Samantha Joseph '04 doesn't need to appear on "Fear Factor" or "Dog Eat Dog" to experience one of the greatest adrenaline rushes the human body can know. The senior, who is working towards a double major in Politics and Sociology, makes it to her local drop zone - Jumptown in Orange, Mass. - about four times a week to catapult herself out of a high-flying propeller plane.

Joseph has a message for all you reality television fanatics out there used to watching David Hasselhoff submerged in a tub of hungry cockroaches: skydiving, which operates nation-wide under the auspices of the United States Parachute Association (the USPA features 34,000 member skydivers), is serious business.

Joseph, with over 600 jumps to her credit (members of Airspeed, the U.S. national team, often sport a resume of over 17,000 jumps), recently became the country's youngest female AFF (Accelerate Freefall) instructor at the age of 20.

Sitting across from Samantha, I have a hard time picturing this young woman bolting through the sky at ungodly altitudes. So how did this good-natured Hingham, Mass. resident discover the sport?

"My first jump was the day after my finals freshman year," she says. "I was all finished with class and everybody still had class, so I just thought it would be a good thing to do. So I went by myself to a drop zone in Maine and basically moved in there."

"My parents called me about three weeks later," she continues, "and were like, 'Ever coming home?'"

While most parents cringe at the prospect of leaving their sons and daughters unattended to at college, Joseph's mother and father had to come to grips with the dangers of an inherently risky sport. According to the USPA's web site, the association is in constant communication with the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration to protect their members.

But Joseph insists that technological advancement now guarantees safety in the air. "It's all very safe," she says. "I went through a program called Accelerated Freefall where there are seven levels of instruction. You have two instructors and your own parachute, but the instructors are holding onto you the whole time and if you don't open your parachute, they will."

The USPA describes the "Tandem freefall" initiation process this way. "Both the student and the instructor are attached to the same parachute system. They freefall together for 30 to 50 seconds, depending on jump altitude, typically 10,000 to 13,000 feet"

"Equipment malfunctions almost don't happen anymore," she adds, "but I've been really lucky, because I'm careful about how I pack my equipment and how I maintain it, so I haven't experienced anything too scary."

Joseph, who concedes amazingly that she's afraid of heights, seems to have had an epiphany in terms of her commitment to skydiving extending beyond her college years.

"I could see myself being happy in skydiving for the next 20 years," she says. "Since I started, I've had to redefine what I thought about what it means to make a living. My parents have to go to jobs that they don't like everyday, but it affords them a house and a car and vacations. Skydivers have none of those things. They barely make enough to get by, but they like what they do every single day."

Apparently Joseph missed that ECON 2A class about the benefits of human capital investment and opportunity cost.

"It's not much of a living," she adds, "but the tradeoff is that you love your job, which I've decided is more important for right now."

Before it was predominantly known as an X-Games activity for tattooed 20-year-old's, skydiving enjoyed some pretty significant real-world implications. The activity traces its origins back to 1495 when Leonardo DaVinci created a pyramid-shaped, wooden framed parachute that actually had to be discarded midway through flight to make sure it didn't crush the diver.

After parachutes helped scores of Allied soldiers dodge certain death during World War II, veterans accustomed to the exercise started participating in skydiving competitions around the country. The Parachute Club of America, founded in the 1930s, morphed into the USPA in 1967.

Joseph, who in August broke the Massachusetts state record for the number of people holding a pre-determined formation in mid-air (for more than three seconds), isn't afraid to sound overly ambitious as she matures as a skydiver.

"My ultimate goal is to be on Airspeed," she says, "which is the team currently holding the world championship title. It's very competitive and very difficult to get on the team, but I'm pretty motivated to do it."

Joseph points out that the elder President Bush is an occasional celebrity skydiver. To celebrate his 75th birthday, in fact, the WWI veteran made his third civilian jump over his presidential library at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. "It's such a rush," he remarked, "and the feeling is hard to describe."

Samantha, who has approximately 610 more jumps to her credit than the former president, prefers competitions that involve making pre-ordained formations (like the Massachusetts state record jump) to artistic events that she says are "like gymnastics in the air." Solo events that feature dizzying acrobatics tend to get most of the publicity during those rare instances when a nationally-televised alternative sports extravaganza like the X-Games decides to showcase skydiving.

Joseph, who also holds the New York State record for participating in an 82-person formation this year, expresses relief over her parents' grudging acceptance of her life's passion.

"When I decided to become an instructor," she says, "my parents and I sat down and we talked. I'd been skydiving for two years and while they definitely with I had other hobbies, and they said it's not what they would have done themselves, it's okay. It was really great that they accepted that skydiving is what makes me happy. They see that I'm at my best, most focused and happiest when I'm teaching skydiving."

"I can't say they'd be crying if I gave it up," she adds, "but I think they finally accept it, which is good. They've been very supportive. It takes a lot to be a world champion skydiver, especially financially, and they don't pay for it, but they make other things easier for me so that I can pay for skydiving."

For anyone out there thinking of skydiving as a fun hobby or a convenient way to get a cheap thrill, better have deep pockets. As Joseph can attest to, the sport will drain your wallet in a hurry.

"Skydiving has cost me $25,000 of my own personal earned money over the past two years," she says, "so it forces me not to be able to just hang out. I had to get a job and I had to be really focused on my schoolwork so I could do that quickly and then go skydiving."

But with the exorbitant costs of the sport have come a greater sense of responsibility and self-discipline. "The best thing skydiving did was give me a lot of direction from my freshman year on," she adds. "In order to be able to afford it, I have to work about 40 hours a week, so I work in a restaurant and do a couple of other things. It's really structured my life."

While Joseph is unwilling to predict what the future might have in store, it's clear she's found her life-long love. "One of the things I love about skydiving is that you're never going to get to a point where you think, 'Okay, I've done this and I've achieved everything there is to achieve.' It's always about the journey, because there is no destination, there's no place that you get to where you're like, 'Well there you go, I've done everything.'"

For this young woman, the sky is not the limit, but a gateway to unbridled freedom.