Caught in Between

Dear Roxi,

You just made my day. Although, I also do know that you are pretty awesome at Spanish and that you do know Spanish! Meanwhile,  I am sitting here listening to music in Portuguese wondering how I am going to live for two months in Brazil without knowing the language. The travel book next to me says that Brazil “in a word” is “bacana” meaning cool. Somehow, I don’t think this word will be as useful as China’s word in my travel book: “Tai gui le!” meaning too expensive. I also learned today that the second highest number of Japanese live in Brazil (second only to Japan) and that natives tend to eat food that we would eat with our hands (sandwiches or pizza) with napkins or utensils. Good thing to know or I would have looked like a barbarian. I am super excited about not only my research trip to Brazil, but next semester as well (I just picked out my classes last week and they are very “me”), applying for another research grant, and about study abroad. I always questioned that whole college is the best four years of your life statement, but with next year ahead of me it looks like junior year will be a lot more exciting than it was in high school.

Spring is in full swing at Hopkins and although I have not witnessed anyone falling out of windows, there is plenty of entertainment. Yesterday I went on a field trip with my Population and Community Ecology class to canoe on the Chesapeake Bay and to hike at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. I must say that I was not looking forward to waking up early and missing homecoming events on campus, but I actually really enjoyed traveling deeper into Maryland and being in the “field.” However, I was a bad public health major and definitely didn’t prevent my sunburn like I should have.

What else? Friday night was Relay for Life and I fundraised at a booth with a volunteer group on campus, Circle K. I enjoyed seeing all the support that the campus shows for preventing cancer. It definitely was an emotional night for me since a luminaira was shining in memory of my grandfather.

Last Saturday my boyfriend and I made our once-a-semester trip to Washington DC. We both love DC and make an effort to go when we can. Although, the last day of the Cherry Blossom Festival proved to show absolutely no cherry blossoms, it still was fun going to DC’s Botanical Gardens, the Library of Congress, and the Georgetown area.

Looking ahead this coming weekend is Spring Fair just about the most exciting weekend on campus and I’m sure the freshmen are going to be in for a surprise and blog all about this. Spring Fair involves concerts, beer gardens, food vendors, rides, etc. all on campus! Additionally, April 30th brings with it a flight to Boston to see my brother graduate on May 1st at Northeastern (the last day of classes here). Although, his graduation doesn’t come at a great time of the  Hopkins’ academic year, it’s an event I would like to go to. I just hope I don’t get tricked into thinking that his graduation rings in summer for me.

On top of all of this I have a full push ahead to finish my academics at the level that I would like to finish them. My classes this semester involve few graded assignments meaning that each is worth a lot. This basically means that finals are when I am going to have to shine. Fortunately, I haven’t grown tired with the library yet and know that academics need to come first.

As you can see spring at Hopkins is eventful and the weather here is absolutely gorgeous as well. And although I am not adventuring in Chile and watching first-hand Roxi’s entertaining actions, I honestly am happy to be a Hopkins student and really can’t believe that I am less than a month away from home sweet home.

Until next time,

Jessica

Dear Jess,

I just thought you’d find this amusing…mostly because I know you must be missing my ridiculous antics over there on the other side of the equator.

So the other day I was at the gym and this whole time I’ve been here I’ve thought that I was just a super huge disaster and weak because I haven’t been able to lift as much as before and in the states.

WELL as it would turn out today I was lifting on a machine and suddenly realized that they are in Kilograms, so I’ve been lifting half as much as I used to because it’s 2 lbs to the kilo. Yea. Story of my life.

ALSO…I’m really going to have to learn to listen better and not just rely on sign language with people  who have strange and slightly unintelligible chilean accents. Today I was at a friend’s house before a soccer game (more about that game some other time, maybe not the wisest decisions of my life – it’s classified as the most dangerous soccergame in Chile) and he showed me to his bathroom, right? So he was explaining something about the door to me and I just assumed that he was telling me i needed to latch the door or it would fly open. Then, at the last minute after closing the door I realized that what he actually might have said was, “don’t close the door completely it will jam.”

So I started trying ot get out and find that the handle is absolutely unmoveable and there was no way I was going to get that door open. Then what was my genious plan? I decided that instead of yelling and making a scene, I would just jump out the window on their patio and try to open the door from the outside. Well, so I manage to hoist myself out the window but as I jump down EVERYONE in the livingroom where we had been hanging out turn and look at me like, “Why did that gringa just jump out the bathroom window?!”.

So the owner of the apartment then hoists his roommate through the same window that I had just jumped out of, and she opens the door on the first try. Turns out all I had to do was lift the handle up, not down like usual.

Note to self: learn Spanish.

So this week’s common blog topic is “Why Hopkins?”…but I think that my answer will be a bit of a departure from Jess’ response.

Like I’ve said before, my path to Hopkins was anything but ordinary. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really know anything about Hopkins when I applied, and I didn’t even seriously consider it until after getting it. I never appreciated how hard it was to get in until I got to the Homewood campus, all I knew was that Hopkins was renowned for medicine. With the single goal in mind of eventually becoming a doctor, I basically closed my eyes, stepped up to the edge of the VERY vast unknown, decided to make the best of anything that was to come, and jumped.

And it is from that perspective that I’m going to write. Not as someone who was super sure and hell bent on going to Hopkins, but as someone who had to discover for herself why Hopkins was ultimately the right choice and what it has afforded me. This semester, I’ve had the fantastic opportunity to be able to study abroad, so here are the things I miss most about Hopkins…in no paticular order because it’s hard enough for me to switch back to English, let alone truly have a coherent thought ;).

Great friends: I have met some of the most interesting, talented, and inspiring people in my time at Hopkins. They come from all walks of life: north, south, Cali or Florida. I have friends who grew up in rural America and friends who have lived all over the world and speak languages I’ve never heard of. If you open yourself up to meeting people and put yourself out there, I can say with no hesitation that there will be someone at Hopkins who you will be fast friends with. From astro-physics to cheerleading, we have students interested in everything. And these people have turned out to be some of the best friends I’ve ever had. They have stuck by me through thick and thin, and when I didn’t have my family to turn to during hard times, they stepped up to the plate, bought ice cream, and gave me something to lean on while I weathered the storm. So many of us travel far from home to go to Hopkins, and your friends really do become your family. Sure, it’s somewhat out of necessity, but we are all in the same boat, and that’s a bond not easily broken. I can’t wait to see what some of my colleagues do with their lives, there are some pretty big dreamers walking around campus! People never laugh at your dreams or tell you something is impossible. The Hopkins student body is incredibly supportive and you never have to be ashamed of who you are.

Springtime on campus: There is nothing cooler than sitting in the Lower Quad in April when the cherry trees are blossoming and catching up on a reading for class. I know I for one get caught up in classes and extracurriculars and running from here to there in the semester, but we really do have one of the most beautiful campuses…in the world (haha I just say that because I’m currently enrolled in 2 foreign universities but neither takes my breath away like Hopkins does). And not only is campus beautiful, but when springtime comes around so does lacrosse season (and TONS of Hopkins spirit), Spring Fair, and a plethora of other activities that would take me a lifetime to denotate. I miss the artisans sitting outside Levering Hall, and the concerts on the beach. For my birthday last year my friends threw me a little picnic on the beach while there was a live band, and that’s one of my favourite college memories. Baltimore in the fall and in the spring is so much fun, the temperature is perfect for just lounging  ouside or going for a long walk with no destination in mind.

Once in a lifetime opportunities: There are SO many opportunities available to Hopkins students if you just reach out and grab them. Students partake in cancer research and behavioral developmental studies. They do amazing social work in the Baltimore area and they travel to countires like South Africa or Ecuador. Speaking from experience, for those students who want to study abroad, there are SO many opportunities to go to a foreign country and not fall behind in your studies. From my experience, my advisors were nothing but supportive, and everyone I spoke with was more than happy to help me figure out how to be pre-med and still get to come to Chile to broaden my experiences in health care. Jess is traveling to Brazil to further her Public Health research and Camilla has been in London for a year studying international relations. I know people that have done genomic research in Ireland and a writing seminar major currently in India. But even if you have no desire to leave Hopkins (which I don’t blame you for, campus life is dynamic and I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to miss a minute of it) there are hundreds of volunteer organizations and student led groups that let you meet new people and do something you lovee. I got to teach music in a Baltimore City School 2 years ago and it was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. If i could give one piece of advice, it would be to not be afraid of biting off more than you can chew. Never say no to something you might be interested in, and try saying yes to a couple things you’re pretty sure aren’t your cup of tea, at least every couple of times you should be pleasantly surprised.

Stimulating (and RELEVANT!) classes: Even at Hopkins I get funny looks when I say that my favourite class was Biochemistry. ‘What I loved was that the class demanded a depth of knowledge that had never been asked of me before, and it was never enough to just go over the lectures and read the slides. You had to actively read the textbook, draw conclusions and find similarities between material from the first day to really understand what in the world was going on. It was like a puzzle, and once you put that last piece in and look at the finished work all the smaller details make sense and you feel so very proud. And that’s what happens to people in every department. If you love what you’re doing, you’ll love doing it here. I’ve had professors in every department from Art History to Chemistry, Spanish to Environmental Engineering, and every class that I’ve taken, though I may not remember every single tiny detail, has left me with a little something to apply to my life. Spanish gave me a basis for my conversational skills while I’ve been in Chile, Biochemistry helped me truly understand what I was doing in my lab research, Biostatistics has changed the way I read articles in the NEJM, and my Sociology of Latin America class helped me understand the radical tradition in Chile and now that I’m here, I have the unique opportunity to directly examine the impact a modern 16 year dictatorship had on the people. If you let them, you will find your classes becoming part of your everyday life – and for me personally, it was as if school finally became relevant.

Gilman: It breaks my heart that the newest batch of Hopkins matriculat-ees (uhm yea that would be me losing my English vocabulary) won’t get to wander into the basement of Gilman the first day of classes and try and figure out where in the world is a staircase that will take them back to the 1st floor. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: those staircases moved… I love that building.

So those are the things that I physically miss, those are the reasons sometimes when I’m feeling lonely aborad I wish I could just pick up and go home (and by home I mean Hopkins, haha). Studying abroad has made me truly appreciate the flexibility that we have as Hopkins students. Here, you enter college on a particular path and almost nobody changes (and if you do change your mind, you have to start from square one, credits don’t usually transfer). Without Hopkins’ flexibility, I would have never found Public Health, and becoming a Public Health major was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

When I get back to Hopkins, I get to take classes at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the thing I’m most nervous about isn’t wither or not the classes will be difficult, it’s narrowing down the list of classes I want to take there! International Health systems, Biomechanics of Nutrition…I don’t know how I’m ever going to chose between the fantastic assortment of classes they offer. But the best part is I’m in now way shape or form obligated to be purely Public Health. I want to take an Intro to Farsi course next fall, and if I have enough time there is a course of the History of Conflict in the Middle East I’d love to take. As Hopkins students we have some of the best faculty anywhere in so many different areas. I can diversify my education and become as rounded (or as sharply specialized) as I want, and no matter what my choice is, the caliber of professor and instruction won’t change. For someone who loves to learn just to learn, like me, that’s been the best part about being a Hopkins student.

At the end of my sophomore year in high school my mom handed me a college guide book and told me to make a list of colleges that I thought I might be interested in visiting. Johns Hopkins University appeared on that initial list and continued to remain on my list even while other schools were getting crossed out. I visited the fall of my junior year and left feeling overwhelmed after hearing about how challenging it was to get accepted to Johns Hopkins and after hearing about just how high of a reputation Johns Hopkins has. I visited again in the fall of my senior year and before this visit I had promised myself that I would leave knowing if I should apply to Hopkins early decision or not.

I was convinced after that trip that I was applying to Hopkins early decision. It fit so many of the qualifications that at that time I was looking for in a school:

1. A diverse student body where I wouldn’t feel as though the school would be “changing” me to fit-in with others.

2. A warmer environment. I am from New Jersey and hate the cold and find it depressing. I thought I wanted to go to California, but then realized that that was too far and that it may actually be too warm to study in. Honestly, the weather in Baltimore is warmer than New Jersey. There are occasional sprinkles of snow, but they don’t compare to the inches at home. And the spring flowers come out weeks earlier than those just 200 miles away. I should also say for those cold-lovers readers reading this, that you can still ski in Maryland.

3. A small(ish) student body. I came from a high school where everyone knew who I was and had been together since 6th grade. Because of this, I was immediately turned off by huge campuses. However, although I visited the schools with small student bodies I was turned off from them because of the lack of major choices.

4. A major. I knew I wanted an interdisciplinary major because I had never found a real “strength” in high school, I usually just did best in those classes with the best teachers. For a while I thought I wanted to major in environmental studies. My fall of senior year I realized that Johns Hopkins had more major choices than the smaller schools I had visited and that public health was beginning to seem like the ideal major for me. Nevertheless, I wanted a school with options.

5. A student body that is aware of current events and is active.I went through a phase where I thought being a part of an honors program at a college would be the best fit for me and another phase where I thought an all girl’s campus would be ideal. I had visited a few colleges where it seemed as though the students were uninterested in current events and were trapped in their dorm rooms or indoors. I had invested so much of my time into extra-curriculars in high school that I wanted a student body that would be doing the same.

6. A school that is not known for its party scene. I had no real idea of what a fraternity or sorority was, but at the time I assumed they were something I didn’t want to be associated with. I wanted a school that focused on academics and not Greek life. Looking back, Hopkins definitely has a party scene and a Greek scene that people can choose not to associate with, but that is there for those that want to. It would turn out that some of my best guy and girl friends decided to join sororities and fraternities and that I would have a complete different idea of what Greek life actually is. Nevertheless, Hopkins does focus on academics more so than other schools and I wanted this.

7. A school where I would not surrounded by people I knew from high school. Although, I love talking to visitors from my high school about my love for Hopkins. I also didn’t want to go to a school that had dozens of people from my high school as some other schools I was looking at did. I wanted to break away from high school.

From the above reasons, I think you get the idea of why I decided to apply early decision to Hopkins. I too, just like you, was facing a lot of pressure. There was personal pressure from my family and friends who thought I was applying to Hopkins because my high school boyfriend was a freshman at Hopkins. There was also definitely financial pressure, as many of you are definitely facing. My single mother had become unemployed the year I was applying to school and my father was pushing for me to apply to in-state schools. Although, the decision was up to me, they definitely brought up the financial concerns and that their money could only bring me so far.

Nevertheless, I decided to apply to Hopkins because, in summary, I wanted a school that would assist me in paving out a unique path for my next four years. Looking back, Hopkins has gone beyond any path that I thought it would help me path. I cannot tell you what it would be like for you to attend another school, but I can tell you what Hopkins had done for me that has gone beyond my expectations.

As a sophomore, I already owe the school so much simply because of the number of doors that it has opened for me. I have fallen in love with my major and couldn’t imagine majoring in any other subject. I have fallen in love with the beauty of this campus. I have fallen in love with the diverse student body. I have fallen in love with the late nights studying and the late night conversations with friends.

Specifically, what do I think Hopkins has given me that I don’t think I would have gotten at another school?

Well, firstly the research opportunities I have gotten as a Social Sciences major. This year I have been employed as one of two undergraduate research assistants at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Their mission is to promote research and to develop and communicate information about the complex interrelationships among diet, food production, environment, and human health. The director of the Center, Dr. Robert Lawrence, is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and is a leading researcher on health as a human right and on food production. It is simply an honor to be around him.

Continuing with research, this summer I have received a MERCK Summer Scholar Program Award, which is grant given out by the Public Health Studies Program and sponsored by Merck & Co, Inc. to do international health research. Once again, I made a connection with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health faculty, specifically Professor Jonathan Golub an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology to work on one of his sponsored research projects in Vitoria, Brazil. He has given me the opportunity to connect with a team of researchers in Brazil to look at preventing cervical cancer in HIV+ patients. This too is another opportunity that I don’t think I would be given at another school.

Going beyond that, I have extracurricular activities that I never thought I would get involved in. Next fall, I will become president of Public Health Student Forum which is a group made up of executive board and members that serves to connect the public health studies program with the student body at campus.

We hold general assemblies, speaker events, Public Health Awareness Week, and next year we’re hoping to hold a conference for students from other schools to present their research at. I have also been involved in Circle K, a flexible community service club that promotes community service events and allows me to participate in community service whenever I have time. In December, we went and bought Christmas presents for every student in a local elementary school. I have also been involved in admissions groups including this one, Student Admissions Advisory Board, and just recently the Admissions Representative program (a group of current students that gives interviews to prospective students). Being SO involved in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions is another opportunity that I never thought a University would be willing to do and has given me the opportunity to make friends with people in all different grades and majors that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

There have been academic experiences too that I don’t think I would have gotten at another school. I have been able to take 1-credit Intersession courses on Vaccine Development (that had a guest lecturer by D.A. Henderson whose name is most commonly connected with smallpox eradication), as well as other courses like Sex and Sexuality in the 17th Century, and another on Infant Feeding disparities. Beyond Intersession courses, I have taken courses like Medical Sociology, Climate Change, The City and Time and Space, Global Public Health Since WWII, Oral Presentations, and MANY others that I don’t think I would have been able to have taken at other schools.

I am currently carrying around nearly 20 brochures of study abroad programs, one of which I will have the opportunity to go on in the Spring. Looking to the future, I can only begin to imagine how big of an impact the opportunity to study abroad will have on me.

This is what Johns Hopkins University has done for me. Just imagine what it could do for you. I hope that by reading through our blogs you can see that we all picked Hopkins for different reasons and have all gotten different positive experiences out of the University. Sure, many of you reading this are not interested in public health (although rumor has it that many of you are since we are expected to become the largest major on campus), but many of you can get involved in research in whatever field you are interested in. And that begins me to my last point…

I am often asked what is it about Hopkins that makes you love it so much? And the answer is that I simply love looking around campus and seeing how diverse the student body is. There really is no stereotypical Hopkins student, for a student body of less than 5,000, there are so many different people at Hopkins that you can find, that really anyone can find a group of friends and “fit-in” at Hopkins. (To the left is a picture of the members of my freshman suite last year).

And with that I really must go to the books…best wishes on deciding a school to attend for the next four years!