I recently realized that though the semester is half over now, I have failed to ever mention which classes I’ve been spending so much time on. I’ve had a busy semester, and though I’ve been working really hard, it’s been one of the most interesting course-loads I’ve had thus far at Hopkins.
troubles
They’re all really exciting and interesting! One of the great things about being an upperclassman is finally knowing what you want to study, and then being able to pursue upper level, really focused classes in that field. To that end, I was able to find some great classes on the real world applications of public health, as well as international and development health.
My schedule this semester is as follows….
Global Environmental Politics
American Literature, 1865 to Today
Clinical and Public Health Behavior Change
Fundamentals of Epidemiology
Health, Development and Inequalities, A View from Latin America
and Lectures on Public Health and Wellbeing in Baltimore
my lovely ikea desk slash study nook
I’m not sure if I have a favorite yet, they’ve all been really different, but I’ll talk a bit about each one.
Epi is a PHS [Public Health Studies] requirement, and despite being forced to take it, I’ve found it to be really interesting. Epidemiology is the study of the patterns of health and disease in a given population, so we’ve looked at everything from attack rates of food poisoning at hypothetical church picnics to the national mortality rate from accidental injury.
Fun Fact: If you’re in a state with a Graduated Driver’s License [GDL] program, you can thank School of Public Health epidemiology professors for your inability to drive at night. Though I found this incredibly annoying as a high schooler in the very strict driving state of NJ, it’s awesome to learn now that a Hopkins professor was the one to research and present to Senate his findings on teenage drivers. Plus these laws have saved a ton of lives and have now been implemented in over 40 states!
HDAI:AVFLA [killer acronym, no? It's is how I write it in my planner]. I love this class! The teacher is an amazing visiting professor from the University of Bogotá, in Colombia. He’s so interesting and has such a different perspective on the role of public health and international development. He’s amazingly smart and was a practicing physician before becoming a doctor, so he has such a unique viewpoint. The class is tiny and always ends up as a really passionate discussion. Might be my favorite.
American Lit is a class I took sort of on a whim, knowing that one of my best friends would be taking it as well. It’s a lower level English survey course, which covers a book a week in a mixture of small seminar classes and lectures. I really enjoy it, and I haven’t read much 20th century literature, so it’s totally new to me. Added bonus is it’s a class of mostly freshman, so I feel like I’m finally getting to know a good sized group of kids in this class [I was abroad first semester, and felt really out of touch when I first arrived back in Baltimore].
Fun Fact: We read Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth. Roth is one of my favorite authors to read, for a very selfish reason. Some of his best work is set in the neighborhoods I grew up in! Any Northern NJ residents should pick up American Pastoral [Newark, Morristown] or Goodbye Columbus [Millburn, Newark]. He’s a wonderful writer, and it’s interesting to read about the history of a place you think you know so well.
job prep, public health, english, and some regular books
hard at work
Behavior Changemust be one of my favorites, because it’s at 8:30 in the morning and I haven’t missed it yet…quite a feat for a college student. This class is a really different way to look at Public Health problems, particularly in the US. Most PH classes focus on disease and how we can prevent people from becoming sick. However, in America, and to a lesser extent in other first-world countries, the biggest health problems result from our own actions, which throws a wrench in the traditional disease prevention model. We’ve been learning about how you can motivate individuals and entire populations to change their unhealthy behavior–smoking, drinking, sedentary lifestyle, and overeating are a few of the big issues we’ve looked at. Our current challenge is to change one of our own behaviors and track our progress. This class is also taught by a professor/physician; Dr Cheskin runs the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center.
Global Environmental Politics has been really interesting. My family has always been [by American standards, at least] very “green.” We recycle everything, switch off lights all the time, compost, drive a Prius, and use those crazy lightbulbs that last forever but make your room look like a spaceship. I currently just came back from a run to Char Mar to rid my apartment of the bags of recycling Laura and I have been storing up [our building doesn't recycle, but we both think it's important, so we haul it up to campus]. It’s interesting to learn about environmental protection, policy, and structures, rather just focus on what we can all do as individuals. The curriculum is a combination of economics, politics and sociology, and the students are a cool group, all really interested in the environment for different reasons.
Though I’ve whined a bit about the amount of work I’ve had, this has been one of my favorite semesters since I arrived at Hopkins. I don’t have a “bad” class, and I really feel like I’m learning something new every day, as cliche as that sounds. We only have six weeks left in the semester and I have to say I’m pretty disappointed….and deathly afraid of senior year.
I’ve been absent lately, so there’ll be a couple of blogs posted in short succession in the next week.
Coming soon: I’m officially employed! and a tour of my apartment “Club 900/The Bat Cave.”
I still haven't gotten used to seeing Bloomberg's portrait every day at the School of Public Health.
That politically independent superstar (i.e., a Hopkins alum)?
That financial data powerhouse (i.e., home to awesome internships/jobs for Hopkins students)?
The largest and, arguably, furthest building on the Homewood campus (i.e., where Hopkins students take physics exams)?
The #1 (as well as oldest, and largest) school of public health in the world? (i.e., home to research and classes for many undergraduate public health students)?
Indeed, Michael Bloomberg has left an impact on students at Johns Hopkins. And I’m not one to say otherwise…
Class starts at 1:30 pm. For me, this means that it’s time to catch the 1 pm shuttle to Bloomberg…
A view of Bloomberg and a JHMI shuttle.
At first thought, taking a 25 minute shuttle ride probably sounds like a burden. But since sophomore year, I’ve spent time on the East Baltimore Medical Campus at the Bloomberg School of Public Health (Bloomberg). Whether it’s working or taking graduate-level courses, as required for the public health studies major, going to Bloomberg has become part of my daily routine. And, by now, I just can’t imagine my education any other way.
The School, and its special force, was able to confirm my intentions to major in public health, fill me with inspiration, and provide me with a getaway from the Homewood campus.
And so, with that, I give you some reasons that I love Bloomberg:
1. Center for a Livable Future. I've worked at CLF since sophomore year. CLF focuses on research and outreach on all things related to the food system. We also sit on fitness balls at work, work in a LEED gold certified office, have an Obama chia pet, and have a director, Dr. Lawrence, who is the most hardworking and passionate professor I've ever met (and that is actually saying a lot). Since sophomore year, I've developed a CLF family. My supervisor is an uncle to me and older research assistants are sisters to me.
2. Classes. Bloomberg classes are different than Homewood classes. They're on the quarter system, focus on more specific issues of public health, and are filled with students who hope to "master" the material (yay puns). They've helped me question what it is exactly I want to do within public health studies. And, perhaps more importantly, they made me realize that I'd like work experience before going to graduate school.
3. Classmates. The diverse student body of the School really shines when working on group projects. It's intimidating at first because the students that surround myself nearly always are older. It gets even more intimidating when you realize who they are. Once you get past the fact that you're sitting next to an army nurse who is your mom's age and a doctor from Zambia, you realize just how open the students are to having undergraduates in their classes.They actually think its awesome that we get this opportunity to take these classes. And its come to a point where I say "hi" in passing to more people at Bloomberg than at Homewood. I must admit though, it's sometimes strangely nice to run back to the Homewood campus and see guys with Justin Bieber folders.
4. A different side of Baltimore. Bloomberg is not in the nicest neighborhood of Baltimore. And, well, I enjoy this. Walking around the surrounding blocks gives me a reality check and reminds me that the world is bigger than the Homewood campus.
5. Single-stream recycling. Feel free to call me an environmentalist. But working in a building that has a cafe that composts, revolving doors in order to save energy, and single-stream recycling bins all around is absolutely wonderful.
6. Expressive professors. Bloomberg professors are passionate and they don't mind sharing their political views on their office doors.
7. Public health everywhere. Just look at the flyers!
8. Inspirational quotes... everywhere!
And with that, I say thank you to the Bloomberg School of Public Health (and of course to its large donor) ... Anyone see a mistake on this plaque?
i’m writing to you after a whirlwind week that included lions (phi mu rush) and a bat (no joke) as well as my computer’s hard drive taking a turn for the worse, a big interview, and the (real) start to the semester. phew.
our phi mu mascot, sir fidel the lion.
so to recap….
last week was the beginning and end of formal recruitment period for the sororities on campus. we began on saturday with “ice water” and had several back-to-back days of big events, voting, girl flirting, and generally fairly exhausting, extremely organized socializing. on thursday night we got 38 fabulous new phi mu’s, and i’m so excited to get to know all of them! friday night we had sister dinners, a hilarious and great way to meet all of the new girls. and Lucie Fink, another SAAB-er, is one of our fab new additions.
after a very late rush event, my lovely roommate woke me up to inform me that there was a bat hanging from her ceiling. a bat. i struggled to comprehend what she could mean (8 am practical joke?) but the look on her face confirmed she was quite serious. a few calls to maintenance later, a bat exorcism was performed with a large cardboard box and a broom, while our landlady screamed hysterically (at least it wasn’t in her room).
not the nicest way to start the morning, but it did make for a funny story, and a lot of confused looks. our apartment is otherwise great though, and laura’s mom brought us a couch this past weekend so we now have seating for more than just the two of us. our previous arrangement was fine but resulted in a lot of games of charades and spontaneous dancing, as in any group larger than two or three, it was standing room only. it’s now looking much better and a lot more useful.
last week, though actually the second week of the semester, was for all intents and purposes the real beginning. work picked up, classes ran all the way through the allotted time, meetings began, and the library was filled with more than just people getting coffee.
for my first real week back from abroad, this was a bit overwhelming. between school, rush, preparing for an interview, and fending off bats, i hit the ground running.
crazy busy first week!
i had a very exciting interview for a summer position in washington d.c. this past friday, but it seems like bad karma to give any more details so ill be silent on the subject until my plans are more definite.
on the way to the interview, heading out the door, i decided to print an extra copy of my resume (heeding the career center’s advice). if any of you have a mac you’ll know the significance of what I saw when I opened my computer…the blank white screen with the sad question mark. that, coupled with a crazy clicking noise coming from somewhere inside my laptop, told me i would not be printing my resume anytime soon.
after marinating in its problems for a couple of days, the laptop has been resuscitated by the lovely people at the apple store. luckily they are amazing and i clearly looked pretty distraught, so i now have some/most of my files back, on a brand spanking new hard drive. the casualties were my entire itunes library and all of my pictures from abroad–which to be honest, i would have traded my files from freshman year for, but i didn’t get to choose, despite making puppy eyes at everyone in the store.
my laptop is now the proud owner of a brand new case (just try to break again) and I will be backing up my files much more frequently in future, as my parents kindly pointed out that my external hard drive is actually not a desk accessory.
my phi mu "family"
it’s been a good, if busy, start to the semester, but hopefully this week will be a bit less insane, with a few less woodland creatures in my apartment.
until next time,
-Lauren B
p.s. sorry for the boring pictures this week, as i said, my pictures are all gone!
(“Butterflies” is a # 1 hit from MJs album “Invincible,” from 2001.)
Howdy!
I’m gonna do a 2-part blog for the next week or so, about my experience with one of my freshman year classes and how that experience has helped me thus far at Hopkins. Which class? Chem Lab! A class required for pre med/health students and even for many engineers.
Honestly, Chemistry Lab at JHU has a bad reputation, one I heard about way before I even enrolled in the class.
“Be prepared, Dominique. It’s really hard. And ridiculous. And way too much work for a little 1-credit class. And the professor is really strict and mean and never laughs or smiles. And no one helps you or answers your questions well. The TAs are stupid and not very helpful. The professor gives everyone ethics violations for stupid things. AND ALL SHE CARES ABOUT ARE SIG FIGS.”
manual
So naturally, of course I was totally freaked out about the course before I even started. I don’t plan on being a doctor, and even back then as a freshie I didn’t plan on it (I’m doing the pre med courses just to keep my options open for things…plus pre med isn’t the only thing you can do with those courses) so people were asking me why in the world would I put myself through that torture.
So the class. Yep, it was hard and a ton of work for 1 credit. Yep, I spazzed out every lab period and had to give myself a Coldstone therapy session after every lab. Yep, I was the crazy student who would always go to the help sessions and ask 1 million questions on our online discussion forum about the homeworks. Yep, I was the one in lab who would always think she was doing something incorrectly and call the TA over a bazillion times in lab to make sure my experiment was not going awry. I did it all. Each lab period left me with some serious butterflies before and after it was over because it always made me so nervous. Looking back, that was ridiculous because it wasn’t even that bad.
But somehow, in the midst of all of my doubts with the class, I ended up doing well in the class I thought was going to be the end of me. And trust me, I am in no way a science genius or even that great in science…at all. I just figured out the secret that other students didn’t seem to find out, and it had nothing with being a genius or extraordinarily brilliant.
scribblies
What’s the secret? Well…I used all of my resources and asked for help. Duh! you say. But seriously, I was and still am amazed at the number of students who don’t learn how to use the resources available for this class. The professor, Dr. Pasternack, puts up information about the chemistry for each experiment online. She has an online discussion forum where she answers questions about the assignments, and she answers them all day every day. She has help sessions Sun-Thurs where students can come and get one on one help from TAs with the homeworks. She even answers questions during her office hours or via email for the brave students who aren’t afraid to approach her. Because I did all of these things, I was able to do well in a class, THE class that so many before had warned me about.
I truly think that is one of the hugest keys to success in college…being able to find all of your resources and knowing how and when to use them, for your advantage. You don’t have to be an Einstein genius to do well in school..it would be nice but we’re not all like that.
So if I have any advice for you all in high school, and even for you all in college, it’s to do your homework and to find out alllll of the resources available to you for a class…and then don’t be afraid to use them!
So ya, my next blog will be about why this class is still affecting me, 2 years later. ;)
The pictures in this blog are all from my B&W film photography class (an opportunitiy I decided to seize my senior year).
Senior year has brought with it quite a whirlwind of events and opportunities and, consequently, a sense of community. One of these opportunities was to attend a Zelicof Family Dinner with the Dean program at Dean Newman’s house (which is conveniently two blocks from campus). Dean Newman is the new dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Hopkins. To read about these dinner programs, click here.
A picture I took in Hampden, a nearby neighborhood in Baltimore.
As stated in the article, the idea behind the program is to offer “students and their professors who are in for-credit Krieger School courses a chance to get together outside the classroom.” In my case, I was able to hear Dr. Gebo, the professor of my thesis class and the director of the undergraduate program in public health studies, casually discuss her research on HIV in the United States over dinner.
The dinner itself exceeded my expectations. Well, firstly, the food was great (and vegetarian!) And, for me, the expectation Dean Newman has for the program, “more one-on-one time with their professors, and a greater sense of community,” was met. I was able to talk to Dr. Gebo outside of the classroom about herself rather than my own work. I learned about her time at Hopkins as an undergraduate basketball player, her time as a Hopkins med student, then as a Hopkins Hospital resident, and then as a Hopkins Masters of Public Health student. Yup, that would make her an alum to the fourth power.
On top of all of this, I was also able to witness Dean Newman first-hand. I was pleasantly surprised by how down to earth her and her husband are. Prior to the dinner all I knew about Dean Newman was that over the summer she had filled up my email with university-wide emails. Why? Well she had completely reconfigured the school’s top administrative structure. She had split my precious Krieger School into two by creating a vice dean for science and research infrastructure and a vice dean for humanities, social sciences and graduate programs.
I may have lost my readers after that last paragraph. I don’t blame you. This summer I quickly “archived” any university-wide email about the restructuring. I just didn’t think what the Dean did really would influence much of my day-to-day activities at Hopkins. And I must certainly did not play any emphasis when touring schools as a prospective student on a school’s president, let alone its administration.
But now, well, my views have changed. The administration basically had to hand me the chance to enter Dean Newman’s house before I realized how important the administration behind a school is and has been in my experience at Hopkins. I picked Hopkins because of its interdisciplinary majors. I never had one subject that stood out as my strength in high school nor could focus my mind on just seeing the world through one lens.
It is because of the administration that these interdisciplinary majors have exceeded. I was looking for a major in environmental studies. Hopkins hadn’t created an interdisciplinary major in that…well not yet. The closest thing I had to that was a major in public health studies. And well I grabbed onto that major. And public health basically has become a love of mine. Of course now there is a major in Global Environmental Chance and Sustainability but that’s besides the point.
Dean Newman was recently asked by The Gazette the following question:
“The public health major continues to be very popular among undergraduates, as does a new major on sustainability. Do you feel we have an excess of altruistic students, those who want to go out and save the world?”
Personally, I was surprised that this question was asked. The question itself means that one may question the type of education that Hopkins provides. However, her response was:
A tomato plant grows in a greenhouse at a E. Baltimore high school, as part of the Real Food Farm (a public health inspired program).
“I think Johns Hopkins students are very oriented toward service in the world, as are many people of their generation. Young people throughout the United States share the ethic of service. They want to make the world a better place than the way they found it.
Ironically, I think that the catastrophe of 9/11 had a profound effect on the generation that is in college right now. It left them with questions about the place of our country in the world. Enrollment in languages such as Arabic and Chinese has just skyrocketed. Why is that? There are many reasons. Students see that there are opportunities for them in the future if they can master these languages, but I think there is also just a broader sense of interest in the world beyond our boundaries that was catalyzed by truly tragic events.
Public health is part of this calling because a focus on international well-being of people far from our shores is integral to the study of public health, as well as questions of the underserved in our own country. This same ethic of service attracts students to international studies and to medical science.”
Well said, Dean Newman. To those that question an interdisciplinary major, well it looks like you’re out of luck, Dean Newman is not about to let that change. To those prospective students out there, add “university administration” to your list of things to evaluate a school on when making pro-con lists.
And, well, it took a four-course dinner for me to realize that it’s Hopkins administration that’s behind the agenda I have at the library today.
Until next time,
Jessica
PS To read the entire interview with Dean Newman, click here.
Guess it’s time to ease on down the road of my Fall 2010 classes…I feel as if I am the only one not at the Lupe Fiasco concert going on right now in the gym, but hey it’s ok. I would have felt odd being there but not really being that familiar with his music so maybe it worked out for the best.
Anyways, yep….here are my junior year classes:
Physics 1: Eh, physics was never my favorite subject but I can definitely appreciate that it is very easy to see how applicable it is. For some people, this is important because they can’t like a subject without seeing how it matters directly (ahem…orgo and chemistry). We have to kind of teach ourselves from the book, which I don’t like, but what can ya do? Physics 1 Lab: It’s reputation for being the easiest lab at JHU is proven. I actually like ir because it is low stress. yay!
The Environment and Your Health: A required public health course that teaches us about all of the environmental hazards to which we are exposed on a daily basis. It scares the mess iout of me but it is oh so informative and I like it a lot.
Black History and the Fictive Imagination: This is a 300 level English course that I wanted to take instead of the usual Expository Writing or Intro to Fiction and Poetry. SWe read books by Black authors from different eras and compare the subjects of their works and its relevance to the time period. The discussion is always a good one and the 1.25 hours flies by.
Intermediate Spanish: Knowing another language is always a good thing…so I am continuing with this.
It’s been about a month and I just finished an awful week of work, and I am actually about to go and do this online physics HW that’s due at 11:59 pm…I think I’ll take a trip to NYC next week to recover from this week.
In the spirit of everyone in the States going back to school these next few weeks, I thought maybe I could finally get around to talking about my classes at the University of Cape Town.
It’s strange enough to be a month into school in the middle of August, but everything from the classrooms to the professors have been totally different here. I’m taking four courses–Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa, Third World Politics, History of Southern Africa in the 20th Century, and a really interesting Sociology course called Race, Class & Gender.
my lovely new school!
Third World Politics talks about the idea of the Third World, how it developed over the last 100 years, resistance to being labeled “third world” and then looks at case studies of Brazil & South Africa.
Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa is really interesting. I have a great old professor who manages to make even the more boring topics entertaining just by the way he speaks–he’s so excited about Public Health, it makes it a very interesting class to attend. We’ve talked about the development of biomedicine and traditional healing, medical history in the Cape Colony, and public health approaches to the AIDS epidemic, amongst other things. This is definitely one of my favorite classes at UCT.
History of Southern Africa is admittedly not my favorite–between being at 10 am and having a professor who relies a little heavily on the slide projector, it’s not the best. It’s interesting to learn about South Africa beyond and before apartheid, though.
Race, Class & Gender is my first sociology class, and it’s amazing! We talk about the social construction of the idea of race, the history of prejudice and racism in South Africa, and I’ve gotten a way better understanding of the extraordinarily complex racial hierarchy here.
Today in my Race, Class & Gender “tutorial” (UCT-speak for section) we were discussing the idea of “everyday racism.” The tutor stood up and asked if the Americans in the class would mind answering a few questions about racism in the US. We agreed, not sure what to expect, and spent the next five minutes explaining to a boy from Jo’Burg precisely what a redneck was. After using the phrases “farmer’s tan” and “y’all” in the space of 30 seconds, we realized we had totally lost him, and the class dissolved into laughter. I got asked if there was “anything rural” in America, what the public schools were like, and what the Midwest was. We didn’t ever really get to the point of actually discussing racism in the US, but it was a better learning experience for both groups than any class could have given us. It was funny to realize their only conception of the US came from shows like The Wire, rappers, and American magazines–no wonder we aren’t so popular internationally.
I can’t say I have experiences like that every day in class here, but it is incredibly different. It’s so interesting to be able to study American events from a non-Western perspective, to be a minority in a class, hear four or five languages of chatter before people settle down. It’s overwhelming to realize I don’t understand any of the cultural references, and probably won’t unless I move here. It’s an odd experience in a country with no language barrier to hear something and immediately have to turn to the student next to me, asking what they meant.
I didn’t realize how much background knowledge every class assumes you have. Not academically, necessarily, but culturally. No teacher is going to stop a class to explain the difference between coloured and mixed race, or that “Zim” is short for Zimbabwe and no one really calls it Zimbabwe anyway, or where exactly Pretoria is, or what a certain type of food is. Often someone will tell a story and I’ll have no idea whether this event occurred at a bar, a gas station, a restaurant, or in their neighborhood at home. Imagine not knowing what McDonalds, Starbucks, Oklahoma, Chicago and NBC are, not knowing who the president, Britney Spears, the Kennedys and Donald Duck are, and not knowing what it means to be “a New Yorker” or “Southern,” transfer that to South African culture, and you’ll have an idea of how confusing it can be.
Despite being slightly confused a lot of the time, I’m really enjoying going to school somewhere else. It’s totally different from Hopkins. There are over 20,000 students, I take a bus to campus, the exams count for almost all of your grade, and a 75 is considered “top marks.” I miss Hopkins a little sometimes (particularly if I can’t find the building my class is supposed to be in, or don’t know where to get coffee) and it does feel a lot like being a freshman again, but I love it here.
If you’re about to head off to Hopkins, I’m so jealous! I hope you love it! You will. For everyone else, have a wonderful start to the school year!
How did another year go by? And so quickly? What exactly did I do over the past 9 months at school?
It’s always so nice to get off school for the summer and ease into a more relaxing schedule, but it does prompt some reflection, and I guess some soul searching if you’re a little more brooding than I am. As shocked as I was when freshman year sped by, the milestone I’ve reached this time around is far more terrifying….I am officially at the halfway mark of my college experience.
Looking back on the past year, and particularly the past two years is both satisfying and a little scary. I’ve done things at Hopkins I didn’t even know were possible, things I never thought I’d do (stop being pre-med, join a sorority….decide to study abroad in Africa?!). I’m certainly different than the person who stepped onto the Hopkins campus nearly two years ago, and I’m proud of how I’ve changed and grown at Hopkins.
At the same time though, there are those nagging feelings that I’m running out of time to do those things on my college “bucket list.” Why is it I have yet to take an Art History class? Why didn’t I stay for Intersession my freshman year? Am I really working as hard as I should be in school? I still want to do research while I’m at Hopkins, maybe pick up a language class or two, and a number of slightly less academic things as well. The halfway point put things into perspective, and I must say I’m mostly thrilled with what I’ve done and how Hopkins has been these past two years, but it’s still making me feel elderly and a little scared.
But if I just focus on the past year….
This year I settled into Hopkins. I declared my major and minor (Public Health and Economics, respectively). I got a job, I got an internship, I thought about what I might want to do in “real life.” I got the chance to take classes I really loved, I got more involved in school, I spent more time than I knew was possible working to find the next great incoming class at Hopkins. I decided I loved Hopkins enough to maybe even leave for a semester and seize the opportunity I’d never have again, to study abroad somewhere amazing. But when I look back on this year what sticks are those smaller things, things like lunches at Carmas, deciding to run the half marathon, going to New York to meet accepted students, making 50 glittery visors for the Phis, and a million other great memories. I’ll try to wrap up the year as best I can, suffice to say it was a great one.
Most of my memories of this past year revolve around a very strange place known as 1221.
A four person suite in Charles Commons that we fondly referred to as though it was a clubhouse, decorated for holidays, birthdays, and because we felt like it, this standard issue dorm room really became my home this past year. I was lucky/unlucky enough freshman year to have a single, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from this year, living with two of my best friends. It turned out to be incredible. No matter how insane school was getting, how tired I was, how many times I had slipped on the breezeway in the rain that day, I could always head back to 1221 and spend time with my roommates…whether it was curling up in bed one Saturday night to watch The September Issue rather than go out, packing 20 Phi Mu girls in there for dinner, having Lady GaGa dance parties at 3 am, making strange gluten free treats in a toaster oven, or whatever else I needed, I don’t think I would have enjoyed sophomore year half as much without the lovely 1221.
1221 Residents dressed up for Halloween.
Naturally, I had to dedicate a blog to this fabulous room. My Cribs post is essentially a shrine to 1221.
I remember sitting at the kitchen table for a groggy Saturday morning breakfast during Snow Week with Becca K and another lovely freshman, Ashley (before I knew that both these girlies would be my twin littles!) when Becca leapt up from the table announcing she was going to brave the snow to go to Towson and get her ear pierced. Clearly 1221 brought out the best and weirdest in others as well.
Becca and Ashley a few weeks later, at Revelation!
I loved being a part of rush this year, painting huge Candy Land signs over Intersession, getting tons of themed t-shirts, trying to be enthusiastic for hours on end, meeting all the freshmen, and then as Bid Night neared, covering my entire apartment in foam letters, glitter, paint pens, candy necklaces and who knows what else to make pink visors for each “baby” to wear on their first official night out with the sorority. Rush week ran right into Snow Week, definitely one of the most memorable times of my sophomore year. As I’m sure everyone heard, Baltimore was buried under more snow than this city has ever seen, and things all but came to a halt. Stores and restaurants plastered signs on their doors with the word “SNOWPOCALYPSE” and “we’re open till we run out of food!” It was great see all of Hopkins sledding, having snowball fights, and playing in the snow, but by the end of our 9 day holiday from school, I was more than ready to get back to things as usual.
Snow, before the second storm came.
As Spring Break and then Summer neared, I enjoyed a wonderful ski vacation with my family, tried (unsuccessfully) to keep Big-Little week a secret from my lovely littles, applied to study abroad, worked at Merrill Lynch two days a week, studied for midterms and exams, worked at Open Houses, wrote papers, celebrated with my little sister when she decided to go to NYU, tried to say goodbye to everyone before we all left to go abroad, visited Ohio, and packed a years worth of stuff into a very small car to return to NJ
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
(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!
