uncle), they raised me that way and I enjoyed it.”
