Lauren Davis, Campus Carrier asst. arts and living editor
In the midst of academic pursuits and professional responsibilities that define campus life, there lies a vibrant and often overlooked aspect of the Berry community: the diverse world of hobbies. Beyond the lecture halls, laboratories, and staff offices, students and faculty alike are participating in a large variety of hobbies like caving, bug collecting, roller skating, fishing, playing guitar, and making homemade beer, wine and hot sauce. These hobbies breathe life into Berry’s academic environment.
Junior Addycin Reece has recently found a passion for roller skating. Her interest began when she had a job over the summer where she cared for a girl, and according to Reece, one of the girl’s hobbies was roller skating, so whenever she would go skate, Reece would join her. Since then, Reece has carried this hobby onto campus with her.
Reece says her favorite place to roller skate is on the outdoor basketball courts on campus, where she usually has a place where she can listen to music. She likes to skate there because the concrete is smooth, and she can learn more tricks, like skating backward. Reece finds that skating relieves her day-to-day stress.
“If I am upset, roller skating is a way I can de-stress,” Reece said.
Junior Graham Moore, a biology major, has two main hobbies. Due to Moore’s major, he loves to spend time outdoors and is passionate about collecting, studying and photographing bugs. Moore’s interest in bugs started when he was in high school and had a job working with spiders and other insects. Moore said the insects were weirder than anything he could come up with.
“Once you start learning about the little things you see all around you, it makes it much more fun to be outside,” Moore said. “Instead of just seeing a spider in your house or a fly flying past you, it’s something kind of beautiful, something unique in it’s own little world.”
Moore also has a hobby of caving. According to Moore, his interest in caving began when he took a cave ecology class at Berry in 2022 that is offered every other summer. Since then, Moore has gone on many caving trips with the people he met in the class. Moore stated that he used to fear small spaces and heights before the cave ecology class but has learned to overcome the fear over time.
According to Moore, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia have the highest concentrations of limestone in the country, which leads to a large amount of caves. Moore says it has been enjoyable to see where caving takes him and that it’s been fun to explore the region. Moore’s favorite spot where he has caved is the Neversink Pit in Jackson County, Alabama.
“The Neversink Pit is a gigantic pit in the middle of the woods that goes 200 feet into the ground, and it’s just really beautiful to repel down,” Moore said.
Martin Cipollini, professor of biology, has three main hobbies that he participates in frequently: fishing, playing guitar, brewing beer, wine and making hot sauces.
Cipollini’s interest in fishing began when he was young and would go with his dad; since then, the hobby has stuck with him. Cipollini says that he is a transplant from the North and has enjoyed adapting to targeting the species and learning to fish in the South. He most often fishes in the North Georgia mountains in the Coopers Creek and Rock Creek region. Cipollini says he is not the best fisherman but thoroughly enjoys the hobby.
Cipollini is also a guitarist and said his love for music sparked this interest. Cipollini noted that his uncle gave him a guitar when he was younger, and he just picked it up and self-taught. Although he has performed in some public settings, his favorite setting to play the guitar is in a circle with a group of colleagues while people sing along.
“It was drizzling a little bit of rain. We all circled the campfire. We were kind of leaning over our guitars to keep them dry. And we just played song after song after song,” Cipollini said.
Cipollini described his last hobby as unusual. He has brewed wine and beer for many years but has recently enjoyed still fermentation and natural fermentation, like kombucha. Cipollini enjoys creating the process of fermentation and sharing his final product with people around him. He stated that he is making a hot sauce with Carolina Reaper peppers, one of the hottest peppers in the world.
In the hustle and bustle of academic life, student and staff members on campus carry unique and fascinating hobbies, which help them to relieve stress, make connections, and focus on something other than school and work.
“A hobby is just something you can do on your own to pick up and put down that releases some stress for a while, and you don’t have to be good at it,” Cipollini said.