Hello readers!
Hope your Fridays have started out well :). Just this morning (like, ten minutes ago) I spent much too much time trying to make a roulette on Powerpoint. You’d think there would be a program online that would let me make one—and there probably is, buried underneath all of the online gambling sites that popped up. If anyone can figure out the correct keywords, I’d be appreciative if you passed them along!
Anyway, the roulette is made, even if I couldn’t quite figure out how to color in the quadrants :). In each of the quadrants I have a topic that I could potentially discuss, given time constraints. I love this blog in that I get to make it up as I write it—it’s a two-hour long adventure for me along with you (though I hope your experience lasts substantially less time than two hours…)
If I was a person who preferred fair roulette wheels, I’d quickly write up a quick program in Matlab that generated random numbers and picked a quadrant for me. But as this is my roulette wheel (constructed by me and Powerpoint—I really should have learned Photoshop over the summer like I’d planned), the roulette is under my control! MUHAHAHA!
And first up, we have… (ticktickticktick tick tick tick… tick….)
An interview with Anna!
I actually conducted this interview last week, but it was too awesome to force into my last week’s post. As I told Christine (a first year who I met through the blog! She’s wonderful), last week I just had to keep talking about myself, which she agreed was a bit justified but also humorous given my original intentions. Ah well—I can now give Anna’s interview the space it deserves, and am so pleased to present it :).
…
Name: Anna
Year: First-year!
Major: Possibly Econ
Origin: My did lives in California, and mom lives in Michigan.
Where do you live? Tower West– “West side, Best side!”
What classes are you taking?
Econ 101 (Microeconomics), CS 110 (Computers and the Internet), Intro to Political Theory, and my writing class: Religion and New Media. (All first-years are required to take a writing class, called Writ 125).
Tell me about your classes?
They’ve all been great. No two of my classes are the same—it’s fun to dip into different categories in which I might be interested. I’m exploring my horizons; looking at all potential routes I could take. It’s great to be able to test the waters first semester.
Those classes are all quite different! You’re looking at lots of options?
Well, Econ and CS are tied—they’re both concerned with big data, which I find fascinating. Religion has always been a big interest of mine, and really can be applied to anything. Politics is my true passion. So they may seem different, and they are, but I have a reason for all of them!
What activities are you considering on campus? I know you were trying out a few.
Right now I’m looking into political and church orgs, and I’m doing Army ROTC.
Whoa, really? I’ve never heard about ROTC! We have that on campus?
*Laughs*. Well, it’s at MIT, but I’d love to tell you about it. It’s incredible. We have training three days a week, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, at roughly 6:30 am in the morning, at either Harvard or MIT. The battalion is stationed at MIT—it’s the Paul Revere battalion—and we train with them. We’re one of the affiliate schools; the others are MIT, Harvard, Tufts, and Salem State and EndaCot. During PT, physical training, we do military drills, running, push-ups, sit-ups—anything you can think of that they do in the actual army. By the time we graduate we’ll be commissioned officers in the army: we do a certain amount of years of active duty, and then we do a certain amount in reserve, totaling up to eight years. When we’re in reserve we’ll also find civilian jobs, but not when we’re on active duty.
How many Wellesley students are involved with this?
There’s five of us, with one studying abroad.
At this point she actually points out another ROTC Wellesley student who’s studying in the focus, and she walks over and says hi :).
So how did you get involved?
My junior year, my father told me I needed to figure out how to pay for college. After doing some different exploration, I applied to the US Military Academy at West Point and also Army ROTC. I obviously ended up coming to Wellesley, but I’m doing ROTC on a scholarship. Everything just seemed, by divine intervention or otherwise, to fall into place!
I’m typing rapidly while she waits for me. I apologize for being slow, and she apologized back.
I know I’m talking really fast too, sorry. I just gush and geek about ROTC :).
I love these detours—people are just so interesting in unexpected ways here. Anna agrees with me heartily; then we move on to some of my more conventional questions.
How is college? Is it what you expected it to be like? So far, of course.
So far Wellesley has been wonderful. It’s everything I imagined it would be and more. I’m able to be your own person, to get to know different people, and figure out what I’m going to do in this world. I’m really excited about the opportunities.
What’s a typical day like for you? How does it compare to high school?
A typical day—it’s busy. But any high school junior or senior who is considering applying to Wellesley is busy. *smiles* I’d say there’s more free time to get to join orgs or get your work done, but it really does fall onto yourself. If you have an hour, you need to know what you’re going to accomplish in that hour, or it just flits away. That’s something that anyone coming into college would struggle with. Also, strategizing in how you plan your classes important—I’m learning through trial and error. It’s not an entirely different world than high school though—it’s not a bad transition.
Did you go to Lake Day?
That was today? I didn’t—I was at MIT and the Peter Pan bus was late by an hour. I’ve been writing an essay all day. I had interrupted her from finishing this essay by asking to interview her—I apologized, but she reassured me that she loved to meet new people and do interviews.
What’s something cool you’ve done on campus?
Hm, I’ve participated in a psych study! I made $5. That’s the easiest five dollars I’ve ever made. And there are plenty more to register for! I know! That makes me happy.
Have you gone into Boston? Well, obviously, you’ve been into Boston quite a lot. How about for non-ROTC activities?
Yes, plenty. I went during MIT Rush week, to dance, meet people—I love Boston. I went to see a high school friend last week. Wait, that was Saturday! Days are so long here. Completely agree. I know! I feel like I’ve lived three days by the time I’m done with one. Anyway, I go in for different activities- just to have fun.
How was Orientation week? Seems like ages ago, I’m sure.
Yes. It was great though—a fun way to meet classmates and see who was living in my residence hall. The FYM groups (First-Year Mentor Groups—first-years who arrive on campus do activities with these pre-assigned groups) were a great place to meet that core group of people before launching into the entirety that is Wellesley!
What’s your favorite experience here so far?
I joined House Council for Tower! There’s only been one meeting of Senate and one for House Council, but I’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s one of the best ways for a first year to launch into the social life here.
Any comments on making friends here? I pre-wrote this, but you’ve already addressed it pretty well!
It’s not hard, I promise. I could walk out of my dorm, say hi to someone, and they’d be happy to start up a random conversation. Like we did :). Those are the type of people who come to Wellesley. It’s just such a positive atmosphere.
Thank you so much, Anna!
Yeah, it was great to see you again! Time to finish those final paragraphs of the essay. See you, Monica!
…
I met Anna on the bus coming back from Boston, and we did end up in conversation and later interview follow-up in much the way she described :). I don’t appreciate it enough now that I’m some distance from high school, but I remember that when I came to Wellesley, the fact that I would happily be friends with almost anyone on campus was a fact that astounded and amazed me. I love the people here, with all of their diverse experiences (Sebiha was just telling me the Ethiopian warnings adults use to encourage (read: scare. It doesn’t change the world over :)) kids to wash their hands). (And I didn’t even know we had ROTC on campus! So cool.) I find that I am often caught up in groups with whom I share similarities, but due to the relative lack of cliques here, the opportunity to hear about people involved in experiences that you hadn’t even heard of is enormous and such a blessing :).
Pinwheel time :). Tickticktick!
Yay, Gabby’s birthday! This makes me smile just thinking about it. Monday was my diver friend Gabby’s 20th birthday, so we decided to celebrate on Sunday. Gabby’s not the kind of person who enjoys large social gatherings, and she would be embarrassed if we brought the whole swim and dive team in to celebrate, which is what happens when it’s Tiffany’s birthday :). Gabby’s also not the type of person to plan her own get-together, as is the norm at Wellesley. (I’ve usually gone to restaurants for birthday dinners with people, or we’ll eat cupcakes and chat. 21st birthdays usually involve friends heading out to a bar in Boston.) Thus, Ika concocted a master plan that she invited Tiffany, Suman, and me along to.
Ika always goes running with Gabby on Sunday mornings at 6:43am (don’t ask me—I think they’re crazy. Since choosing to not be on the swim team this year, my whole schedule has shifted back. I don’t think I’ve woken up before 6:45am this year!) As they were running along, Ika told Gabby she had a cramp, and started fishing around her sweatpants for the bandana she was going to use to blindfold Gabby. Gabby was under the impression that Ika needed to switch out her sweatpants, because they had been falling down the entirety of the eight minutes they had been running. Sighing, Gabby waited, and when she turned around Ika came at her with the blindfold. I’m told Gabby just stood there for a minute, informed Ika that she wasn’t actually going to be jogging in this, and then went along when Ika dragged her around the corner to the car where Tiffany, Suman and I were lying in wait, giggling like all good kidnappers.
At Mel’s, a great breakfast place near Tiffany’s house, we ended up embarrassing Gabby anyway, because we got a candle to put in her blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes and got the waitress to sing. Gabby turned red in her corner of the booth, but a good time was had by all. Hmmm… that was definitely one of my favorite birthday celebrations ever. I love college. I love my friends :).
And the roulette wheel spins! Tick tick tick tick…
Mehehehe PE! (I’m having way to much fun with this.) PE is Physical Education, and two semesters are required for every Wellesley students. Unfortunately, we don’t have a mandatory swim test like MIT, but I’m good with having everyone on campus participate in yoga, or zumba, or rowing or sailing or archery or climbing wall or any of the other great things we are required to do. If it was up to me I’d be taking all of them, but I was varsity swimming for the past two years so that didn’t leave much extra time :).
My PE class is Advanced Strength Training (no pre-reqs, so don’t be intimidated by the “Advanced”), which I signed up for because I saw the teacher and there was no way I couldn’t. I’ve done Swim and Dive the last two years, but my first year spring I also did varsity Track and Field, and my coach for track was Coach Meg, who is SO AMAZING. I’d rant and rave about her for ages, and she was in fact one of the people I missed most when I quit track (which is quite unusual, because usually I’m pretty neutral on my coaches. This attitude tends to appear when one person runs your team and keeps you all together, dosed on dopamine highs, and strong, and on the other hand is entirely in control of how much pain is inflicted daily on your body.) So I signed up for Coach Meg’s class, where we currently have four people (I think the “Advanced” throws people off, plus the time slot is really weird) and thus tons of personal attention. I find that I know more about strength training that everyone else there (obviously besides Coach Meg, who is a beast and can do one-legged squats to the floor)… who knew that what we did in varsity sports is much more than almost anyone else in the community? Somehow when you’re in sports you get the impression that everyone’s in sports, and you hear about all the amazing things happening in these other sports communities, so you think you’re not working as hard as other people. Turns out, you’re in a pretty select group already—which is quite strange, and makes me want to get into one of those sports communities again :).
Anyway, for those of you who are varsity athletes—yes, you do get PE credit for your sports, and I’m just auditing this class. For all the rest of you out there, take PE. It’s wonderful. I personally wanted something very high intensity that didn’t involve the time commitment of varsity sports, and I found it. However, there are dance classes; there are personal defense classes; canoeing, martial arts, and ping-pong classes… anything you want, you could take. The list of classes is here, and I can’t believe I wasn’t taking advantage of these before. My goal next time is to take some kind of dance or yoga class—it’s free to my eyes, and they’re exercises I’ve always wanted to do. Cheers, Wellesley—no mandatory swim test, but way to give us options that I’d still want to take even in the real world!
Tick tick tick! Here we go!
Due to a particularly feeble push on my part, we have now arrived at Day to Make a Difference! Note that there’s already an exclamation point on the Roulette (I couldn’t help myself), which means that I’ve actually committed the dreaded double exclamation point, indicating overexcited girl for all to see. Sigh. I was reading some article on how the different genders use emoticons and exclamation points, and it was quite enlightening… (see What Monica Does When She’s Bored. I don’t think I’m actually going to get to that today—I can’t believe I’m already at 2582 words—but it involves searching for and reading a lot of psych papers along with talking with friends)
Swim and Dive team part of the group volunteering at Rosie’s Place!
But I digress. Day to Make a Difference is one of Wellesley’s initiatives to make Wellesley students more aware of service opportunities and need for service, mostly in the Boston area. If you sign up early enough, Wellesley busses you out to a specified location, where you volunteer for a few hours before they bus you back. This year, a group of the swim and dive team headed out to Rosie’s Place—a shelter for poor and homeless women in Boston, where we worked in the food service area for a lunch.
Ieva and I were stationed at the dishwasher, so we didn’t see as much of the women as our teammates and other Wellesley students who came along (there were 16 of us, half of them on the swim and dive team.) Moreover, I haven’t had a lot of experience in community service, so I wasn’t sure quite what to expect. One thing that startled me was the fact that this was a shelter solely for women. When I spent the summer of Boston, I mostly saw men on the streets. Rosie’s place serves women who are often in or escaped from domestic violence, who one third of the time have children dependents, and who are homeless or had uncertain shelter. Tiffany remarked that the range of ages surprised her—we saw many young women in addition to old, and everyone was dressed in such different ways that you couldn’t classify the women if you wanted to. Gabby remarked that she’d never seen any food shelter serve food on real, porcelain plates. Our supervisor, Ben, later told us that that was to make the women feel normal, give them dignity and respect, and that their shelter didn’t allow women in who were high or drunk for the same reason.
It’s a whole different world, one that I worry I’ll never pay attention to. Wellesley, for all its diversity, collects a certain type of person, and grad school and academia, where I’m headed next, narrows that type even further. I will definitely participate once a semester in the events like this that Wellesley hosts, so that I can have even a little bit more exposure, though paltry and woefully incomplete, to service and to the lives of the people served. However, I must remember even after college to be involved, even if just a little. Just so I don’t forget.
…
A quick tick tick tick, and then I’ll let you go, attention hogger than I am. I swear I didn’t mean to let this get to 3000 words :).
Family and Friends weekend! Chee!
Family and Friends weekend is when Wellesley invites alums, family members, and anyone else who wants to come along to attend some of their student’s classes, hear some lectures on Wellesley’s campus, watch some Wellesley sports events, and let their newest member of the Wellesley community show off what they’ve learned and how they’ve settled in for college. I’m excited because I’ll get to see all the parents on campus, which is always fun because here’s a place that is ours much more than anyone else’s. Everywhere else is filled with older people and younger people and owned places and new places, but Wellesley belongs to its students, and it’s so comforting to give directions, or know what’s going on on campus, or just to know that we’re the ones that fit in. I get all proprietary when any family members come—but it’s so fun to show off the life I’ve built for myself here, built on the foundations they gave and continue to give me, but with my choices, my place, my college.
I hope that all of the family members that will be coming here will start to experience a sense of this from their own students, and that they enjoy their stay here! I’d say it’s like showing around a house you’ve built, except that Wellesley is always beautiful no matter what we do :). Welcome to Wellesley, and I’m so pleased you’re visiting!
That’s all, folks. I got through a good portion of the roulette—yay! Anyway, as you can see, I’m all for pulling ideas out a hat to make these posts more interesting, so if you have any suggestions, the comment button is at the bottom of the screen! (hint hint, nudge nudge ;P). Hope you all have an excellent Friday, and apologies about the length of this one :). I should have warned people at the beginning that at least it’s well organized, so they could have picked and chosen—but congrats to you all who made it through!
Happy Friday!
Monica