Hello to everyone :),
It’s Friday night and blog time! Sorry for the late post– my Friday kind of got away from me :).
My week has been pretty normal, and fun as always :). Saturday I went on the usual dimsum/Haymarket run in Boston, with the additional stop of my new favorite Chinese pastry shop. I was impressing Monica with all of my new vocabulary– “Oh, Haymarket is by the North End, next to Quincy Market, you just take the Orange Line or you can walk with Chinatown,” and she looked suitably accepting of my prowess before I revealed that I had learned all of this in the last month. Then she laughed at me ;).
Tuesday and Thursday I was in for craziness– I scheduled myself 2 hours of swim lessons, most of which was back-to-back. However, my kids have been doing SO well– both of my 5-year-olds just learned how to float, one can now swim to the flags by himself, and my 4-year-old is willing to put her face in the water! I’m so proud of them. Jack, one of my five-year-olds, asked me if when I was his age I wanted to grow up to be a swim teacher. I smiled and told him that’s one of the things I want to be :).
Wednesday and Sunday nights were my weekly dinners, and I enjoy eating, talking, and cooking with all of the girls I am so happy to spend time with this summer. Wednesday night was particularly amusing, because we spent a substantial time talking about “cute boys”– which is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone talk about them for any length of time at Wellesley. Usually, we get a hearty dose of research talk, school talk, and anecdotes from here and home. The girls even took a picture with an iPad of such a boy, but I made them take a picture without it so that I could “represent Wellesley properly” ;P.
Thursday night the Residential Life put on “Progressive Parfait Night!” The Res Life always has several food events a week, and yesterday they finally got all of McAfee and some of Freeman (both dorms) tromping up and down the stairs :). Yogurt was my floor, second level was granola, then fruit, whipped cream and honey, and chocolate. I have never quite understood whether parfaits are supposed to be healthy or not, but I quite enjoyed the frozen blueberries.
Today was a busy day as well. Research with Monica has been going splendidly– she’s really fun to spend time with, and it’s actually soothing to listen to Pandora while manipulating Excel sheets (bend to my will, cells!). I’m writing a paper for the first time, and it’s rather different than writing a paper for class. It is so great that I get to experience this as an undergraduate, and Monica helps me enough so that I’m never too frustrated :). After work, I participated in a stereo- and motion- vision psychology study– I was paid with money and chocolates for determining whether the dots on the screen were behind other dots or in front of them. Speaking of which, we had an excellent speaker on Wednesday, Dr. Laura Germine, who spoke about how psychology studies today are biased toward paid and coerced undergraduates, who are usually the ones participating in these studies. Her solution was “citizen science” and www.testmybrain.org, a website that draws in people of all ages and from all over the world to take voluntary tests that let both them and the researchers learn more about their individual brains. It was a fascinating talk and concept, and I’d invite you all to check out the website!
To finish off today, I’ve been babysitting at my French family again :). As I sit here, I’ve been trying to get them to go to sleep– a tough task on a Friday night during summer vacation. Ah well, wish me luck… hopefully they can’t stay awake forever!
And now for the special part of this post: answering your questions!
First, I’d like to say that I’m so happy so many students in the Class of 2016 responded to my last post. I’ve gotten four emails in the past week, and though I am in correspondence with all of them by email, I’d like to share some of their questions so everyone can benefit! I’ve answered some of their questions already, and I’d like to post those questions as well (some of them are in my words since these are emails that were addressed to me and not posted publicly on the blog.)
Here we go:
1. “I’m an incoming first year and I was wondering about the swim team. I’m kind of on the fence about joining because I haven’t had an opportunity to swim on a team since last season and I want to have time to balance some other activities as well.”
My response: Yes, you should definitely try out! I don’t know how long ago last season was for you, but if you’re an athlete and are still in relatively good shape, you should be fine. It’s important to keep in mind that while you can join clubs and organizations later during the year, this is probably going to be your only chance to try varsity swimming, so if you think you’re at all interested, you should get in the pool and see how it goes. If you don’t end up liking it, our coach Bonnie sets a very clear deadline for when she expects everyone to commit to the team, so she doesn’t expect anyone to stick with it until that date. It’s much easier to try it out and stick with it than realize you wish you’d done it later on!
2. “I need help with course selection. I want to take 9 courses, but I only have 8 slots! Can I take one over the summer? …”
My response: I’m glad you’re excited about starting Wellesley! Here’s my advice: first, take some science/math courses first year, because everyone else is doing it and you need to take them anyway for course requirements. Plus, you never know if you’ll want to be a science major :). Second, try to get into your humanities classes, but have lots of options, because first-year seminars especially are difficult to get into. Third, don’t worry about what’s going to happen second semester– you might want to continue in the same subject as your first semester classes or you might not, plus you don’t have complete control over what classes you get into first semester (if you don’t get in, you can hope someone will drop, but there are only a certain amount of spots per class, for our own benefit). Fourth, don’t get too specific about first semester either, because scheduling is also a factor, and it’s possible you may not be able to take certain classes until a later time because of scheduling conflicts. Fifth, in the same vein, I wouldn’t worry about summer classes, as they’re a long ways away and you might have a completely different mindset then :). Finally, it’s wonderful that you have a list, and now you shouldn’t worry about it, since there is specific time to pick out classes: the whole first week when you’re at campus before all of the sophomores, juniors, and seniors! It’s awfully fun picking classes out, and do so as long as it’s still fun– but keep in mind there are lots of variables and Wellesley has a time and place to help you with it :).
3. “Have you had any really amazing professors you would recommend taking a course from?”
My response: This is a great question. I have to say that almost all of my professors have been amazing; I’m learning more and more that Wellesley is a teaching school, much more than most research institutions. I’d also like to say that once you get on campus, you will be invited to a specific web group where Wellesley students post their impressions of professors confidentially. That is a great resource, as well as the students you’ll meet when you get onto campus for Orientation. You’ll also be invited to meet some of the professors on campus for Orientation– but remember that almost everyone is wonderful at teaching here :).
4. “What days do you have classes?”
My response: Also a good question! Classes are held 2 to 3 times a week for most classes, for an hour and 10 minutes. Labs are 3.5 hours once a week. First semester first-years usually take four classes or four classes with one lab, so you can calculate your class time from that. However, each class is expected to take up 11 hours of your time, including class time, (most of which is spent on homework,) so you’ll be busier than you think :).
5. “Can we store things over the summer?”
My response: Too early to be thinking about that :). I’m still trying to figure out where I’m storing things over the summer! Yes, there is a policy, and you can store 4 boxes of a given size if you are from a certain distance from MA. You can look up the details when we’re closer to the date though– like I said, I’m going to figure out where I’m putting my stuff sometime in the next month ;).
6. “Is there anything in particular you’d recommend bringing for my dorm room?”
My response: I know in my year someone posted a list on the Wellesley Class of 2015 Facebook group– I’d check out your Class of 2016 Facebook group, or post the question on that and see what shows up. I mostly packed from online “Packing for College” lists. As for things I wished I had– bulk packages of dried fruit and nuts, and a fan. The fan is of key importance– Wellesley has no air conditioning, and it’s hot during the summer. I personally found I didn’t need a lot of the stuff I brought– refrigerator and printer included.
7. “Do a lot of the students have bikes, or is that less of a necessity?”
My response: Many students have bikes, and most students don’t. Wellesley’s campus is about a 15-minute walk from end to end, and you’ll probably only do 5-7 min walks if you’re housed close to where your classes are. If you’re housed on East campus and you’re an athlete, or housed in Tower and have most of your classes in the Science Center– that’s when I’d recommend maybe getting a bike. But a bike is not a necessity, and you can walk anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Plus, I found that in my case, I’d only come back to my room at night, so I was fine carrying my stuff around all day!
8. “Which phone company gets the best service?”
My response: No idea. I do know that Wellesley only has a Bank of America ATM, so if you’re interested in switching banks, I’d switch to that one. I have no idea about phone service though– I’m more of an email kind of gal :).
9. “Where are you staying and when should I contact my roommate?”
My response: I’m in Munger on the third floor! You should all come visit me in the beginning of the year when classes have just started and we’ve both got all the time in the world :). Or send me an email during the year and we can make a time to meet if you need someone to talk to! As for when to contact your roommate– if they’re on Facebook, or you have their email, then by all means contact them now, just to work out who’s going to bring what :). You are going to spend a whole year with them, so if that makes you want to contact them now and get to know them, do so! Or if that makes you want to wait until you start spending that year with them, then that’s fine as well :).
Thank you for all of your questions! I really enjoy being contacted, and please feel free to send in any more questions you may have, by either the blog or email (if you contact me on the blog, I’ll email you from there.) I hope you all have a great weekend, and best to you all!
Monica
