Caught in Between

jokes

A few weeks ago as school wound up for the semester, my roommate Laura casually asked, “If someone told you in January what the end of the semester would look like, would you have believed them?” We spent the rest of the evening recanting the general hilarity of this past semester. It turns out older doesn’t necessarily mean wiser.

my sister visits hopkins!

why our building's management hates us

My return to Hopkins/America began with a bang. After a trip to Ohio with my sister to pick up Laura, she and I packed everything we owned into a U-Haul, trucked down to Baltimore in a snowstorm, and began a three day decorating binge. By the time my mom left a few days later, our apartment was painted and almost furnished, but still cluttered with endless IKEA boxes ( see right).

We spent most of a very snowy January hibernating in our  new apartment, venturing as far as class when needed. Decorating turned from a three-day to a monthlong project, as we found our hastily assembled furniture less stable than one might hope. We learned a bunch of new skills-painting, re-assembling, power drilling and the like.

My friends and I took a class together on Vaccine Development, which was really cool to learn about. My sister Suzi made an appearance, we all celebrated a friend’s 21st, and attempted to prepare for the spring semester.

laura attempting to leave ikea

Intersession was a nice step between home and Hopkins–only about half of the student body is there for January–and it was great to catch up with all the friends I had missed abroad. The (real) start of classes crept up on me, though, and before I knew it, I was back to early morning Einsteins runs, late nights at the library, and the always crucial debate between backpack and tote bag when planning for a long study session at MSE.

This semester I took American Literature, 1865 to today, Global Environmental Politics, Lectures on Public Health and Wellbeing in Baltimore, Fundamentals of Epidemiology, Clinical & Public Health Behavior Change and Health, Development and Inequalities, A View from Latin America. Academically, it was a challenging but interesting semester. After coming back from abroad, I have a much better sense of what interests me (global health) and it was great to be able to choose classes with that in mind. Next year most of my classes will be down at the Bloomberg School (http://www.jhsph.edu/), and I’m toying with the idea of focusing in International Health or Epidemiology.

....hopefully that will bring me back here, to lovely cape town!

As I’ve written about before, the first half of the semester was mainly occupied by job applications–frantic interview preparation, resume editing, and learning how to dress in a suit. Just before leaving for spring break, I was thrilled to get an offer from McKinsey and Company, where I’m now working as a Summer Business Analyst. I started last week, and I am happy to say it’s just as exciting/overwhelming/amazing as I thought it would be.

on the beach for spring break

my phi mu pham at homecoming

Spring break brought a lovely sunny trip to the Bahamas. We found we weren’t quite up to Spring Break social standards (turn on MTV to see what I mean), and spent much of the week napping on the beach. It was a much needed break from midterms, and a hilarious bonding time with friends.

As usual, the weeks between spring break and exams flew by. I got two fabulous new little-littles in Phi Mu. I became a part of the executive board for Alumni Student Ambassadors and spent a week or so interviewing all the nominees. We ended up with a fabulous class of new ambassadors, and a number of exciting projects to start next year.

At Hopkins we celebrated homecoming, spring fair and a great school-sponsored concert. I spent more time at Mason Hall than I knew possible, planning and then working at two amazingly successful Admitted Student Open Houses…class of 2015 we can’t wait to meet you!

wiz khalifa concert

I’ve now been home for the summer for several weeks…shockingly this means I’m officially a “rising senior”…something I could do without. It’s crazy to think of all the things that have changed over the past year, and what the next one will bring!

Happy Summer!

Lauren

Hello All, Happy May!

As I spoke to my parents last night for our now only semi-regular Sunday Skype sessions, my Dad pointed out that I had precisely three weeks until the first day of my very real summer job. As I was quietly freaking out, it occurred to me that I still hadn’t written about my job up here! What serendipitous timing, as I searched for a blog topic late on Sunday evening.

hey brown family! real life skype date

So, after many late nights, flashcards, romantic dates with “Case in Point,” and a few nail-biting days of interviews, I am thrilled to say I’ll be working for McKinsey & Company this summer.

The first few weeks of my semester were completely consumed with the job search. My iCal was transformed. My planner was scrawled with things like “midnight resume drop,” “superday” and “on-campus recruiting,” phrases entirely foreign to me before this semester. I made the bold step of purchasing an actual skirt suit (thank you, J.Crew) and investing in a pair of classy, rather than crazy, heels. I rewrote my resume, learned how to submit expenses, took the Acela Express. I hung out a lot in D.C.

After a particularly nerve-wracking round of interviews in the first week of March, I got perhaps the most exciting phone call of my life (bear with the drama, and understand that very few things are actually done via phone these days). At an entirely un-collegiate hour of Sunday morning, I got a call from the D.C. office informing me I’d been offered a position as a Summer Business Analyst. To be quite honest, I was shocked. So shocked, in fact, that I asked the lovely woman on the other end of the line if she was kidding. After reassuring me that she was not, in fact, joking, we chatted and I celebrated.

As amazing luck would have it, my parents were in town for the weekend. I frantically called them and they threw their own mini-celebration in the aisles of Home Depot (they were kindly picking up paint for my half-finished kitchen).

Since then I’ve been doing other new, real world things. Tax forms? Background checks? More sensible heels? Now that my start date is officially three weeks from today, it’s starting to feel a bit more real, and I can’t wait. I’m so excited to see what it’s like! I can’t wait to find out what projects I’ll be working on, meet the other interns, and spend the summer working at such a fabulous company.

While I’m on this note though, it’s important for me to recognize the amazing work everyone in the Career Center did to to help me get to this point. The On-Campus Recruiting events for other firms, the networking, alumni connections, and endless support were so helpful. The director of the Career Center, Mark Presnell, sat down with me on multiple occasions to help me review case interviews. He spoke with me about alums working at McKinsey and the other firms at which I was interviewing. He broadened my horizons about other companies and post-graduation options. I genuinely don’t think I would have received an offer without everyone else’s help, and I’m so appreciative for that.

Interviewing was an interesting experience.

Hopkins, at most financial firms, is not a “target school” (another new term I’ve learned). Despite this, Hopkins is widely respected and renowned. At every turn, I was asked how Hopkins might prepare me for a job at “X” firm. The more I thought about it, the easier this question became to answer.

Hopkins is an incredibly self-motivated place, it is a place that lets you be an independent learner, a place that makes you take responsibility for yourself. Hopkins is an amazing place to go to college, but it’s also an amazing place to have gone to college. In so many ways it not only gives you a great education, but prepares you for the real world. Hopkins teaches you not what to think but how to think, how to approach a problem, how to work hard.

These are the skills I’ll really need this summer and as I go into the real world next May. Despite the inevitable butterflies, I feel prepared and ready to work at McKinsey. I can’t wait.

Looking forward to business casual, to long hours, a short commute, and a fabulous experience!

-Lauren B.

hello, all! happy new year

this will be a brief one, as i’m off in the morning to move into my very own off campus apartment with my lovely roommate Laura! naturally i left all the packing to the last minute, so i’m frantically throwing piles of recently folded clothes into duffel bags as it gets later and later. more updates to follow, and perhaps even a cribs tour of our soon to be decorated home. we currently have not a single piece of furniture to our name, so this should be a real adventure.

anyway, i’m just back from a lovely vacation in the great state of Ohio (where Laura lives). my younger sister and i ventured out there several days ago as part of the longest road trip i’ve ever taken. 1000 miles, one speeding ticket, some insane souvenirs and a lot of coffee later, we are all back in NJ, prepping for move in and intersession, and for me at least, a return to hopkins after a nearly 8 month hiatus. wow.

christmas was celebrated here with nearly two feet of snow and a lot of postponed plans. we managed to eventually see the whole family–including five cousins who were born during my time abroad. it was lovely to see everyone and catch up, chat about south africa and hear about everyone’s lives over the past year or so.

as promised, this is a very short post, but ill be back in the next couple of days with pictures of our apartment and a better review of the christmas holiday and (i promise) a more reliable blogging schedule

hope everyone had a lovely new year!

-lauren

The Bowlers' family picture from the TV show 1900 House. Photo credit: http://www.current.org/prog/prog0010house.html

Background:

In terms of favorite childhood television shows, I think I was an atypical child. By the end of elementary school, my top picks were NBC’s Early Morning Show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and the 1900 House. The 1900 house was actually considered a reality TV show. It was about a modern family that tried to live in the way of the late Victorians in 1900 for three months in a modified house. I loved it.

For me, it was in many ways a psychology experiment. So where am I going with this?

In October, way back when, I admitted to my addiction with The New York Times, one that also has been a favorite of mine since elementary school. I posted a blog about how to be happy in college based off of an article from The New York Times. One of the biggest pieces of advice in the article was to wean yourself from devices:

“Devices have become security blankets. Take the time to wean yourself.

Start by scheduling a few Internet-free hours each day, with your phone turned off. It’s the only way you’ll be able to read anything seriously, whether it’s Plato or Derrida on Plato. (And remember, you’ll get more out of reading Derrida on Plato if you read Plato first.) This will also have the benefit of making you harder to reach, and thus more mysterious and fascinating to new friends and acquaintances.”

This piece of advice really spoke to me. The truth is that I can’t deny that I own an iPhone and although, for the majority of my college classes I’ve taken notes by hand, I do sometimes fall into the trap of bringing my laptop to class. However, after reading this article and being told by a friend that I should spend as much time on my iPhone as I do going to the bathroom (given that this was when I was trying to prove my friend wrong through Wikipedia on my iPhone), I decided to give this whole weaning thing a try. Honestly, who wouldn’t want to start reading more Plato and come off as fascinating to new friends? It was a psychological experiment of sorts.

I would go “old school.”

Photo credit: http://www.library.jhu.edu/collections/specialcollections/archives/womenshistory/chapter5.html

Methods

I would live in an internet-less, TV-less, and microwave-less studio apartment for the semester and follow my insanity along the way or maybe just my increased rate of reading Plato, as predicted by The New York Times.

Results

During the first couple of weeks, I definitely felt myself going through withdrawal. Eventually, and after dealing with Comcast’s incapability to promptly set up internet, this wore off and I decided to stick with it. Along the way, as I’m sure can be explained by a psychology theory, I started catching myself picking up, even going out of my way, to acquire more “old school” ways.

- I decided to take Black & White Film Photography.

- I wouldn’t mind going a day with my phone left back at my apartment. In fact, I would frequently just simply let my cell phone’s battery die.

- I started competing with another senior on who could have the lowest monthly electric bill. We ended it in a draw.

- And then I decided that the best use of time this summer would be to bike cross country to visit my relatives rather than to simply fly (more on this later).

- I asked my for a world map for Christmas. Because, well, Google Maps is just not the same.

The biggest world map I've ever seen... thanks Dad!

- By the last week of the semester, I was completely fine living in a furniture-less room

Discussion

What did I get out of all of this?

1. I did not automatically start reading Plato (or going to the gym).
2. Instead I slept whenever I was in my room. (Possibly the biggest benefit). Those late nights of catching up on Glee and Gchatting in bed suddenly disappeared.
3. Good grades. Although, I found myself spending a lot of time socializing in the library, I nevertheless spent a lot less time preoccupied in my room and a lot more time sleeping.
4. I got a little carried away in the kitchen. I mean there wasn’t too much to do in my room but eat and sleep. Without a microwave, I found myself getting take-out a lot. However, given the time, I could get a little carried away in the kitchen. See the picture below of my Ireland cake. I made it for my friend Mohammad who received a Mitchell Scholarship to attend graduate school in Ireland next year. Like my 5 billion white chocolate Euro pieces representing the bailout?

5. I learned that the digital camera is popular for a reason but film photography deserves respect. I had no idea that film photography involved such an expensive, tedious, though magical, process. After taking the photos, I had to process my negatives (which first involved sitting in a dark closet in order to get the film on a reel), set up the lab, develop my film, then keep developing my film until the print was perfect, and then finally mount it. (I’ll try to get my final photography in a blog but currently they’re in Baltimore).

   

   Photo credit: http://www.tpub.com/content/photography/14209/img/14209_266_1.jpg

6. People really do think of me as “old school.” My final photography project led me to a food kitchen where I was, of all places, called “old school” for having a film camera and told to “upgrade.”
7. A furniture-less room really does echo.
8. Rarely are any of my emails so time sensitive that they need to be answered that same day, therefore not checking my email until the afternoon is completely fine.
   
9. Although I don’t think I came off as the mysterious senior to anyone, as the NY Times article hinted at, I noticed that my friends started being sympathetic towards me and my living conditions.
10. The MSE library internet is not half as bad as people say it is! It’s pretty reliable and is existent. I think people just have high expectations these days.
11. When in my room, phone calls and text messages from friends were especially appreciated.
12. It’s really hard to turn off a smoke alarm at 3 am with no furniture in the room.
    
13. According to JHU_Josh, I was late finding this gem on Youtube: Katy Perry sings \”Hot N Cold\” with Elmo on Sesame Street!

Conclusion

Just yesterday, I paid my portion of the internet bill for my new apartment. It was the official end to my experiment. One that I’m so glad I threw upon myself but am also glad has ended.

The other day, my dad watched me as I started preparing to work on an essay on the plane. He didn’t realize that, for this particular essay, it would involve no books. Instead he watched as I found peer-reviewed articles online and looked up if there were electric outlets on the plane. He didn’t realize that it would be nearly impossible for me to write this particular paper without a computer. This of course got me thinking. What I did this past semester is nothing novel. In the United States, the majority of people who have passed through this nation’s university system were used to days without genius phones, internet, and digital cameras. It’s really amazing how fast the typical US college life can change.

Even just for myself as a senior. Although I can relate my Hopkins experience with current underclassmen, there are some things that have been a part of my Hopkins experience that I know won’t be for underclassmen. For example, I was one of the last students to use the wet darkroom in the Mattin center. This semester was the last time that film photography was offered on the Homewood campus. Last fall, I was one of the last students to have been taught by “Reds” WOLMAN. This probably also means, I was one of the last students to be taught with a slide projector.  Any future Hopkins student will quickly learn how important the Wolman family was, and still is, to Hopkins and to environmental engineering.

The point is, soon us 1980s babies will no longer be on the Homewood campus as students. And although that means that some “old school” Hopkins opportunities that I have gotten will not be offered to other students, it doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t feel that they can’t wean themselves off of the “security blanket” that society has created.

So, go ahead, maybe not as much as I did, but try and see if you have better luck at getting yourself to read Plato by weaning yourself off of electronic devices…

(This blog is a continuation from my most recent one: http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/shared/2010/11/butterflies/ In that one, I talked about my experience with Chem lab and how it taught me to use all resources available to me…in this blog, I’ll talk about what it’s actually like to be a TA for the course.)

Butterflies… I’ve never known what it was like to love a job before I got one earlier this semester as an Intro to Chemistry Lab Teaching Assistant. And as cheesy as it sounds, it gives me butterflies every time I step into the lab, ready to do work with students for 3 hours.

I would have never thought that I’d be in this position–when the possibility of it was mentioned to me as a freshman right after I’d completed the course, I thought it sounded cool and was interested. But by sophomore year, orgo had me feeling defeated and I never really took steps on being a TA until some of us got emails from the professor, Dr. Pasternack, this summer. So I bit my lip and applied, and well, here I am!

Lesson 1: Don’t count yourself out before someone else does…you never know what can happen!

no I don't usually look like this...if I did I would ruin experiments hehe

I was really nervous when I got the position because I honestly doubted myself and felt as if I was not good enough to do the job or as competent as the other students who were selected to be TAs. But at the same time, I was thrilled that I got to be one of the people I used to admire for their influence and ability.

Then the work began…we had to do a training module to ensure that we would know how to act in the case that large acid or base spills happened, that glass broke, that fire broke out, or that a student was injured by some chemical. Thankfully nothing major has happened this semester, but we always have to be on guard and able to respond if something does happen.

one of the posters used to warn students about the dangers of not wearing goggles in lab

The first day of lab was weird, because students were writing my name in the space entitled “TA name” on all of their assignments. As silly as that sounds, it was like “wow, I’m somebody’s something.” Some asked if they should call me “Miss” which was weird. But it was all so cool!

Lesson 2: Just because something is scary doesn’t mean it can’t be awesome at the same time… so don’t let prospects of scariness scare you away.

Then I began thinking, hmm, I wonder if they will like me? I wonder if they will think I am stupid if I can’t answer a question clearly? I was a student once and I know what students often thought of TAs…some were great, some didn’t know what they were doing, some were rude and pretentious jerks, some were down to earth. So when the professor told us to give out citations for improper footwear on the first day of lab, I was thinking “this i snot how I wanted to start out…seeming like a mean TA.” But it was my job and you do what your boss tells you to do so I did it, apologizing to each student and ensuring them that it was not going to adversely affect their grades or anything.

But after that, I got more comfortable with having to be the leader of my section, making sure students had on proper attire, shoes, and goggles. I walked around often to help students who were having experimental issues and just to check up on them. I rarely sat at my desk because I was too jittery at the thought of a student saying “Dominique! Dominique! I don’t know what to do!” (yea I heard a lot of my name this semester :P  )

the TAs desk...with attendance sheet and pencil.

Lesson 3: Discomfort can mean moving out of a place of complacency, which makes you a better leader…so it’s ok to be uncomfortable at times! It means growth.

I eventually got to know each of my students’ names after the 2nd week and made sure that they knew I knew who they were. I’m very big on remembering people and letting them know that I do remember them, because who doesn’t like to be remembered?

So my semester was spent fluttering from lab bench to lab bench, using my prior knowledge, knowledge from other TAs, and Dr. Pasternack’s very detailed lab notes to help my students (even saying my students gets me all weirded and  cooled out at the same time!)  I will say that one thing that has definitely helped me a lot is the ability to ask the 2nd year TAs for help, because there were some times where I did not know what to do for some experimental faux pas. And in the case that something happened where we didn’t know what to do, Dr. Pasternack was always a phone call away, in her office.

Lesson 4: Using fellow co workers is an awesome thing.

The downside of TA-ing? Well, grading is no fun. Especially when you have large quantities of it stacked up next to your already large pile of homework. It’s even less fun having to explain to upset students why he or she lost points here or there, and sometimes that ends well and sometimes it ends in “I don’t care I am submitting it for a regrade.” But as most things do,  it teaches you, even if the process is no fun.

All in all, I will have to say that I loveeeee being a Chem lab TA and I actually like when people question my judgment for wanting to be one (since, as I mentioned before, it is one of the most hated classes at Hopkins). I love meeting new students, I love the growth opportunities it has offered me, and I love that it has been forcing me to become more of a leader. And most importantly, I love being able to help as much as possible. If you’re able to be a TA, in college, in highschool even, I’d highly encourage it! It’s a great thing. :)

So this will be my last blog until finals are over, so I hope you enjoyed it!

–Dominique

I’m in Heathrow airport now, waiting out my layover and spending a little bit too much time in my own head. My 12 hour flight from Cape Town turned into a 14 hour adventure, which will be followed by a six hour layover and 7 hours back to New York. Lots of solo travel time, and lots of thinking time.

It feels surreal to be sitting here. Yesterday I was in Cape Town in the height of summer, eating lunch at the beach with my friends, running around to say last minute goodbyes, packing up the last of my belongings. Today I’m sitting in London, it’s raining, the whole airport is decked out for Christmas, and I feel like a confused extra in Love Actually.

I had heard from my friends who left earlier this week that coming home was overwhelming, and I can see how it’s going down that road already, but I’m still not sure quite what to expect. I can tell, just from the past few hours, that it’s going to be really hard though.

Waiting in line to check my bags, I started talking to another American student. It came up (I have maybe 200 pounds of luggage) that I was on my way back from study abroad. “South Africa?” he asked, “That’s crazy. Was it like Blood Diamond?” I put my iPod headphones in. No, it was not like Blood Diamond. UCT is surprisingly not situated in a conflict diamond mine.

I’m exhausted and upset to be leaving South Africa, so my patience for this question was pretty minimal, but I think unfortunately I’m going to have to get used to it, and learn how to respond slightly better

After exams I headed out to Mozambique with my friends Nicky, David and Elias to spend a few days relaxing on the beach. While we were there we happened to meet an American from Nicky’s home town in California, who was just finishing up two years with the Peace Corps in Mozambique.

He had also studied abroad in Ghana. Dreading going home, we asked him “How bad was it?” [to leave Africa]. He laughed. It was awful, he said. Not reassuring, but it was good to hear someone talk about it. We were warned to get ready to answer the question “Why Africa?” a lot, to ease slowly back into American college life, realize that it would take a few months, answer a lot of silly questions, and recognize that most people won’t have any idea what you’ve just done. But the best advice we got was to involve ourselves back home with something that reminded us of this experience. That, he told us, would help you feel less homesick and out of touch.

Right this moment though, that’s not going to help me, and I’ve realized that the next couple of weeks are going to be rough. Coming “home” to a place I haven’t seen in months will be a culture shock, a difficult process, and I’m sure, really emotional. On the plus side though, I know now I have more than one place I can call home. Part of what’s so hard about leaving Cape Town is leaving the home I made there these past few months. As hard as this will be, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

I’m off now to spend the last few hours of my layover preparing for America the best way I know how–Christmas coffee cups at Starbucks.

See you Stateside,

Lauren

Over the next few weeks, Hopkins Interactive bloggers will all be reflecting upon their own decision to enroll at Hopkins. Whether we made that decision last year, or nearly four years ago, we think that our thoughts on the application and decision process might help you too. Good luck!

Being away from Hopkins this semester has given me a lot of time to reflect on my experiences there over the past few years. If I had to guess four years ago where I would be now, I can guarantee you I wouldn’t even be close—I couldn’t have predicted I’d major in Public Health, join a sorority, work in Admissions, or almost any of the things I do now. I didn’t even know where I wanted to go to college, for that matter.

Four years ago, I was just beginning my Junior year at a tiny private school in Summit, NJ. I lived at home with my charming family, and spent my time outside of school singing in several choirs and running on the Varsity cross country team. Today, I’m 20 years old, studying abroad in South Africa, trying to find a summer internship for my senior year at college. I’m moving into an off-campus apartment, decorating it with my roommate, facing small issues like paying rent, getting a job, and making sure my car insurance will be paid when I return to Baltimore. How on earth did I get here? Well let me tell you.

I went to a lovely little all-girls school called Kent Place. I graduated with 56 girls, and though it was a pretty intense place academically, it was so small that you got an incredible amount of attention and support in everything you did. Our sports teams were small, our advisors knew our whole families, and classes were capped at 17. Naturally, the college application process was no different.

graduation, all 56 of us.

Junior year in January, we all met with the college advisors and our parents to chat about what we wanted. Afterwards, I filled out a form (I believe it was the “pink sheet,” all our forms were color-coded), circling my preferences on everything from school size to location, writing the names of schools I’d visited, liked or hated. Two weeks later, I got back a list of about twenty schools my advisor thought I should consider, and what do you know, Hopkins was smack in the middle of that list.

My mom and I planned to visit schools at the end of Spring Break that year. I was dead set on beelining for Washington D.C. where I was convinced I wanted to attend a certain school with a G. My mother, reasonable woman that she is, argued that we should perhaps stop along the way, and imagine that! Baltimore is a good halfway mark.

beautiful hopkins.

Not expecting very much of the visit, and being generally grumpy in the way that sixteen-year old girls are, I agreed to stop in Baltimore. We rolled into Charles Village on one of those beautiful sunny days I now know mean springtime in Baltimore, but it was a surprise to me then. 20 degrees warmer, blue skies, green campus, beautiful brick buildings, I was already coming around to Hopkins before we had even gotten out of the car. We hopped on a tour, finishing at the bookstore where I tentatively bought a sweatshirt. Maybe this place was okay after all.

little did i know this would be my home in two years!

The next day though, I toured that school in D.C. and pushed Hopkins out of my mind entirely. I was infatuated, despite the fact that it had some big dealbreakers in my mental list of college qualities (which need not be named here). I drove home convinced that was the school for me, and more or less forgot about Hopkins for a few months.

Over the summer I worked for a Hopkins alum, and he couldn’t say enough good things about the school. I still wasn’t convinced though, and became generally pretty indecisive about the whole college process. Submitting eleven applications, all turned in on paper because I somehow decided my great handwriting would get me into schools, was a hassle but a necessity given my indecision.

When March rolled around, I weighed my options. It had come down to Hopkins and a few other East Coast schools that I really liked. I signed up for an Admitted Students Day at Hopkins, and on the morning of, drove down to Baltimore insanely early with another Kent Place girl who had been accepted. We convinced her dad to spend the day in the Inner Harbor, and we tackled the Open House solo, feeling grown up, if slightly lost. We attended presentations on psychology, English and Public Health. We peeked into the FFC. We took dorm tours. We bought another sweatshirt. We pretended to be students. We drank coffee at Barnes and Noble and people watched. We met people we knew we could be friends with.

diploma in hand, time to enter the (almost) real world.

I left that day feeling pretty good, and the next day wore my Hopkins sweatshirt to school, albeit inside-out. I hadn’t made the decision yet, and a small all-girls school is slightly nightmarish around college applications. My mind was going at full speed trying to weigh my options. I’ll admit I’m a serious list-maker, and I’d be lying if I said my decision didn’t involve some pro-con lists. Ultimately, though, it came down to the fact that I felt at home at Hopkins, both academically and personally. I knew I would be able to take my interests and run with them, and the school would have the resources to support me. I knew I could live in Baltimore and not get bored after four years. I knew that no matter what I decided to study, Hopkins would have a strong program in that subject. I knew I would end up doing things I could never imagine at that moment. In the end it was these things, more than any Post-it note list, that convinced me Hopkins was the right place for me. At dinner one night with my family I pulled out a computer and we ordered Hopkins gear, most importantly a bumper sticker for my beloved Prius, the subject of my Common App Essay, crucially responsible for getting me into schools like Hopkins. The Prius needed to be included in the decision.

the prius, two years later and with another college bumper sticker.

When I swung through the college advising office around the deposit deadline to inform them I’d decided to go to Hopkins, my advisor smiled and said “I always saw you there!” I scowled at her. Why couldn’t she have told me that sooner?

so thrilled to be going to hopkins!

the "college sweatshirt photo"...for my little sister's graduating class. feeling old.

I needed to come to that decision on my own, though. I needed to find out for myself that Hopkins was the right place for me, and in retrospect I’m so glad she allowed me to do that.

Needless to say, nearly three years later, I couldn’t be happier at Hopkins. The school has grown with me and challenged me over the years, made me into who I am today, and continues to surround me with a fascinating, crazy, amazing group of people who I get to call my peers. The past two years have been an incredible adventure, and I can’t wait to see what the next two will bring when I return home to Hopkins.

-Lauren B.

Sooooooooo, we are deep into the midterm season here at the Hop, and you can definitely tell. The library (who many students have, including myself,  nicknamed “Milton”) made all of its levels 24/7, the cubicles are packed from the evening till about 12 or 1am, there are a plethora of stressed out sounding FaceBook statuses and tweet updates, and the students in general just look tired and overwhelmed. Part of the package is that overwhelmed feeling that drains you…it’s just part of college,  especially a rigorous one like JHU.

I went on a retreat last weekend to a Christian campsite, and I got the chance to enter a corn maze and try to find all of the clues in each of the 7 acres before exiting. And while I was in the corn maze all lost and wandering, I couldn’t help but think about how the maze reminded me of Hopkins, and college in general.  So here’s my comparison:

CORN MAZE:

My friend Lena and I started out with a map, and the time was written on it so we could time ourselves…they gave prizes for people who completed the maze in the shortest amount of time. We were also given useful yet kind of vague information about how to kind of navigate the corn maze then we were off!

HOPKINS:

You get here, and you’re all excited because this is a new place with freedom to navigate your life they way you want to…you have so much to look forward to, you’re with people who are just as clueless as you are, and you have instructions…i.e. advice from parents, counselors, teachers, and upperclassmen students.  However, some things still seem kind of vague and you have an idea of what you want to do and your end goals, but you’re not quite sure how to reach them. And you won’t know until you start to explore your new surroundings.

just starting

CORN MAZE:

Once we got into the maze, we were a bit less clueless because we finally saw what the thing looked like and we no longer had to imagine it based on the dinky map we had. It was so much fun seeing all of the different paths we could take (each acre was color coded…so if we were in orange, we were in acre one. If we were in  pink, we were in acre 3, and so on.). We had to look through each acre and try to find the little clue stamps which were hidden in color coded mailboxes. Once we found the clues, we had to stamp our map with them to prove that we indeed had made it through the acre. The first one was really hard to find, but we got some impromptu and rather vague help from a random lady and we got it.

HOPKINS:

Whenever I speak to freshmen, they are always most anxious about how in the world it would feel to be away from home, how it would feel to be on a college schedule, and  how it would feel to have college level work. When the first day or week of classes hit, the anxiety and cluelessness start to wear away. And experience is the only remedy for anxiety. Once you start to navigate your way, things become a bit more clear and you see all of the cool paths you can take in college. Sometimes it gets hard and you get stuck because you don’t  know what to do or where to go next…but sometimes advice and clarity come from the most unlikely places, people, classes, or experiences. Many students change their career goals or majors based on one awesome class, professor, job, or experience they have had. And that’s great!

CORN MAZE:

We found the first clue in the black acre, then we found another clue on our own. But it took a really long time. We got really tired of walking in circles and hoping that something new and exciting would be around the bend. Usually it just ended up being somewhere unexciting that we’d already passed. We started to ask other people, who looked just as confused as we did, for help, but it kind of took us in different circles.

HOPKINS:

There will indeed be plenty of times in college when you have a crisis of major or of identity. You feel like you have outgrown what you were once in love with, and you hit roadblocks.. Everyone else seems so happy and content with their majors and classes and jobs and clubs, so you feel like you’re the odd one out. What’s wrong? Where’s the passion you once had? Then you start to ask other people about themselves and their academic and social lives, and what’s making theirs so great. And sometimes their answers make you feel worthless and like crud, and even more lost than you were before.

CORN MAZE:

We really started to get frustrated after finding the second clue. We found the third one about an hour after we started, and then we started to regret that we had chosen to enter the corn maze (we had a choice of the corn maze or a zip line). The joy was just about gone, we were tired and hot and going in circles again. We even noticed that we were crossing paths with fewer people, as if they had given up and left, or as if they had somehow found the keys to advancing while we were stuck at the beginning.

NEVER ENDING FRUSTRATING CORN

HOPKINS:

And then the frustration gets even more annoying at times. You really don’t know what to do and you start to want to give up . Thoughts of transferring to less rigorous or less academically focused schools cross your mind more often than you’d like. And to make matters worse, you feel like so many other students are just succeeding away while you’re kind of sucking at the whole college thing. And those who aren’t succeeding may have made the decision to just give up. Either way, you’re different from those two groups of students because you’re still struggling.

CORN MAZE:

About an hour and some change into the maze, we came across the rest of our friends who had started after we did, and there were more of them, and they were so happy and bouncy and just glad to be together while in the maze. We were about to exit the maze and give up , but when we saw them, we decided to stick with them. Plus, we found 3 more clues with them in about 20-something minutes…which was way better than the three we found in about 1.5 hours. The atmosphere just changed, people were singing Disney songs and the feelings of suckiness basically dissipated.

trying to see if we could find a way out!

HOPKINS:

I CANNOT STRESS HOW AMAZING YOUR TIME IN COLLEGE WILL BE IF YOU  MAKE SOME AMAZING, SUPPORTIVE, AND GENUINE FRIENDS. Our moods changed once we became a part of their group, plus we found the clues way faster! Depend on your friends to help you with rough material, depend on them for support and to give encouragement and perspective. My friends here are amazing and I cannot imagine how my life, socially, emotionally, and academically, would be without them. Those things that bothered you before can be diminished with the love of friends.

CORN MAZE:

So after we found our friends and 3 more clues, we did start to get tired again…the group was breaking up a bit because people wanted to do their own things…take pictures, naps, prep for the next activity, etc. My friend and I ended up leaving before we got the last clue because we wanted to prep for the last activity. But I didn’t see it as giving up at all. We were satisfied with how far we’d gotten and that was what mattered.

HOPKINS:

So my last comparison…independence and choosing your own paths. Friends are amazing and will help you so much…but in the end, what YOU do ends up being a choice that YOU have to make. You use the support and help you receive from your friends, but know that your goals and aspirations and decisions have to be yours. We decided that we’d leave a bit early and take some pictures, and see our friends later. Paths always cross again. And they’re all beautifully diverse.

awww..right before we broke off and left to do our own things

So yea, that was a loooong entry (so if you read it all…THANKS!) But I couldn’t help but see the metaphorical similarities between the corn maze and college. I hope this entry helped to inform you about college, and also helped put some things into perspective…writing it sure helped me!

Until next time,
Dominique

P.S. All photo credit goes to my friend Lena!~ whoo!

One of my housemates here, Courtney, volunteers with an amazing program called Youth in Prison (YIP). The other day she came home and relayed the following story to us.

They were talking about the concept of superheroes…and somehow the topic of Angelina Jolie came up.

Superheroes, they decided, were people who helped other people. Particularly in Africa, where a lot of her UN work has been focused, Angelina is a little bit of a charity celebrity. Or, as we might now call it, a charity superhero. The group talked about her, the work she’d done, and about Brad and Angelina as a superhero duo. One of Courtney’s students interrupted though….didn’t she know that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had broken up?

We had not in fact heard that.

As Courtney relayed this story later, we couldn’t stop laughing (more later on the amazing volunteering, but this blog deals with something else). What had happened in our lives that we were getting American celebrity gossip from Capetonian teenage boys?

On the last morning of our holiday in Zambia, we went to the campground office to settle our tabs. Nearly an hour later we returned…there had been a TV at the bar. We sat there transfixed, watching news we couldn’t even decipher. Zambian news, you will probably not be surprised to hear, has very little to do with the news you might be hearing back in the States. Regardless, we couldn’t tear ourselves away. When we tried to recall the last time we had watched TV, we realized it had been (for most of us) in June or July, back in America.

I’m not living in the wilderness here, but I am living in a bubble. I know lots about South African news, particularly Cape Town news, and even more about local neighborhood news. I could tell you a great deal about the recent teachers strikes here, or the hospital strikes in Jo’burg. I could probably tell you more though, about the bickering politicians and the raises the Springbok coaches have been getting.

See, we have an interesting method of getting the news here. Our internet is rationed by the credit, our cell phones are pay-as-you-go, and American newspapers are not readily available. Go on a run, walk, or drive anywhere through Cape Town, though, and you will see broadsheets from the Cape Argus pinned up on lamp posts and bus stops. Mostly in Afrikaans, sometimes in English, and very occasionally in Xhosa, they give you headlines like…

“SAA Prez Owes R25m to Disgruntled Passengers”
“Dagga? What Dagga? Says Movie Star.”
Or this recent gem: “Sex Tape: It’s All Lies! Says Joost”

Needless to say, this doesn’t help me stay up-to-date news-wise. I don’t know who Joost is, for one thing. It is telling that most Americans have only just realized these headlines are not in fact jokes, and actually correspond to real news stories. You can imagine the slightly more risqué ones that I refrained from including here.

We’ve missed out not only on American celebrity gossip and television, but also those slightly more important news venues, like the New York Times. The one paper I do have access to is the Rondebosch Newspaper. Rondebosch, the neighborhood UCT is located in, is a semi-suburb of Cape Town. Accordingly, their newspaper deals with high school sports teams, city hall meetings, and the possibility of repainting the local laundry shop from the bubble-gum pink that residents currently find unattractive, to a less offensive beige. The painting has in fact been carried out, and the girls’ school hockey team is apparently doing very well, but that still hasn’t helped me feel any more knowledgeable.

I’m really starting to feel a little bit confused. My grocery runs now include copies of The Economist, which is doing a lot in the way of staying informed, but made the situation worse at first, as I realized just how much I’d missed out on.

It was nice to take a break from the constant onslaught of information I’d gotten used to at home (helped along by minimal internet usage and lack of cable television here) but I really think I need to ease myself back into the international news scene, and just rely on the Cape Argus headlines for entertainment on my runs from now on.

I hope you’re enjoying your magical wi-fi and English speaking newspapers!

-Lauren B.

P.S. We still don’t know if Brad and Angelina broke up….