Class of 2013: Freshman Blog

Unfortunately this blog post will not be as lengthy as my posts normally are. As you may or may not know Orientation Week officially started yesterday (August 22nd) and as a result I am currently working full-time for Orientation. What does full-time mean? Well I was out of my dorm at 7:45AM this morning and I wasn’t back until 9:45PM. It’s certainly been a hectic day since I was running around for almost the entire day aside from the 30 minutes of peace I had for lunch. But there was a bright side to all of this: I’ve been driving around campus in a golf cart for almost the entire day. It’s much more fun than you could ever imagine, and I’m excited that I get to do it for almost another 1.5 weeks.

The main focus of this post will be Orientation from a Freshman’s perspective vs. planning Orientation from an administrative perspective. The best part about now being in charge of Orientation is that I can look at my experiences from the program last year and know exactly what I would like to change. It’s much easier for me than for some of the other staff members who are upperclassmen, and that’s what I believe played a major role in the quality of this year’s program.

Coming in for Orientation as a Freshman is an experience that is both difficult and exciting. It’s difficult since you won’t know anyone (until you meet your roommates, or if you know a few people from your school/area) but its also exciting because part of the Orientation experience is meeting new people through these Orientation events. I remember going to all these events and wondering if the people that I’m sitting next to or near would become some of my greatest friends at Hopkins and interestingly enough they were NOT. I can’t event tell you how I met my best friends at Hopkins, most of them were through some of my other friends because the Orientation events weren’t as social last year, and that’s one of the main things that we sought to change.

Planning Orientation was a lot more fun than I could have imagined, but it was also a LOT of work. Over the summer I basically worked whenever I was awake excluding the times I was allowed to go home. But that’s the beauty of the Orientation program – it’s student run. Without all of these rising sophomores running the program, wouldn’t have the the Hopkins Passport Program, the entire Orientation website, the outstanding Move-In planner thats been created and will be responsible for Move-In going so smoothly, etc. (I could go on for days).

The main goal for the Orientation program this year (according to my boss, the Student Director of Orientation) was to show them that the program can be student run and still continue to improve each year. I think we’ve definitely exceeded that goal, and I hope that all of the incoming freshmen will agree with me after they experience Orientation for themselves. Finally, I’d like to conclude by thanking my readers since this is the final post that I will make on the class of 2013 blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings and I hope that you’ll continue to follow whatever I may do with Hopkins Interactive next year.

The President's Tent which will be used for Convocation, and the Blue Jay Ball! Photo credits go to Admissions_Daniel! This tent is RIDICULOUS. I don't remember it being this nice last year, the Class of 2014 is gonna love this.

With just under 4 weeks left until Orientation Week, most of my work is starting to wrap up. Most of my main responsibilities as part of the Orientation Executive Staff involved redesigning the Orientation website, managing the online registration program, Peer Ambassador Training and the subsequent matching of PA’s with incoming students, and finalizing the schedule. Since the website was basically finished in the middle of June I’ve been focusing on the last few things over the past few months. Today was an exciting day as we’re closing registration in just a few hours, and not only have we seen a huge jump in the amount of the incoming class that’s registered, but we’ve seen a big jump in the amount of incoming students who have registered for the Hopkins Passport.

When I joined the Orientation Staff my goal was to get as much of the incoming class as possible to register for Orientation. We’ve made it mandatory for all of the incoming class to register, and as such my goal was to get the highest yield possible. Last year only about 75% of the incoming class registered for Orientation, and my goal was to get around 95% to register. As of early last week we had about 75% of the class registered, so we decided to send out a mass email to the incoming class and their parents to push for more registrations, and to encourage people who have already registered to purchase the Hopkins Passport. The results of this marketing push were far more than what we expected. As of right now with just about 5 hours left for registration 1215 of the 1237 members of the incoming class have registered meaning that right now 98% of the class has completed this process. Furthermore about 950 members of the class have chosen to purchase the Hopkins Passport, meaning that 78% of those who have registered have chosen to purchase the Hopkins Passport. This is a full 8% above our original goal of 70%.

In the world of JHU Orientation, statistics are everything to the offices which oversee our activities, and I’m 100% sure that they’re going to be extremely impressed when we present the results at our next staff meeting. Last year only 40% of the class purchased the O-Pass, and as previously mentioned only 75% registered in the end. This year we’ve more than doubled our revenue, and we’ve saved with a lot of the other events that we’ve been planning and we’re very excited to see what the participation in each of the events is.

As of right now we’re about halfway done with matching the incoming class with Peer Ambassadors. This year instead of simply matching them by major we’re matching them by personality similarities (this year the incoming class was asked to complete a personality profile after they finished their registration). We’re planning on having all of the matching done by this Monday, meaning that by the time the next JBlast goes out in the middle of next week the incoming class will be able to look up their PA’s online. The only thing really left on my plate is the Orientation Schedule, which is supposed to be done by the middle of next week as well. The best part about finishing the schedule is that once it’s finished mid-next week all of my responsibilities leading up to Orientation Week are complete and I can sit back and relax until early move-in occurs on August 22nd.

Over the course of this summer I’ve done much more work than I could have imagined. From web design to managing logistical data regarding our events and registration it all caused me LOTS of stress, but I think in the end it will all be worth it. The goal of the Orientation program is to help new students to adjust to the environment they’ll be in for the next 4 years of their life. We’ve worked lots more hours this year than we would have liked but in the end we succeeded in our overall goal(s): to have an amazing Orientation program that all of the incoming freshman will remember for most of their lives, and to outperform last year’s program. I actually can’t believe that it’s already the end of July and that we’re closing registration today. When I was in the Office of the Dean of Student Life this morning and they were talking about how happy they were that registration ends this evening my jaw dropped. What’s great though is that the greatest part of the program (and possibly the hardest part) is still yet to come, Orientation week! I’m really looking forward to all the events that we have planned for Orientation week, and I’m even more excited to meet the members of the incoming class.

I’ll finish off this post with a couple of AMAZING pictures that my friend took when he visited me. Originally about 4 of my friends were supposed to come visit me because I’ve basically been in Baltimore all summer, but in the end 3 of them had to back out for family or work reasons. In the end my friend John came anyways even though he had to make the 2.5 hour drive down alone, but it ended up working in our favor because we got to do the things that we wanted to do without having to worry about whether or not our other friends would enjoy it. Anyways, here’s a few of the 150 or so pictures that he took when he came and visited me. Thanks for reading, and see you in 2 weeks!

Here's a nice picture of the lower quad that my friend took right around sunset.

Here's an amazing picture of the entrance to Mason Hall and the Johns Hopkins signature in the background near the front desk.

Here's an apprentice-style picture of me in the Alumni Boardroom in Mason Hall. This is the conference room where the board of trustees have some of their meetings and in my opinion its one of the nicest rooms int he building.

Here's a picture of the Mason Hall entrance on the Decker Quad at sunset. My friend used a polarizing lens so the windows ended up turning purple. It actually makes the windows look even cooler than they normally do.

So it’s 11:30 pm on a Friday night.  What am I up to?  Whilst the rest of the adolescent population of Minneapolis maybe at concerts or parties, or other eventful festivities, I am at home, sitting at my kitchen table and reheating my mother’s most recent cooking concoction.  After the first couple bites, it seems to contain a good amount of olives and potentially capers.

So a lot has happened the last couple of weeks.  First was a four-day camping trip up north for the Fourth of July.  Up north is basically Canada, which is a country I have never actually visited but I have been very physically close to.  After a weekend of tent flooding, ten thousand mosquito bites, and not showering, I was very excited to return to the city.

A view from the balcony of the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis. It overlooks St. Anthony Main, a historic milling district of North Minneapolis.

The following weekend a friend and I took a four-day weekend trip to Chicago, which was awesome.  She had some friends spending the summer in the City, so it was a great opportunity to spend time there.  Man oh man! Chicago puts Minneapolis to shame.

The weekend after that, I figured it was time to put the long road trips to a rest.  I don’t know how much more my circulatory system could take.  That weekend we spent in the city, where we celebrated the Aquatenniel festival and my birthday.  It was pretty low key, but, overall, enjoyable.

The past week was a bit rough.  It began with a mad dash to memorize as much organic chemistry and ended with a slightly painful exam.  The best way to describe summer organic chemistry is speed chemistry.  It’s like a giant race to see who can smash the most reaction mechanisms in their brain within a week.  The insanity ensues for two more weeks, but after that I am home free for the rest of summer.

Tomorrow nearly concludes weekends in July.  My dad and I are heading to St. Paul for the Red Bull Flutag.  Unsure of exactly what it is, but to my understanding, it’s where people make home-made flying machines and attempt to fly them off of cliff.  Sounds entertaining and ripe for some awesome people watching.  Since my dad is the president of his model airplane club and a seasoned hang-glider, I am sure he will enjoy it thoroughly.  I am hoping for some free Red Bull.  I am going to need it for this chemistry final.

12:21 AM now.  So the week has officially ended.  Although it was filled with a decent amount of pain and sweat, I am foreseeing the rest of this month ending well.  Tonight a friend and I watched Juno, which is an awesome movie and even takes place in Minnesota.  Yeah, for reals!  It even mentions Ridgedale Mall, which just happens to be the place of my employment!

Another view from the Guthrie. This one is a snip-it of the downtown skyline.

So I think I will retire to my bed soon.  But not without more food!  Now that my bowl of pasta concoction remains nearly empty (save some capers and red peppers), I think course two will consist of some nearly week-old birthday cake, even though my stomach is feeling a bit queasy from the Swedish Fish earlier.  Nothing quite heals an ailing soul like birthday cake.

Just because it’s my summer vacation, and just because my art history final is (finally) done with, doesn’t mean that the “art appreciation” portion of my brain has since switched off. As you may have read, I’m currently History of Art and Writing Seminars major. Aside from visiting local museums in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (the Kimbell Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, and Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum are home to some impressive exhibits), I found a major art void in my life after classes at Hopkins wrapped up and I left Baltimore. I really missed being constantly challenged by my art history professors and peers to interpret art more deeply, to ponder its role in our history. A few weeks ago, my parents decided they were ready for a family vacation. They interestingly enough planned a trip for New York City, one of the art capitals of the world and arguably one of the most art-rich cities in the United States. What could be better than a relaxing vacation, some retail therapy, and a little bit of quality time at the Met? That’s exactly what I’ve been up to for the last week or so.

At dinner with my parents

Me and fellow Hopkid Louisa (walking advertisement for Barbour included)

I’m happy to report that I’m no longer suffering from art withdrawals, and I was actually in awe of the extensive art collections at both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art! I knew that those museums are widely respected among members of the art community, but it was even better to discover their astounding popularity with the general public. Art is something that everyone can appreciate, whether you have read one hundred books on Cezanne, or simply haven’t heard the name before. I can certainly see why these places consistently draw such diverse visitors and are such major tourist destinations. This is what you see when you first approach the museum on Fifth Avenue. Such a grand, imposing, authoritative structure—certainly comparable to the Louvre or National Gallery in London. Last semester’s “Introduction to the Museum” class with Professor Rodini had me thinking about all aspects of this particular museum: the physical architecture of the building, how each exhibit was curated, the color of the walls, the amount of detail and information included in the museum labels. All of these features impact our perception of a work of art. As I navigated through the museum with my mom, from ancient Hellenistic sculptures to modern Picasso masterpieces, I realized just how broad these collections were! With my camera in hand (no flash of course), I went picture crazy at the Met and especially the MoMA—paparazzi style—snapping candids of my favorite “celebs”: Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon (considered the first painting of the 21st century), Matisse’s The Dance, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Miro’s The Birth of the World.

Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon"

Matisse's "The Dance"

Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

Miro's "The Birth of the World"

But the most impressive of all (and probably the tiniest, most valuable little masterpiece I have ever seen)? A fourteenth century painting of the Virgin and Child or Maesta, part of an alterpiece by Sienese painter Duccio. The Met purchased it for a mere 45 million dollars, and we are so fortunate to have such an extraordinary piece of Italian history here in the U.S.!

Duccio's 14th c. Virgin and Child

Now, unfortunately, I’m back in Dallas from the art haven that is New York City. Despite my inherent enthusiasm for art and paintings, I don’t think I would have fully appreciated all of the museum-going that I did on my recent NYC trip (or my Florence study abroad trip) without any of my art history and museum classes this past year at Hopkins. It is hard to admit, but without last semester’s art history final, I would have been lost in the sometimes esoteric artsiness that the MoMA is known (notorious?) for. Going to these two museums was kind of analogous to reading about all of your favorite celebrities in People magazine and then one day having the opportunity to meet them in person—a radically different and eye-opening experience. (Maybe I shouldn’t be equating the intellectual integrity of my art history textbook with that of People magazine, but you get the drift!) I’m still looking forward to being back in Baltimore, but maybe this time, with a renewed appreciation for the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum! Thanks for reading! -BK

Dear Friends,

Still hope your summer is treating you well.  I apologize, but I do promise that this post ends with a point; it’s not just me going off on tangents.

Yesterday morning, I opened my e-mail when I got to work. Scanning my messages, I immediately noticed that between 2-4am I had a crazy number of messages from my parents. That was odd, I thought, since one or two messages throughout the night is much more typical. Confused, I opened the newest of the messages, from my mom, and learned that my dog, Ralph, had died during (my) night. I won’t elaborate on what happened immediately thereafter.

Ralph had been with my family since I was four years old. I am an only child, so, though it may sound odd to some, he was in some senses more of a brother than pet to me. I never had a brother to get into trouble with, but I did have Ralph, my always-dependable partner in mischief. Better yet, he was always game for anything, especially if there was the promise of a few Beggin’ Strips involved.

I’ll admit that I thought the dog-pesky kid sort of bond was uniquely American. Maybe it’s the (perhaps corrupted) vision of the American Dream I’ve painted in my mind: white picket fence, a barbeque, lemonade, and a large, green lawn in front on which a kid plays with his dog. But that’s not entirely true.

I don’t always do bad news very well, and, yes, the second I could leave work, well, I did. I went down to a lounge in Parliament where everyone hangs after work.  There, I had a few conversations with some people I didn’t really know too well – some regulars I’d seen around the place before, what have you, but also my roommate’s boss, Sam.

Sam’s Scottish, and he was curious as to why I (apparently) looked like hell and wasn’t in the best mood. I told him why, and, somewhat to my surprise, he was able to relate: he had a similar go-around maybe two years ago, and during then, he told me, he felt the same.

Sam and I weren’t alone at the table; my roommate’s colleague, Jessica, was also there. She grew up in Spain, though, as she told me afterward, she’d lived across Europe as her family travelled for work. When she was growing up, her dog, Sadie, had travelled from country to country with her and her family, just as Ralph had travelled from state to state with my family and me as we moved. Needless to say, it was nice to be able to relate. But moreover, upon reflexion, I noticed that, in this regard, there’s a bit of universality on this matter: regardless of culture and country, there are always more commonalities than one would expect. Thankfully, this is one of them.

Another is something that I’ll admit I didn’t expect too entirely much in a building void of doctors (but certainly not lawyers). I’d been inside for far too long, and after Sam, Jessica, and I had reached a bit of a slow point in our conversation, I headed outside for a few minutes to get some air. There, I saw a friend of mine, Liam, who is also working here. He was with his boss, who is from Northern Scotland. I didn’t know his boss, so I introduced myself, said that I was from the United States and said that I was here for the summer before I return to university. He, typically trying to maintain the small talk without reverting to the weather, asked where I’d went to school. Of course, I replied Hopkins.

At first, I thought his ears somehow misconstrued ‘Hopkins’ for ‘Harvard’ or ‘Oxford’ based on his reaction. I was really rather confused at first, because, again I’ll admit, I didn’t know Hopkins had that sort of international esteem. But it apparently does. The next day (today), I gave him my resume as he asked. Before I told him of my university, he wouldn’t have read it. But after I told him, he asked for it.

Now where does universality come in here? Pretty simple, actually. I don’t like to name-drop that sort of stuff, because I, well, think it’s sort of silly. But here it actually made a difference. In the United States, Hopkins calls a good reaction, but I had no idea that it would in the UK. What I’m getting at here is that Hopkins does have a reputation that gets you something that a lot of other places don’t. Moreover and interesting to note, I was in a bar full of Oxbridge alumni. What I’m not getting at, however, is that you should pick a school solely because of its reputation: I was lucky enough to have been admitted to a school that is respected and that fits my academic and social wants, needs, goals. A lot of my friends were wooed by third-rate state schools because of cost, and those schools do indeed have their place, but they’re aren’t for everyone, and if one has an opportunity to attend a school that’s right for him/her and is positively reputed, well, that’s something more to consider. It does have benefits that you wouldn’t expect or imagine.

Oh, and I even made it clear that I am primarily studying history, not something related to pre-med.

–Daniel

This is a photo of Ralph taken about a month ago.

Hey, everyone!

It’s Greco, and yesterday, I made a cribs video of the apartment that I’m staying over the summer! It’s at the bottom of this entry, if you just wanna skip to the video. It’s one of Hopkins upperclassmen dorms, Bradford. It’s located right across the street from Barns and Noble, and my room is on the Saint Paul St. side. Since there’s a gigantic Charles Commons right across the street, I thought my apartment would never get sunlight, but it actually does which is nice. However, my room is still pretty dark, so I turn my light on the entire day.

This is a pretty big update from AMR I, the freshman dorm I lived in last year (you can check out my AMR cribs blog entry here). Now I have my own living room, bathroom, and a kitchen. But most importantly, I get my own A/C. Now I don’t have to turn on 50 fans all at the same time like I did when I was in AMR. That was painful.

I’m currently living here alone. It’s actually a two-bedroom apartment, but the person who lived in the other room terminated her contract and left before I moved in.

When you choose your dorm for sophomore year and later, you can choose 11 month housing which lets you stay in your house all year long except August. I’m doing this for my Charles Commons apartment next year. It gets very frustrating when the housing office kicks you out the day after the final period. For example, if the final period ends on Friday, you have until Saturday to pack all your stuff and get the heck out. The only option is to pack your belongings during your final period (which is pretty ridiculous and stressful) or pull almost an all-nighter the night before the dorm closes. Also, my parents live in all the way back in Korea, and like for thanks giving break, which is only 5 days, I can’t go visit my parents so I basically have nowhere to go. That’s why I chose 11 month contract for next year. If it turns out you are not going to stay over the summer, you can always sublet it to someone.

Currently, my friend is subletting this apartment to me, and I pay her around $690 per month which isn’t bad (but not good either but whatever). I personally think it’s way better than living in Wolman (the official summer dorm you get through the housing office) because you pay more for less stuff.

One thing I don’t like about this place is that the hospital is right behind the building, and I always hear a siren like every hour, sometimes even in the middle of the night. I guess I just have to get used to it since my apartment for next year is only across the street and I live in Baltimore…

Living alone is quite awesome. It’s usually very quiet, so I don’t have to go to the library to study. In fact, I only went to the library three times this month to study Organic chemistry. And this was for group study. And I get my own air conditioning here in my room, so I really don’t feel the need to go to the library to study. Also, sometimes I like to play loud music, and now I don’t have to worry about disturbing a roommate or anything. I’m wondering, though, if my neighbor can hear it… I don’t know how thick the walls are. I don’t hear anything from the other side of the wall, but I don’t know if it’s just because the neighbor’s a really quiet, non-confrontational person…

I do not know if FFC is open during the summer, but I honestly don’t care since it’s so far away from my apartment now that I’m not gonna go there anyway. I usually cook noodles and stuff, or go out (there are a lot of places to eat here and I recently found a little Korean place about two blocks away from here!). For grocery shopping, I go to Eddie’s Market just down the street or get a Zipcar and go to Walmart if I need to buy a lot of things. But I recently realized Giant is better if you are going to buy just food and stuff especially if it’s right beside Walmart. Hmart, which is an asian version of Giant, is right next to them too, so it’s worth renting a car and driving down there.

Anyways, check out my Cribs video below and have a look around my apartment!

It’s currently 12:30 am in the MSE library.  This is not to say that I am turning into a study-a-holic.  In fact it’s quite the opposite.

Today I watched the first three episodes of Mad Men, and I find it quite good.  I am still hoping that three hours of watching characters chain-smoke will positively reflect in my exam tomorrow.  We’re all allowed to hope, right? Oh, and by the way, I do not approve of chain-smoking if you somehow derived that I did from the previous sentences.

The semester is spiraling to an end!

It’s been awhile since I have felt the need to write introspective blog, not that the others are uninspired by any means.  It’s just that now I am feel less inspired to work on this proof of Euler Toitent functions, and more so to write some starting out with a line other than “Let n be an integer less than m such that phi(n)=2^{2^n}+1….” So I’ll let the illogical, poorly structured rhetoric commence!  I have been lacking on the interesting picture front, so this blog will showcase more of my sister’s amazing art!

So, there’s only one week of classes left!  That means 13 more lectures, and two more sections, and I am free!  Well, after finals that is.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot of how I have changed since last August.  In some respects it feels like I turned the corner off of W. University Ave onto the Hopkins campus for the first time nearly minutes ago, and in other respects I feel like I have spent an eternity here.

I have forgotten the feelings of October that were filled with missing home, and the sentiments of winter, which were filled with hatred for the snow.  Now, I am starting to forget the sentiments I had so many months before that.  The smell of my yard at home in the spring, the cherry pink blooms on my apple tree, and the memories from grade school, and middle school, and high school.

Yum... Coffee

There’s no doubt that you will change after a year at Hopkins, but that doesn’t mean in a bad way.  I think I came to Hopkins a starry-eyed, barely 18-year old.  In many ways, I was very naïve.  I think my ego super-seceded my credentials.  Some people have commented that I have “lower my standards” or given up hope.  That’s not it at all.  I am not a pessimist.

I am a realist, who doesn’t set unrealistic expectations.  I think that is the difference between the pre-Hopkins Cate, and Hopkins Cate.  I have learned to accept myself no matter what, and I am proud of everything I do, and I have stopped obsessing over perfection.  I have garnered enough faith in myself to take those crazy leaps, knowing that I am not afraid of the outcomes.

I know a lot of high school students are so focused on growing up.  It is as if life gets better or simpler when you’re in college.  Not that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, but we’re all stuck in the yard we’re given.  So for you high school seniors who are preparing for your first year of college next year, I know it’s exciting and you can’t wait, but you need to relish in the last remaining moments of your high school careers.  You only get to experience them once, so live them to their full potential.  Fall will arrive soon enough, believe me.

One of my sister's senior showcase pieces. Colleen- Sorry I couldn't be there for your graduation! Congratulations!

As for me, my end of the year is a bit bittersweet.  I am going to miss Hopkins.  If I could just stay in this limbo between midterms and finals forever, I would.  Sadly, I have yet to learn how to stop time.  So for now I have let these final weeks pass, and then go home for summer.  In many ways, I am ready to go home and spend some time with my family and my cats.  I miss them, especially my cats.  I will also be taking organic chemistry over the summer.  I guess if you want to find me I’ll be laying on the shore of one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes with an organic chemistry textbook.

Now for an amazing song.

I have a whole box of fortune cookies just for finals!

Even though I had a great time at the admitted student open house last year as a high school senior, I have to admit that being at the open house this year as an admitted student was even more fun.  Maybe it was because I had a little too much sugar after sitting behind the candy bowl at the Ask-a-Student table all afternoon, but the whole day was really fun meeting and chatting with all of the admitted students.  Throughout the day, a shocking number of parents all asked me the same question: “what is the most bizarre question that you’ve been asked all day?”  While I wouldn’t really consider any of the questions I was asked on Thursday to be bizarre, I did have a few favorites that went beyond the typical “Why Hopkins?”  While “Why Hopkins?” is a perfectly legitimate question to ask, the less conventional questions that students asked were what really made the open house a lot of fun.

-How often do you get off campus? Probably about once a week.  There are free shuttles that can take you pretty much anywhere within like twenty minutes of campus, or else you could take a cab or rent a Zip Car for a few hours to drive wherever you want.  This weekend alone, I went to the Hunt Valley Mall, Panera Bread, and a tulip garden for a Phi Mu sisterhood retreat.  Some of my favorite spots are Sabatino’s in Little Italy, Towson Mall and the nearby Vietnamese Restaurant, and Tapas Teatro and the Charles Theater.

My Phi Mu Family at a Local Restaurant

-Do you think your freshman year was more stressful than your hardest year of high school, and will people at Hopkins be as competitive as my high school class? In all honesty, I felt a lot more stressed out in high school than I do here at Hopkins.  The work is definitely harder here, but I know I can handle it all and I have a lot more time on my hands.  As far as the competitiveness of Hopkins, I would say that while my friends at Hopkins are more driven and intense than my high school friends, they’re actually less competitive.  Ever since like day two of classes, we’ve figured out that classes are a lot easier when you’re collaborative, so we work together on homework and we’re really only concerned with doing as well as we can individually.

-What kinds of things do you cook in your dorm room? I wish I could give a more exciting answer to this question, but since I live in the AMRs I don’t cook very often.  Occasionally we’ll buy pre-made cookie dough and bake it in the AMR common kitchen, but we’re really bad at cooking so aside from that we eat at the FFC.  Judging by what I’ve seen in Miranda’s blog, it seems like she’s a much better cook.

-How big is the closest mall to campus? I live right by the second biggest mall in the country at home, and I still consider the Towson mall to be pretty big.  It has like four floors too, so prepare to climb some steps.

Towson Mall at Christmas time

-Are there a lot of people here from the East Coast? I’ve met a lot of people here from New Jersey, and it seems like there is a good number of East Coasters, but overall I think Hopkins is extremely geographically diverse.  A lot of the students I’ve met here from farther west consider it really convenient to have close friends from the East Coast because whenever they get homesick, they can always take the train home with their friends and get a home-cooked meal away from home!

-What is there to do besides run, lift weights, and play basketball in the Rec Center? There’s a rock wall, a huge variety of equipment for students to rent and use in the enormous indoor gymnasium, and there are several racquetball courts.  A lot of students here also purchase passes to attend unlimited classes throughout the semester – anything from spinning to Pilates to boot camp.

Laura's schedule

-If I come to Hopkins, do I ever have to take a foreign language course again? Nope, there are hundreds of other humanities classes to chose from to fulfill your distribution requirements.  That’s the great thing about not having a core curriculum.  However, as a Spanish major, I’d encourage you to give foreign languages another chance!

-Do people complain about the food? Not really – the general consensus among freshmen is that the Fresh Food Café is pretty good.  The only complaints are that people are bored of the food in the FFC, but this is easily resolved by using other on and off-campus dining options like Nolan’s, Levering, Pura Vida, Charles Street Market, Silk Road Café, Einstein’s Bagels, University Market, Subway, Chipotle, and many others.  In terms of dining, there’s something here for everyone.

-With a Hopkins workload, will I still be able to watch Bones every week? Yes, there are TVs in the common/lounge area of every dorm building.  The second floor of Wilson House hasn’t missed an episode all year.

Wilson House excursion to the Baltimore Comedy Factory

-Is there anything that you feel like the admissions office really exaggerates? I really don’t think so.  Back when I was a prospective student sitting in the info session, I thought that they were for sure exaggerating the whole research aspect of the university and maybe the security, but now that I’m here I realize that they really weren’t kidding around.  This campus has been ranked by Reader’s Digest as the Safest campus in the country, and the research opportunities for undergrads here are in my opinion even more significant than admissions describes.

-Is there a class you can take about food? Yes!  I took Fiction for Foodies over Intersession, and there are a lot of other really random and fun classes to take during Intersession.  The best part is that Intersession is completely covered by your fall tuition, so classes, meals, and housing during the month of January are free for anyone who wants to come back.

food at Charles Street Market

-Did your sorority give you those sunglasses? Why yes, they did!  Just another reason why you should consider rushing.

-How often do you talk to your parents? I talk to them just about every day, usually when I don’t feel like doing work and my friends are all at class.  I call frequently enough for my sisters to complain that I should stop interrupting their TV shows.

So whether you’re an admitted student coming to the open house this week or a prospective student browsing the blogs, ask us something!!  Looking forward to meeting more of the Class of ’14 on Thursday!

Hey everyone! Sorry for those of you who are my regular readers, but I actually won’t be doing my CRIBS post this time. Instead I’m going to go into detail about the release of our new Hopkins Interactive homepage. Check it out if you haven’t already @ http://www.hopkins-interactive.com/. When I joined the Student Admissions Advisory Board (the students behind the Hopkins Interactive Web site) one of the biggest things that I was pushing for was a re-design of Hopkins Interactive, not because the site wasn’t amazing but just because it looked out-of-date. I couldn’t be happier to tell you that today we have gone live with the new face of Hopkins Interactive, a completely new homepage that has everything the old homepage did and much more. I have been working on this project for just about 5 months, and now everything is complete. This is the second major web project that we’ve released recently, the first was our new blogging system. If you haven’t already, I’d suggest you check out my post about the new system. In this post I am going to describe all the changes that we have made in detail, but don’t worry  I’m not going to get too technical.

The very first thing I moved to change when I started to make my modifications was the color scheme. While I love the color scheme from the old site, in my opinion the colors seemed too faded. I wanted to brighten up the color scheme without making it so bright that you had to strain your eyes when you’re looking at it. I worked with Lauren C. another one of the SAAB Members/Bloggers to make a new color scheme that used the same primary colors that the old site had, but brighter and more saturated. Once we finished with it we took it to the rest of the re-design committee and they approved of it! I couldn’t be happier with how everything came out, it looks amazing and its surprising what you can do by moving around color dials. This was a big deal for me because I’m not usually good with colors and I just changed things around until I saw what I liked.

I was lucky to have a target look for the homepage when I came into SAAB. Over the summer Admissions_Daniel made a drawing of what he wanted the new homepage to look like based upon what a previous orientation site looked like. Daniel was nice enough to get me into contact with the student who designed that site, and he explained everything that he did so I could get an idea of how I was going to make our new homepage work. I took that drawing Daniel gave me and over the next few months I did everything I possibly could. It involved me learning a LOT more about web design/programming than I did, just so I could make this page look like what he gave me. I actually spent about 20 hours over winter break making a large portion of the code that generates the page you see now. The site that you now see is almost exactly the same as the drawing that Daniel gave me nearly 7 months ago. I improvised with a bunch of things but I made sure that the entire time the whole layout and organization of information was preserved.

For now here's a picture of what the new homepage looks like, if I can on Monday when I'm in the office I'm going to try and scan the document that Daniel gave me and line it up right after this so you can see how hard we worked to make them agree with each other.

Here it is - the original drawing that Daniel gave me in the beginning of the year which was essentially what he wanted to see as the new homepage. What you may notice is that for this to work we had to change blogging systems, we didn't do that just because we wanted to! It was necessary for this to happen!

One of the things that I absolutely love about the new site is the interactivity (if that’s a real word) of it. Hopkins Interactive is all about interacting with students, but I felt the need to make the actual site more interactive. Now when you go to our new homepage you see a scrolling photo album giving you images and an excerpt of the 10 most recent posts, and just in case you don’t want to try and follow those you can see the 6 most recent posts below it. We preserved some of the things that were on the old Hopkins Interactive homepage such as the featured student section and the “did you know” section. We all believe that these were a vital part of the site and we couldn’t just get rid of them. We also wanted to make sure that we kept some major aspects of the old homepage so everything doesn’t look entirely different yet. Aside from the scrolling photo album that you can go through yourself any time I added animated drop down menus for the student profiles, blogs, and forum sections. This allows our visitors to access certain parts of the site without having to look as hard, and it just looks really really awesome!

Here's what the dropdown menus look like when you expand them and what the image box looks like as it shuffles through the images.

One of my biggest goals when I set out to redesign our homepage was to make an all-in-one search bar, that is one that is completely comprehensive. So in my mind it would search the forums, the blogs, and all of the Hopkins Interactive pages. This is currently a work in progress but right now you can search through all of the Hopkins Interactive content, hopefully the blogs within the next few days, and eventually the forums. This would make it infinitely easier for our visitors to find information, as they would only have to use 1 search bar instead of trying to figure out which search on which site to use. Another thing that we added to our new homepage is a link to our academics blog, since its one of the biggest projects we’ve ever done and its something that prospective/admitted students need to know about.

For those of you who like numbers this site was the product of about 50-60 hours of me doing web design stuff, and most of the time I was working on things that you can’t actually see, for example the script that gets the 10 most recent blog posts and displays them properly. Lauren also put in a good 20-30 hours helping me with all of the changes, and Admissions_Daniel, Admissions IT Team Leader Chris, and Admissions Marketing Editor Shelly helped us all along the way with pretty much everything. Without every single one of them this outstanding new homepage wouldn’t be possible.

When I took on this project I knew that it would be one of the largest projects I’ve ever worked one, and it most definitely was. Combined with the release of our new blogging system I believe that in my first year here at Hopkins I’ve definitely done more than I ever thought, and I think I’ve done more than all of my previous web design projects combined. But this was also more fun than I ever imagined it being, and I’ve learned more than I ever could have imagined. Thank you so much for reading my rant about the new release, and thank you for being the most important part of Hopkins Interactive – the visitor(s). Without you none of what we do would be possible.

Please don’t hesitate to contact use, if you have any questions, comments, or if you’ve found issues with something @ webmaster@hopkins-interactive.com. While we spent hours making sure that our site was compatible in many different browsers and operating systems, we couldn’t check them all. Thanks again for reading, and I hope you all enjoy the new homepage!

While I was just looking through everyone else’s posts since the beginning of the semester I realized that I never posted my schedule for the next semester as well as how everything is going for me so far! In this post I plan to do that and give a brief update about what’s happened in my life over the past two weeks.

So I decided to continue what I started with the second semester in many ways, which required me to take continuing courses in many departments. I decided to finish off Physics by taking General Physics II for Biological Sciences Majors along with General Physics II Lab. This was a simple choice since I want to get rid of Physics before I forget all of my knowledge of mechanics (aka first semester Physics). I also decided to take Introduction to Social Psychology with Dr. Drigotas who was the professor for my Introduction to Psychology class last semester. This is proving to be my favorite course for this semester so far, and I’ll probably describe it in depth in a later post. I also continued the track I started last semester with Introduction to Cognitive Neuropsychology by taking Introduction to Cognitive Psychology which is another amazing class. Finally I continued on the Neuroscience track by taking the course that is required for all Neuroscience majors, Cognitive Neuroscience.

This is an image of the Large Hadron Collider which sends atoms flying at each other at 99.99% the speed of light! I found out recently that both my Physics II Professor AND my lab professor worked on the LHC at some point. That tells you how amazing the Physics faculty is here at Hopkins!

So far I’ve had one exam in each class and in all of them I’ve earned a B+ or higher. For me this is an outstanding accomplishment because I had all of those exams within one week, and during that week there was one period where I had 3 exams in 2 days. I started studying for each of these exams at least a week before they occurred since I knew that they would end up being a problem if I pushed everything off until the last minute. I haven’t found any of the classes to be exceedingly difficult so far, although Physics II is getting a little tricky. But how can I complain after doing very well on my first round of exams where grades actually count and with spring break being a mere 2 days away!

If you recall what I spoke about in my last blog post I was training to become a tour guide! Well I actually finished up that process during the second half of last week. On Tuesday afternoon I gave a tour to a high school student interested in Mathematics and his father, and on Tuesday I gave a tour to a girl interested in Writing Seminars and International Relations and her father. These were good because they were small tours and I got to tag-team them with another tour guide in training and a regular tour guide shadowing us ensuring we didn’t make any huge mistakes. This was great because the tours were extremely personal, but the tour I was evaluated on went even better.

The evaluation tour is a very simple thing, you give a regular tour and one of the regular tour guides for the time slot stands in the back of the tour with a clipboard and checks off things on a list as you mention them and notes any mistakes you make. I was lucky enough to have a group of 8 people along with 2 tour guides in training shadowing me, and my evaluator. At the beginning of the tour when I asked what everyone was interested in studying I knew that it was going to be a great tour. Everyone was either interested in Neuroscience and Psychology (just like me!), or Molecular Biology, which I also love. I found out later on that my evaluator was also a Neuroscience major, so things couldn’t have worked out better. It ended up being the longest and most in-depth tour I’ve given so far, around 1:15 in time. When I walked back to Mason Hall at the end of the tour one of the girls who was interested in Neuroscience and Psychology asked me what classes she could visit, which was perfect since we have a lot of amazing classes on Thursday and Friday. I ended up passing the tour and I’m now an official Blue Key Society Tour Guide! If you’re ever visiting the campus I’d suggest you come on Fridays and take a tour in the afternoon at 2PM since that’s when I’ll be giving my tours.

This is an image depicting the position of the hippocampus in the brain. As soon as I learned about it in An Introduction to Neuroscience I knew that it was going to be one of my favorite aspects of the brain, and if I ever get to do my own research I plan to do it on the hippocampus which is crucial to most forms of memory. I'm actually going to try to work in a lab on campus that studies memory this summer/next semester!

Last Wednesday I had a meeting with my Academic Advisor and I finally got to declare my major! I’m now officially a Neuroscience major! I was even happier to hear from my advisor that I could request who my Neuroscience department advisor could be, and it’s going to be my professor from An Introduction to Neuroscience last semester, Dr. Hendry. She also suggested that I double major in Psychology, even though I don’t have to make that decision until next semester. Over the next few days I though about it and I’ve decided that I’m going to do it. So I’m now also a double major in Neuroscience and Psychology! The great thing about the hippocampus (depicted above) and human memory is that since it deals with memory, it is really on the border of Neuroscience and Psychology. We can study memory from both aspects: that is we can study how memory is affected if we try to use different psychological techniques on a mind such as priming, or we can try and figure out how the hippocampus works from a Neuroscience perspective by using imaging/recording techniques, or using data from patients such as HM who had their temporal lobe (and therefore their hippocampus) removed.

Aside from all those great things that happened over the past week Lauren and I made an ENORMOUS amount of progress on our new blogging system. Transferring from Typepad isn’t as simple as moving everything from one server to another, we had to go through everyone’s themes and make sure they were happy with their themes and that the themes worked in all of the browsers our visitors have, and make sure that all their old posts looked fine in the old browsers, as well as make small tweaks to the backend of the system that makes everything easy to use for our bloggers. As I said in one of my previous posts we’ve been working on this project since the last week of January, and it’s finally coming to a close. We anticipate that by the time we leave for Spring Break everything will be done and we’ll simply have to resume the day-to-day activities that we had to deal with on Typepad. Now we can focus on some projects that will be geared towards the admitted students and the even bigger project that will be released at the end of the month that has been in the works since last December.

My week is essentially already over, I just have a few simple classes and a lab to get through before my spring break begins, and I’m not really concerned with any of them. In my mind spring break has already begun! Before I sign off I want to share a YouTube video that my Cognitive Psychology Professor showed in our lesson last Thursday. The lesson was about vision and how vision is ACTUALLY impossible, and what we perceive as vision is a “best-guess” by our brain. But in this process our brain actually “creates” colors, that is to say colors are actually an illusion. As proof I leave you with this YouTube video which was created from an experiment known as the “castle illusion.” Once you stare at the center of the screen for a long enough time move your focus and you’ll see that the image is in fact a black and white image, and your mind created the illusion of color. Thanks for reading, and check back in two weeks to see my CRIBS post!