Sailing Into Purpose: Joey Schmidt '25 Discovers His Passion

Joey Schmidt ’25 began his Senior Speak to the Brewster community with a surprising confession: “I failed out of eighth grade.” He quickly added, “I know what you’re thinking. How did they allow a kid who failed eighth grade to speak at a Morning Meeting?”

Joey shared how his journey from military school to Brewster, and finally to a 70-day “Sea-mester” sailing across the Atlantic on a 112-foot boat, taught him that anything is possible. He described vivid moments from his journey—sleeping in five-foot bunks, navigating 20-foot waves, and seeing bioluminescent sea life—earning hearty applause from his peers and faculty.

Despite his opening confession, his story wasn’t really about failure or overcoming it. It wasn’t even about what it takes to overcome obstacles.

Joey’s story was about passion, and how he found his way to his.

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When Joey came to Brewster as a sophomore, he wasn’t thinking about discovering a life passion; he was just trying to be a student. He had yet to find his academic footing, having struggled with his dyslexia and a lack of support in his previous schools. The Brewster tagline “the way education should be” intrigued him, although he didn’t fully understand what it meant.  It would also take some time before he learned the strategies needed to succeed in the classroom.

Fortunately, his then Team Leader and Instructional Support teacher, Janis Cornwell, would help him see beyond his initial struggles. “Tests do not define you,” she would say to him after another low grade. And this repeated mantra is what helped Joey not only begin to believe in himself, but also believe in how Brewster could help him.

“I finally understood the meaning of ‘the way education should be,’” he said in his speech. “They believe we learn from experiences, which ultimately lead to our passion.”

Joey would be the first to acknowledge, however, that you don’t just stumble onto your passion right away. He had to first become the student–and the person–that could be open to this self-exploration. For him, that meant learning how to manage his time, stay on top of his work, and engage with the people around him.

“Sophomore year, I was a person who couldn’t turn in assignments. I wasn’t really present with the community,” Joey said. “Brewster taught me to get your stuff done first, and it’ll allow you to have fun.”

Brewster also gave him example after example of passionate people through his teachers (such as Mr. O’Connor’s “obsession with poems”) and opportunity after opportunity to try new things (such as getting involved in school events and clubs).

“We are surrounded by passion at Brewster,” Joey told his fellow students before launching into his biggest lesson: the power of experiences.

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By the time Joey was a junior at Brewster, he had the academic skills and confidence to apply for the University of South Florida’s Sea-Mester. The 80-day summer experience (10 days earning a scuba diving certification and 70 days sailing) included not only the very real-world skills of living and working on a boat, but also three different college-level classes: Oceanography, Nautical Science, and Student Leadership.

In June, Joey joined 19 other high school and college students in the British Virgin Islands, where they completed the online and open water scuba certification. To complete the advanced certification, they implemented 110-foot dives, exploring a 300-year-old shipwreck and seeing underwater wildlife, including a black tip reef shark and barracuda “bigger than a table.”

After completing their scuba certification, the group moved onto the sailing portion of the trip. They started north toward Nova Scotia before heading eastward across the Atlantic Ocean.  After 1,000 miles across the open ocean, the group arrived at the Azores, a series of islands near Portugal. There, they spent seven days scuba diving, which included a night dive into 60 feet of pitch-black water (“I looked to my left and saw a six-foot moray eel a few feet away from me,” Joey said about his night dive). After that, it was back to sailing, this time across the Mediterranean Sea with stops in Spain and Italy along the voyage.

Joey described unforgettable experiences: seeing the ocean glow with bioluminescence, stargazing in the middle of the sea, and swimming and diving up close with whales and dolphins. Despite the glorious destinations and sights, Joey quickly described how hard the trip was. Every night, he would be on the watch team for four hours. During the day, he’d constantly shift between working on the boat, working with his professors, and working on his courses.

“The hardest thing is just time management and setting time for stuff you need to do,” he said. “When you had free time, you had to choose: are you going to use that free time to walk around a foreign city with your friends, or use that time to study?” He added, “These choices helped me realize how much it meant to me.”

Limited sleep also forced him to be resilient. At one point, having gone multiple days in a row with little sleep, he broke down. “Hitting rock bottom was a powerful moment for me,” Joey remarked. “But it made me realize I can’t succeed if I don’t put 100% of my energy into what I care about. I also learned that you can have the best memories through the hardest times.”

Fortunately, Joey’s excitement for sailing and the work ethic he acquired from Brewster carried him through the experience. And he didn’t just survive the trip–he thrived. Not only did he pass all three courses, but near the end of the voyage, everyone voted Joey to be skipper for the student-led passage portion of the trip. As skipper, he served as captain of the boat, making decisions and leading his crew on the open waters. What’s more, the actual captain recognized Joey’s work and recommended that he come back and work for the company.

Looking ahead, Joey intends to keep the ocean in his future. He’s already looking into work experiences on the water for the summer after his senior year. He’s applied to multiple colleges, all within 20 miles of the ocean, and he’s also looking at pursuing the Navy.

While his next year is still unknown, he feels comfortable with it. After all, as he said at the end of his speech, “I got to explore the possibility of being in the unknown, and I found my passion while I was in the unknown.” He encouraged students to remember: “The power of curiosity will give you experiences to find your passions.”

Sharing this powerful message with his fellow students at Brewster was a very special experience for Joey. “I feel like being able to show my passion to people might encourage them to step outside their comfort zone and do something they didn’t think was possible,” he said.  He also appreciated being able to share his origin story and the early failures he faced along the way. After struggling to fit in and succeed early on, he hopes to serve as a model that students can find confidence and success in something they’re passionate about.

Now, Joey carries around his three-year and five-year goals in his wallet, which were clarified during his Sea-Mester leadership course, but no doubt built in the thousands of little and big experiences along the way. He also holds a 200-ton Captain License, earned by passing the difficult captain navigate test, which normally takes four-hours, but for this certification, must be completed in 90 minutes–and you only get two attempts to pass.

On his first attempt, Joey failed with a score of 40. Fortunately, he learned during his sophomore year that “tests don’t define him.” And so rather than give up or feel defeated, he dug in, studied hard, and passed his second attempt with flying colors.