Name:  Karen Schmauss

Parent of: Travis Schmauss – JHU Class of 2016

Hometown: Rancho Cucamonga, California (suburb, 50 miles east of Los Angeles)

It has been ten days since we left our son Travis at JHU.   He is our youngest; his sister already flew the nest and lives in Illinois.   The reality sinks in when I walk by his unoccupied bedroom and bathroom (which is CLEAN, which never was true when he was here).  I try to keep in touch with him by texting him. Sometimes he answers, often he doesn’t.  He has adopted a study system called “pomodoros” which means for each completed 25-minute study session or “pomodoro” he gets a 5 minute break, and after 4 pomodoros he gets a 20-minute break.   So if I don’t catch him during a break, oh well!

Travis and JHU move-in sign

Travis’ road to JHU was not a direct one.  We live in Southern California, far, far away (2,617 miles to be exact; I Google-mapped it).  With engineering as his goal, he applied to 13 colleges and universities.  I am SO glad the college application process is over!  With my Type A personality, I really threw myself into it, and bought a ridiculous number of books (I think about 30) on the college admission/financial aid process.  I read incessantly on the Internet everything I could find – which included Admission_Daniel’s wonderful postings both on Hopkins Insider and College Confidential.

Travis with Daniel Creasy at SOHOP in April - Daniel said nobody had ever asked to pose for a photo with him before!

Sometimes with us, and sometimes with his girlfriend, Travis toured college campuses within driving distance.  During his spring break in mid-March, we flew to Boston and visited schools in that area.  We never did visit JHU.

Travis worked laboriously on his admission essays, with a bit of prodding and nagging on our part. He penned his final essay while riding in the back of his then-girlfriend’s family’s RV on New Year’s Eve.  Then came the interminable waiting – until finally, it was time:  the acceptances and rejections came in, one by one.

On the day that JHU announced its decision, Travis was rejected by a school that had been his first choice.  That rejection barely registered because of the sheer joy of the email from Hopkins.  I was at work when he got word.  He called me:  “MOM, MOM, I got into JHU!!!!!!”

JHU??  JHU???  The Baltimore university?  I was in a panic.  My son was going all the way to Baltimore?

The 3 of us at big JHU sign

I remember when he decided to add JHU to his Common App list.  “But it’s in Baltimore,” I pointed out.  “That’s so far away!!”   “Yeah, but it’s a top engineering school!” he explained.  He chose BME and Engineering Undecided as his major choices.

He didn’t get into BME, but that didn’t faze him at all.  He immediately changed his computer screensaver to Gilman Hall and read everything he could on JHU.  A few days later the long awaited ‘big envelope’ from JHU came, stuffed with brochures and flyers.

He and his dad went to SOHOP, leaving me behind because I had to work.  I was so jealous.  But they took photos, and my husband even filmed the tour they took with a Blue Key member.  I couldn’t wait to see the beautiful campus that I had only seen in pictures.

Travis with his "big envelope" that arrived after his acceptance in March

SOHOP sealed the deal for Travis, who was already 99 percent sure that Hopkins was the one.  The only wrinkle came in early May, when a very exclusive local Liberal Arts College offered him a place from their waitlist.  After a couple days of thinking, Travis wrote them a long letter explaining why he was rejecting them.  Analogizing the college admissions process to asking a girl to a high school dance, he said that he had fallen in love with “Miss Hopkins” who had accepted his invitation, and the girl he had thought he would go with (the LAC) had lost out.

On the morning of August 27, we drove to the Ontario, California airport with six suitcases and duffels.  Four of the six contained Travis’ clothes and possessions.  Awaiting pickup at Towson Bed, Bath & Beyond was his order, which included bedding, fans, lamps, etc.  We arrived in Baltimore late in the evening.  Our hotel was directly across the street from JHU’s athletic fields, and I caught my very first glimpse of the campus.  “I can’t wait for you to see it in the daytime,” said Travis.  “I want to see it through your eyes!”

The next day, I *finally* got to see it in the daylight!  I was very impressed at the beauty of the campus, although I was not happy with the weather.  Hot and humid!  For Travis’ sake, I’m glad the heat and humidity will likely disappear by the end of September.

We drove in our rental car to Towson Center and visited both Target and BB & B, gathering the necessities for Travis’ dorm life.  Not having actually seen the dorm room, it was hard to predict what would fit, but we did our best.  I am very glad he ultimately took my advice to buy both a box fan and a small fan, because those ended up being much needed!  His roommate also brought a box fan and thus they have fans in both windows.

Travis got his first choice of dorms:  AMR II.  Despite the lack of air conditioning, what attracted him was the social aspect of the AMRs and the fact that he doesn’t have to clean his own bathroom.

Travis in front of AMR II on day before move-in

On move-in day, we finally got to see the dorm room.  It was small, but not as small as I feared.  He is in Gildersleeve House (love that name) on the 2^nd floor.   The boys’ bathroom is conveniently right across from his room.   The student orientation moving crew was amazing.  There were so many of them!  When we drove up in the rental, they had it unloaded within seconds.  We did it in two trips:  first the stuff from BB&B and Target, and then all of Travis’ suitcases and duffels.  The student helpers carried everything upstairs for us.

Several hours later, Travis’ side of the room was set up.  Everything fit perfectly.  His microfridge unit had already been delivered, and it doubled as his nightstand.  Just as we were leaving, we met his roommate and family.   The roommate fit was perfect – they get along well.

Student volunteers unload our rental car

Orientation was excellent – so many activities and programs – both for him and us.  I was frazzled by the end of Day 2 with so many programs and events!   Everything about JHU is a class act.

All too soon, August 30^th arrived and it was time for the “farewell dinner”.  We took Travis to dinner at the restaurant in our hotel, and noticed that his next-door neighbor and her parents were also there.  Then it was time to say goodbye.  He gave us hugs and we watched him walk across the street to school.  He did not look back.

Mom and Travis at restaurant near Hopkins on our first night

Back in our room, I cried.

The next morning, we packed our stuff and took off for Washington, D.C. where we spent the next 3 days.  On Sept. 4, we flew home, and the 38 miles that had been between us in D.C. became 2, 617.

Thank goodness for Facebook – he doesn’t post often, but occasionally a photo tagging him turns up and I get a glimpse into his school life.  I even ‘friended’ one of his housemates who takes lots of photos (the series on Dorm Wars was excellent!).  I am an avid reader/poster on the JHU Parents Facebook page, where we parents can commiserate and trade information.  Happily JHU has lots of publications and updates that let us keep up from afar.

Travis and his roommate Jonah in their room

I have no illusions that my son will often communicate with us.  I know that he is busy with 16 units this semester: Chemistry I, Chem Lab, Calculus III, Materials Science and Engineering for the 21^st Century, Intro Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering Today, and Great Books at Hopkins.   He plans to join several clubs and wants to join Blue Key.  Hopefully he will also find a work-study job.

So far, it appears that he loves JHU.  It really is the “right fit” – that elusive quality that matches a school with a student.  It really helps that JHU has a house system that provides a ready-made group of friends for freshmen, most of whom know absolutely no one when they arrive on campus.

It’s hard to go from “18 to Zero” – spend 18 years with your child and then, nothing.  But we have done our jobs as parents.  We have nurtured, encouraged and advised our child, and he has matriculated at one of the top universities in the country.  Of course we will always be his parents.  But I suspect that we miss him way more than he misses us.

“Mom and Dad, you’re going to have to find something to talk about once I leave,” he told us this summer.

We do.  We talk about him!  :)

We took the "parents parking" sign literally!

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.

My going away pizza made by Tashia, a fellow Blue Jay

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.)

PSI Vietnam staff and I smile for a photo after playing charades. You can’t see it in the photo but I am actually holding a sign that says “diarrhea.”

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.

Some people get corporate discounts from their jobs, but I get coasters with condoms on them.

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).

An advertisement in Hanoi for U.S. standardized test prep.

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…

Accepting a photo request (or 5) after a swim in Malaysia.

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.

On Friday April 13 the Ladybirds Dance Team held their annual Spring Concert at Shriver Hall. The night included guest performances by other dance groups on campus including S.L.A.M., JHU Ballet, the Eclectics and the all-female acapella group, the Sirens. The performances were broken up by fun trivia about the Ladybird crew with prizes for whoever answered correctly.

The Ladybirds hold the title of oldest dance group on campus. The team is entirely student-run and student-choreographed, and focuses on dance styles including Pom, Jazz, Hop-Hop and Tap. The girls perform at sports games including football, basketball and lacrosse, as well as other Performing  Arts events on campus.

The Team danced to songs including Candy Man, Sexy and I know it, and Bulletproof. As is tradition in the Ladybirds family, there was a seniors-only dance, along with a Babybirds-only dance. The Ladybirds said goodbye that evening to their three seniors, Monica Harris, Stephanie Curtin and Tara Brailey.

For more information about the Ladybirds Dance Team, check out their website here. Also be sure to check out videos of some of the Team’s performances here.

Name: George Dittmar

Parent of: Allysa Dittmar ’14

I think we all have had some experience of peak performance. It may last a moment or a few hours. It could be a medical person saving someone from a grave illness, an artist spilling creativity over his painting, or maybe even a student simply being inspired by a professor. The experience usually takes us out of the day to day routine and gives a glimpse of “other worldliness.” A glimpse of how special life can be. Someone said life is a metaphor and I tend to agree. The best metaphor for peak performance in my opinion is sports, especially lacrosse (…you know where this is
going, right?)

Allysa '14 and son Dan at lacrosse game

When I first set foot on the campus at Johns Hopkins I felt that this is a place where peak performance is possible. For my daughter, it was love at first sight as well. I suspect for some of the same reasons I had. I saw a student body that exudes goodwill, concern, and brilliance – peak performance. A Dean of Students that treats my daughter as if she were the only person she had to worry about and not thousands – peak performance (thank you, Dean Boswell). Professors that truly care for their students – peak performance. And watching my daughter thrive and excel at Johns Hopkins – peak performance.

Did I mention the lacrosse team? Excellent. Extraordinary. Often and for sure capable of peak performance. I know because I saw it. I drove all the way down from New Jersey and I had the good fortune to witness the UVa game (the Blue Jays won in OT, becoming 8 – 0). Peak performance. Coach Pietramala has created a team and attitude where the “other worldly” can take place. It was such an intense game. I have never seen such defensive focus and patience – peak performance. Those lacrosse games are the kind of experiences that can stay with those players all their lives and perhaps help them through the difficulties life invariably presents. Experiences that we all can carry with us.

At the Navy game last year

I’ve experienced it myself. After I graduated from college, I played on an unknown rugby club. We played a great team from Washington D.C. Their team was filled with New Zealanders, Englishmen, South Africans, and Australians. My counterpart at scrum half was purported the best in the world. We played on the National Mall at cherry blossom time in the spring. From the time I set foot on the pitch, I knew I would best my man and that we would win. And we did – peak performance. That experience still stays with me today. I love to watch my daughter’s friend play rugby at Hopkins; it brings back great memories and I see the peak performance in him too. At Hopkins, be it rugby players, artists, or students, will all experience such extraordinary peak performance. Much more than what I’ve experienced. And it will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Family

I love Johns Hopkins University for the harmony, kinship, and brilliance that it has helped create in my daughter’s life at a time when one would have believed these experiences would be impossible.

Johns Hopkins: peak performance.

George, Allysa and Aaron '14

The Johns Hopkins University undergraduate student body and faculty is thrilled and incredibly excited to welcome what will soon be the newest addition to our campus – the Class of 2016!  Another admissions cycle has gone by, and another group of incredibly talented, bright students have been granted a place in the Fall 2012 incoming class.  To aid these students in the process of choosing the university at which they will enroll next fall, the Office of Admissions here at Hopkins has organized an extremely unique open house program called SOHOP that offers an open glimpse into the life of a Hopkins undergraduate.

What makes SOHOP so unique?  For starters, SOHOP is an overnight program, and anyone who attends SOHOP has the option to stay with one of the hundreds of undergraduates who have volunteered to host a student.  The huge number of undergraduates who volunteer to take part in this event was a huge part of what made this event become a reality and was also a strong indicator of the enthusiasm that Hopkins undergraduates have for their university’s incoming class.

This year, SOHOP took place during the second and third weeks of April and lasted from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday evening.  Wednesday was an exciting kick-off day for SOHOP, as prospective students were given the opportunity to meet undergraduate representatives from an enormous variety of campus clubs and organizations.  After the scheduled dinner program, several members of the Hopkins faculty volunteered to give lectures about their programs of study and to answer questions from any admitted students that attended.  The idea of the faculty lectures was for prospective students to explore their interests, to envision themselves taking on a particular field of study, and to meet faculty who in a few short months could be these students’ new professors.

Thursday was an equally exciting day in which students were given the opportunity to tour campus, tour the dorms, attend academic presentations by major, and become familiar with Hopkins’ various student services such as Pre-Professional advising, Career Counseling, and Study Abroad.  Hundreds of undergraduate student volunteers made this day a possibility, and many could be spotted walking around campus, mingling with both students and parents to give them a better idea of life at Johns Hopkins University.  Although SOHOP is a very new program, this being only its second year, it is an event that the Hopkins Office of Admissions and the Hopkins student body is particularly proud of, as we feel it gives prospective students unique insight as to what it means to be a member of the Johns Hopkins community.

On Friday March 30, the African Student Association held their annual Dance and Fashion Showcase: The Beat of the Nile. Sophomore Malcom Douglas created a promotional advertisement for the event, along with a brief narrative about his work. Both are below!

Hi, my name is Malcolm Douglas. I am a sophomore Biology and Film Double Major. I am also the publicity chair for both the Black Student Union and Dunbar Baldwin Hughes Theatre Company. However, I also publicize a lot of events for other campus organizations as well! This video was a promotional advertisement for the African Student Association’s annual Dance and Fashion Showcase: The Beat of the Nile. The premise of the video was to travel around our beautiful campus showcasing both African dance and a royal, traditional African wardrobe. We played African music and danced with students all over campus to see how they would groove to these funky African tunes. And as always, I like to keep my audience thoroughly entertained. So I sprinkled in a few surprises that are bound to keep you smiling. I hope you enjoy! This is another Malcolm Douglas Exclusive.

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. 

There’s no doubt that Hopkins is home to a wide range of community service organizations that make an impact in Baltimore city.  Hopkins students of all majors have found many different ways of connecting to their surrounding neighborhood, such as through tutoring local elementary school students, organizing health advocacy programs, and building houses for those in the Baltimore communities.    In addition to volunteering throughout the semester, a great opportunity that Hopkins offers its students is a Baltimore-based alternative spring break program.  Not only does this program provide Hopkins students with a fantastic opportunity to help citizens of their own community, but it also educates students about critical problems that Baltimore currently faces and how they might be remedied.

The Center for Social Concern this year has facilitated three different alternative spring break trips that each address a different critical issue in Baltimore: food justice and poverty; HIV, AIDS, and STDs; and challenges faced by the East Baltimore Community, home of the Hopkins medical campus.  In each trip, students learn a great deal about the history of the issue, the current policies that affect it, the areas that are most affected, and the solutions that are being explored.  In addition, students do daily volunteer work relating to the explored theme.  Each trip is one week long, during which time students live with and often grow very close to their small group of other student volunteers.  Students also have the opportunity to meet and connect with members of crucial community organizations such as Feeding America and the National Food Bank, which opens many doors for students to continue their involvement in their university’s hometown.

Hopkins students each year find new ways to utilize their interests or talents to better their community, and an alternative spring break is for some students the perfect way to accomplish this.  The impressive community involvement of Hopkins student body has certainly demonstrated that taking advantage of one’s four years at Hopkins means not only consists of exploring Baltimore’s tourist attractions, but it also entails learning about the dilemmas that Baltimore faces and helping to pursue a solution.

On March 12th, the 3rd annual Hopkins High Table tradition commenced in grand fashion–taking place in the Recreation Center, this year’s High Table was the largest ever. In 2010, the High Table tradition (Hogwarts, anyone?) was created to emulate the British Tradition of “Formal Hall” (think Oxford and Cambridge). The High Table dinner is very academic in nature, as students are joined by deans and professors while the “High Table,” occupied by the freshman class council and administrators, sits eruditely at the front. Freshman President Joshua Goodstein started the evening with an inspiring speech, and he was followed by Provost Lloyd Minor and President Daniels, who addressed the freshmen about the importance of faculty-student interaction.

Think long, banquet style tables, deans in academic robes, lavish decorations, students in semi-formal attire, and fancy catering. The High Table was an opportunity for students to engage in meaningful and personal conversation with professors and deans. It was also an opportunity to have all of the class of 2015 in one place at one time, something that hadn’t happened since Orientation in August. Professors and deans were purposefully interwoven between students and discussed matters regarding classes, student life, and future aspirations. For many, the High Table was a nice change, and will surely be a tradition that will do nothing but grow in years to come.

Guests included President Ron Daniels, Provost Sarah Steinberg, Dean Susan Boswell, Dean Katherine Newman, Provost Lloyd Minor, and of course, the unique individuals that comprise the class of 2015.