The 30%, 7%, and <0.1%

Name: Jessica Kraus

Graduation Year: Class of 2011

Current Town: Ha Noi, Vietnam

Hometown: Tenafly, NJ

Major: Public Health  Studies

I live on a street named after a revolutionary who was executed by French colonists. It’s just north of Hanoi Hilton, south of the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, east of a statue of Lenin, west of a motorbike driver who is always dressed in a U.S. Army uniform.

A year after graduation, about the only thing that is clear to me is that I am far from the haven of Homewood. Gone are the days of introducing myself at Hopkins as Jessica, a public health major from New Jersey. Here I’m classified at first glance as a tây, an all-encompassing Vietnamese word for a Westerner ( … whether I’m Swedish or Dutch, 16 or 27 is speculated). By answering typical introductory questions, I enrolled myself in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, as: Jessica, United States, 22 years old, single, working for an organization that is known for having distributed 12 billion condoms internationally.

Transitioning and no longer on Hopkins time, my mind began racing. I became more hyperactively self-conscious than ever before. I felt my American superiority complex weakening. Feelings of empathy replaced feelings of sympathy. Feelings of nostalgia were distinguished from feelings of homesickness. Hopkins became a place of my past. I felt myself professionally becoming more specialized while simultaneously becoming less qualified for other positions. I realized that I knew more restaurants in Hanoi than in any other city. I developed an idea of where other decisions would have taken me and where future ones might.

Overwhelmed, I turned to my support network: my older friends, family members, and academic advisors. They viewed this thought-process as a natural consequence of graduation, one that is healthy, necessary, and escalates while going down a non-traditional path. (I say all of this as a warning for any future graduates reading this.)

With no advice actually given, my supporters opened their doors (and email accounts), listened, and then probed me with self-centered questions: Why did you move to Vietnam? Why did you major in public health? Why do you support development assistance for health? Where and with whom would you rather work? What next?

Each question just brought with it more thoughts. Had I been blind-sided into thinking that I would feel an immediate sense of belonging in Hanoi? Was I brainwashed at Hopkins into becoming a public health researcher? Why didn’t I apply to be a teacher’s assistant in the States? Would I be happy living anywhere in the world? Ugh.

Overwhelmed, I dug up my application essay to Hopkins, watched my application video for Princeton in Asia, and read a couple of my Hopkins Interactive blogs. This helped. After much self-evaluation, I learned to love my post-college self, smiling as I heard my Vietnamese coworkers using the words bao cao su (condom) to describe me to their friends. I’ve embraced that this identity is where a whole lot of factors brought me: my parents, upbringing, experiences, personality, education, and, of course, luck.

Pause.

Education? Does that mean that Johns Hopkins is part of my identity? Of course! Hopkins is a part of my identity and yet it’s not one that is immediately identified.

But, last year, I entered a global minority. Only 7% of the world’s population possesses a college degree (see article). 30% of Americans 25 years and over are currently in possession of a bachelor’s degree (see article). And <0.1% of either population (and even the population of bachelor’s degree-holding Americans) is a Hopkins Blue Jay (see a statistician :-P).

Michael Lewis spoke at the most recent Princeton Convocation. His speech is relevant for all of those in the 7%. He spoke about the luckiness that any recipient of a Princeton degree has:

In a general sort of way you have been appointed the leader of the group. Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything.  All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you’ll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don’t. Never forget: In the nation’s service. In the service of all nations.

A recent survey found that 44% of 1,000 people surveyed in Vietnam would like their child’s degree to be from the U.S (TNS VietCycle Education 2011). Parents are spending money in hopes of their children learning English, getting a high score on the TOEFL/IELTS, and enrolling in a U.S. college. To many people, my degree means an increased likelihood of family wealth.

At graduation, surrounded by thousands of fellow graduates and receiving the most popular bachelor’s degree for the Johns Hopkins Class of 2011, the luckiness of having received my degree was hidden from me. Accepting a job on a local salary also means that the wealth of the degree was hidden.

In Vietnam, the arbitrariness of all the factors that define my identity – including my status as being American educated – is clearly seen by me. Living in a foreign city that lacks a city plan, has six million inhabitants, and a six tone language, educated is often the last thing I feel here. But, yet, I’m eagerly invited to weddings because much of what is associated with my identity, including my nationality and the education that came along with it, are seen as lucky. To show how real this is, I’ve met a family here whose names are after wealthy countries: Đức for Germany, Nhật for Japan, Anh for England, Hà Lan for the Netherlands.

Of course, there are ways to gain wealth without a bachelor’s degree. There are plenty of real world skills that our society depends on that aren’t learned in the classroom. And, in the United States, a degree can mean tens of thousands of USDs in loans and a sedentary lifestyle without a guarantee of job security, a high salary, or increased happiness. A degree isn’t for everyone. It certainly doesn’t make me superior in anyway to anyone.

And, come to think of it, my time in Hanoi has sometimes felt closer to utopia than my time at Homewood, (I’d take mango smoothies from a street vendor over soda from a vending machine any day.) but I can see why parents want their children to have four years at a U.S. college. For me personally, the Hopkins environment provided me with a safety net to gain personal freedom in, an exposure to public health, life skills like leasing an apartment and paying rent, a love for Baltimore (yet a gratefulness for the increased city safety of Hanoi), courses that empowered me with a voice, decision-making skills, a support network, an increased cultural competency, an appreciation for research, engineering, and medicine, a revival of my love for baking and biking, a constant craving for CVP and Tambers. Like all other aspects of my identity, I can’t imagine being without it.

I now moved on from Homewood. I live in a rapidly developing country. Change surrounds me. My neighbors have built a house that’s 3x larger than it used to be. The clothing shop on my street is now a hair salon. The restaurant is now a towering, neon-lit karaoke bar…

The times they are a-changin’ here, allowing me to easily join the wave of forward-mindedness by embracing the person I am and am becoming, working to increase luckiness by improving the world’s health while accepting any photo requests, smiling at the Jessica Simpson, Jersey Shore, condom jokes, and Johns Hopkins mispronunciations that come from sharing my identity with others.

I Will Remember You

Name: Josh Gleason

Graduation Year: Class of 2011

Current Town: Valencia, CA

Hometown: Park Ridge, NJ

Major: Film and Media Studies

I am an alumnus.  Even after almost a year now, it still sounds strange.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve broken up with Hopkins.  It was mutual, of course.  But there are times when I’ll be reminded of my former school, and it brings back the pangs of love.  Little things.  A breeze that reminds me of sitting on the Beach.  A face that looks like an old friend.  A rare damp day out here in southern California that reminds me of one of those dreary Baltimore spring days.  I’m still in love with Hopkins, but it’s moved on and so have I.

Life has since taken me to grad school.  But not without a journey.

After graduating, I had a few last hurrahs.  My first was working on another film by Hopkins professor Matt Porterfield called I Used to Be Darker. It was a really great experience and continued to help me understand more about film production by being thrown into the fire.

The other amazing experience was the cross-country road trip I took with my best friend.  Both of us left Hopkins to go to grad school on the west coast.  He is at a PhD program in Materials Science at UCSB, and I am in an M.F.A. program at CalArts.  Originally our plan was to backpack through Europe (which would have made for better pictures), but we ultimately decided to spend our last few days together before school driving from my house in New Jersey to our new locations in southern California.

In fact, our journey spanned over 3,400 mi.  I live about 40 mins from the Atlantic on the east coast and about 45 minutes from the Pacific now.  So it was nearly coast to coast -  The trip took us to lots of places we hadn’t been before.  We got a chance to visit some old friends, see some amazing sights, and surprisingly only had two arguments in 10 days trapped together.

We tried to summarize the trip along the way with taglines.  Here are some of the ones that will make sense to other people:

• Western PA: “The land of sights and extreme smells”
• Pittsburgh: Jekyll and Hyde City (alive by dead, dead at night), Home of the Legends of the Hidden Temple Bar
• Ohio: “The land of strict 9-5 business hours”, The Moderately Okay State, The Pizza State (apparently there are more pizza places per capita than any other state)

• Indiana: “What happens in Indiana stays forgettable.”, The Land of Regularaly Spaced Clouds
• Illinois: The Last EZPass State
• Iowa: Middle of Nowhere, Corn as Far as the Eye Can See
• Des Moines: “Des Moines: Pleasant Surprises”, Skywalk City, this is where we coined the phrase “It’s not weird.  It’s roadtrip.”
• Missouri: BBQ City, Generic City, USA
• Kansas: There’s No Place Like Home (as long as it’s not Kansas), Racist Cop State, Home of Prairie Dog Town, The Glad We Didn’t Stop Overnight There State, Winner of Flattest State in America & The Scariest Pizza Hut in America

• Colorado: EVERYTHING is Beautiful in Colorado
• New Mexico: The Roadside Indian Frybread State
• Arizona: “When they say Grand Canyon, they mean it” State, The Land of Giant Holes in the Ground

When we said goodbye, it marked the end of an era.  It felt like my last moments as a Hopkins student.  The aforementioned breakup was finally setting in.  The next step was quickly approaching.

And as this year has gone on, I’ve realized how grateful I am to have had Hopkins in my life.  It made me a stronger person, a more confident person, and it gave me the tools I need to succeed at the next level.  I came in to grad school a step ahead, and every once in a while, I look back and realize that Hopkins helped me get there.

Editor’s Note: Josh was a Hopkins Interactive blogger for nearly all four years he was at Hopkins. Take a look through his archived blog: The Reel Life of Josh. 

Déjà Vu: Back in DC, Many Miles and Four Years Later

Name: Michelle Tellock

Graduation Year: 2007

Current Town: New Haven, Connecticut

Hometown: Hortonville, WI

Programs of Study: Cognitive Science & Sociology double major

Four years ago, I wrote a blog post about graduating from college, traveling a bit, and moving to Washington, DC with a bunch of my friends in order to begin a new job. Now, four years later, this blog post is about how I graduated from law school, traveled a lot, and moved (back!) to Washington, DC with a bunch of my friends in order to start my new job.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Aside from three months in the summer of 2010, I haven’t lived in DC – the city where so many of my best friends from JHU live – since I left for Yale in the fall of 2008. This city really does feel like home to me, and I’ve happily fallen back into the habit of going to “my” dry cleaner, “my” coffee shop, and “my” gym. It’s been great to reconnect with friends from college, and I’m cherishing the fact that so many of my friends from law school have also chosen to call this city home. (Luckily, there are a lot of lawyers here!)

I’m starting my new job – at a big, multinational corporate law firm – later this week, which means I’ve spent a bit of time these past few weeks settling into my new apartment and getting my “business casual” wardrobe in order. I’ve also tried to get into a routine of going to the gym every day, since I know that routine would be harder to build once I start what’s probably going to be a pretty demanding job with long hours. And I’ve made it a goal to catch up on Gossip Girl and read all the Starred items in my Google Reader.

It might sound like I’m being lazy with my last days of freedom, but I think it’s for good reason. You see, after graduating from law school in May, I spent the months of June and July studying for the bar exam (the licensing exam all law school graduates must take – and pass! – if they want to be practicing attorneys, and not just law school graduates with a diploma and a lot of debt). July, especially, was pretty brutal. Every day, my best friend and I would wake each other early, pick up big cups of coffee, and get to school to study by 9am. We’d take a quick lunch break around 2pm, and then keep studying till 9 or 10 at night. I have never worked nearly as hard (the bar makes Hopkins look like a breeze!). I took the two-day exam in Baltimore at the end of July, and then spent the following three months trying in vain to keep my mind off the results, which wouldn’t be announced till early November.

To do that, I traveled. A lot. Immediately after the exam, I went to Kauai with my roommate, her parents, my best friend, and his roommate. Then I moved my things from New Haven down to DC. Then I went to Europe (Croatia, Italy, Malta, Holland) with my roommate for about a month. Then I made a quick roadtrip from DC to Alabama and back, by way of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Then I flew to Wyoming to meet up with my best friend, to start a month-long trip through various parts of America. We drove through Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks on the way to Seattle, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, and Miami (where we stayed with the awesome Mark, who now lives & works there). Then I met up with Rena in London, and we spent a week traveling in Morocco. Then I went to San Francisco with my mom. Then I came back to DC and basically just wanted to sleep in my own bed forever and ever. All in all, I took 31 flights through 26 different airports in three months. I got a few new passport stamps, and I checked five additional US states off my list (I’ve only got 9 more to go!).

Oh yeah – and then I passed the bar (!!). This year, I am ever so thankful that I won’t have to take another high-stakes test in the foreseeable future. I’m excited to start my job in an actual career, even if it will be the first time that I’m starting a job without an end-date in mind (scary!). I can’t believe that I’m helping to plan my Hopkins 5-year reunion already…the time has totally flown by. But I’m totally happy to be right where I am, even if I’ve sort of been here before.

*** If you enjoyed this alumni blog entry then we recommend you check out Michelle’s other guest blog entries: JHU Networks: The Strength of Alumni Connections, Reflecting on the Application Process and Greetings from Washington, D.C. — and also her archived blog from her time as an undergraduate — Not-Quite-Daily Ramblings.***

From Pre-Med to 1L

Name: Mandy Stein

Hometown: Cary, NC

Current Location: St. Louis, MO

Year: Class of 2011

Major: Public Health Studies

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Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri!  I never thought I’d be the person to type that, but if there’s anything that Johns Hopkins alumni can tell you, it’s that Hopkins takes you beyond what you could have expected.  This time four years ago, I was anxiously studying for Organic Chemistry and already looking forward to my spring classes (which were all sciences).  Now, I’m sitting at my desk with a stack of books called: Property, Contracts, and Torts – and I’m wondering how to tackle my outlines for studying.  In case you didn’t quite get it, these aren’t science books.  I’m in law school (another thing I never thought I’d be typing out!).

By now you’re probably thinking: “Ah, so she’s a failed pre-med?”  Well, yes and no.  Yes in that I realized I didn’t want to go to medical school – no in that I didn’t have to fail anything (outright) to realize it.  How does Johns Hopkins take a dead-set pre-med and shape them into a first-year law student?  If I had to make a list of the top three biggest things for me, it would be the research, the advising, and the curriculum.  Let’s explore.

When I was a second-semester freshman (taking all of those science classes I alluded to), I decided I wanted to do research.  I had kind of heard that that was a thing you’re supposed to do if you’re pre-med, and I thought I should jump on it.  So, I emailed a handful of physicians whose research at JHMI sounded interesting.  Within ten minutes, I had gotten a response (though it ended up being my only response) and I set up a casual interview with the physician and appointment with the volunteer office downtown.  I was very interested in the work they were doing, but I quickly realized that I don’t like hospitals.  I was a bit overwhelmed by this discovery and sort of started reconsidering my “grand plan” but instead kept my head down, stopped my research work, and trudged through my science classes for the semester.

Something interesting happened, though, and I ended up disliking my neuroscience class, too.  This was even more overwhelming than not liking hospitals because I had picked Johns Hopkins JUST BECAUSE of the neuroscience program – silly, I know.  Now the stress mounted and I started thinking about what I was going to tell my parents.  After all, they sent their daughter up to Baltimore, paid private university tuition, and thought that they were doing all of that because of amazing pre-med and neuroscience offerings that weren’t available closer to home at the big public university.

So I compromised.  I loved my Orgo class (though it was darn near impossible sometimes) and thought that Chemistry might be a fun major.  I don’t remember how the conversation with my parents went, but I remember that I hadn’t really thrown the pre-med thing out the window just yet.  In comes the curriculum…

I started to realize that the Chemistry major was, like, super hard.  “They want me to take Differential Equations BEFORE I take the next-level class in the major?!  No way.”  And that was the end of my Chemistry path.  By this point, I was completely floundering and had no idea what in the world I was going to do.  In the fall of my sophomore year, I took Anthropology of Mental Illness, Calculus II, Physics II + lab, and Business Law.  That semester, I ruled out the Anthropology major, any other physical science major, and a few others.  My dad had been exploring the different offerings via online course selection guides and suggested I look into Public Health – I could get credit for all of the science work I had completed, but I’d get to take all sorts of social science classes.  Best of all, I could apply the program to a lot of different fields, which was great for a confused sophomore such as myself.

For the next two years, I worked on my public health degree with the help of their tremendous advising department.  My advisor was never fazed when I came in with a different career goal in mind, and he was kind enough not to laugh at me every time it happened.  I worked with the pre-professional advising office (I must have seen at least half of the advisors by the time I settled down on a path), I spoke with other students who had their lives in order, and I crafted a set of classes that helped me explore different interests.

Long story short, while my path to law school may seem riddled with negativity (not liking X, not liking Y), I got here with a lot of help from professors, advisors, students, and anyone else who would listen to me talk.

At this point in my first semester of law school, it’s easy to be overwhelmed and to wonder if I’m making the right choice for myself.  And I can’t affirmatively answer that question in terms of the big picture, but I can tell you that I know I’ll be able to do well because of my Hopkins education.  No, I never took a “legal studies” program that many of my law school classmates have had, but I learned how to work hard and how to work efficiently – which is law school in a nutshell.  Best of all, I’ve already been able to connect with practicing attorneys who are more than willing to talk with me because of our mutual Hopkins backgrounds.  At first glance, Hopkins may not seem like a launching pad for a legal career, but it gave me the foundation I needed to work hard, the background to think about things from an interdisciplinary perspective, and the support (both in college and after) I need(ed).

P.S. My law school professors don’t allow laptops in the classroom, so I’ve had to take written notes all semester – I just have to say, if you ever have a tough class that isn’t coming easily, consider leaving the laptop at home.  You’ll be amazed by how much more productive class time can be for you!

P.P.S. If you have any questions, hop over to the Hopkins Forums and feel free to ask me any questions on my Alumni discussion thread, Meet JHU_Mandy.  I can’t remember my log-in information at the moment, but I’ll get on that and would be more than happy to talk more about the transition away from pre-med and to law school. Also, you can also read my archived blog Simply Serendipitous.

Relocating, Readjusting, & Reflecting: From Charm City to the Ring of Fire

Name: Lindsey Leslie

Hometown: Long Island, NY

Current Location: Chinandega, Nicaragua

Year: Class of 2010

Majors- Public Health Studies & Anthropology Double Major

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¡Hola! ¿Cómo le va? ¿Entonces…? Ok, that’s enough Spanish for now. I’m writing from my new home, Nicaragua, affectionately known as the land of Lakes and Volcanoes.

Sometime during my senior spring semester at Hopkins I finally decided to hit submit on my application to the U.S. Peace Corps. I knew I wanted time off before continuing with graduate school or attempting to enter the job market. The Peace Corps seemed like a fantastic way to gain exposure to international health issues, help make the world a better place, learn a second language, deeply appreciate a culture, meet like-minded people, travel, and much more. It’s actually a really exciting time to be apart of the Peace Corps Network: We are celebrating 50 years of service as an organization AND Peace Corps Nicaragua is celebrating 30 years of service in country!

(To learn more about the Peace Corps, click HERE)

I first became interested in Peace Corps service in August 2007, the summer after my freshman year. I went on a service trip to Tanzania with a public health group from Hopkins and during the 3 weeks our group was there we were able to talk with a local PCV (peace corps volunteer). I admired the work he was doing and started to research the program.

An old slogan for the Peace Corps is “The hardest job you’ll ever love”. But just how does one “prepare” for Peace Corps Service? Well, the easy answer is that you just can’t. Largely because there is no one typical Peace Corps experience. Knowing this, a better response to the preparation question answer is that simply by living your life and gaining a variety of different experiences, you’ll be able to share, give, contribute, and help develop whatever community you’re assigned in to work.

That being said, I was VERY involved in campus/community life during my time at Hopkins. I had a plethora of extracurricular activities that allowed me to work in all different capacities and areas, meet awesome JHU staff and students, and learn a lot about my strengths as a leader. Some of the organizations that were the most rewarding include: Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., The JHU Black Student Union (BSU), JHU Public Health Brigades and working with the Public Health Studies Department (PHS Studies), working as a Research Assistant for the Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), JHU Senior Leadership Consultants (SLC), The Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and various committees/teams with the JHU Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA).

During those 4 years I was able to spend some time inside classrooms as well! Hopkins provided me with a world-class education, especially in the field of Public Health. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I decided to go to Hopkins.   My undergraduate experiences have significantly contributed to the opportunities I have had to date, as well as my thoughts on my future career. I intend to return to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for a Masters degree post-Peace Corps. Ultimately, I want to develop and implement health programming for organizations on an international level.

Fast forward to my senior year, Fall 2009. I started filling out the application, gathering the necessary materials, and doing informal interviews with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). As you can imagine, there were plenty of RPCVs in the Hopkins network. All were able to give me sage advice, funny stories, and bits of wisdom from their 2 years of service. One day, after months of struggling to decide if I had the guts to actually apply to the Peace Corps, I finally sent in the application- that was Feb 13, 2010.

Applying to the Peace Corps usually takes between 9-12 months depending on a variety of factors. There were people in my training group whose application process was as long as 2 years! At this point in my Peace Corps service, I’ve just completed the requisite 3 months of technical/language (Spanish) training and have been only recently moved to my volunteer site. I’ve literally been waiting for this since submitting my Peace Corps application. After all that, I’m finally in my volunteer site starting to work on my service projects!

Here is a timeline of my application process…

My Timeline
Submitted Application- February 13, 2010
Interview/Nomination (HEALTH DEGREE, CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA or CARIBBEAN, AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010)- March 31, 2010
Received Medical Packet- April 2, 2010
Legal Clearance- April 2, 2010
Submitted Medical Packet- April 30, 2010
Application Placed on Medical Hold- June 9, 2010
Medical Hold Taken Off- June 17, 2010
Sent All Requested Updates Medical Materials- June 18, 2010
Dentally Clear- June 18, 2010
Medically Clear- June 26, 2010
Sent Updated Information- (Resume/ Transcript)- June 28, 2010
Re-Nominated (HEALTH DEGREE, CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA, EARLY 2011)- September 15, 2010
Sent More Updated Information- September 20, 2010
Finally Received Invitation!!! – September 21, 2010

Staging (Orientation)- January 11, 2011

Depart for Nicaragua- January 14, 2011

Assignment Details
COUNTRY- Nicaragua
PROGRAM- Maternal and Child Health Promotion- MCH 55
JOB TITLE- Community Health Promoter
IN COUNTRY DATES- January 11, 2011- March 29, 2013

My experience in country so far as been nothing short of AMAZING! Nicaragua is such a gorgeous place and I hope to visit other parts of the country during my 2 years! The people of Nicaragua are incredibly generous with their time, kindness, and opinions. I’m learning to platicar (chat) and laugh at Nica jokes while exchanging stories about family, my life, the states, travel I’ve done, and other topics. In fact, my Spanish is improving daily, although sometimes I still feel like I’m not able to express myself in either language- English or Spanish. During training, I bonded with my host family, gave health charlas (mini-lectures) at the local health center, visited a volcano, went swimming at a local beach and the river, worked with a local womans group, and created a mini-health encuesta (survey). Also, after trying gallo pinto, cuajada, arroz china, cacao, abena, flor de Jamaica, nacatamales, pescazon, quesillo and many other delicious foods I can’t wait to learn how to make all sorts of typical Nicaraguan dishes and frescos (drinks)!

I now live in the ring of fire. There is a trail of other volcanoes that cuts through the middle of the region where my site is location. AND the largest volcano in Nicaragua, San Cristobal, is located in this department. My site, Chinandega, is a city- in fact its the 3rd largest in Nicaragua with about 300, 000 people living in the city and its barrios. It’s the capital of the Chinandega department (similar to a state). My site is about 130km from the capital, which means I’m about 2.5 hours NW of Managua by bus. The city is about 70 meters above sea level and the climate is hot, actually VERY HOT during most of the year-Think high 90s/100s in Fahrenheit or high 30s/40s in Celsius. Some people say its the hottest place in all of Nicaragua, maybe even Central America. BUT, it gets better – I’m about 17km from the Pacific Coast- aka 10 miles from the beach!

Since my site is a big city I have more than my share of creature comforts: electricity, running water, restaurants, corner stores, markets, banks, Post Office, Internet, and cell phone service. I have some mixed feelings on this. Yes, its great to have all these amenities, but its a different type of Peace Corps Service than I imagined I would have.

Most of all, I’m excited about getting to down to work in Chinanadega. Most of the work I will do in Chinandega will involve reducing rates of maternal and child mortality and improving local knowledge and habits related to nutrition. Here are some of the primary health concerns in my site:

Maternal/ Infant/ Perinatal Mortality

HIV/AIDS

Diabetes, Hypertension

Anemia

Acute Respiratory Infections

Leptospirosis

Acute Diarrheal Illnesses

As I’ve just started, it is hard to describe the type of work I’ll be doing in my community. “Work” for me might mean encouraging and teaching mothers how to breastfeed, giving charlas to woman on family planning or general nutrition, coordinating HIV testing or doing yoga with the pregnant ladies at my local Casa Materna (birthing house), going door-to-door in a community vaccination campaign, assisting with a leadership course for sex workers or networking with NGOs to develop new projects for the youth of Chinandega. I have a few ideas on projects I could potentially start in site, but the first couple months in site I plan on trying to observe everyday life in my site, integrate into the community, and form meaningful relationships with people in my site and the health centers where I work. After all, 2 out of the 3 main goals of the Peace Corps relate to relationship building and cultural exchange.

If I have any advice to give, it would be to do what excites you and make a career out of what you are passionate about. Admittedly, this is easier said than done. It might take some time to find out what sparks the flame in you. However, once you feel it’s been ignited, fuel that passion by taking the classes that challenge you and getting involved in the activities that help to develop your interests. After graduation, make a career out of something you truly enjoy doing everyday. That’s exactly what I plan on doing with my life. ¡Buena Suerte!

Interested in following my Peace Corps Service? I’m keeping a blog about my experiences in Nicaragua: www.LTLaroundtheworld.blogspot.com

Keep the Change

Name: Philip Castrovinci

Graduation Year: 2008

Programs of Study: Public Health Studies

Current Residence: Baltimore, MD

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So I’m 23, and graduated Hopkins in 2008. Bill Nye the Science Guy gave us our send off into the world, which is ironic because he could indirectly be attributed to my attending Johns Hopkins.  I took a job with plans for grad school. Of course, the plans I set were instantly changed by my circumstances, and now I find myself on a more interesting path with a fist-full of stories that include circumnavigating the glove, and biological defense.  So I’ll tell you a bit of what has happened in the last year, and a bit more about how I can view Johns Hopkins one year removed.

I took a job as a project manager at Epic Systems, which implements healthcare software all over the country. It was a fabulous exposure to the healthcare industry. In a nutshell, I took a software package that Epic developed and in conjunction with a team from a particular hospital, would customize it to fit the hospital needs. I flew around the country helping out nurses, docs and interacting with nearly every position in the hospital. I enjoyed it. I recommend it to anyone.

     

They have an incredible facility in Madison, WI. (Well, technically Verona, WI.) It’s a huge complex that was designed by architects from Disney and Microsoft. It sits in the middle of a cow field with multiples buildings, each with their own theme: “Swedish,” “Jungle,” “Asian,” “New York City,” and “Country Garden” to name a few. Of course, no corporate facility would be complete without its own tree house conference room. You would think that you wouldn’t want to leave an dynamic and unique environment where you got subsidized gourmet lunch, and could wear anything to work, as they fly you around to different hospitals on their dime. But something for me was missing. Most people don’t graduate thinking they want to implement software, and talking to doctors at my project site pulled me back into the health arena. I applied to The Bloomberg School of Public Health to study Molecular Microbiology and Immunology.  Of course, I put aside some money, and I would attend in the fall…but I had one thing to do that was on my plate since I started working at Epic…

   

Right after I was hired, my buddy came for a tour of the Epic grounds. He was going into his Senior year at Hopkins and studying International Relations. He had a few interesting post-graduation plans: he was going on The Mongol Rally. What is that? He explained to me that he was planning on driving, in an underpowered vehicle, from Spain to Mongolia. 

How could I not go? Of course I was just hired, and they wouldn’t allow me to take six weeks off to go do something dumb like this. But after I got into Bloomberg…how could I not go? There is more to the story: the race is one for charity, and each team needs to raise money, in addition to their own supplies.

Long story short, we raised the money, got all our visas and got all our plane tickets together. We arrived in Barcelona, purchased a car, stocked up on supplies, and made our way around out of Europe. We drove through Spain, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, and Russia….what happened to Mongolia? Well you can read all about it in our upcoming blogs on SilkRoadWarriors.com 

    
 

There were some ridiculous times, as you can imagine, right up to the end. The time I was caught at an Azeri checkpoint, barely being able to leave Spain, the Castle party in the middle of Czech Republic, the time we were assailed by a car that came up behind us, the frequent road issues in Georgia, and tire trouble. I warned my team, that I might be the most unfortunate traveler to be with, as things quite outside my control happen to me. I leave you, dear reader, with that. Onto the next step…

    

 

Being a public health major at Hopkins, I was equipped to deal with many subjects, but wasn’t prepared to master any one in particular. I also was able to take classes at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and I knew that it was THE place to study and work on public health issues. I’ve started my own blog to talk about infectious diseases. I am here currently, taking courses like Advanced Virology, Public Health Ecology, GIS, and Immunology. I need to pick a thesis topic. I think I would like to do something with disease modeling: showing mathematically how diseases could fluctuate in populations with a given set of parameters. I might also want to do something with biological warfare. Whatever I do, I need to figure it out quickly!

I like my program. I also love being back on the East coast! Probably 90% of the people I know in the world live between NYC and DC. I can visit anyone for the cost of a train ride.

The next few years might be interesting, at least I hope they will be. I am applying to doctorate programs in a variety of fields related to disease. Not too certain what might happen there. But over the next year, there are a variety of government jobs like the NIH and CDC, which might be worthwhile. I am waiting to hear back for a Fulbright Grant to India.  We shall see. I feel uncomfortable writing a synopsis of my past year in two pages, but you get the idea.

I thought about some send off advice that might be pertinent to those who are looking at Hopkins, or recently attended, or whatever. Advice can normally come one of two ways: you either don’t agree with it, or it’s so general and abstract you find difficulty applying it to your life. So here are a few ideas:

1. Don’t waste your time. Have goals that you are working toward, and set time aside for them. In college, it’s very easy to do nothing for days on end, and easier to fill your schedule with useless activities or studying that is in effect busy work for your to feel good about yourself. Set aside a schedule that works for you, preferable 8-5. Have chunks of time devoted to your course work, weeks in advance of assignments and tests. School work can be challenging, however, nothing is designed for your to make draconian investments of time if you plan properly. You can work your tail off from 8 to 5 everyday, and still have enough time to do nothing on the weekends and in the evening.
   
2. Whatever you want to do, do it well. Work at it. I come across thousands of people who “could do well if they tried.” WHAT? You get one shot at doing this life. One shot at high school (well, normally) and surely one shot at high school. If you want to do well, DO WELL. Put in the effort. There are people who think school is for the birds, and want to go skateboarding all day. FINE. Go skateboarding, but understand that if you are a bad skateboarder, you might not go far. (No pun intended.) Don’t sit on the couch and watch skateboard videos. Even if your friends are with you, be the best among them, and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Get it together, and get it right. School might not be for everyone. Skateboarding might not be for everyone. But something is.
   
3. Take learning a language seriously. In high school, go abroad to study your language. Take it in college, go abroad in college. I think language is one of the best ways to discover the world. Sounds cheesy, and it might be, but it’s something everyone wants to do, but never does.
   
4. If you want to stand out, then stand out. If colleges wanted to fill up their classes with 4.0 and high SAT kids who are also in NHS with varsity letters, they could. They largely do, but there is also ways you can stand out that most young people don’t do. Write a book. Patent something. Start a small business. Sky is the limit. It will be an interesting learning experience, even if it doesn’t take you anywhere, and will certainly make you stand out.

Yeah. I hope this was interesting or worthwhile for you all. Take care, and let me know what questions you have.  Check out my old blogs, and check out my new one that I keep semi-regularly updated about my thoughts on infectious diseases castrovinci.blogspot.com, and public health!

From Hopkins to Zynga

Name: Zoe Bell

Graduation Year: 2009

Programs of Study: Writing Seminars

Current Residence: Baltimore, MD

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I am a member of a select group of people.  Born in 1986 or 1987 we all had the distinct privilege to watch and come to expect years of great prosperity.  And then, when it came our turn to join the happy fray, the rug was pulled out from under us.

Which is not to say that I am bitter about the timing of the recession, but it did make it significantly more difficult to find a job at the end of my senior year.  As graduation approached, part of me wished that I had chosen to attend law school or graduate school like many of my fellow Hopkins seniors, but I knew that they were truly dedicated to their fields, and what I needed to do was to get real-world work experience and then possibly further educate myself with a masters in business.

And so I networked.  I pulled every string I knew from every job, internship, or casual conversation at a coffee shop that I ever had.  It was a stressful situation as I felt the constant ticking of the graduation clock at the dismissal of each Hopkins class.

When I finally graduated my only plans were to continue working for the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association, who had offered me a job working in the Reunion office.  Then, not more than 10 days after graduation I got the call I had been waiting for.

“Would you like to interview for Zynga?” he said.  “Of course!” I replied.

If you’re familiar with Facebook (or MySpace or Friendster or the I-phone) then you’re probably familiar with Zynga.  Launched in July 2007 with the mission of connecting the world through games, Zynga makes a variety of games on social networking platforms including FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Café World and our newest game, FishVille.  Don’t lie; you’ve always wanted to grow digital strawberries and plant a horde of elephant topiaries all over your virtual farm.

And what do I do at Zynga?  Well, I’m a producer, which basically means I do everything and anything Zynga needs me to do.  I got a taste of production during my time at Hopkins.  I was the president/producer of Throat Culture, a film and stage sketch comedy group, that puts on six shows a year for the Hopkins community.  It was a lot of work but I loved the frenzied pace of writing, casting, costuming, advertising, and performing three times each semester.  I also interned in the production department of Hill Holliday, an advertising firm in Boston that makes all the Dunkin’ Donuts commercials.  I worked with the editors to learn more about how a commercial gets made and enjoyed the frenzied pace there as well.

So, when I graduated Hopkins I knew that I wanted to work in production, the only problem was that I also wanted health insurance and a steady paycheck.  I needed to find a job with an advertising firm (they didn’t do so well in the recession) or in a production company.  Zynga ended up being an interesting fit for my production goals.  I consider myself much more than computer literate, but I couldn’t take apart a Tickle-Me-Elmo and reprogram him to be a satanic dancing doll like someone in my office did.  In other words, I had and still have, a lot to learn about how programming works.

My main job at Zynga is to ensure communication between the art, design, and tech departments and Zynga HQ in San Francisco.  But there’s so much more to my job than simply arranging conference calls.  I was the East Coast point of contact for our office renovation and move.  I lead daily morning progress meetings to make sure that everything is on track for our projected launch date.  I get everyone all the tools they need and want to get their work done more smoothly.  I plan travel for the company when we go out to San Francisco.  And, of course, I fill out expense reports.  This list is by no means comprehensive, but it gives you an idea of how varied my day can be.

There is one question people always ask me when I tell them where I work: How does Zynga make money? Is it the ads?  I think that this is one of the most interesting parts of Zynga.  The company sells virtual goods.  Want to have a blue barn instead of the standard red?  It will cost you 27 FarmVille dollars.  At an exchange rate of ten US dollars to 55 FarmVille dollars it can seem like a steal.  Maybe you’re thinking right now, “I would never spend money on virtual goods.  That doesn’t sound like a bargain at all.”  Some people feel that way, but many of the other 63 million people that play FarmVille and other games every single day, disagree with you and that’s how Zynga makes money.

So, I’m still in Baltimore, living in Fells Point and working on making games in Timonium.  Overall, it’s a pretty exciting life, I see a lot of fun in my future and I wouldn’t be here today without my experiences both in and out of the classroom at Johns Hopkins.

Real World: Take One

Name: Julia Pilcer

Graduation Year: 2009

Programs of Study: Political Science

Current Residence: New York, New York

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Where do I even start?  I’m excited to return to the Hopkins Interactive blogs as an alumni!  Last May, I made the scary and daunting cross from college life to the real world and I’m here to report that it’s actually not so bad.  In fact, I might venture to say it’s better.  Better than college?? I know, nothing is really better than college but it comes pretty close.  See, there’s this great thing where you get a job and they give you all this work to do (ugh) but then this crazy thing happens every two weeks where they pay you like….actual MONEY!  It’s amazing!  And when you get home from work at night (which is sometimes later than I care to admit) you don’t have any homework!  No papers, no reading, nothing!!  You can sit and read a book or watch TV and not wallow in guilt about procrastinating for that stupid exam you have tomorrow.

And if you actually like your job and get to meet great new people, the awesome factor of the real world increases exponentially.  Since I do, in fact, love my job and have met wonderful new people, my real world experience has been nothing short of fantastic so far.  So what do I do now?  I work as a paralegal for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York (aka, Manhattan).  That
makes me an employee of the Department of Justice’s local branch in New York.  Was this my dream job? No.  Did I always want to be a paralegal?  Definitely, no.  This was a job that I accidentally stumbled upon while looking through usajobs.gov (great resource!).  I figured, “oh, paralegal, I could probably do that” and sent them my resume.  However, the USAO wasn’t even on my radar of places I was considering working and I didn’t look at any other paralegal jobs.  In the end, I couldn’t be more happy that I found this job.  I work in an office that handles the most exciting prosecutions in the country and I get to be an integral part of those cases.  Moreover, I work with about 30 or so other paralegals who are all my exact age and we have a blast together.  I really couldn’t ask for anything more.

Even though I’ve left Hopkins for New York, I certainly haven’t forgotten about my Hopkins family.  I get to spend time with the many other New York area Hopkins alums–two nights this week I met up with Hopkins people for dinner.  And I still make the occasional visit down to Baltimore for old time’s sake.  About a month ago, I made the trip down to campus for Young Alumni Weekend and had a great time being on campus and catching up with many classmates who I’m not in touch with anymore but who I miss nonetheless!

By now I’m sure you’ve all seen Lauren C’s most recent post about an accident which happened four weeks ago involving one of our sisters from Alpha Phi.  We lost one of our most beautiful and vibrant  sisters in a senseless hit-and-run accident on a street near campus.  To me, Miriam Frankl was not just a friend or a member of my sorority chapter–she was my little-little APhi sister (my little Anna is the generation in between me and Miriam).  She was, indeed, like a true blood sister to me and was one of my closest friends.  When you leave college, you have this keen sense that, even among your closest friends, there will be many with whom you do not stay in touch.  As hard as you try, keeping in touch year after year just gets harder and eventually those friendships fade.  Miriam was one of the very few people for whom I knew with a strong certainty that she would be a fixture in my life forever.  And while I know she’s still with me all the time, losing her has been extremely hard.

It’s times like this when I appreciate what a wonderful family of friends I made at Hopkins.  I’ve been back to campus about four times in the past few weeks to be with the Alpha Phi sisters and help them get through this and I can’t say enough how much their support has meant even though I’m not on campus anymore.  When I attended Miriam’s memorial service last week, two Hopkins Interactive members–Jessica and Lauren B.–came up to me and gave me a huge hug.  Seeing them was wonderful!  When I talk about my Hopkins family, I don’t just mean Alpha Phi, I mean admissions, Model UN, the political science department, and everything else.  To have been a part (and to still be a part, as an alum) of such an amazingly strong and supportive community is a blessing and one for which I can never be thankful enough.

As the cold starts to set in here in New York, I start to miss the Hopkins campus (which always looks so beautiful after a snowfall), but, like I said in my final entry of senior year, Hopkins comes with me where ever I go.  To those who have recently applied Early Decision–good luck!!!  And to those applying Regular Decision, hang in there, April will be here before you know it.

**Editor’s Note: Be sure to check out Julia’s archived blog from her four years at Hopkins: Julia’s Journal!**

JHU Networks: The Strength of Alumni Connections

Name: Michelle Tellock

Graduation Year: 2007

Current Town: New Haven, Connecticut

Programs of Study: Cognitive Science & Sociology double major

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With the economy in not-so-fabulous shape and lots of Americans looking for work, one big piece of advice being repeated ad nauseum to recent graduates and career changers alike is something along the lines of “take advantage of your network!” While I’m lucky to be in the sheltered world of law school for another year and a half before braving the “real world” of paid legal work full-time, I’m happy to report that my relationships and connections with other JHU grads has helped me to build strong personal and professional networks that I can turn to at any time.

By getting involved in a bunch of different activities during my time at Hopkins (most notably, the Woodrow Wilson Debate Council, the Undergraduate Admissions office, and Residential Life), I was able to meet a lot of fellow students from really diverse backgrounds who had personal and career goals as varied as one can imagine. As we’re now graduated (or graduating soon!), my friends and I have spread far and wide across the globe: some are studying in England, others are working with the Peace Corps in Africa, and more still are just a train ride away as they continue their schooling or take jobs in Washington, DC, New York, or Boston. Everyone is doing such different things – working for think tanks, writing computer code, doing medical school clinical rotations – but we all have common experiences that bind us together.

When I lived in DC – a particularly popular post-graduation destination for Hopkins alums – I was always running into people I knew on the street, while riding Metro, or at galleries and sporting events. The JHU Office of Alumni Relations also sponsors a lot of events for DC-area alums to meet and mingle, such as happy hours and outdoor excursions. Those events were really great opportunities to see lots of familiar faces and also discover who was new to the city, when I hadn’t already seen the news on Facebook.

Now that I’m in law school relatively far away from Baltimore, I still find myself surrounded by Hopkins grads. Besides the two other former JHU students in law school with me, one of my Wolman Hall 4E floormates from freshman year is a student at the med school and we pass each other on the street all the time. Of course, I also try to convince my JHU friends to come visit me in New Haven (one of them even got engaged in a burrito joint just down the street!), and having friends in lots of different cities all across the country makes for fun and relatively inexpensive getaways. I’ve been to Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas, an Albuquerque to visit Hopkins friends, and others joke that I practically live in Boston with a group of other JHU grads.

As I’ve started to think seriously about what kind of job I might like after graduation from law school, the Hopkins network has again shown its strength. During my summer internship this year, I met some JHU graduates in Kansas City, Missouri, and one of them offered to help me find a permanent job there if I wanted to stay in the Midwest. Then, when I was interviewing for positions for next summer, a number of the attorneys I was meeting with happened to have graduated from Hopkins, too; almost every one of them told me they were surprised by just how much the Homewood campus has changed since their time in Baltimore. One law firm associate and I bonded over our shared love for the cream of crab soup at Gertrude’s, the restaurant in the Baltimore Museum of Art on campus. In fact, I’m happy to report that in just two short weeks I’ll be back on campus for the wedding of two of my friends…and I’m hoping a meal at Gertrude’s can squeeze into the schedule!

Being admitted to Hopkins and choosing to enroll provided me with four fabulous years on the Homewood campus. I feel truly blessed that my connections with Hopkins have continued to grow, even as my classmates and I have largely moved away from Baltimore in order to pursue our own goals. Having a strong alumni network has helped me to feel as though no matter where I go, I’ll have the support of my fellow Blue Jays!

*** If you enjoyed this alumni blog entry then we recommend you check out Michelle’s other guest blog entries: Reflecting on the Application Process and Greetings from Washington, D.C. — and also her archived blog from her time as an undergraduate — Not-Quite-Daily Ramblings.***

A Tale of Many T-shirts

Name: Rena Barch

Year: 2009

Hometown: Hillsborough, NJ

Current Residence: Baltimore, MD

Programs of Study: International Studies and Economics

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After saying good-bye to all of my friends and coming to terms with leaving Hopkins, perhaps the hardest part of graduation was packing up. Last month I finally moved out of my senior year apartment, and doing so required going through a lot of stuff that has accrued over the years. Since I’m spending the next year in London getting my master’s degree, I had to go through it all and decide which of it I definitely was going to take with me and what would stay behind. In the process, I discovered that my bottom drawer became home to every free t-shirt I’ve received over my time at Hopkins. These shirts sort of tell the story of my college experiences.

One of the best tips you’ll learn as the leader of an organization is that if you offer free stuff you’re likely to drastically increase the attendance to your event. From your first day on campus, you will receive dozens of shirts: orientation t-shirts, Dorm Wars t-shirts, service day t-shirts, HOP (Hopkins Organization for Programming) tshirts….and so on. I actually got rid of most of my Orientation and Dorm Wars t-shirts, and still had a whole drawer filled with Hopkins t-shirts.

I suppose, then, the best place to start would be with my debate team t-shirts. I was member and later on the board of the Woodrow Wilson Debate Council, the parliamentary debate team on campus. It was one of the most incredible and rewarding experiences I’ve had in college. The debate team was my greatest source of support during my first years here. Seniors on the team helped me select classes and navigate the Hopkins system. You’ll see on the shirt to the left is the painted face of Woodrow Wilson, a Hopkins alumnus. We first made those t-shirts my sophomore year in an effort to raise some money. By my senior year, we upgraded to a more professional t-shirt for the team (to the right).

Some of the shirts are reminder of some of the more random blips of activities in which I’ve participated. For instance, the summer after my sophomore year, in a desperate attempt to find something to do near campus, I took a job working for Hopkins IT. Far from a computer science or electrical engineering major, I often felt out of place helping punch ethernet jacks in the dorm rooms. Still, I learned some really valuable skills, as well as learning a lot about networking and how to make my Hopkins internet work. As a part of the job, I worked on the SWAT team during orientation, which helps freshman set up their laptops for the Hopkins network and make sure that everyone will have access to the internet in their rooms. That was actually a great way to meet some of the new freshman. To this day, I still have people come up to me and say, “You fixed my computer once!” Needless to say, I never had to take my computer to IT again after that summer.

Other shirts are reminders of events that I helped put on. For instance, in my sophomore year,  I was the Chair of UNESCO at the Johns Hopkins University Model United Nations Conference, a conference for high school students. I was also on the board of Hopkins Engaged in my senior year. Hopkins Engaged was a political festival of sorts. We spent the summer bringing together speakers, NGOs, political activists, and musicians. The festival was intended to promote political discussion before the presidential election in November 2008. Unfortunately, Hopkins saw some of the worst rainstorms we’d had since I’ve been here. My roommates were practically flooded into our apartment. Because of the weather, we had to move the event in doors, and we did not get quite the turn out we had hoped for. Still, I made some great friends in the process, and it was great to be apart of such a great cause. While I won’t be around, hopefully Hopkins Engaged will make a strong comeback in 2010 for the next round of House elections.

Next, I discovered some t-shirts I’ve received from friends trying to advertise their events. I have many shirts from the HOP, but chose what I thought was the cutest one. The “Cancer Sucks” t-shirt was an advertisement for the Hopkins 4K, a group of student who bike across the country for sponsorship. Each rider must raise $4,000, so needless to say they are able to contribute quite a bit of donations to the American Cancer Society. Over the years, I’ve had a number of friends who participated in the event, and truly loved the experience.

One of my closest friends, Sam, was the station manager of the radio station in our junior and senior years while my boyfriend, Matt, was the technical director, so as you can imagine I have quite a few WJHU shirts. WJHU puts on a lot of cool events around campus, from dance parties to bringing music groups to campus. They also offer DJs for other student groups, so when sororities need DJs for date parties or StuCo would like some music for a BBQ on the beach, they often turn to WJHU. In my senior year, Sam put on what I thought was one of the coolest events to hit Hopkins. It was called the Six-Day Jam Session. For six days straight, there was music coming from the Mattin Center. It was the longest continuous jam session in history. The entire session was recorded and sent to the Guinness Book of World Records, so we should find out soon whether Hopkins was able to break the world record!

Just this summer, I’ve accrued a couple of new shirts. One was from my boss at Cafe Q, the coffee cart in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. I first started working at Cafe Q mid-sophomore year to earn some money after I quit my IT gig. You can learn more about Cafe Q in my previous blog post.  My boss, who I’ve become pretty close with over the years as he’s helped my juggle my coursework with my hours at Cafe Q, just left to pursue a MFA in San Francisco. I had been bugging him for a couple of years to get us Cafe Q t-shirts with the slogan I had come up with, “We’re the Crema of the Crop.” This is a joke that only select coffee snobs would understand, but I was really proud of how clever it is. As a departing present, he finally made me the t-shirt I asked for.

There is a bit of a downfall to all of these shirts. While they make great gym shirts and night shirts, there are an awful lot of them and they take up a ton of space (the equivalent of about a small box). Yet, as I go through all of my stuff trying to throw stuff out, I can’t bring myself to part with my box of Hopkins t-shirts because they remind me of all the things I’ve done here, all the friends I’ve made, and the experiences I’ve had. That may be worth lugging this box with me wherever I go after London.