in·tense
[in-tens] –adjective
1.
existing or occurring in a high or extreme degree: intense heat.
2.
acute, strong, or vehement, as sensations, feelings, or emotions: intense anger.
3.
of an extreme kind; very great, as in strength, keenness, severity, or the like: an intense gale.
4.
having a characteristic quality in a high degree: The intense sunlight was blinding.
5.
strenuous or earnest, as activity, exertion, diligence, or thought: an intense life.
6.
exhibiting a high degree of some quality or action.
7.
having or showing great strength, strong feeling, or tension, as a person, the face, or language.
8.
susceptible to strong emotion; emotional: an intense person.
9.
(of color) very deep: intense red.
In the last week of school, ironically as I was last minute cramming for an Economics exam, this article came my way. Apparently, accordingly to the credible sources at the Huffington Post, Johns Hopkins is officially the second most “grueling” academic experience in the country.
At the time I didn’t get a chance to give it more than a cursory look and notice that the picture they initially chose for the article was not in fact Hopkins, but some strange photo at the Carey Business School. Since I’ve come home, regrouped, and relaxed though, I’ve gotten another chance to look at it, and more importantly to think it over.
The caption states, “Hopkins is well-known for its intense medical and engineering programs and resistance to grade inflation.” And after I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that this is true. Hopkins doesn’t have grade inflation. Hopkins is intense.
But this is a good thing.
I’d be lying if I said Hopkins wasn’t intense, but I love it. I thrive in this environment. The people are intense, the atmosphere is intense, and people achieve intense things. Before you write this off as proof that Hopkins is the scary pre-med factory you always suspected it was, that’s not what I mean at all.
strenuous or earnest, as activity, exertion, diligence, or thought: an intense life.
Hopkins’ academics are impressive in scope, they challenge you to things you never thought you could do, present opportunities you never knew existed, and if you work hard at Hopkins this school will turn you into the best academic version of yourself you can possibly be. If that’s not intense, I’m not sure what is, but none of those things sound bad to me.
having or showing great strength, strong feeling.
The people here are passionate about their interests, academic and otherwise. My friends who run….run half marathons and triathlons, wake up at 4 am to run with the homeless in Baltimore, join varsity teams halfway through their time at Hopkins. People who work in admissions….work 10 hours a week, blog, go to every Open House. Engineers join EWB, do their own research, mentor young students in science, travel to third world countries to implement their research. I could go on.
People here are involved, on more than the surface level. They throw themselves wholeheartedly into the things they love, and this attitude encompasses the Hopkins experience.
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My mother, in a statement that was both a complement and an insult, once informed me that I didn’t know how to do things halfway. I do things to extremes, or not at all. I believe at the time this was in reference to the fact that my room at home went from disaster zone to spotless in 20 minutes, but this applies to nearly everything I do, and that makes Hopkins the perfect school for me.
My roommate is the same way; we’ll have 3 day study binges sometimes, and days where we stay out till 4 am, we’ll randomly decide to bake, and when we stop there’ll be 50 cupcakes, we’ll watch 10 episodes of Sex and the City, decide to train for a half marathon or plan a inter-state road trip on a whim.
People here don’t do things halfway…ever, and the school is designed to make this possible. If you want to learn three languages, travel the world, play two varsity sports, start a charity, found a club, anything, the school is there to support you. Hopkins is a place for incredibly self-motivated people, passionate people, and maybe that makes us intense, but it also makes Hopkins an incredible place to go to college
I started writing this blog while flying high above; the French countryside still visible way below me from my window seat. My mind began reflecting on the last four months spent in Switzerland. It had been a bittersweet last couple of weeks—filled with visitors from home and goodbyes to a city, an office, and friends that over time grew on me and make my experience what it was. Needless to say the flashbacks overwhelmed me and put me to sleep for the majority of the flight and this blog was never finished.
My brother visited me for a week...and we went hiking!!
I managed to purposely skip my connecting flight from Washington Dulles to Newark and escape to another home of mine for five days: Baltimore. And there, once again, my time was bittersweet—a trip that began with hellos and deliveries of chocolate to friends I had not seen in months quickly turned into forced goodbyes to the members of the JHU Class of 2010, some of whom I met before I even stepped foot as a student at Hopkins. And so many of them have made my Hopkins experience what it is.
And now, well, here I am back in New Jersey, in yet another home. It has perhaps been the most unusual week for me in my life. It seems like everyone’s question to me in the days before I left Switzerland were, “Are you ready to go back to the United States?” And how quickly that question turned into, “Are you ready to leave Baltimore?”
Honestly, the answer has been no to both of those questions. A sense of home and a period of certainty are two things that I do love.
Me living the life at the WHO.
In Geneva, a three week period of solely interning without classes, warm weather, meeting new people, seeing people from 192 member states at the World Health Assembly (and listening to President Sirleaf and Jeffrey Sachs speak), loving my co-workers at the World Health Organization, created a daily routine that I began to enjoy and diminished the eagerness I had to go back to New Jersey.
And although Baltimore is not going quite yet (I know it will be the end of August before I know it), many of the people who have made Baltimore home are going. My MSE library crew and my boyfriend, who for years now has made his apartment in Baltimore my oasis, are headed out into the real world.
My junior year M-Level crew.
If there is anything I have learned during this rollercoaster of a month it is that people really do make a home. And, for Hopkins in particular, the people have made the place. I am so thankful for the people throughout the world that I have connected with. Hopkins students are especially something. To those soon-to-be college students out there, get excited for the people you will meet over the next four years.
I am back in a period of uncertainty. I do not have an apartment yet for the fall. I have a December graduation date looming in the future, a date that just calls for uncertainty (What will I do next? Graduate school? Job? Another adventure?). However, I remain optimistic.
Two of my senior friends (Janine and Stephanie) at a Senior Week cocktail party...in the library!
I thought college was supposed to be a period of certainty. But I have quickly realized that if you go out there and seize opportunities as good college students are supposed to, how quickly it turns into a time of uncertainty. So, soon-to-be college students out : please do not prepare yourself for certainty as I did.
I think back to the night before I left for Hopkins and the times sitting at the gate just before my flights to Brazil and Switzerland. I was filled with uncertainty and nervousness and thought about just running back to my bedroom in New Jersey. Yet, each time, I have taken a deep breath and plowed ahead.
And so, once again, I will take another deep breath and plan my next step starting with heading off to my new internship on Thursday. In the mean time, thank you to all of those who have made my junior year the adventure that it has been.
The end of a semester is always a shock. In the course of just a few weeks you go from a normal schedule, to an insanely social one, to one where you don’t do anything but study and buy coffee, to one where you don’t do anything but sleep. I’m now in the sleeping phase of my end of year schedule, and I must say it’s glorious.
My car when I finally left for the summer. A years worth of stuff does not easily fit into a Prius.
I finished up my year with exams in Economics of Discrimination, Biology, Health Policy, and Social Psychology as well as a paper for my internship. In contrast to last semester’s exam fiasco, I actually had a great, spaced out schedule during finals period that allowed me to recover between exams….sleep, eat, etc.
Strange stuffed “Finals Cat” that appeared on M level of the library.
Reading period is supposed to be for reading and studying, as the name implies, but it’s usually notable more for the number of date parties and formals that occur during this week. As I’m not going to be at Hopkins next semester I was extra excited for Phi Mu’s formal, Destination Unknown. My lovely roommate Laura was my date, and it was a great wrap up to the end of the year.
My lovely littles and Laura.
After finals finished up, my roommates and I frantically tried to pack and clean our room in a matter of hours, attempting to restore it to a state of cleanliness acceptable for our subletters. It’s strange to see a year’s worth of stuff condensed into boxes, and then the back of a car, particularly if that stuff was completely intact just a few hours before, but we had some of the last finals so we had to get out of there quickly. I then headed off to Ohio with my roommate Laura and more stuff than I’ve ever seen in my life. Her parents’ huge car was packed to the brim, and we even had to strap some of it onto the roof. We passed out in the backseat before we even got to the highway, and seven peaceful hours later we rolled into Ohio.
I spent a lovely few days with Laura and her family, who live just outside of Columbus. I’d never been to Ohio before and it was so nice! I got to experience some Midwest staples….Bob Evans and an Ohio State party. I also got to see Laura’s high school, meet all of her friends, and generally relax after a hectic few weeks.
Laura and I in Columbus
I returned to NJ yesterday, just in time for my younger sister’s senior prom! It was great to see everyone all dressed up, and I honestly can’t believe she’s graduating! It seems like no time at all has gone by since I was the one at prom and then graduation, but I guess the fact that I’m halfway through college has to count for something.
My sister, Suzi, and I before her prom.
I’ll be home for the next few weeks, just visiting friends and catching up with everything I’ve missed, particularly before I head off to Africa in July. I’ve been listening to the official World Cup song in preparation….I highly recommend it.
Hope everyone’s having a relaxing summer or an exciting end to the school year!
Well I won’t be going to Moscow, but I will be a stranger somewhere this summer…Ann Arbor, Michigan. Don’t laugh at me, but this will be my first time on an airplane (well, I was on one when I was a wee babe but that doesn’t count) and my first time off the east coast. Better late than never, right?
I applied for a Health Management and Policy internship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health….here’s the site: http://www.sph.umich.edu/sep/ It’s a pretty cool internship…8 weeks with a mentor at a specific healthcare site, a nice stipend, paid university housing, food allowance, free GRE prep course and practice exams, and a chance to decide if this field of public health is for me, along with the new friends and professional/grad school connections I will make. I’m not quite sure what I want to do with my life and I’ve never considered Health Policy, but it’s best to actually try things before you shut them out.
It’s more structured than any other internship I’ve even encountered, but it does so much for its participants. The director of the program has had this program since 1986! And it aims at getting students to discover the minority health disparity problem and be a part of the solution. I’m in good company too, as there are students from Harvard, NYU, Cornell, Columbia, Emory, Duke, Michigan, and others.
I am placed at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, but I’m not sure what my project is yet. I do know I will have to dress professionally each day, attend meetings with business men and women and CEOs, be able to be independent yet correspond regularly with my mentor, and not be afraid to be as involved as I can be.
The only downside (and it’s not really a downside) is that this summer ALL of my high school and JHU friends will be in Baltimore this summer…I can’t help but be a tad bit sad over the fact they’ll all be here with each other with me absent, but I’ll be able to come back to them when the internship is over and by then, I will have made 19 new friends (well, hopefully :P ) and professional and mentor relationships.
But more to come later in the summer about this internship….so ta ta for now!
(Before I start, lemme just say that you really have to listen to this video at the end of the blog because “Push Me Away” really is a phenomenal song. =] And different from what you’re used to hearing from MJ. )
Anywho, why the title? This blog will be about one of my classes. I spotlight one each semester, and this semester it’s “African American Poetry and Poetics.”
Now, I don’t really read/understand poetry (the professor made this a running gag throughout the semester hehe) so initially the thought of taking a poetry class pushed me away. I even was enrolled in Introduction to Fiction and Poetry (a class that seemingly half the student population takes for their writing/english requirement) because everyone swore it was easier than Expository Writing (which is like an AP English Language class), so I did it.
And dropped it. Because Dominique and poetry don’t mix. I wasn’t looking forward to the class proofreadings of each other’s works, writing poems and short stories and analyses of them and portfolios of work and blah blah blah. BUT I found this class, which was NOT writing poetry, just reading and analyzing it. And it counted as an English class. SCORE!
So the class. It is taught by Dr. Hollis Robbins, who is HILARIOUS and teaches here and at primarily at Peabody (JHU’s music conservatory downtown). For such an educated professor (Proof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollis_Robbins --I just found this page seconds ago BTW) she is not stuffy and uppity…quite the opposite, actually. And she is a JHU Writing Sems Alum. A prime example of the quality of the department and the places it can take you. In Dr. Robbin’s case, Harvard, Princeton, and back here to teach.
Dr. Robbins
Although I didn’t understand half of the poems we read in the class, what I did learn overall, was how different and diverse African American Poetry was compared with other types of poetry and it’s literary importance, and it’s history and development over time with a changing America.
We discussed why there was a need for a class called African American Poetry--i.e is it so separated from other genres of poetry that it needs its own? What makes a poem part of the realm of African American poetry--the author’s ethnicity or the topic of the poem?
Norton Anthology of African American Literature
We read Percy Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry” (if you are a poetry fanatic look it up) as a standard of what defines poetry…poetry as imagination, poetry as being used for the moral good of society, poets being legislator’s of the world…etc. That was kind of over my head but I got through it somehow.
We started reading poems from the 18th century till present, so here are a few (seriously we read so many poems I couldn’t even try to fit them in this blog)…
1700′s- Beginnings. Phyllis Wheatley was a poet who was brought from Africa to America as a young girl, and she learned English so well for a slave. However, her poetry didn’t show herself, for lack of a better phrase, and although it was technically magnificent, it is not regarded as the best poetry because of its self-distancing nature. It is understandable though, because if you look at the time period, slaves were not yet (as an overwhelming majority) protesting…besides, Wheatley had a much better life than most other slaves so maybe writing to students at Harvard or about Maecenas was all she had to worry about.
Early 1800′s-Antebellum Period. Here’s where Frederick Douglass kind of made his debut as an advocate for the freedom of the slave, and his prose is great. I’ve read some Douglass before but Dr. Robbins also sees it as poetry, something I would not have thought of before. We read other works of prose from David Walker and Henry Garnet, who appealed to slaves and blacks to try to get them to rise above their oppressors. One of the things we discussed is whether or not non-protest poetry and poetics can be considered of the African American ”genre.” What do you think? Usually when we think about black literature we think about protest. Many scholars hold this opinion, and before this class I have never quite thought about it like that.
Frederick Douglass
Various times: Spirituals, Vernacular, Gospel: I thought including this in the class was pretty cool. You’ve heard spirituals before…Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, This Little Light of Mine…they weren’t just sung by slaves to sound pretty. A lot of times they were code for means of escaping or plotting. Masters and others thought that slaves just sang to keep themselves happy, which some may have, but often it was a secret code that didn’t give itself away and hid in plain sight.
Mid-late 1800′s: Protest Tradition: We learned about how poets like Frances Harper wrote to protest slavery. Her themes included creating some serious sympathy for her subjects, who were usually slave women and children. She was also about black people being educated and raising themselves to a higher standard of living. If you have ever read or heard of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” in your history or english classes, here’s where that comes in.
The War and Post War: There was not much black war poetry…why do you think that was? After the war, there was a change in black poetry…meaning it was not necessarily racial or political. Again, if a black writer writes about nature, with no reference to race or politics, can it be considered black poetry? There were many scholars who wrote about the need or lack of need for criteria for black art, one of whom was WEB DuBois. What do you think?
Early 1900′s: Harlem Renaissance. This is probably the era of black poetry with which you are most familiar. Langston Hughes. Countee Cullen. Claude McKay. Think of it as a flowering of African American intellectualism, and the “New Negro”--blacks shouldn’t dress badly, shouldn’t stand out, shouldn’t speak “black” or dress ethnically, no Africa references, no Jazz, no vernacular…again, look at the time period. If you were a slave or had parents/grandparents who were enslaved, you wouldn’t want to go back to that…slavery was a shameful past and New Negroes aimed to wash that past away. You would just want to be a “normal” part of society. Plus there were still rampant Jim Crow laws and other things still going on in the country.
Now, definitely not all writers and artists and people during this period were New Negroes of course, and many new developments in black culture occurred…for instance, Hughes was more modernistic in style and a bit more raw with his poetry and he was racially charged. There is actually an english class here about the Harlem Renaissance so if that interests you, go for it!
Post Renaissance, Post WW2, Modern Black Poetry: After the Renaissance, traditionally structured poems were used as racial commentary…so kind of a combo of previous black poets’ styles and subjects. Then poems got more modern…think of Lucille Clifton, who was very into not using capital letters in her works, and she was a feminist (think male-female gender struggle) and saw her body as her poetry. Modern=move from Western traditionalist type poems. Protest poetry came back (well, I guess it never really left but it was stronger), and we read some of Amiri Baraka’s poems. Lots of anger and forcefulness mixed with some weirdness. I won’t link to some of his works here for slight decency purposes but if you wish you can Google him. :) He was actually Poet Laureate for a while, which is cool.
We ended the class with modern poetry, like Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Rita Dove. Then we discussed whether hip hop lyrics could be considered poetry…again I won’t link any of those but feel free to explore on your own.
All in all, I REALLY enjoyed the class, even though poetry in itself tends to make me uncomfortable and push me away, and I learned a lot. I am SO happy I took this class instead of Introduction to Fiction and Poetry because I got more out of it and learned how to read and analyze poems differently, as well as how to look at the historical contexts of place and time to discuss why a poem is the way it is. This course is Dominique approved!
To all of my fellow readers out there, I apologize. I’ve been falling behind in my routine blogging schedule. Honestly, I always know what day of the week it is, but I rarely know the date anymore. Life has just been going by too quickly. One minute the mountains have snow and the next they have wildflowers. Oh, life.
The stereotypes are true...cows on my train ride to Zurich!!
Luckily, the next three weeks will be a catch-up period for me. And as a result, you get a Jess Kraus blog marathon!!!! That’s right folks… two blogs back-to-back!! The first one will be a life update (for those interested) and the second one, posted later this week, will be a much more exciting one (that I’ve been planning for a while)….
I’m currently sitting in a rather empty bedroom in Geneva. My roommate left at 5:45 this morning, as did nearly the entire program. My floor, which had ten people on it this morning, now has one: me.
Why am I still here? Well I’m on an internship study abroad program. Meaning not only have I been talking classes, but I also have been working 8:45 am until 6:30 pm (on average) four days a week.
The lovely carpeted walls in my office.
The title slide to my internship project.
Anyway, I was asked to stay longer at my internship. So I applied for a partial MERCK grant, offered by the Hopkins public health studies program (it’s actually the same grant I got for my Brazil aventura last summer). I got the grant! And now I’m staying here for three more weeks while working my hardest at the World Health Organization. This is yet another example of an opportunity that Hopkins has given me.
I’m honestly so thankful for not only the assistance of Hopkins, but I’m also so thankful for Boston University. Not only did they provide me with such a great study abroad program, but they also provided me with aid to cover additional fees. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine being here, in one of the most expensive places in the world, without this support.
What else has been going on in my life besides for staying up late writing final papers, learning how to use a European keyboard, saying goodbyes, not sleeping, touring the UN aka “my office”, and analyzing intellectual disability data? Well…a lot.
Gandhi and I say "hi" to one another on my way to work.
As I hinted at in my last post, I got an internship for the summer. Well, I guess it’s technically summer for me right now. But I am not facing the fact that I’m a senior (with ONE semester left) until I get back to the States.
Finding an internship this summer was a bit difficult since I knew I wanted something with at least a stipend and something in New York City (which, despite Bloomberg’s efforts, is not known as a “public health city”). I knew after so much traveling over the past year and with my boyfriend leaving for LSE in the fall, that home would be the best place for me. Of course not everything went perfectly. I was rejected by a couple of the things I applied for. Rejection is hard to deal with, but one that I’m glad I’ve faced throughout my college years. And, of course, I ended up finding a great opportunity…
Starting in June, until the day before I move back to Hopkins, I will be interning in New York City at the Global Business Coalition (GBC) for Tuberculosis, Malaria, and HIV in the Knowledge, Evaluation & Performance Department. This will be a very unique public health experience for me.
The GBC is an alliance of over 200 international companies that leads the private sector in funding these epidemics. They have offices in New York, Paris, Johannesburg, Beijing, Nairobi, and Moscow. The department I’m working in provides technical services to GBC member companies and prospects.
Trivia: What does this statue represent? (Public health majors are exempt)
Although my mom, dad, and brother have entered the “business world” at some point in their lives, I don’t think they (nor me) thought I would. I’m really excited about getting the opportunity to see public health in a completely different lens. I face a decision relatively soon of whether I want to go into research or not and I really hope that this helps me with that decision. It’s going to be a bit crazy moving from one summer internship into another (with Hopkins graduation in-between), but I think I’m up for it.
I also managed to not only cross off “summer internship” from my to-do list, but “fall housing” as well. I’m happy to say that it looks as if I will be living in a studio apartment near Homewood for the fall. Another stress lifted. I was also re-appointed as co-president of Public Health Student Forum for the fall.
So, as you can tell, it’s been quite a crazy couple of weeks. However, it’s been rewarding to be able to cross off tasks from my to-do list. But as I cross off “junior year,” the biggest item of them all, I know that in my mind it’s being replaced by an even bigger task: “post-graduation plans.” But at least I know that with all the opportunities Hopkins has given to me, I won’t be limited.
Now it’s time for me to catch up on sleep.
Until later this week,
Jessica
PS To those at Hopkins, you may have gotten the snow week of the century, but I got the ash cloud of the century…and it made for great sunsets!! (See pictures.)
Another beautiful sunset over Lake Leman (yes, the Christmas lights are on every night).
