Guest Blog on Winter Break

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It’s Winter Break at Hopkins, and it’s Winter Break for the Guest Blog too! Here’s a listing of all the wonderful entries we posted this semester, and check back at the end of January, when the Guest Blog returns with new entries.

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August 1, 2011 – Olivia Cusimano – Hopes, Fears, and Anecdotal Evidence as to Why My Family Believes I Will Die in College
“All of these people on the Facebook page aren’t just random people – they are my classmates, they will share these next four years with me. These people will be the ones who laugh at me when I turn all my laundry pink, who bust out the fire extinguisher when I light the toaster on fire, and who teach me whether or not I can shower during a thunderstorm.”

August 2, 2011– Kathleen Naymon – The Things We Carry
“The Class of 2015 is arriving with baggage—literally and figuratively.”

August 3, 2011 – Kevin Cryan – The Declaration of Kevin Cryan, Blue Jay
“When, in the course of a human life, it becomes necessary for a person to dissolve the ties that have, for approximately 18 years, connected them to their hometown, their house, many of their friends and essentially all they ever knew, they must declare their independence and state the actions they have taken in crafting their new home at the Johns Hopkins University.”

August 4, 2011 – Andrea Fields – When Andrea Met Hopkins
“Whoever said there was no such thing as love at first sight has obviously never been on a tour of Johns Hopkins University.”

August 5, 2011 – Lisa Ni – I am From
“ This is what will keep us connected, and make us a part of each other’s homes. I am from The Johns Hopkins University.”

August 6, 2011 – Maria Luisa Navarro – A Recipe from Home
“That’s why I learned how to cook, and why I’ve altered my palate to appreciate the sting of spicy food.  Sincerely, I’m scared of the things I won’t know when I get to college, and so I’ve learned to appreciate the things that I know now, and that make me who I am. I’m excited about meeting people with different backgrounds and perspectives, and so I’ve begun to value my own background.”

August 7, 2011 – Jacqueline Morea – Midway on Our Life’s Journey
“I will make the absolute most of what I’ve just been handed: a four-year golden ticket to whatever I chose. I’m not stuck in Limbo anymore. I know where I’m headed next.”

September 5, 2011– Thomas Smith – Building a Business at JHU
“This spirit, combined with resources like the ones we found at CLE and in the broader Hopkins and Baltimore communities, make this a great place for the budding entrepreneur, not just the budding physician or scientist.”

September 8, 2011 – Katherine Simeon – Reading All About It
“Campus publications give great insight to what is going on at the university, both academically and socially. They reveal the interests, values, and opinions of the students.”

September 12, 2011 – Neil Philip O’Donnell – How a BME Became Entralled with Business
“In fact, my blossoming interest in business has even helped me with my lab research. As a lab researcher in the biomaterials laboratory, I have been entrusted with creating a provisional patent to protect our innovative strategy for enhancing gene therapy.”

September 15, 2011– Saznin Mehta – It’s Always Sunny in South Africa
“I know I’ll make it back some day, but I’m determined to do so with a camera crew to record yet another amazing experience for my loyal viewers at home. Watch your back, Bourdain.”

September 19, 2011 – Ariel Meranus– Preparation for the Business World
“I had reservations about how a liberal arts major would prepare me for the business world, but I soon found out that Hopkins provides many opportunities for students to get business experience.”

September 22, 2011 – Brian Shell – What I Did Last Summer
“Each year, tons of Hopkins students head out to internships – whether they’re based in Baltimore or Botswana. I was fortunate enough to obtain an engineering intern position at AECOM in Laurel, Maryland.”

September 26, 2011 – Akshay Krishnaswamy  – A Few Pieces of Advice that have Served Me Well
“Wrapping up, I’d just reiterate one thing: allow yourself to be flexible.  College has turned out to be a pretty unpredictable experience so far (in good ways, mostly).  If I had been particularly attached to the detailed mental plan I had going into freshman year, I probably wouldn’t have experienced any of the things I mentioned in this post.”

September 29, 2011 – Greco Song – That 

“I think I had too much pride before I came to Hopkins, trying to learn it all by myself. I rode it for two seconds then I would fall to the ground. Again for another few seconds, and fall again. I didn’t allow anyone to hold my bike and help me, and I ended up with some scars here and there, and beat myself up for it. But I learned to let people come in and be part of my life and just observe – observe how they interact with others, how they keep their friendships, how they approach personal problems, and how they fight.”

October 3, 2011 – Ava Scheininger–CLE Experiences
“Adams explained that he too was an Economics major, but throughout his college career he had mastered the strange art of transforming nothing into something.”The Center for Leadership Education has provided me with many of the necessary skills to do just that.”

October 6, 2011 – Joe Nugent – Tales of a Resident Advisor
“Three years ago, if you asked me where I’d be living at the start of my junior year, I’d tell you that I’d be in an off-campus apartment with some of my best friends. Ever since I saw how big some of the off-campus apartments were I knew that was where I wanted to live.”

October 10, 2011– Laura Elsener – Senior Year?
“Though it may seem like the last three years have flown by, I’ve accomplished a lot, made some unforgettable friends, and learned valuable lessons both inside and outside the classroom.”

October 13, 2011– Noah Guiberson– Learn More, See More, SAAB’More
“In it, she and I (I am her cohost) seek out the best of Baltimore and bring it to you, the Hopkins prospective, in order to show you what it’s like to live in Charm City (branded as “The Greatest City In America”) and to study at Johns Hopkins (which, if you ask us, should be rebranded as “The Best University in the World”).”

October 17, 2011– Brett Schwartz – Where Did the Time Go?
“The things I have really enjoyed about Hopkins is the opportunities this school provides you.  I was ecstatic to hear that I could go abroad for the spring semester, and be involved with all of my organization and still have plenty of credits to graduate in four years. .”

October 20, 2011– Khurram Ali - Getting To Know Someone: The Perspective of a Johns Hopkins Ismaili
“I wish I could tell you all about my friends and the cool things that they do—but then I would never be able to stop writing. I will say this: one thing that all my closest friends here have in common is a strong desire to learn from others.”

October 24, 2011– Ariel Rosen – Giving Back to Baltimore
“You should definitely take advantage of all that Hopkins has to offer. The Center for Social Concern is loaded with incredible opportunities to give back to Baltimore, and it truly makes Hopkins a unique, one-of-a-kind university.”

October 27, 2011 – Richard Kumapley – The Blue Jay Take-Away: Showcasing  Music from Homewood
“My idea was to show off Hopkins students performing their own songs with the beautiful Homewood campus as the backdrop, kind of like our own version of Vincent Moon’s take-away shows. I wanted to find the most interesting places and stick a band in that space and have them do what they did best while the camera just tries to capture it all.”

October 31, 2011– Allie Fink – One Campus, Many Paths
“Having a twin sister is great, but what’s even better is being able to be two very different individuals while still being able to share the connection that is unique to twins.  Johns Hopkins has provided us both with a world of interests and opportunities that have taken us on very separate paths.”

November 3,  2011– Kimmy Hilson – The Cove is Anything but Common(s)!
“I know that I can speak for my suitemates when I say that living in McCoy has turned out to be a more exciting experience than we had anticipated. I am so happy to be living in McCoy, and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my sophomore year anywhere else with anyone else.”

November 7, 2011- Jessie Koljonen- Still Living the Not-So-Real Life in Madrid
“I’m so glad I make the decision to study abroad. I feel like I’m so much more cultured, know so much more about Spain and the world, and have experienced new things and tried new food that I would never have thought that I would try.”

November 10, 2011– Andrea Fields – To Writing Sems or Not to Writing Sems
“ Even though I thought I knew myself better than anyone, I now realize there’s nothing wrong with not knowing exactly what I want to do with my year or my life.   College is for self-exploration and while getting to know myself better. I’ve met so many amazing friends and accomplished professors who manage to teach classes while still periodically publishing papers.”

November 14,  2011– Bridget Harkness – How to Fail A  Freshman Room Inspection: How an Only  Child Learned  to Love a Roommate
“There was a small coffee maker that I rarely used because it was noisy and she slept late. There was a red lamp beside her bed because the overhead light was bright and I went to bed early. On my nightstand I had black eye masks and neon green earplugs. There was a Dali painting of elephants above my bed – that always made people go sort of quiet and say “That’s really cool”.”

November 17, 2011- Corey Adams – Senior Year
“I know I have to figure it out and time is of the essence, but part of me wants to put this monumental decision off for a few more weeks (or months). As much as I want to figure out my life after graduation, enjoying my senior year is of the utmost importance to me.”

November 21, 2011– Liz Mauer – Heart of Homewood
“Within days of moving from home to Homewood I could no longer picture myself anywhere else, it felt like the only possible fit. Since I’ve been at Hopkins I have met some of the most diverse, interesting, and fabulous people than ever before who I am now lucky enough to see every single day.”

November 24,  2011– Alanna Olken – Saving my 21st
“It’s a rigorous school and throws you situations that are over your head once in a while. What is important is pushing through those moments, trying your best, and then forgetting them as soon as possible with great friends that you have made here. The support system you can create at Hopkins is invaluable, and what I’ve achieved here is a camaraderie that is rare and special.”

December 1, 2011 – Jake Golman -Hopping Around Baltimore: JHU Family Weekend
“During their two short days with me, we visited at least 9 different Baltimore neighborhoods!”

December 5, 2011- Leah Kim- Who Needs a Car Anyways?!?
“But as broke college students, these can add up and empty our wallets so let me reveal to you my list of “Top Five Cheap Ways to Get Off Campus”. This list has taken me 3 years of personal experience to compose but I think its time that I share my tricks with you.”

December 8, 2011- Julia Allen – What Are You Waiting For?: Toughing It Out on the Hopkins Wait-List
“In the end it was worth the wait and the extra work because I got a call from my college counselor in the middle of June saying that I had been offered a spot in the Johns Hopkins Class of 2015!”

December 12, 2011- Elaine Yu – Biophysics AND East Asian Studies … What?!
“Yeah, that’s right, I have two majors and I go to Johns Hopkins University.  No, I don’t live in the library.  Yes, I have time to sleep.  No, I was not the valedictorian of my high school.  And yes, I have a life.  Any more questions?”

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We hope you enjoyed the entries this semester – check back in late January for more entries from Hopkins students! In the meantime, check out our current student blogs here.

Best of the Guest Blog IX: My Path to Kappa: Greek Rush at Hopkins

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Title: My Path to Kappa: Greek Rush at Hopkins

Originally Published: December 10, 2007

Name: Anne Mumford

Year: Class of 2010

Hometown: Barnstable, MA

Major: Pyschology

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It’s a cold night in late January, and the campus is quiet and dark. A long line of girls stands, absolutely silent, outside the doors of the Great Hall. Brushing snow from their high-heeled shoes and rubbing their manicured hands together to warm them up, they are apprehensive; unsure of what lies behind the thick wooden doors in front of them. Most are freshmen, though a few are sophomores or even juniors. An older girl in formal clothes walks up and down the line, smiling reassuringly and reminding them that they are in a period of strict silence. Behind the doors, quietly at first, chanting begins. The female voices grow louder and louder until the lobby echoes with the sound. Suddenly, the doors burst open to reveal a blur of color, sound and warmth, and slowly the girls file in.

This is was my first night of Formal Rush at Johns Hopkins University. For those of you who don’t know, Formal Rush is the process by which girls join one of the four Pan-Hellenic sororities at Hopkins: Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Mu, Kappa Alpha Theta and Alpha Phi. These four are part of national organizations, most of them over a hundred years old, with chapters at colleges all over the country. During Rush, young women get to know the sisters of each sorority and, through a mutual selection process, receive a Bid, or invitation to join, from one of these organizations. In fraternities, Rush is much less structured: the young men attend parties at the fraternity house of their choice and may or may not be offered a bid at the discretion of the brothers. Fraternity Rush is also not as strictly mediated by the University.

Though Formal Rush doesn’t take place until second semester, unbeknowest to the freshmen, both fraternities and sororities have been planning recruitment events long before the year even begins. During the fall semester, sororities hold multiple “Meet the Freshmen” events with activities such as cookie decorating, mocktail parties or movie nights. Fraternities host open parties most weekends both to publicize their fraternity and to meet PNMs (Greek lingo for Potential New Members). Since the freshmen who plan on Rushing often spend a great deal of time getting to know the Greeks, most know which fraternity or sorority they want to join before Rush even begins.

I, however, hadn’t planned on joining a sorority and hadn’t thought much about it during fall semester. I knew about the sororities on campus, mostly because I saw girls with tote bags or sweatshirts with Greek letters on them, but didn’t know much about each one. Over the winter break, I received a mass email from Rob Turning, the director of Greek Life on campus. The email went out to all freshman girls, encouraging them to sign up for Rush, which would take place soon after we arrived back on campus in January. It wasn’t until then that I started thinking about rushing.

Like many freshmen, I had heard about sororities but knew little about what actually went on. Most of what I had heard was through the media and was largely negative – horror stories about girls being branded by their “sisters” or drowning during bizarre hazing events. I knew sororities had things like secret rituals and handshakes, which seemed a lot like a cult and didn’t really appeal to me. My Dad, who had been a fraternity brother in his college days, had a paddle with strange letters all over it in his closet, the purpose of which he refused to reveal. I was lukewarm about the whole business, at best.

But at the same time, the prospect of joining a group like a sorority appealed to me. I come from a very small high school with a graduating class of about forty. Though I already had a great group of friends, I thought that joining a sorority might make the undergraduate student body of about 4,800 students seem a little smaller. So, not wanting to go it alone, I enlisted a friend and signed up for Rush.

As I soon discovered, sorority Rush consists of four rounds of parties, during which each sorority hosts a party. These parties are “meet and greets;” even though a girl might already have a particular sorority in mind, she is required to meet the sisters of all the sororities to get a fair representation of each. Girls will travel to a party thrown by each sorority in groups of about thirty, led by a Rho Gamma: an upperclassman woman who, though she is a member of a sorority, keeps her affiliation a secret so as not to seemed biased. The purpose of a Rho Gamma is to help girls with the difficult decision of choosing a sorority that is the best match for them, as well as to offer emotional support and to make sure girls follow the rules of Rush. Rush is highly regulated to ensure that all sororities are given equal consideration. After winter break, sorority sisters cannot speak to PNMs except for “Normal Social Contact:” basically, ‘Hello,’ ‘How are you’ and ‘Goodbye.’ They also cannot give gifts of any sort or invite PNMs into their residences. This is to prevent any sort of bribery or pressure by sisters to join a certain sorority.

During the week and a half that Rush takes place, sorority sisters are under Strict Silence, meaning they are forbidden to speak to or associate with any PNMs at all. This is because Rush week is meant to be a time of serious contemplation about which sorority is best for you, and you should not be swayed by contact with any sisters. Between parties and during ranking (which I will explain later), PNMs are also under Strict Silence so as not to influence each other.

The first round of Rush begins with “Icewater,” during which girls are assigned to their Rho Gamma groups and attend four parties; one for each sorority. These first parties are short and the dress is informal – the purpose is just to meet the sisters. The second round is called “First Theme” and consists of four parties with themes chosen by each sorority. The parties are longer and the dress is more formal. Girls should be thinking about which sorority they really connect with. At the end of the night, girls are led by their Rho Gammas to a computer lab, where they silently rank their choice of sorority.

At the same time, the sorority sisters are doing the same: privately ranking the girls based on whether they feel they are a good match for the sorority. Criteria includes things such as personality, conversation skills and GPA. Legacy – whether your mother, grandmother or sister was in the sorority – is also considered. These two rankings are compared by Rush officials, and in the third round of Rush you are only invited back to the parties of sororities you ranked highly and who ranked you highly. You could be invited to three parties, two parties or only one party. This was an emotional time. Some girls were elated at having been chosen by their first-choice sorority. Some girls were rejected from a sorority they preferred, or weren’t invited to the same parties as their friends. Some girls, including my friend who rushed with me, chose to drop, or quit Rush. After attending the parties they were invited to, girls once again ranked and were privately ranked. At the fourth and final night of Rush, called Preference, girls are invited to only one or two parties. The dress is formal and the parties are long to help girls make their final decision. Each sorority performs a formal ceremony for the girls invited. At the end of the night, the girls put in their final ranking.

In bed, the night after Preference, I thought about the two paths my life could take. The next day, called Bid Day, girls would find out if they received a Bid, or invitation, from a sorority. What would my life be like if I chose to decline my bid, or didn’t receive one? What if my bid was from a sorority I didn’t like? If I declined a bid, I would have to wait a whole year before rushing again. Was the sorority life really for me?

The next day, I waited anxiously in line in Shriver Hall. The girls around me talked quietly about which sorority they hoped had picked them, or if they had been picked at all. We all watched as girls left the small room we waited to enter, some shrieking with joy, others with tears silently running down their cheeks.

At last, my turn came. Inside, I sat at the end of a table around which members of the Pan-Hellenic council solemnly sat. The president, a willowy blonde with a serious expression, informed me that I had received a bid that I could accept or reject. She slid an envelope across the table to me. Inside was the culmination of a week of waiting, of thinking, of smiling until my cheeks hurt and making polite conversation while silently wondering, What do these girls really think of me? I took a deep breath and tore open the envelope.

I had received a bid from my first choice sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma. I accepted on the spot and received a book of my soon-to-be sisters’ faces, names, activities and phone numbers. That night, I became an official Pledge with a ceremony in which all new members receive a pledge pin which they must wear at all times until they are initiated, six weeks after Pledging. I met my pledge class, the other freshmen and sophomores that pledged with me, and the Kappa sisters, the girls with which I would share the next four years of my life. Far from Legally Blonde-esque cookie-cutter sorority girls, these women were diverse in their interests, majors and enthnicities. The one thing they all had in common was their love for Kappa and their enthusiasm. These girls accepted the other Pledges and myself with open arms, and the next six weeks were a whirlwind of activities and bonding sessions. Hopkins has a strict no-hazing policy, and I can say quite honestly that I experienced nothing akin to hazing during my entire pledging process.

We experienced a number of secret ceremonies in which we were transformed from Pledges to full Sisters, allowed to call ourselves Kappas and wear the sorority letters. The rituals (which I can’t share, since I have pledged never to divulge them) are far from cult-ish, and help to strengthen the bonds between sisters. Kappa is one of the oldest and largest sororities in the country, with songs and traditions that reflect its rich history. Knowing that thousands of women have experienced these same rituals and performed these same ceremonies, and that we all share the same secrets, is a really powerful feeling. Just as I had hoped, I found a community of women I could really relate to on campus, who were there to support me in rough times and help me through anything. Kappa has it’s own support system, both for personal and academic problems. I’m proud to wear my letters around campus and see my sisters doing the same.

Most sororities have a Big Sister/Little Sister system in which an older sister becomes your “Big,” helping to mentor you and help you find your place within the chapter. My Big Sister, Katie, surprised me with gifts and took me out to lunch, but the most valuable thing she gave me was her friendship and support. This spring, I hope to get my own Little to continue our Kappa family!

The last year has been an incredible one. Through Kappa, I’ve gotten involved a lot of philanthropy events such as helping to put on the Kite and Key Cook-Off, in which we teamed up with the sisters of Kappa Alpha Theta to raise money for the Maryland Food Bank. I’ve made some great memories at Kappa Date Parties and Formals, and had an amazing Spring Break with three others sisters in the Bahamas. We hold regular Kappa-only sisterhood events, like pumpkin-picking, Sex and the City marathons or study groups during finals. I have made lots of new friends and met my boyfriend of almost a year at a Kappa mixer. I’ve also gotten involved with Sigma Chi fraternity, and now hold their “Sweetheart” position, in which I help with fraternity PR and events.

Kappa by no means dominates my life; many of my best friends aren’t Greek, including my three suitemates (Hopkins sororities don’t have houses). I’m involved in a number of other campus activities, like Blue Key, the admissions volunteers, and Throat Culture, a sketch comedy group. The great thing about Greek Life at Hopkins is that you can be as involved as you want to be. Joining Kappa was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I highly recommend Rushing, or at least getting to know the sororities at their events in the fall. Though the journey from PNM to Sister can be a daunting and emotional one, the reward is well worth it.

Best of the Guest Blog VIII: Experiencing Ecuador through Engineers Without Borders

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Title: Experiencing Ecuador through Engineers Without Borders

Originally Published: December 25, 2008

Name: Carolyn Purington

Year: Class of 2010

Hometown: Rutland, MA

Major: Biomedical Enginering

Editor’s Note: To learn more about Engineers Without Borders at Johns Hopkins, check out their website.

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I arrived in Quito, Ecuador with two other engineering students at mid-day, after a quick stopover in Panama City. It was a surprisingly short flight (5 hours) to arrive to such a distinct location in South America. After we took a cab ride to our International Hostel, the first thing we did was to find a place to eat. Since our Hostel was located in the international and touristy section of Quito, it took us longer than expected to find an authentic Ecuadorian restaurant.

Although the food was definitely a memorable part of my trip to Ecuador, I traveled there as part of Engineers Without Borders. I am a member of the JHU Ecuador team, and we are partnering with a small community north of Quito, Santa Rosa de Ayora, to design, fund, and construct a children’s nursery. I traveled to Ecuador with my project co-leader, Yujie Wang, and a civil engineer, Ben Frison. We were later joined by environmental engineer Daniela Martinez, and professional structural and geotechnical engineer Paul Hu.

We spent the first 5 days in Quito, living in a hostel and meeting with various people in order to plan for the project. We visited several children’s nurseries in Quito in order to observe the floor plan and organizational setup. We also presented our project in Spanish to four Rotary clubs in Quito at their weekly meetings, and had an opportunity to interact with wealthy Ecuadorians. We met and partnered with the Católica University in Quito and planned to use their services to test the soil on our building site in Santa Rosa de Ayora.

When Daniela and Paul arrived, we packed our bags and left Quito for Santa Rosa de Ayora, a two hour bus ride north of the capital. In an effort to both save money and to culturally experience Ecuador, we traveled by public transportation as much as possible. When we climbed on the bus in Quito it was almost empty, but by the time we had been on the bus for an hour there were three people squeezed into most two person seats, and people standing in the aisle.

We then quickly settled into a hostel in the small city of Cayambe, and took a twenty minute ride on a smaller school bus to Santa Rosa de Ayora. We were warmly welcomed into the community, and quickly beckoned from the pouring rain into a car so that we wouldn’t have to walk the half mile to the pastor’s house.

We spent the next few days working constantly with the community in order to determine their exact needs for the children’s nursery. We surveyed the nursery site, visited the current nursery site, talked to the teacher and the children. We tried to document the trip well, and every time we took out the digital camera in front of the school kids, they all crowded around to be in the photo. We also attended a Sunday community meeting, ate several meals with members of the community, and were taken on a walk through the countryside of the community by a few of the children.

I have been a member of Engineers Without Borders since the beginning of my freshman year. I had actually heard about Engineers Without Borders before I decided where I was going to college, and I was excited to realize that Johns Hopkins had an active chapter. I joined the Ecuador team because I had an interest in improving my Spanish, and experiencing Latin American culture. Although I am studying biomedical engineering, I enjoy applying the basic engineering principles, fundamental to any discipline of engineering, to the project.

My trip to Ecuador in May was exciting because we gathered all of the necessary information to design the nursery building. Since our return, the EWB-Ecuador team has been working to fundraise and finish designs of the structure. We are hoping to implement the structure during the summer of 2009, pending on our meeting fundraising goals. After meeting so many people in Santa Rosa de Ayora, I definitely feel a greater sense of urgency to complete this project as soon as possible. They are waiting for us, and as engineers this is our opportunity to make a difference.

Best of the Guest Blog VII: Spring Fair 2007: The Hottest Event on Campus

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Title: Spring Fair 2007: The Hottest Event on Campus

Originally Published: April 26, 2007

Name: Liny John

Class: Class of 2009

Previous Guest Blog entries:

December 1, 2006 – Life as a BME III: How it’s not so BME after all, click here.

Editor’s Note: Spring Fair 2010 is this weekend (April 23-25), and in honor of one of the best campus events all year, we’re bringing back this entry about the behind-the-scenes planning that goes into it.

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Two weeks ago was Johns Hopkins University’s 36th annual Spring Fair. What is spring fair you may ask? It is a weekend long fair event on the Homewood campus filled with arts and crafts vendors, food vendors, games, rides, live performances and nighttime events and concerts.

This year I was fortunate enough to be accepted on the staff as marketing chair. By being on staff I got the inside scoop on everything it takes to put together the largest event on campus. Our meetings for spring fair started all the way back in September! We would have meetings every Friday at 6pm to report in on updates from our committee. There were 44 people on staff altogether, and there were sixteen different committees. Examples of the other committees include arts and crafts, daytime entertainment, food, games and contests, kids, nighttime concert and entertainment, non-profit, plant operations and security.

With marketing, my main goal was to advertise Spring Fair not only on campus, but also more importantly in the neighboring areas of Baltimore. This includes other college campuses in the Baltimore area. Our major advertising was on the local MTA (mass transit association) buses. Our committee was there to ensure that everyone in Baltimore knew about the event.

Once the week before Spring Fair hit we were having meetings every night at 6pm. We also got our awesome Spring Fair jackets and shirts this week. Thursday night was our Spring Fair kick off party at the Hop Stop (our student union). We had a great showing and a lot of people came! And then Friday came along…

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday everyone on staff had to be awake and ready to work by 6 am! Most importantly we had to make sure all the vendors were loaded in and ready by the 10am start of Spring Fair. As much as this wasn’t the best thing in the world, we did get to drive the club cars (they were like golf carts) around campus for load-in, which made things a lot more fun.

Spring Fair started off without a hitch! We had a great turnout on Friday and Saturday, which was awesome! Especially on Saturday, the weather was AMAZING! Between the fried oreos, funnel cakes, thai food and greek pitas in the food section, the petting zoo in the kids section, the array of jewellry and purses sold at the arts and crafts section, and the awesome bands playing during the day, people loved Spring Fair.

Each night, different events took place. Friday night was another nighttime event at the Glass Pavillion. With the Spring Fair theme this year as Candyland, our theme for the night was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The event included lots of free chocolate, including a choc olate fondue machine!

Saturday night was also amazing since it was the night for the concert. For the nighttime concert, we got Chicago rapper Common. If you haven’t heard of Common he’s done a lot of collaborations with Kanye West. His opener was Baltimore rapper Bossman. The concert was a HUGE success and we sold over 1,200 tickets! Besides a slight delay in starting the concert, the concert was amazing! I didn’t get to take a picture with Common but I did say hi to him, from a foot away, and he gave me the peace sign. Better than nothing! Being on staff though, we had to stay until 3:30 in the morning to clean up the stage.

Unfortunately, after two absolutely great days of Spring Fair, the weather was terrible on Sunday. The rain was pouring so a lot of the vendors, both arts and crafts and food, decided to move out on Saturday. Following that, a lot of the other events decided to also be canceled. Though Spring Fair is technically open rain or shine, with all the event cancellations it was pretty much like Spring Fair was cancelled. As much as this was terrible, it was kind of bittersweet for everyone on staff. It meant we could clean up early. We ended up cleaning up all of fair by 3pm on Sunday, instead of the traditional midnight of Sunday.

All in all, Spring Fair was amazing! It’s only been a coup le of days since it was over and I miss it already. I can’t wait to be on staff again next year.

Picture captions (from top to bottom, left to right, left to right, etc.)

1. Some of the spring fair staff after the weekend was over…in a much more relaxed mood.
2. Kid’s section of spring fair
3. Common!
4. Some of staff at 6 in the morning.
5. Clean-up after the Common concert
6. Having fun setting up the jousting game.
7. Driving the club cars
8. Dressing up for the kids section
9. The petting zoo
10. Counting some of the money we made from ticket sales
11. Early morning, helping with load-in
12. Some of the concert audience
13. One of the ad’s marketing used for Spring Fair
14. Spring Fair logo

Best of the Guest Blog VI: Intersession in India

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Title: Intersession in India

Originally Published: March 2, 2009

Name: Neha Deshpande

Year: Class of 2011

Hometown: Monmouth Junction, NJ

Major(s): Biology and French

Editor’s Note: Neha was one of sixty undergraduates across the country recently awarded the prestigious Truman Scholarship.  Read more about the award and her accomplishments in this JHU Gazette Article.

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A 2005 report released at the National Conference on Child Survival and Development in New Delhi, India, claims that of the 26 million children born in India each year, about 1.2 million die during the first four weeks. This represents 30% of the 3.9 million global neonatal deaths. The report also states that approximately 47% of children under the age of five are malnourished, and 30% of babies are born underweight. The prevalence of infections, lack of prenatal care, and nutritional deficiencies, predisposes mothers from underdeveloped urban and rural areas to poor pregnancy outcomes and low birth weight babies. (Right: A severely preterm baby born at 29 weeks gestation in the KEMH NICU)

Through the Johns Hopkins Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, I spent this past winter break assessing neonatal and maternal health in Pune, India. An ancient city home to over five million people, Pune is ranked the third city in India with the greatest slum population, right after Mumbai and Meerut. According to a December 2007 Times of India article, “Pune Growing into City of Slums”, the city’s slum population has grown 176% since 1991. Born in Maharashtra India myself, it was of personal significance and concern to me that the first and third rank cities were located in my birth state. (Left: View of KEM Hospital in Pune, India)

During my month in Pune, I had the privilege of working at King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEMH), a non-government organization (NGO) whose primary purpose is to serve the lowest income bracket (poverty-line population) of the urban and rural areas of Pune. Built during the British rule of India in 1912, KEMH was once a four-bedded maternity hospital that eventually expanded into a three-story, 550-bedded institute with a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) comparable to the NICU at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Over the course of the month I was there, I studied social, clinical, and economic aspects of about 75 babies born during December 2008. (Left: Mothers were encouraged to “kangaroo care” their infants to better their development)

Social aspects I researched included the demographics of the babies’ families, the education level of the parents, the family’s income, and whether or not it was an extended (joint) or nuclear family. A majority of the parents were poor farmers and laborers who had received only a 5th or 6th grade education, and earned an average of fifty dollars a month to support their entire household. A month’s salary for these families was spent for a day’s care at the NICU. Babies that needed three-four months of care could only stay for a few days because their families could simply not afford the treatments they needed, even though they were significantly subsidized. I remember one father whose eyes brimmed with tears as he imagined how many years it would take him to pay back his medical debt for his daughter’s treatments. (Left: Me with KEMH’s NICU Director)

In terms of clinical aspects, I looked at the birth weight of the babies to determine whether they were small, average, or large for their gestational age (SGA, AGA, LGA). What I found extremely interesting was that a baby born at KEMH who was considered “AGA” or “LGA” based on the Indian growth chart, fell under a significantly smaller percentile if plotted on an American growth chart. Other clinical factors I researched included the mother’s number of prenatal-care visits and maternal risk factors. At the NICU in Baltimore City, the most common maternal risk factors I see are drugs, smoking, and alcohol. Surprisingly, none of the 75 mothers used any of these substances. Rather, common maternal risk factors were toxemia, previous abortions, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths, and antepartum– hemorrhages. Other clinical factors I researched included the mother’s past obstetric history (gravida, parity), her mode of delivery, as well as the Apgar, neuromuscular maturity, physical maturity, and overall maturity scores of the baby after birth. Economic aspects I researched included the medical, physician, and laboratory fees for each baby, and how the amount of money spent correlated to the final outcome of the infant. The outcome for a little less than half of the babies was death. (Right: A father with his two-year-old daughter diagnosed with a severe liver condition. Doctors say she will live for only a few more years)

I remember the first day I walked inside the KEMH NICU – dozens upon dozens of extended families were cramped into one small waiting room. Some sat barefoot, others slept on the ground, while others crouched on the floors. In the pediatric ward I worked at in the afternoons, I saw children with incredible diseases – Cobra bites, meningitis, pneumonia, rubella, typhoid, leukemia, among many others. What was most memorable from my trip was speaking with these families and learning about their life’s struggles. I spoke Marathi with all the families, and despite their village dialect and my Americanized-pronunciations, we understood everything about each other. I could see their fear in the way they lowered their eyes or never smiled in the photographs I took, but also their hope in the way they gazed at the physicians or held my hand. Many of the families thanked me for being the only foreigner they would ever have the chance of meeting in their lifetime. My favorite was a young boy who asked me, “Do you see a moon from your home?”, and when I replied yes, he said we would tell it messages to deliver to each other. Another woman told me I would always have a home in her village if I ever needed to escape my stressful life. There were two other mothers I met in the nursery, one twenty and the other twenty-two years old, who spoke with me for over two hours one day. Both had seen a camera for the first time, and when I took photos of their babies, they became very emotional at the mere thought that an instrument could capture reality so beautifully. All it took was a photograph of their baby to make their day. Another unforgettable experience was working in the operation theater where I shadowed KEMH’s pediatric surgeon and assisted in numerous pediatric surgeries. With the sheer number of patients that need operations, young first or second-year surgery residents handled tedious and lengthy operations. You would find it hard to believe that having the lights go off several times in the middle of a surgery was a common ordeal. One surgeon turned to me in the pitch -black and said, “Neha, simply hold your place with your fingers and hope the lights turn on soon”. (Right: Me with a pediatric surgeon in the OR, operating on an infant)

My experience at KEMH was inexpressibly eye-opening and life-changing. The doctors I worked with were the most honorable and selfless individuals I have ever encountered. An average day for a physician was 9am-11pm, seven days a week, and a medical fellow who worked 60-70 hours per week was paid only thirty dollars a month. Though they receive low compensation for their work, it is their desire to help others and better humanity that fuels their persistence. At KEMH, I witnessed the spirit of a physician in the truest sense, and for their hard work and devotion to human health, the respect and admiration these physicians received was unparalleled. Perhaps what struck me most was the humbleness and sense of satisfaction the patients and physicians had with their way of life, despite its limitations.

I conclude with Robert Frost’s poem called A Road Less Traveled: “And I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Best of the Guest Blog V: Life Behind the Bar

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Title: Life Behind the Bar

Originally Published: December 15, 2008

Name: Rena Barch

Year: Class of 2009

Hometown: Hillsborough, NJ

Major(s): International Studies and Economics

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For those of you who have visited campus, you may have noticed that Hopkins really doesn’t have a student union to act as a hub of campus. However, that doesn’t really bother us, because students here find their own places that can act as hubs while they are on campus.

For students that are heavily involved with Spring Fair, the biggest event on campus, as well as those that run the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium and the Foreign Affairs Symposium, the Office of Student Involvement is often their home base. The students that run volunteer based groups such as the Tutorial Project often use the Center for Social Concern. Other students rely on other areas around campus such as Levering, or the Hut.

There is one other major “hub” of campus, one which has certainly been my home base during my four years here: Cafe Q. Cafe Q is located on Q level or the “quad level” of the library. It is a great spot to meet with TAs and professors, or to catch up with a friend. It can also be a great place to study, to run into friends, or just to grab a snack and a caffeinated beverage during a long study session (Most highly recommended foods: Chicken Salad sandwich on Multigrain bread or for a snack, the cookies).

Cafe Q filled all of these purposes for me, but in the second semester of my sophomore year Cafe Q took on a much greater role in my Hopkins experience when I applied to work as a “Barista”. Working at Cafe Q has saved me a great deal of money–getting all the free coffee a girl could dream of. Although this has been incredibly detrimental for my caffeine addiction, working at Cafe Q has otherwise been a great experience. So…for my guest blog I thought I would offer a perspective of Hopkins from behind the bar.

During a shift at Cafe Q, I interact with a melange of members of the Hopkins community. I get the chance to talk to professors, graduate students, University staff, and undergraduate students. Even more interesting perhaps is the conversations one overhears at Cafe Q. Professors talk to each other about their research. Economics professors will make jokes about the state of the economy, and a recent Wall Street Journal article on Greenspan’s testimony in the Senate. Graduate students talk about the stress of studying for their comprehensive exams, or their advisor’s comments on their research grant applications. Professors and students discuss a paper topic, or discuss in further detail any range of topics covered in class. Amidst this conversation, one can also hear giggles over something that happened at the Phi Psi party that weekend or discuss their plans for that night. As I mentioned, students will meet at Cafe Q to catch up or to take a study break which often means some amount of gossip. Also being the sole source of caffeine in the library means getting to know the rhythm of exams and papers on campus. Talking to customers about their purpose for being at the library at 10 PM can give you a lot of information about a variety of courses available at Hopkins; which are great; which are more work than they are worth. Being at Q can make you the eyes and ears of campus life, which can at times be creepy.

Working behind the bar is not only a great way to learn a lot of things from your customers, it’s also a great way to meet people. Some of my closest friends at Hopkins work with me at Cafe Q. If you come visit and stop by Cafe Q for some food, you’ll often see us joking around back there, throwing cups, and being ridiculous. It’s just one of many communities I’ve found here. I’ve also had the chance to make connections from those on the other side of the bar.

Working throughout the day, I see a lot of people I wouldn’t always get the chance to see otherwise. I see my freshman year roommate, or people I’ve taken a class with but don’t see much anymore. I get another chance to see people who I only know through other contexts, such as other Admissions Representatives or members of the debate team. Moreover, I suddenly noticed more familiar faces on campus. Some students and professors are regulars, and you can strike up conversation with them even if they aren’t in your department or in your classes. I’ll let you in on a little secret: we know some of our regulars by their drinks. Prior to working at Cafe Q, I was a pretty devoted customer. For the first four weeks I worked there, everyone called me “Anarchy,” after my usual coffee drink, the anarchy in the UK latte (It’s a latte with irish cream and english toffee. Delicious.).

Working at Cafe Q is not all perks and greatness. I work either morning shifts or closing shifts. This means either waking up at 6:30 a.m. to get to work by 7:00 a.m., or getting out of work at 1 a.m. Waking up at 6:30 AM is no easy task, but luckily I’m free to make myself coffee as soon as I get there. This type of schedule might also explain why sometimes I’m not able to make it to Laura’s aqua-jogging in the morning (see previous guest blogs). Despite the inconvenient hours, working at Cafe Q has been a great experience, a great way to earn some extra money, and to meet more people on campus. If you come visit definitely stop by and say hi!

Best of the Guest Blog IV: When Worlds Combine

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Title: When Worlds Combine

Originally Published: February 16, 2009

Name: Clare Richardson

Year: Class of 2012

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Major(s): Film and Media Studies/Writing Seminars

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I had always envisioned college as a place where my interests in life would become what I was learning at school. Where at last school wouldn’t feel like “work,” but where I would immerse myself in learning about things that interested me. My passions have always been film and creative writing, and unfortunately they’re two subjects that don’t get a lot of attention in high school. I came to Hopkins intending to major in Film Studies and the Writing Seminars, and I hoped that at one point this combination of school-world academics and my real-world interests would blend together. Of course I was realistic: I knew that I probably wouldn’t get that opportunity in my first few years in college, and especially not in the first semester of my freshman year.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend the Sundance Film Festival for the past five years, and the days up in Park City have always been some of my favorites. A week away from the real world, surrounded by filmmakers, producers, actors, and people who are just as passionate about film as I am. The whole festival has a wonderful summer camp feeling; it’s not uncommon for a complete stranger to ask you what your favorite film is while riding the bus (yes, the bus-it’s the only way to get around when almost 50,000 people descend on a town with a population of 7,000). As most know, a lot of the media focus has been diverted from the festival’s mission of presenting the best in independent film and towards celebrities, parties, and of course, swag. Even though there may be a celebrity influence, Sundance is still truly a film festival, where independent cinema has a chance to be seen.

I knew I wanted to study film in college, so I naturally enrolled in the class Intro to the Study of Film in my first semester. It was a great class that gave me a solid foundation in the “study” of film, and I was fortunate enough to have the head of the film department as my professor. As the semester began to come to an end and Sundance drew near, I realized the opportunity I might have. Here I was, a potential film and media studies major about to head off to the preeminent American film festival, and the thought to combine the two hadn’t crossed my mind. After my next class I talked to my professor about a potential independent study project using my opportunity to go to the film festival with my schoolwork, and she asked me to come by her office so we could talk it over. I couldn’t believe how receptive she was to my proposal, especially coming from a first semester freshman who hadn’t even declared her major. She loved my idea of tying the two together and approved my proposal for an independent study project over intersession. I was thrilled!

Needless to say, Sundance ’09 was fantastic. The trip started out incredibly well, with Dominic Monaghan (from Lord of the Rings and Lost) helping me with my bag in luggage. For the six days I was there, the skies were always clear and sunny, and the temperature never dropped below 40 in the day.

I was able to see 24 films, ranging from documentaries about the rapper Lil’Wayne to mainstream New York cop dramas to completely unclassifiable movies involving two straight men making gay porn. As always there were good films, bad films, and really bad films, but this year had a surprising number of great films. My favorite had to be The September Issue, a documentary about Vogue and its editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. The close second was In the Loop which is an expansion of the British show The Thick of It, and a wonderful British comedy about the relationship between British and American politicians. My other favorites were 500 Days of Summer, a slightly off-beat romantic comedy, and The Yes Men Fix the World, a great documentary about activists attempting to point out corporate greed by impersonating major companies.

And of course, a Sundance recap is never complete without a mention of the celebrity sightings. While I managed to miss Paris (phew!), in addition to my encounter with Dominic, my “big” sightings were Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and John Krasinski (a personal favorite-I’m a big Office fan). And what had to be the perfect Sundance Festival encounter was meeting the Sundance Kid himself-Robert Redford-and even managing to grab a picture with him :)

Coming home from Sundance and then immediately returning to Hopkins has been a quick transition, and now that I’m back on campus I feel like no time has passed since I left in December. As I begin to write my reviews of the docs, dramas, comedies, and genre-benders I saw, it’s fun to view the films with a new, critical eye and begin to apply what I’d learned last semester. And the best part of the whole experience is that I’ve already been able to connect these two parts of my life together after just one semester here.

Best of the Guest Blog III: Balancing Act

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Title: Balancing Act

Originally Published: December 14, 2009

Name: Sarah Capponi

Year: Class of 2012

Hometown: New Hope, PA

Major: Writing Seminars, Psychology Minor

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One of my favorite extracurricular activities is Blue Key Society, in which I give tours of the gorgeous Hopkins campus to prospective applicants and students. At the beginning of the tour, I stand outside Mason Hall and give this little blurb about myself:“Hi guys, welcome to Hopkins. My name is Sarah, and I’m a sophomore in the School of Arts and Sciences. On campus, I write for the JHU News-Letter, tutor with the Johns Hopkins Tutorial Project, am Social Chair on the Club Tennis Team, am a Resident Advisory Board Director, and am involved with Hopkins Hosting Society!”

At this point, only about a minute and a half into my tour, multiple jaws invariably drop to the floor in utter shock – and they haven’t even seen the Mock Operating Room in CSEB yet. Someone in my group whistles in appreciation, and then a worried prospective stammers out, “How do you do all that and still have time for schoolwork?” That is the million-dollar question. Sometimes, I don’t even know how I manage to pass Organic Chemistry and stay involved with six outside activities in college. But then I ask myself if I really want to be locked in my dorm room twenty-four/seven studying carbon-carbon bonds and reaction mechanisms. The answer: Absolutely not. And therein lies the answer to the question: Balance.

It’s super easy to get involved in any one of Hopkins’ 320 different groups. Almost too easy, in fact. There’s a huge Student Activities Fair in the Recreation Center on the first Friday of fall semester. I went, and probably signed up for about twenty things, just by putting my name and email address on a sheet of paper. When I started getting zillions of emails from these groups, I quickly realized there weren’t enough hours in the day for me to do all the things I’d signed up for, so I chose the ones I was really interested in and went to those meetings. (I was really sad, though, when I couldn’t continue to learn how to bellydance – my body just doesn’t seem to want to move like that.) My freshman year, I dabbled in a ton of stuff. Some of it, like the bellydancing, wasn’t meant to be – I went to two or three meetings and then just lost interest. That was fine by me – if I wasn’t going to be passionate about it, why bother? Other things, like Blue Key and Club Tennis and Tutorial Project, were perfect for me. They energized me; going to those activities was a break from classes, and especially when I was frustrated, teaching third grade math somehow made my stress level decrease.

I know all the statistics about involved students – they’re more likely to actually do better academically than those uninvolved, and I can see why that’s true. Being highly involved forces me to make a schedule for myself, one where I knock my homework and studying out during designated blocks of time and then dash off to my much more enjoyable activities, like tutoring Monica, my third-grade tutee, or hitting tennis balls with the Club team. Like I said before, if I had nothing to do but sit in my room all day and read my textbooks, I would probably go crazy. Mad scientist crazy, hair and all.

Getting involved is also a really social thing. In every group, you not only have the opportunity to meet new freshmen who share the same interests, but also to meet upperclassmen, who are a wealth of knowledge and advice about classes, professors, and tons of other stuff. Getting involved in one thing and meeting people in those groups also introduces you to other activities you’d never considered, but after talking about a different activity with someone involved with it, you find your own interest piqued, and hear yourself saying, “That actually sounds fun and something I’d like to try.”

Obviously, I don’t recommend six activities as the magic number or anything like that. Six is perfect for me this semester; next semester, it might be five and following, it might be seven. I do recommend planning out a schedule and staying on top of your academic work. Academics always come first for me, and every student’s respective course load dictates much of the level of outside commitment he or she can maintain. But not getting involved at all? You would miss out on so much of the richness within the Hopkins community – and trust me, staring at textbooks and the four walls of your room gets boring after about a month.

I don’t plan on quitting any of my activities. In fact, I plan on adding more to my schedule. I’ll keep up the balancing act, and never think twice about my life without being involved in my dynamic, vibrant community. My life at Hopkins is enriched in countless ways by the extracurricular activities I am involved in and by the people I have met through them.

Best of the Guest Blog II: Toward the Saving of Sweatshirts

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Title: Toward the Saving of Sweatshirts

Originally Published: December 7, 2009

Name: Hannah Reade Joo

Year: Class of 2012

Hometown: Seattle, WA

Majors: Neuroscience

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I’m on a plane flying back to Hopkins from Seattle, which is a pain because there isn’t a single airline that believes, during non-summer months, that there is a need for a direct flight between Seattle and Baltimore. AirTran believes it only seasonally and every summer they offer a direct flight. In four hours, after a plane change in Philadelphia, I’ll land in Baltimore. I’ll see it out the window before we touch down, and just like every other time, no matter how tired I am, I’ll feel this little thrill.

Two years ago today, I was probably on the Stanford University website ogling pictures of Hoover Tower. I had wanted to go there for college since I was fifteen—I had wanted desperately to go there—and my obsession peaked shortly after I turned in my early application in the Fall of my senior year. By that time, it had been years since I had started wearing my homemade tank top with ironed-on felt letters that read, “IWGITS,” for “I will get into Stanford,” every night to bed. I refused to tell anyone what the letters stood for, preferring to keep my obsession secret. I truly believed that if only I wore that tank top enough, if I kept learning and working hard and becoming my best self, everything would work out exactly the way I had planned it. If that girl from two years ago, preserved true to emotional form, could see me now, she would wonder at the fact of my existence. How could it be that I did not simply cease to exist the moment it became clear I was not going to my first-choice school?

It was my father’s idea that I apply to Hopkins, and even by my senior year in high school I wasn’t convinced I’d want to actually attend. I missed the interview date and I neglected to send any of my columns from the city paper, which I painstakingly cut out to send to Stanford; given the relative amount of effort I put in, it’s a small miracle I was accepted.

During my junior year in high school, I applied to the Stanford Summer College program and waited for a group of nameless, faceless St. Peters, steeped frustratingly in the subjective stuff of humanity, to make an objective decision about whether to open their gates to me for the summer. Meanwhile, my mother took me to the East Coast to look at other schools. I was subtly unkind about all but one of them. U Penn smelled, Yale failed to resonate with me, I was “saving” Boston for graduate school, the Princeton tour bored me and its thick booklet on its diversity made me suspicious. The only school we visited that that I liked, and that I have any photographic record of being at, is Hopkins. The night we first drove through campus, I saw people exercising three floors up in Charles Commons and was thrilled at the thought of living there. The next morning, I heard a student at admissions speak about being a philosophy and neuroscience double major, and since that was what I wanted to do at the time, I secretly considered it a Sign. The classes I attended excited me, and the neuroscience program looked fabulous. It was the only school at which I could really envision myself; but still, there was Stanford, and I was reluctant to admit I might ever like another school more. Before we left campus, I bought a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts.

At Hopkins junior year of high school

At the end of our East Coast College Tour, my dad called to tell me Stanford had sent a letter and accepted me to their summer program, which sent me into a month-long fit of general ecstasy. I was obnoxiously overjoyed once I got there, too, which prompted even my truest friend to write requesting, jokingly, that I “please, for the rest of our sakes, tone it down.” It wasn’t an unreasonable request. I still can’t comfortably cite San Francisco, the undergraduate neuroscience program, or the people I met there as reasons I wanted to go there and feel like I’m giving a complete explanation of feelings at the time. For anyone who has ever been truly, madly, unsaveably in love for the first time, that is what it felt like. My reasons were beyond the realm of reason, and perhaps that made it idiotic—but whether it was or was utterly irrelevant, because it could not be helped.

At the top of Hoover Tower, Stanford University, summer after junior year

For the most part, I forgot about Hopkins completely.

In December of my senior year, Stanford deferred my application to the pool of regular applicants and in April they rejected me. I spent an afternoon clipping the letters off the sweatshirt I had bought at the Stanford bookstore the previous summer, until it read not “Stanford,” but “Stand.” Last summer I went at it with the scissors again and clipped away the rest of the letters. It had finally started looking silly to me.

This year, I live on the ninth floor of Charles Commons. Some evenings I like walking by outside so I can look up at it from street level the way I did the first time I visited Hopkins. I live in a suite with three other girls, just down the hall from where my boyfriend and some of my closest friends live. Our suite is always stocked with fat-free frozen yogurt and the best vegetables Charles St. Market had to offer that day, and because we mysteriously have free cable, there are almost always people in our living room. Down the hall, they’re usually playing competitive Uno with rules they’re always modifying. They spend evenings doing things like learning Morse code off cereal boxes so they can try, in vain, to communicate with people in nearby apartment buildings via flashlight. I often walk in to find them the throwing across the room the molecular models we all got for organic chemistry. Cyclohexane is a favorite.

My room in Charles Commons

In just three semesters, Hopkins has left me a more concentrated and distilled version of who I was two years ago. I’ve had many truly excellent writing, math, and science classes, and they have made my thought process both cleaner and more creative. I work in two labs, a vision lab in Seattle and a learning and memory lab in Baltimore, and I love both of them. I’ve presented a poster at two meetings, and I’ve discovered that this is one of my favorite things to do. Because Johns Hopkins has been able to forgive me for not recognizing its greatness from the beginning, it has awarded me Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the money from which I plan to use on independent projects in the two labs. I am also toying with the idea of also using some of my money to travel and work on a fiction-writing project. Just the thought of any of these projects has me grinning like an overambitious lunatic hovering some 30,000 feet up in the air between Seattle and Philadelphia. Thank you, Johns Hopkins.

Getting ready to present my poster from the Dacey lab at the Fall Vision Meeting for the Optical Society of America; next to me is the graduate student, Jo, who works in my lab. She is charming, brilliant, Australian, and my hero.

Lest I sound too much like those suspicious people who have terrible things happen to them (loss of spouses, jobs, limbs, etc.) and then claim these were the Best Experiences of Their Lives and they feel no sadness when they think about it now, let me acknowledge that when, last week, I had to sign in on the Stanford website and order an official copy of my transcript from the summer I spent there, I was not exactly filled with joy. When I’m reminded, it still upsets me that I failed so thoroughly to meet one of my longest-standing goals, but I’m also coming to understand how arrogant it was of me to think that I alone could ever ensure they let me in. As in romantic relationships (of which I had one that paralleled my experience with Stanford and, curiously, taught me some of the same lessons), you’re never completely in control, and, by definition, it all works out.

As I told my academic advisor a month ago, I feel that by ending up at Hopkins and not Stanford, I dodged a very large, very attractive bullet. That is not to say it would be for everyone, but for me it was, because I would have been missing out on Hopkins. Given the stochasticity and the subjectivity of admissions committees and of all the other forces at work in the universe, I consider myself extremely lucky.

I guess there are two goals I have in writing this, the first of which is that I can convince people who are unsure that Hopkins could be an amazing place for them and that they should do their very best not to miss the interview deadline. The second goal is more targeted, directed at anyone out there who, like my past self, has ever looked at a picture of Hoover tower or any correlate and felt that particularly powerful hybrid emotion that results when hope, ambition, wistfulness, and the insecurity of being seventeen are allowed to steep for too long in a very young heart. I very sincerely hope that if things don’t turn out the way you expect or want them to be, you don’t take it out on any of your sweatshirts. If you do, it will be the only remaining scar in a few years, and you’ll regret that whenever you’re looking for a sweatshirt, the first one available makes you look like a hobo because of all the holes.

Best of the Guest Blog I: From Pre-Med to PhD

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For the month of April, we’ll be bringing back some of our favorite guest blogs from over the past few years.  To start it off, we present Evelyn’s entry “From Pre-Med to PhD.”  Be sure to recommend your own favorites in the comments here to be included!
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Title: From Pre-Med to PhD

Originally Published: November 27, 2008

Name: Evelyn Clark

Year: Class of 2010

Hometown: Waycross, GA

Major/Minors: Public Health major, double minors in Anthropology and Theatre Arts

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Today especially there is such intense pressure put onto high school seniors and college freshmen to know exactly what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I know I thought I had everything all mapped out, from my high school graduation through undergraduate, medical school and my residency. However, as a junior at this fine institution one of my best pieces of advice to anyone who cares to listen is not to be too sure too soon.

I started college as a natural science Public Health major and Theatre minor planning to go to medical school to get my MD, and then work in epidemiology probably back in my home state of Georgia at the CDC, or maybe somewhere else, but certainly in the south. However, one fateful (and random) course decision changed those plans both for good and for the better.

The second semester of my sophomore year I was in need of S credits for my major, so I signed up for a random Anthropology course called Kinship, Family, and Marriage. I didn’t have a clue what it would be about, but the time fit into my schedule and it wasn’t already full by the time sophomores got to register. When I showed up to the first day of class the most adorable white-haired British lady greeted us with the explanation that the original professor for the course was stuck in Europe for some reason and wouldn’t be able to return for the semester. She continued to tell us that, though the department considered canceling the class, she took it upon herself to add another course to her load because she felt so passionate that kinship was not something to be missed. We proceeded with the class that morning talking about genealogies, and as I walked back to my dorm room I considered everything that had just happened. The second I sat in my desk chair I looked up the requirements for an Anthro major and minor, and decided that day to add one or the other to my curriculum (I ended up choosing a minor because the major had a language requirement and, well, languages are not one of my gifts).

I was somewhat dreading the call to my parents to inform them that their precious daughter was deviating from the set plan, and held it off for a few more classes until I was absolutely sure it was what I wanted to do. And it was—more and more every day. I finally confessed to my father, who was more interested in how I even signed up for an anthro course in the first place, but who was very happy and supportive of my decision. My mother responded the same way (although I admittedly asked him not to mention it to her, and it was about a month later that I finally worked up the nerves…). Then, three months later when it was time to register for junior year classes I had an absolute breakdown.

I called my father in tears as I was looking at the schedule I had created for myself. I was hating chemistry! How on earth was I going to survive orgo and physics in the same semester?! I then told him I was considering jumping ship and transferring over to the social sciences side of the Public Health major, which would mean no medical school for Evelyn. He was more supportive than I could have ever expected, and though I come from a generation-spanning line of renowned ophthalmologists, he said to me, “Evelyn, you have never had any pressure from me to go to medical school. I think you should do something you enjoy, are good at, and can make a living from. And if that doesn’t include medical school then so what? There are SO many other options out there!” And from that moment on I have been happier than I can remember.

Things have really fallen into place for me. Since my decision to switch over to the social side I have discovered where my true passion lies: with Medical Anthropology. It is the perfect combination of the public health I love and the anthropology I have a newfound attraction too. And the best part? It’s a PhD program. NOT an MD.

Though my parents still ask me to explain to them over and over again what medical anthropology is and have a hard time relaying the point to their friends who are interested in what I’ve decided to do with my life, I know I have made all the right decisions. So now I have a new path, but it’s one that I’ve chosen for myself after taking advantage of the innumerable exposures this university offers. I am still rather specific with my future (I’ve since picked out my top 3 choices for grad school based on med anthro programs), but I’m a junior. I’m supposed to know by now! Were I still on my original plan I would not only be miserable, but also missing out on so many interesting ideas and concepts I never knew existed. So don’t follow my path—make one of your own. But be sure to stay flexible. Deviating off the trial to pick a flower could change your entire life. It did for Little Red Riding Hood and it has for me.