John Robinson

John Robinson `25 had no intentions of applying to Grinnell College when he was in the midst of his college search. His sister, Zoe, was already attending Grinnell and Robinson preferred to do his own thing. 

But Zoe was adamant.

“She kept pushing that I apply,” Robinson said. “And then it turned out it was free, and I had already written all my applications and I could just submit it.”

So Robinson joined the ranks of other sibling duos at Grinnell — this duo, though, both played on the Grinnell golf teams. Robinson picked the sport up at eight years old. 

Beyond Zoe’s insistence, what drew Robinson to Grinnell was the opportunity to participate in its 3-2 engineering program, where students can earn both a Bachelor of Arts degree from Grinnell and an engineering degree from a university affiliated with Grinnell. Robinson was also interested in Grinnell’s open curriculum. 

“That’s really what I wanted out of the college experience,” he said. “Just to experience a bunch of different things and try out a lot.” 

“It turned out to be kind of everything that I wanted here,” he added. 

Throughout high school, Robinson said he was always more of a STEM person, good at math and science. His father, especially, always encouraged him to keep taking STEM classes for job opportunities. 

“It made sense, so I just kept doing it,” Robinson said. 

But when Robinson came to Grinnell and enrolled in his tutorial with Karla Erickson, professor and department chair of sociology, that changed. Robinson thought his tutorial, titled I/Robot: The Social Life of Machines (and Humans), would be a STEM-focused class, but he said it actually turned out to be rather sociology-centered. Robinson ended up taking Introduction to Sociology with Erickson after a little pushing. 

After taking Erickson’s introduction class, Robinson decided he would declare a sociology major along with his physics major. Erickson, originally his tutorial advisor, became his major advisor. 

“That kind of really filled in the rest of my academic needs,” Robinson said of his sociology major. “I felt like I could be creative, really explore history, and sociology just gave me a really big canvas for thoughts that I had or any social issue — race, gender, class.”

In the spring semester of his second year, though, Robinson considered dropping the physics major. Enrolled in zero physics courses for spring 2023, Robinson said his semester that he did take off from the physics major was wonderful. But he said that in a sadistic way, he missed the problem sets and the rigor in STEM courses.

His major advisor, until she recently went on sabbatical, Shanshan Rodriguez, professor of physics, convinced him to take at least one more physics course with her — Mechanics. 

“I took this class with her and she was like, ‘You can do physics,’” Robinson said. “So I guess it was both of my advisors being like, ‘Hey, you can do this. I believe in you.’”

After enrolling and completing Rodriguez’s course, Robinson was on board for completing the physics major again. He named Mechanics as one of his more influential classes he has taken here at Grinnell. 

Outside of academics, Robinson has played on the men’s golf team for all four years, been involved with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, worked at the campus bookstore and led Men of Color Empowered and Engaged. 

Robinson also spends much of his time performing, both privately and around campus. He has taken percussion lessons with the same instructor, Stacey Ramirez, each semester. He also taught himself how to play guitar one summer. 

Robinson even started a rock band with fellow golf team player Kevin Carpenter `25 called The Back Nine, a reference to the final nine holes in an 18-hole golf course.

“I am really into music, and I’ve done a lot of music performances here,” Robinson said. “But I don’t think I knew exactly what a quarter note and a half note was fully. So that was just a whole experience.” 

He said he was often writing in the letters of the music notes on his sheet music, but now he can read sheet music with more ease than when he first started. 

Robinson still plans to pursue mechanical engineering, though he did have to drop his plans to complete the 3-2 engineering program due to his semester off from physics courses. After graduation, Robinson will attend graduate school for mechanical engineering, very likely at the University of Minnesota.