Caught in Between

Me snowshoeing after crossing the border into France

It’s not always easy to write about life at Hopkins for an admissions blog for prospective students, however we manage to do it. And it’s especially harder to write a blog when you’re not at Hopkins and are instead enrolled in another university’s program on a different semester schedule than Hopkins that doesn’t include a one-week snow vacation….

Every semester we blog about our courses. I’m notoriously known as the person that takes weeks to decide on a schedule. At least this semester one of the stresses that I usually have to deal with—making a schedule—was nearly diminished because of being abroad on a small program with limited selection

So here is the structure of my semester…

A picture of my Principles of International Health on the final day.

Firstly, Principles of International Health. Well, the funny part is that this course just ended for good yesterday. The course met nearly every day for a total of 40 hours over the last 5 weeks. The course was really cool in that it featured a different lecturer from the World Health Organization (WHO) each session. Although I thought this course might be repetitive for me, I quickly learned that a lot of the sessions were topics that I haven’t really talked in length about at Hopkins such as female genital mutilation, antibiotic resistance, unsafe abortion, etc. It’s definitely been different to have class every day and tests every week, but by the end of it our class—made up of the thirteen students on the public health track of this program—we definitely bonded.

Secondly, Beginners French. I’ve wanted to take French for a long time. Geneva, and particularly the area around where I live, is definitely French speaking. And though I’ve been told that everyone speaks English here, I would beg to differ. And once again, just as I passed as Brazilian, I seem to be able to pass as Swiss. I’ll admit, sometimes I just feel like quoting Jack Johnson and singing,  ”Je ne comprends pas francais. So you’ll have to speak to me,  some other way.” However, I try to control myself. Like many other Americans, I’m often faced with constant desire that I was as multilingual as the rest of the world seems to be and also regret quitting Spanish. Anyway, my French class meets nearly every day and is taught by a professional translator and lawyer for the University of Geneva. We don’t have a formal textbook, which allows the class to be a little more unstructured and tailored to our daily life. Although, I definitely am not a natural when it comes to French, I’m glad I now know a little. This class too is ending soon and I’m actually preparing for my final that’s on this coming Wednesday.

Me on my 21st birthday dinner

Although it’s definitely different to have so much class a week, I’ve been enjoying only having two classes on my mind. Next Friday I actually head off on my spring break to London where I will be meeting up with my boyfriend to look at graduate schools and explore!! I am so excited to go to London with him and to get a break in an English-speaking country. I plan to finish up my spring break in Paris at the end of the following week (and maybe even run into my Dad!!). It’s been really nice to connect with other Hopkins students studying abroad. I actually just met up with two Hopkins students who are visiting Geneva yesterday (and we’ll continue our adventure to Basel tomorrow) and I plan to visit another student in Paris!! It’s also been somewhat reassuring for people studying in other parts of Europe to tell me that Geneva is more expensive, there’s now hope that the rest of this continent will not be as bad. My general rule is to half the price and to ask myself if I would pay that much in the United States. And, well, sometimes the answer is no.

Once I get back from spring break I will have a very intensive few months ahead. I will be taking a Controversies in International Health Course that meets once a week for five hours (this is in order to get 40 hours in eight weeks). I’m really excited for this class and the site visits to places like Handicap International, Doctors Without Borders, International AIDS Society, the Red Cross, etc.

So you might ask what I’ll be doing with my rest of the time during the week? I’ll be interning at the WHO for the other four days!! I’m super excited for this!! Although I know my week will definitely be a little more full than at Hopkins, I know that this opportunity is going to be invaluable. During this time I’ll be helping with the Global Burden of Disease publication. And although I could write all about this now, I think I’ll wait for later. But in the mean time, you can check out the website: http://www.who.int/topics/global_burden_of_disease/en/. I actually have decided to stay a few weeks extra in order to get the most of this WHO experience. But don’t worry, I’ll still be back for Hopkins commencement….and summer in New Jersey!!

Phew. Well I could go on and on but the blue sky outside means that a beautiful run along the lake is calling my name. I didn’t even mention my 21^st birthday here nor my trip to the Olympic museum this past weekend nor the amazing Italian food here nor my future trips around Switzerland. But hopefully the pictures give you some sense of what it’s been like!! As you can see I’ve been keeping myself busy and although the days have gone by quickly I’m still impressed with the amount of stuff that I have been able to get done (and yet still not run away from Hopkins life since I’ve been video chatting into admissions meetings and working on the undergraduate public health conference…). Luckily, I just rewarded myself with 10 hours of sleep and plan to leave my computer in my apartment for spring break. And I know, and have been warned, that the second part of this program will be even more packed!!

Until next time,

Jessica

P.S. Although I thought I had acquired a new addiction to chocolate. I just googled “addiction to chocolate” and supposedly you can’t be addicted to chocolate (http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/does-chocolate-addiction-exist/):

“Although there are similarities between eating chocolate and drug use, generally researchers believe that chocolate “addiction” is not a true addiction. While chocolate does contain potentially mood-altering substances, these are all found in higher concentrations in other less appealing foods such as broccoli. A combination of chocolate’s sensory characteristics — sweetness, texture and aroma — nutrients, and chemicals, together with hormonal and mood swings, largely explains chocolate cravings.

Chocolate is seen as “naughty but nice” — tasty, but something which should be resisted. This suggests that the desire is more likely a cultural phenomenon than a physical one. The inability to control eating may be a result of inborn traits and today’s environment.”

In this case, I’m definitely blaming the environment for this craving. I didn’t really think Switzerland would live up to its stereotypes—precision, trains, cheese, watches, wine, and, of course, chocolate—but it absolutely does.

P.P.S. Let me know what you think about this interesting piece of Swiss news (compliments to my friend Allison for sending along the link): Swiss prostitutes trained to use defibrillators in brothels to prevent clients dying

…Of second semester! :) New semester=new post about what I’m taking.

Organic Chemistry 2:Just continuing Organic Chemistry 1. Last semester didn’t go so well for me so I’ m hoping that I can redeem myself this semester. Our professor is Thomas Letcka, and I must say, he is a character. He’s very chill when he lectures and has an interesting sense of humor…plus, he uses the chalkboard to lecture rather than annoying PowerPoints, so that works for me! 

Organic Chemistry Lab: Run by Dr. Jane Greco. I love seeing women having success in male dominated fields like science, so I’m happy about that. She is very knowledgeable and helpful, and has a sense of humor also. Orgo lab seems like it will be less stressful than Intro Chem lab, so cheers to that! Currently we are synthesizing aspirin.

yea...still can't tell that's aspirin.

Health Policy and Management: One of the four required classes that all Public Health Studies majors have to take. We learn about health insurance and laws in America about healthcare.very timely, seeing as Obama has made healthcare reform his priority. It’s helping me to understand a lot of the terms I hear in the media. I like the material of the class, but I wish it were more dynamic and engaging…but that also depends on who is lecturing. We did have an animated man who was a lobbyist come a few weeks ago though, so that helped to spice things up.

exactly what we learn

Spanish Elements 2: Just a continuation of Spanish 1. No more review terms from high school here…so it’s a lot harder than last semester but still enjoyable. The department coordinator is our teacher this semester and she’s very enthusiastic. Although language requirements are not a part of my major anymore, I think I will continue with Spanish until I graduate. It’s REALLY useful.

African American Poetry and Poetics: This class was a rare find because it fulfills one of the pre med English requirements, yet it’s not your traditional poetry or essay class. Here, we just analyze poetry rather than write it. I had Intro to Fiction and Poetry last semester but ended up dropping it for credit reasons and also because I despise writing poetry, but I don’t mind analyzing it…(sorry poetry fans :)  ) This class doesn’t require me to write any, so I don’t have to be graded subjectively on my poetry, just on essays that show my analyses of it. Plus, it will help me with my minor in Africana Studies. The class looks at speeches, narratives, and songs also as part of the anthology of African American literature too, so it’s not just poetry. =]

Dr. Hollis Robbins teaches it, and she is so cool because she is a white woman teaching an African American poetry class. She’s hilarious and also very passionate about what she does. She’s one of the people who is crossing barriers and muddling lines of race by showing that anyone can do anything he/she wants, regardless of what our culture is used to.  And she’s quite good at what she does, and well-known in the field! Seeimingly everyday she comes in saying “I wrote a piece about ___, and I’m getting hate mail!” Jokingly. Well, kinda. We could have lost her to Harvard but she’s here, so that’s awesome.

Our Textbook

So there ya have it kiddos…my semester! Hopefully it’ll be a good one.  Feel free to ask questions/comment!

Ciao,

Dominique

posted by Lauren B.

So we’ve just had possibly the longest snow day (week) on record, and in the spirit of keeping the snow day going, I’d like to talk about the least academic thing I do at Hopkins. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I’m in a sorority….

We just finished up rush week, so after theme parties and pref rounds and endless flirting with girls, we now have 53 lovely new pledges, or “babies” as we refer to them. The new Phi class really is amazing, and it happens to have two of our lovely SAAB-ers in it, as well (Sarah and Becca)!

Last year I blogged about my decision to join a sorority, and I have definitely loved it, but it was much different being on this side of the process. It was so exciting to meet girls in the rush room, and so frustrating to not be able to talk to them outside of our parties–Phi Mu, and the other Panhellenic sororities at Hopkins, follows a “Strict Silence” policy up to and during formal recruitment to make sure everyone is given a fair shot and not influenced by any older girls they already know in a particular sorority.

I had spent tons of time during intersession in the Blackstone, an off campus apartment where our rush chair lives, painting crazy huge banners and putting my minimal art skills to work. I contributed painting by numbers talent and neat handwriting, while the more artistic Phi Mus worked on drawing Mr. Mint, Queen Frostine, and the other Candy Land inhabitants. It was exciting to see all the hard work that everyone put in pay off when the rushes got there and saw the huge banners, hundreds of cupcakes, and piles of candy.

The last night of rush, Preference (Pref) Night, is a much different night than the rest of rush, which can otherwise tend toward the screaming clapping summer camp variety of party. I think Pref can best be described as date night with a sorority sister…I think Becca K. can back me up on this one, and hopefully I didn’t creep her out too much, but I was so excited to be able to pref her!

After pref, we all go home and eagerly wait to hear which girls will be a part of our newest pledge class. Rush is a “mutual selection process” so throughout rush we are voting, and the freshmen are ranking their favorite sororities. On bid day you receive a formal bid from only one sorority, who is offering you a place in their pledge class. Our lovely pledges wear white on bid night, and we get the chance to finally talk to them and get to know them a bit better! This year we got amazing Lady Gaga shirts for bid day, while last year our shirts were gossip girl-esque.

My favorite part of this whole thing though has been getting to know the amazing baby Phis! We threw a dinosaur themed party, dressed them up in crazy visors with their names on them (my apartment looked like a glitter bomb exploded when we made those ones), and generally tried to get to know these 50 some-odd girls really well! We’ve schlepped through an unprecedented 2 feet of snow with them, gone sledding, dancing, eating, and this Wednesday they’ll all be attending their first ever Phi Mu date party, in downtown Baltimore! I hope they’re all as excited as we are!

Hopefully you’ll get another perspective on this whole crazy process from Becca, Sarah or Lauren Carney, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on rush and explain what on earth I’ve been doing these past few days/weeks…as it certainly hasn’t been schoolwork.

So over the past few weeks I’ve been going out and celebrating with my big, playing in the endless snow, meeting the new Phis, and baking with my roommates when we got cabin fever on snow day number 4.

Hope everyone is having a lovely winter!

-Lauren

posted by Lauren B.

So one of the most common questions I get asked at Open Houses is “what is a typical day like at Hopkins?” Aside from “hey, so what were your SAT scores…” I find this to be maybe the most irritating question, and I think the activities of the past 48 hours can explain why.

Phi Mu!

This week is the middle of formal recruitment, otherwise known as rush, for the three Panhellenic sororities on campus (Alpha Phi, Phi Mu and Kappa Kappa Gamma). Rush started on Saturday with “ice water” round, and finishes up with Bid Day on Thursday. The start of formal pledging is one of my favorite things about spring at Hopkins and really made my year so much fun. But rush was only the beginning of this strange, strange week.

My pledge class at Ice Water.

First off, the weather has been bipolar, with two days of heavy snowfall and two days of balmy spring. Sadly, neither of the snowy days were quite snowy enough to merit a snowday, but it made campus look amazing.

Beautiful Homewood Campus.

Though the week as a whole was fairly unusual, Tuesday had to be the weirdest slash greatest. It began when I had actually no class, which left the whole day open for frolicking in Baltimore. My roommate, Laura, is really involved with the Hopkins chapter of Engineers Without Borders. She helped to organize their fundraiser,  a desert reception to benefit their projects in Guatemala, South Africa and Ecuador.

She’s been doing the behind the scenes stuff for months, organizing the raffle, food donations, and all that madness. I got to help with the fun stuff on the day of though, and we spent the day rocking around the city in our friend Charlotte’s car, picking up food donations and attempting not to sample them.

We got to travel all over Baltimore, from Fell’s Point to pick up pies at “Dangerously Delicious,” which lived up to its name when we were inexplicably detained by two giant slices of broccoli quiche, to Charles Village for gluten free treats at Sweet Sin bakery, where we also managed to make a pretty serious purchase. Being allergic to wheat myself I was obviously thrilled to find this place so close to campus, and my fridge in Charles Commons is now packed with gluten free treats and cupcakes.

The real kicker to the afternoon, however, was our time spent in the kitchen of the Hopkins Club, where I learned that I would be a terrible, terrible chef. The lovely people there helped Laura and I arrange the millions of cupcakes on hundreds of trays (barely an exaggeration) and lent Engineers Without Borders tons of stuff for their reception. It was then up to Laura and I to wobble over to the Glass Pavilion with all the deserts (see the gem of a picture below).

After delivering those delightful treats to the reception, I sprinted back to Charles Commons just in time to dash off a response paper for my Econ class and submit it on WebCT within 30 seconds of the 6 pm deadline. Speed homework was followed by a quick dinner before I headed off to see the finished product of our strange day’s work. The reception was great, and two of my friends actually won great things in the raffle.

More lovely pictures of the snow, taken by Greco!

By the time we left it was near-blizzarding, and the rest of the evening  was occupied by frantic weather.com checks as we tried to analyze the likelihood of getting a snow day.

Beautiful gluten free cupcakes for the EWB reception.

Turns out I actually should have done a bit more homework, as school was most certainly on (with the exception of 9 am classes) today. Today was the opposite of yesterday, with class straight through from 10-4, a Study Abroad meeting just after that, and “Pref Night” for my sorority all night. Tomorrow will be bid day, another day without classes, and the start of pledging for the new baby Phis! The next few days bring everything from homework to amazing Phi Mu dinners, lunch with a prospective student to the Super Bowl.

I can’t imagine what the other SAAB-ers have been doing this week (I’ve
been up to my ears in rush) but I can almost guarantee it was nothing
like this, so I hope this helped you get a sense of how different each and every single day is here at Hopkins.

And as an aside…Hope all you East Coasters enjoy the FOOT OF SNOW coming your way this weekend!

-Lauren

Happy Spring Semester! This means more blogs and more Michael Jackson songs as titles. :o)

I’ll talk about my spring classes in my next blog, so I will use this one to talk about my Intersession 2010 experience this time around, which trumped last year’s.

Last year, I stayed home longer and came back to take an awesome class. This year, I came for all of Intersession and took 2 classes and assisted another one.

Imagine if you could go to school, but not have any real work to do. You have all the perks of seeing your friends, using your mealplan having emptier/quieter dorms, but no real work, just random 1-2 credit classes about things you like. Kind of amazing. I also got a lot of movie watching time in and lots of time to spend with friends outside of club events. Relaxing…

The first class I took was a sociology class called “White Privilege.” Weird and blunt title, which I liked. We learned about how being white in American came to be a hidden privilege and the benefits that came/come with that privilege. The class was a nice mix of white, black and Asian, so that was pretty cool too. People in the early 20th century in America used to go to court to try to prove their whiteness, because if that was legally proven, then they had access to better homes, jobs, schools, services, healthcare, etc. Japanese and Indian were among some of the races that tried to prove their whiteness based on skin color, but the courts refuted their claims and said whiteness went beyond skin color. Many of the “new immigrants” from southern and eastern Europe were treated poorly by the “old immigrants” from Ireland and whatnot, comparable to the way blacks were being treated. After WWII however, they got new status as being “white.” Very strange how our country has treated race…I could go on but there’s not enough room in this blog.

The other class I took was a public health one, called “The Obesity Epidemic.” This class was taught by one of my public health professors I had last year and he’s great–very enthusiastic and animated when he lectures. Apparently, 70% of Americans are overweight and a third are clinically obese…which are astronomical figures. This epidemic isn’t only in the US, but in other developed countries aqnd even in poorer, developing countries. The course tried to get us to think about WHY this was occuring, besides the fact that people are eating more calories than they are expending. The environment is the main culprit, as our teacher described it, because supersized, easy to get, unhealthy, cheap food is our default. He pointed out that life expectancies in the US shot up at one point in the early 20th century not because of new medicines or vaccines, but because the environment was changed through water sanitation.

Map=obesity…red is the most obese. Actually this map is kinda old…more states are red now

Changing the environment is a good way to make people healthier because people don’t have to do anything…it sounds awful but it’s true! We’re more responsive and benefitted more when things are done for us and we have no choice but to live with it. Some things to change the environment include taxing junk food, advertising healthier foods, and soooo much more. If you couldn’t tell I loved the class, despite the fact that each session was like 3.5 hours (well it was a 4 day class so it’s ok).

The last thing I did was become a course assistant for a B’More! Freshman course, about cancer. Course assistants took care of registration of students. Each class was assigned a neighborhood to explore and assistants had to lead the students in our classes around, which was fun but a bit weird because I had a pack of 20 students following me. We visited local landmarks and took pics…and no one got lost or left behind so I was happy about that. Being a course assistant made me have to trust my leadership skills and be confident in my abilities to engage students and make them feel comfortable (especially important because they were freshmen). Not to mention, I made a cool new contact in the professor who taught the course. It was her first time teaching and she wants to go into it one day, so this was good practice for her. Plus, I met 20 cool freshmen, with whom I still interact when I see them around.

Now THAT’S what a relaxing, but useful, Intersession is supposed to be like…so I am happy I got to partake this time around.

Until next time,

Dominique