Caught in Between

Hey guys!

So, after my awesome internship ended, I had about a week and a half to just chill at home and do nothing. It was so boring. I wasn’t made to do nothing. I guess this is why I’ve had a job every year since the summer after my freshman yr of high school and even during the school years I was doing something. And no,  I will not turn into a workaholic when I get older haha. I just cannot stand to sit around…I get anxious and weird and start literally losing my mind. I have yet to learn how to just be.

I feel like antsy high school seniors who have in mind the schools to which they want to apply, and are excited to move on with their lives but aren’t quite ready yet. Well, unlike you all, I only have one school on my list of public health grad schools and I am pretty much so clueless about the whole process. In high school, my mom was breathing down my neck about everything (think labeled folders with materials from each college) and now she is as clueless as I…which is fine because I am an adult now and should be able to deal with this on my own right? *cue nervous awkward laugh*

But hopefully as time moves on, I’ll figure it out. It’s harder because unlike HS where EVERYONE is going to college, in college, everyone is NOTTTTT going to grad school, and those who are aren’t even applying at the same times.

This is freaking me out so I’ll do what any other normal college senior does and not think about it. :)

Anyways, I am about to be really busy with RA training. An RA is a resident advisor–an upperclassman who lives in a dorm with residents and is responsible for making living there pretty much so awesome. I hope I can live up.

OH and btw, this is my last post on this blog…follow me on my new senior year blog In A Different Light!

(WARNING: This blog is for the serious blog readers…it’s long! sorry :( But hopefully worth it…)

This whole summer I’ve been in the middle of it all. And I’ve been lovin’ it.

I hate taking pictures of myself. A slightly unflattering pic of me at work.

That’s one of the reasons I took this internship–I wanted to be in the community. Yes, I live in Baltimore, but I have never really been IN Baltimore, doing meaningful work in places that look like something you’d see on The Wire.

(SIDENOTE/RANT  And because I know you’re thinking this, and because I may get this question…I’ll say that the show is accurate in its depictions of its pieces of Baltimore–but guess what y’all–it’s not all of Baltimore!  The show does a good job of DOING WHAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO DO–show the problems of Baltimore  in their truest, rawest forms. I would be a LIAR if I didn’t say that urban blight was real and a serious issue. But dang flabbit if you all think that ALL of Baltimore is like that! IT’S NOT! And I hope you’ve seen many of the positive things Baltimore does have to offer through the other students’ blogs to back up my assertion. And those blogs don’t even cover all of it, to put our city in perspective. /ENDRANT    :)  )

So yea, that’s not the point of this blog. The point is to show how I can see this place as beautiful even though I see these “wire like” things every day. Yes, even with it’s problems, Baltimore is a beautiful place, and it is VERY possible to enjoy it and all that it has to offer in the middle of it all. Just give Baltimore a chance to be Baltimore. Don’t close yourselves off. Talk to people in the community. They don’t bite :) Do service and get to know the problems and why they exist, rather than just know that they DO exist. Learn about the wonderful non profits working to change people’s lives step by step. As Hopkins students, we can easily do two different things:  stay stuck in our bubble and do nothing really meaningful in Baltimore (ME FOR 2.5 YEARS–FAIL) or reallllly get involved (WHAT YOU SHOULD DO!) Why complain and not try to be a part (no matter how ‘small’ but a part nonetheless) of the solution?

ANYWAYS…

So I work in Sandtown-Winchester, a neighborhood in West Baltimore. More specifically, I work on Pennsylvania Avenue, which used to be a THRIVING place.  Musicians like Cab Calloway, Diana Ross, and Billie Holliday stopped on Pennsylvania Avenue to perform in the Royal Theater…it was one of THE places to perform if you wanted to be somebody. Pennsylvania Avenue had theaters, clubs, dance halls, Black owned shops, and comfortable black businesses and homes.

So yea life happened…shops closed, MLK was assassinated, race riots happened, jobs disappeared, people moved away, and Sandtown declined.

If you were to take a walk along there today, you wouldn’t see the historic Pennsylvania Avenue…take a look:

storefronts

rowhomes

unhealthy corner stores

What’s  here now? Chinese food stores (I went to one for lunch the other day though, it was good and cheap!) , liquor stores, nail salons (went to one of those too last week…nice and cheap and good!! you find some gems in the hood :) ), little mom n pop stores, clothes/shoes shops, old store fronts, rowhomes, beauty supply stores…no major stores or retailers.

People wandering the streets at all hours of the day and night. I had the wonderful experience of getting lost last night (with a GPS too…I’m great) and getting twisted up on some streets I really didn’t want to be on, and I’m sure the people I saw wandering them didn’t want to be there either but unlike me, they really didn’t have a choice.

But here is the beauty in the middle of it all I was talking about. THE PEOPLE. THE COMMUNITY. THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE UP THE COMMUNITY.

Whatchu talkin’ bout, Dominique?

Aight. So my work again. I pulled up on the first day and saw this sign:

There are actually several on the street in front of my job, and many many more in the surrounding streets

And I was like “Whaaa? WHERE am I?” And ya… we’ve seen this activity around my job. And some other weird things. One day I came outside and some teenager was banging on my car and I had to deal with that situation (he was just sitting there tho, bored and using his hand, not a tool or anything so that was good); some guy beating up his girlfriend across the street; a small mob up the street from my job that stabbed a boy (that was at night though).

Maybe in a former life I’d be fazed by it, but I’m not now. And that’s because I am surrounded by people who love this community despite its shortcomings and are willing to live in it and love on it until it changes. THAT’S BEAUTY. (Don’t get me wrong, I HATE that this stuff happens and I’m NOTTTTTT excusing the behavior because it’s terrible, but what I’m saying is that I am touched that there are people who have hearts big enough to be filled with compassion to want to stay and help  these issues rather than turn around, GIVE UP, and run away. Ya feel me?)

This was behind a school...I'm guessing people play ball here

People can look from the outside in and turn their noses up at Baltimore all they want but what are they doing to help? I care about the opinions of the people who are putting themselves in the middle of it all each and everyday to make a difference in their beloved communities. You put the help where it is needed…so if that means people have to move into these communities to help them, then so be it. That’s why I love my internship–everyone working here lives in Sandtown.  People don’t try to come from the outside in to “fix” Sandtown, then go home to other places…they move here and LIVE here and have lived here and are working to transform it HONESTLY from the inside out.

These are some of the houses that have be rehabbed by Sandtown's Habitat for Humanity--working and living from the inside out.

Baltimore is a friendly place too. Yea, people can be abrasive, but they will say hello and good morning even if you don’t know them. That’s beauty, right? You have to be willing to put yourself out there and say “hello” to see the friendliness. How many people actually do that? Now, I’m not saying be dangerous and put yourself out there to creepers…so don’t tell your parents that I said that!!! But I mean just when you’re in a store or in a place doing work, saying a simple howdy or good morning or hello…you know what I mean. And you’ll see that this is quite the friendly place.

The biggest thing I’ve seen in Sandtown is the urban ministry though. I won’t go into the details, but urban ministry has been what’s really been giving Sandtown that sense of community. If you’ve ever traveled around Baltimore city, in the really blighted areas, you will notice that there are churches on every corner. Literally. Here, there’s a philosophy of Relocation (moving and living among the people), Reconciliation (the heart of the church), and Redistribution (giving resources equally). If you’re interested in learning more about Sandtown, here is a really good article, a nice quick read, about it: http://www.sndtwn.org/urbanite1104.pdf

That being said, I’ve already been planning to come back to Martha’s Place (name of my internship) to support its events; to attend the ladies’ graduation ceremonies; to just check up on them; to help out when needed…I’ve formed a relationship and I can’t just stop it now. I mentioned before that my first 2.5 years here, I didn’t do any kind of steady service. (I just started this spring semester) But being here this summer has shown me that it’s a two-way street. I help and I get helped. Service is one of the really good ways to get to know this place and it’s not a cookie cutter thing–there are several types of problems that requires several types of solutions.

So yea, that’s why Baltimore is beautiful to me.  I’d never heard of anything like this before working at my internship this summer–this sense of character, pride, and love–in the middle of it all. And it’s there for everyone able and willing to see it! :)

Just hours after graduation, my brother and dad attempted to move everything I was ready to part ways with out of my apartment. I watched as my bed, my textbooks, and my photos – which I thought were essential to my identity – were loaded up into a moving truck. It’s times like these when I question materialism. Maybe simplicity is really the answer to many of the stresses in life.

My plan had been established for months: I was to be a member of the 4K for Cancer cross-country bike ride to San Francisco. Over 80 donors had donated to my rider fund. They wanted to see that I went on this trip. I would be riding for them and their dedications, many of them part of the Hopkins community: from Dr. Carl Taylor – the founder of the academic discipline of international health – to a recent graduate starting chemo.

In three days, following two days of orientation, I would dip my back wheel into the Inner Harbor and have the odd experience of biking out of college. I’d part ways with Baltimore – a city that day after day since 2007 had grown to become my home. I was biking away from home. This was the plan. I had known I wanted to do this trip for so long and, yet, I felt anything but ready.

I stood in my living room as my dad approached me with a box.

“Would you like your graduation present now?” he said.

I laughed. Couldn’t he tell that this was the last thing I needed? My brother had given me a large, sky blue duffel bag as my graduation present. That bag and its contents was all I would need for 70 days of biking and sleeping. And then that duffel bag would follow me to Vietnam for one or maybe two years. Over the past month, I had a compounded transition. Orientation for both Princeton in Asia – the fellowship program I got my job through – and 4K for Cancer. Both of which felt like college orientation all over again. In both we were told to go in with an open mind and pack less than you think you need to.

Reluctantly, I opened up the gift to find… a desk box. The old Gilman tower – which had already become a memory of my time at Hopkins – was prominently featured on the lid. My full name monogrammed underneath. Inside, there was an envelope, room for, well, desk objects, and a mirror on the inner lid. I laughed.

“Dad, I don’t think that is going to make the duffel bag cut. For one, I do not have a desk…,” I said.

This could be the last thing I needed in my life, I thought. I really didn’t have a desk – my dad, friend, and I had conveniently lost my desk moving between apartments in Baltimore in December. Enclosed in the envelope was a letter from my dad. Another thing I just couldn’t handle in my life. Over the last couple of days I had received one too many – I assumed, but had not had the courage to find out – thoughtfully written letters from friends and family. I was in denial that I was the first one of my group of friends to be leaving the Blue Jay nest. I had heard one too many “take a picture with me before I never see you again.” And, well, even my mother was asking when she would see me again and if she would ever get that one week vacation with me that she had hoped for years for.

I glanced at my reflection in the mirror: the exhausted face of a college graduate who had finished a draft of her never ending thesis too recently, failed to say goodbye to the people, especially colleagues, who had made my Hopkins experience what it was, and who was still trying – but seemed to be failing –at being grateful for the immediate support my family was giving me to make sure my plan went, well, as planned.

I started writing this blog in a bedroom in Kansas. I was unsure what town I was exactly in and whose bedroom I was falling asleep in. I’m currently writing this blog from a church in Colorado. I cycled – or more like climbed – the highest continuously paved highway in the U.S yesterday. Right now life really is a highway, just like the Rascal Flatts song says it is.

Despite my cycling style – slow and steady – my life is moving fast: too fast to have keys to a bedroom or to care that I don’t have a computer for months.  And, well, I’ve been told my teammates that they like the way I pace on this literal highway of life. So, although I do question myself, maybe, for now, I should just keep peddling on.

My dad has reassured me that that box will be there for me when I reach that point in my life that my pace has slowed down. When I am ready to take mementos – the ones that are currently collecting dust in New Jersey – out of my desk box and reflect on my time at Hopkins. You know, when I’m ready to open and store those sealed envelopes from my support network.

I’ll admit that I already do reflect on my time at Hopkins. And that I know there will be plenty more reflection during those lonely times in Hanoi. A Hopkins lanyard that I bought freshman year is tangled on my front handlebar and I cycle with it each and every day. That lanyard will most likely end up in that desk box. Hopkins made me stronger.

Strong enough to build a path – mainly because of the opportunities offered and the people that I met –  that I don’t think I would have taken otherwise.  Freshman year did I ever think I’d be biking across the country? No. Doing research in the United States, Brazil, Switzerland, and Vietnam? Absolutely not. Did I ever think that I’d challenge myself to an environmental engineering class and a photography class? Definitely not. And what about voluntarily taking an extra semester to work with a history professor on a thesis? Surely not.

Sure, I have my own biased advice that I think made my Hopkins experience what it was.This includes working on C-Level the day before a big assignment or test, making friends on M-Level, leaving a fraternity party if it’s not your scene, studying abroad, getting a job,  writing a thesis, volunteering in admissions. But, in all honestly, there is no specific advice I can give. Just go with it.

My brother left me on graduation day saying, “I’ll see you when I see you. And if I don’t see you soon, I’ll assume that you’re happy.” Hopkins made me ready for this goodbye. As strong as I can be. Without me knowing – “as by magic or sorcery” – I got through that metamorphosis I wrote about the summer before my freshman year.

And, with that, goodbye, Hopkins Interactive. I’ll see you when I see you (in a guest alumni blog that I already have in the works, perhaps). But, until then, I’ll be pacing on, even if it means the occasional covering in expired pancake mix.

I’ve been spending my summer working for McKinsey, and most of the time I’ve been in D.C. Though slightly unexpected, this has given me the chance to catch up  with some other Hopkins kids and hear about what they’ve been doing this summer. Everyone seems to be doing something different and exciting.

My roommate, Laura, decided to stay on campus and finish her scary senior design lab for engineering while working in Admissions and doing research. My friend Dani is working two jobs, at a lobbying organization in DC and at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Another friend, Megan, is working for JP Morgan in New York and living a fabulous life in the NYU dorms. I ran into girls from my sorority, Phi Mu, in DC as well–one was working for a senator, another for a PR firm. My boyfriend is an analyst at a private equity firm and he’s working with Students for Huntsman, part of Jon Huntsman’s campaign for president.

It’s been great to see what everyone’s been up to for the summer, and as a now rising senior, it’s interesting to think about what we all want to do when we graduate. Most of you are just beginning your college years though, not thinking about their end, so with that in mind I thought I could recommend a few relevant bucket list items for the last summer before college.

1. Do nothing, at least for a little bit. Re-learn how to spend an entire day without a to-do list, and remember that this might be the last summer for a while you can do that

2. Spend some time with your family and high school friends, get to know your home town a bit better before you leave.

3. Make some money. Babysit, mow lawns, waitress, get a real job if you feel so inclined. Having some spending money come September will be incredible helpful.

4. Do something you haven’t done before. Whether it’s checking a weird item off of your life bucket list (bungee jumping, going to another country, driving stick shift) or taking a class, learning a language, or working a job you’ve never thought of before, this is a great summer to do something different, and you might see something that changes your mind.

5. Spend a bit of time thinking about college, not in the scary to-do list way, but as a big picture. Do some research about on-campus activities. Shoot your advisor an email. Contact kids from your home town or high school who attend Hopkins. Think about what you want to get out of your freshman year.

I hope you’re all having a great summer, wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing. Happy June!

Lauren

Now that I have gotten a good 3 weeks of summer in, I’ve had some time to think about life and school since my junior year has ended. I’m still shocked at that and getting emails that read “JHU [seniors]” is kind of freaking me out…I mean this is it! The last year! No more cushion and no more babying. It’s both terrifying and exciting at the same time. I feel like seniors aren’t real students anymore. Instead, we’re just professional students finishing up the last year just because we have to, but the real aim is to find a grad school or job. I’m “old” now and expected to know everything and to have been everywhere. That being said, the question of “Who am I?” still remains.

And I’m totally fine with that. Many friends are submitting applications to medical schools or taking the MCATs or LSATs, and many know exactly what they want to do after graduation–whether it’s work with a “corps” for a few years, whether it’s going straight to graduate school for a coveted degree, whether it’s to work with a specific or certain type of agency after college..I could go on. My mind keeps floating around now that I have to introduce myself as a rising senior, the question has already been coming. “Oh that’s so nice! What do you want to do?”

At this point, I dunno! I am making a list of public health graduate schools and also looking at possible jobs that I’d do before grad school. Buttttt in the midst of all that, I’m doing some soul searching in an attempt to work toward this question of who am I.

After classes ended, I went on my yearly beginning of summer retreat with my Christian group on campus, which was pretty awesome and I learned a lot about life and my future.

Here we are after a 2 something hour hike up a mountain that had what felt like 85 degree inclines--but we made it!

I didn’t do as well with my grades as I would have liked despite my hardest efforts, so coming to this retreat and getting some honest perspective about that was really encouraging and refreshing. Plus, just hanging out with my friends in a completely non school atmosphere was great! As you can see in the picture above, we climbed some sicknasty mountain that I thought would kill me but we made it up! On the way down though, the 85 degree angles got me and I fell and got owned by a rock but the scar isn’t too bad now :P

After that, I had a few days to chill before I began my internship at Martha’s Place, a transitional housing center in Southwest Baltimore for women trying to overcome drug addiction. I will admit, at first I was very wary of interning here because of my preconceived notions of the internship and how it would be set up, but I’m really glad I stuck with this site because I am enjoying it thoroughly and learning so much from it. It deserves its own entry, possibly two, so I will save my experiences thus far for a subsequent entry. Just know that it has definitely forced me to be completely out into the community, face to face with one of the biggest problems in Baltimore (drug addiction) and involved with a real way to help remedy that issue. It IRKS me when people complain about issues, like “omgee Baltimore is this and this and this” but aren’t doing anything to help anything. I don’t mean save the world–duh, no one can do that–I mean small things to get involved like volunteering once a week or once every two weeks, whatever! I just  hate when there’s so much negativity but the positivity of what’s being done to HELP these issues is never discussed/done. ANYWAY off soapbox :) I’ve really enjoyed being here and I am learning a lot from the ladies and their struggles and I hope they don’t see me as some uppity kid from Johns Hopkins who is up in their space, but we’ll see what happens as time progresses.

So at this point in time, who am I? I’m a rising senior (gulp)…I’m an intern, I’m trying to be open minded and learn new things about my community and my surroundings, I’m trying to think about what I want to do with my future and with my life, and most of all I’m just trying to enjoy it. So I’ll be back soon with an entry about my internship! for now, I leave you with an image I saw on the way home from work. It was so good I had to take a pic of it from my car.

TTYS,

Dominique

Yep--the store is called "Welcome Second Obama." A prophecy, perhaps?

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

I just returned from a beautiful week long retreat in Pennsylvania with my Christian group on campus, and I must say that it really helped me to put the semester into perspective, as well as the summer. Grades weren’t very good despite my hardest efforts and I was upset about that, but hey life happens and moves on. So to celebrate moving on,  have a to do/bucket list to give you guys an idea of my rising senior summer status:

-take GRE at the end of June
-Review GRE material  (I took a prep course last summer and I regret not taking the  GRE last summer)
-Internship! :) (more on that to come!)
-look into master’s programs (someone just told me that Brandeis University has a really good one for public health??)
-Research with someone at JHSPH
- def a NY trip to see Lion King on Broadway!
-Learn more about my family history and culture on my father’s side
-Embrace my Africana Studies minor and read MSNBC’s “BLack Agenda” online to learn more…just to start :)
-DC museum and zoo
-Federal hill picnics
-campus biking at night (myabe…)
-Sherwood gardens picnic

Hopefully I will actually do some of these things. We’ll see…. ;)

The end of the year rolled up without warning, and was busy as ever.

The blur of formals, finals, and goodbyes was strange and exciting–even more so that I’m now officially a rising senior.

One of the least pleasant aspects of the year’s end was saying goodbye to my lovely big, Thalia, who will be graduating and heading off to law school in D.C. She’s so fabulously accomplished and motivated, I can’t wait to see what she does next! It’s so strange to think that just a few years ago I was applying to colleges, looking at this same website, while now I’m preparing for senior year and watching friends head off to medical school, move across the country, and become adults.

Exams were taxing as usual, but it feels good to be done, knowing that I won’t have homework again till September. I got by on a steady diet of coffee, plain m&m’s and Adele. I managed to almost completely avoid the library, embraced Self Control (download it if you have a Mac) and procrastinated by online shopping for noise canceling headphones. Luckily, finals are done, I’ve resumed eating and sleeping normally, and I’m back at home.

Back at home I’ve been preparing for my job, trying to catch up with high school friends, and unpacking. I helped my younger sister, Suzi, move out of her dorm at NYU. It’s insane to think that we’ll be sophomores and seniors in the fall! I got the chance to spend some time in the city, but unfortunately it’s been raining non-stop since I emerged from my finals hibernation.

Work starts on Monday, my high school friends return from abroad in the next few weeks, and I’m looking forward to sunny days, bicycles, bbqs, and the beach. Happy Summer, everyone!

-Lauren B.

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,

Hope you’re enjoying the beginnings of spring! Here in Baltimore, it’s rained nearly non-stop since Spring Break.

Things have been busy here–my sorority initiated our newest pledge class, Spring Fair and SOHOP took over the Homewood Campus, I travelled home briefly, turned in a series of projects and papers, and celebrated both “regular” and Greek Orthodox Easters.The past few weeks have been interesting in a number of other ways as well. As I get older I cant help but feel that every semester at Hopkins gives me a different perspective on the school and its students. Every semester, I appreciate this place more.

April has been a bit of a strange month for me, and I’ve been trying to think of an appropriate, and meaningful way to talk about it here.

About two weeks ago, my sorority received some terrible news. Katie, a lovely girl the year younger than me passed away after a long, brave battle with cancer. Inevitably, this has colored the past few weeks for me in ways that have been both incredibly difficult, and surprisingly wonderful. At every turn, I have been nothing but impressed by the support, kindness and strength of everyone at this school.

My “little” in Phi Mu was very close to Katie. Upon hearing the news, my group of friends rallied around her to an extent that continues to amaze me. People dropped everything to make sure she was okay. Meals were delivered, classes skipped to give her company, baking occurred in bulk. It was incredible. I heard from old friends, acquaintances, my boss, faculty advisors. People reached out to me and to my friends, to our sorority as a whole.

By chance and circumstance, this month I have gotten the opportunity to spend a lot of time off campus and in “non-college” settings. Meeting the parents and siblings of long-term friends, seeing my big chatter away in Greek to her neighbors, attending a Catholic mass with a friend and her boyfriend for Easter, seeing my lovely little dance her heart out–in each of these situations I saw someone I thought I knew so well in a very new context.

Time and time again, on this blog and and at the Open Houses, I have said that the thing that first drew me to Hopkins was its students. Three years later, this is still true, and after these past few weeks, it has never been more important. I have been endlessly impressed and surprised by those with whom I am privileged enough to go to school.

I worried when I first arrived at Hopkins that I wouldn’t find my friends, those people with whom I was meant to spend my college years. Coming from a very small, very close high school, I fretted on the move-in-day drive that I could miss them. What if? I asked. What if I never find my friends? What if they’re on campus but I just never meet them? My Dad, logical and wise as ever, reassured me that though the school was new, and to me it was big, I would eventually find my friends and my “home.”

my wonderful roommate

I have.

Anywhere else, these past few weeks would have been intolerable. The support I received from friends was incredible. More than that, though, this experience has clarified how much of a home Hopkins has become for me. Sitting with the entire chapter of my sorority, hearing stories and jokes about Katie, celebrating her life, seeing those same girls motivate to raise nearly $10,000 in a week for cancer research, boarding a bus together a few days later to travel to New York for Katie and her family, I was stunned by how much I felt a part of this community. Watching my little steal the show at her dance performance last night, seeing her smile and throw herself into each dance, incredibly happy for the first time in weeks, I was overwhelmed. This place, these people, have become my home these past three years.

My Phi Mu "family" at Greek Easter today

As terrible timing would have it, two days after  Katie’s death, SOHOP arrived on campus, and my life transformed into a 24-hour-a-day Hopkins job. Becca and I braced ourselves for the day. There were few things we wanted to do less than bounce around campus fielding questions, and I worried that I would be overwhelmed. I spoke to family after family, though, and tentatively tried to tell them what had been going on in all of our lives those past few days. I spoke about how incredible my friends had been, how proud of everyone’s strength I was, and how the community had rallied around all of us.

Katie was an incredible member of the Hopkins community; we celebrate her life and we will continue to miss her so much. For those of us who remain, though,  this community here, whatever it was that first drew us to Hopkins and continues to keep us so happy, has been a great comfort. For me, this was, and continues to be, the people. I love the people at Hopkins and I can’t thank everyone enough for these past few weeks.

-Lauren B.