Lara Kornblut

Group Fitness Supervisor & Instructor | Avid Traveler | Aspiring Survivor Game Participant | Facilities Staff | Class of 2021

KORNBLUT'S TIME WITH REC SPORTS

“Rec Sports has been the highlight of my college career without a doubt. It’s pushed me to be active. I was always active, but it was always a side thing, but now it’s a big priority for me. And I think being active has pushed me towards being more interested in the outdoors and nature and hiking and things like that because it comes more natural to me. I don't really feel like I have a limit of, ‘This is something I can’t physically do,’ which is exciting to me; I have gained that mentality from my involvement with Rec Sports.”

“The community [has been the best part about working for Rec Sports]. I’ve created a bunch of best friends out of it, and I love the energy and impact that it has on campus. Especially with it being one of the few, open and functioning areas on campus right now, it really is a safe haven for so many people, and I’m so thankful to be able to contribute to that. I love Rec Sports; it truly has been the highlight of my college experience. I think I came to Tech for a reason and Rec Sports has completely shaped who I am.”

A PASSION FOR TRAVEL

“[Having a passion for adventure] is my whole vibe. [Growing up in Russia and America] definitely did [spur that]. I have been traveling my whole life, but when I was younger in like second and third grade, we started going to Egypt and Turkey. I just really started to fall in love with this idea of travel, but I wanted to do it in my own way. My mom’s whole thing was that if I planned something, we could go. So, that’s what I started to do. I would create these long plans about things I was interested in and in places I wanted to go and places I had heard about.”

Senior Lara Kornblut has always had an appetite for traveling, and luckily, so has her mom.

“I would find a cheap plane ticket and take it to my mom and we would just go. She was always game for it because she loves to travel too. When she worked for the Prime Minister, she was always traveling with him as his private doctor, so she had this love of trying new things, which was especially rare in Russia because you don’t have that opportunity, you don’t get to leave.”

DUAL CITIZENSHIP

Speaking of Russia, Kornblut has dual citizenship in both Russia and the United States. Both of Kornblut’s parents are doctors, but her mom was born and raised in Russia. After her mom stopped working as the Prime Minister’s personal doctor, she went to work for the Russian Embassy, which took her to the states where she met Kornblut’s father. Spending summers and winters in Russia, but having an American education, Kornblut’s childhood was quite different than most.

“My mom would stay in America if every summer and winter she could go back to Russia to see her family and kids. She wanted to stay in America to give her kids the opportunity to have an American education because she knew it was better than Russia.”

“The way my mom was raised was very traditional, soviet Russia, and there’s such a huge cultural divide. It was interesting because America is much more about freedom and relaxed and creative, whereas Russia is very gritty and hardcore. When I’m here, I almost overwhelm myself with too much and too many responsibilities and doing everything myself, but there it’s almost like I’m not tough enough.”

A SHIFTED TRAVEL MINDSET

“I think my travel preferences have been shifting so much overtime. Now my whole adventure thing is that I don’t just want to see things, I want to experience raw, authentic culture. I don’t want to stay at nice hotels, I want to stay at local businesses and have local experiences. I’ve seen enough good and bad from places that I don’t just want to see the pretty photos, I want to get an idea of how these people live.”

With so much traveling experience, Kornblut has been able to tweak her likes and dislikes to make the most of her future adventures.

“I want to experience the local living and more things outdoors. Ever since college, I used to like nature, but I didn’t love the outside. When I [spent a summer working in] South Dakota, all it was was outdoor stuff. I fell in love with hiking and lakes and being outside, so since then and being in college and living in the mountains, I’m obsessed with anything outside. Now when I travel, I want to go to nature-like things, like national parks; I want to see nature.”

SPRING 2020

COVID-19 has been nothing short of complicated on all fronts. During the spring 2020 semester, Kornblut was studying abroad in Switzerland, and the trip abruptly ended. Not only was her study abroad experience cut short, but her and her mom also had an Asia trip planned that also had to be postponed.

“I was so hopeful; I would tell my mom, ‘Until they tell me they’re shutting down, we are going, we are doing this.’ Every day it got more and more grim until they shut everything down. I think it was really eye opening to see that there were much bigger things going on in the world.”

Though the circumstances were not prime, Kornblut was still able to make the most of her summer.

“It was cool, nonetheless, that even after all my plans had failed that I was still able to find something that gave me that same adrenaline rush that I was going to be looking for while I was gone anyways. I’m happy that this past summer worked out the way it was meant to with my old boss reaching back out, my friend agreeing to go, us driving out there, and us living a safe and exciting life despite everything going on in the world.”

SUMMER 2020

Touching on her suddenly changed plans, Kornblut had a jam-packed summer. Holding an internship done remotely with Anheuser Busch, working more than part-time at a burger joint in Keystone, South Dakota, and taking three online classes, Kornblut really did it all.

Though she was doing a lot, she wasn’t doing it alone. Kornblut recruited her childhood best friend to work with her in South Dakota, and they had the summer of their lives.

“The crowd there was college-aged students coming to do seasonal work. We all lived in camper-vans and trailers on the same street that we worked; we could walk to work. There was one bar in town, so everyone knew everyone. We created this tight pack who just traveled together. Whenever we had time off, we would travel to Wyoming and Colorado and go cliff diving and the rodeo, just crazy stuff. I remember one day we closed down the restaurant to go horseback riding, just because we could.

“The friend I went with, I’ve known her since kindergarten, and this was her first time away from her comfort zone. So for me, it was super exciting to share that experience with her and see how it opened up her eyes. I’ve had so much experience traveling and seeing other cultures and other people, so doing it together made it all so worth it; we had such a cool summer. Regardless of the craziness and everything that happened and everyone we met, just being there with each other was really cool.”

Kornblut had her own individual achievements this summer as well.

“I hiked my first fourteener, which is a 14,000 foot mountain. I hiked Mount Elbert, which is the highest mountain in the Rockies. I went and did that on my own. It was the hardest hike ever. At 14,000 foot altitude, I couldn’t breathe; it wasn’t even the incline, it was that I couldn’t breathe. For me, the fact that I made it to the top, and that I was alone, made me feel really accomplished.”

“My experiences in Keystone, South Dakota really shaped me as a person. The lessons I’ve learned there after my first and second summers there were big; it holds a special place in my heart.”

FUTURE TRIPS AND INDEPENDENCE

Kornblut had plans to solo backpack Patagonia in South America during winter break, but unfortunately the pandemic put a halt on those plans. Still keeping that interest for independent travel, her next adventure could very well be a solo journey.

“I’ve always wanted to do a solo trip, but I’m nervous about it because I know I’m a walking target, and I think it’s more fun with a friend. It makes it a more enjoyable experience being with someone. I can’t talk about my South Dakota trip with everyone because it’s not relatable if you weren’t there. Part of the beauty of traveling is that you have all of these beautiful experiences, but they don’t hit the same way if you weren’t there.”

“My whole thing is that I pay for it all myself, so if I work the hours and save up enough, I can do the things I want to do, which is why I love to work because the harder I work, the more I can do the things I love.”

FUTURE EMPLOYMENT

Upon graduation this spring, Kornblut will be an Orr Fellow working in Indianapolis, Indiana. After interviewing with a handful of companies, Kornblut was vetted into a culture and then Tinder-style matched with a company. The fellowship is a two-year commitment and is focused on business and entrepreneurship.

“The whole point of the fellowship is continued learning and development, so it’s a network of people who have workshops and different events you can attend so you can meet people and learn more about what’s out there before committing to anything. It’s kind of like an alacarte job, which is why I’m super interested in it.”

MANAGING IT ALL

It’s no secret that Kornblut tends to have a busy schedule. This past semester, Kornblut balanced 21 credited hours, worked 20 hours a week, and still found the time to travel.

“I think at this point I’m just so used to the hustle that in my free time, I’m always looking for other things to do. I think there are different levels of tasking; I see myself teaching a class as my getting in my workout as well, my working facilities is not tasking at all, that’s just me being a body. With everything being online, I have so much more flexibility; I’m not constrained to a nine to five life. I’m also an early bird; I wake up at five in the morning, so I do a bunch of things in the morning too. I have a lot of hours in the day.”

“Only since getting into fitness have I been a morning person. I used to be a total late-nighter, but fitness has pushed me into the morning life. I love it. Now, even when I don’t have to wake up at 5 am, I make it a point to stay on that schedule. I feel much more energetic and alive now that I go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at like 5 or 6 am. I think if I were still going to bed between midnight and 2 am, I wouldn’t be able to manage anything.”

SURVIVOR

An exciting idea that came out of quarantine for Kornblut was to apply for the tv show Survivor. Having never watched much TV prior to the start of the pandemic, Kornblut was introduced to the physically challenging show, and as a joke, her sister suggested she apply. Taking a more serious approach to it, Kornblut decided to apply.

“I like it and think it sounds fun and exciting, and it’s only like a forty day commitment in June, so even if I do decide I want to go work a corporate, 9-5 job, I’ll still have this crazy cool experience. It’s also a push of your physical and mental limits, and I’m very curious to see how gritty I really am if I put my mind to it.”

THE #HOKIEMOVEMENT

“I think the idea of movement is incredibly powerful and I think it’s what has gotten me to where I am today. The power of being mobile physically and mentally gives you that breath of fresh air to do the things you need to do. I think a lot of people don’t realize that until they’re already in it. To me, being a Group Ex instructor and getting people into that door and getting others to see movement as something they want to do because it’s good for them, not because they do because they think they need to do it, is just really powerful. When I first started teaching, I had regulars come in because they enjoyed being in the class more than they enjoyed needing to get a good pump in and calling it a day. To me, movement is the key to really feeling alive.”

Story written by Emily Dages, Marketing Supervisor