Greetings, everyone!
You know, I haven’t been here for very long, but I’ve so much to tell you that I don’t know where to get started :). I forget how much I love being here until I’m actually in the swing of things… this summer, for example, I was afraid of going back to school because I remembered how hard and busy it was; and then by the time I’m onto my second blog post of the year, I can’t imagine not having so many exciting things going on all the time! Given this mishmash of frenzied activity, I’m going to try my best to organize it under one theme. This week, the topic is going to be “Monica’s Social Life”— I definitely don’t think that my social life models a “typical” Wellesley student’s, but I think it gives a good picture for how all of us find our place in Wellesley’s many and varied communities :).
My first community that I absolutely have to write about is: Swimming! A few days ago, another athlete asked me if I was excited that the season was starting on Monday. I said “sort of”—in that I was happy to get started again, but was anxious about the huge time commitment being on Wellesley’s Swimming and Diving team represents. I laugh at myself two days later—I was quite wrong, because I am tremendously excited that swimming has started :). It was great getting to know the first-years before the season began, but now we’re all officially together, at the same time, meeting the new assistant coaches and swimming Bonnie’s (Bonnie is our head coach) sets together. Best of all, team dinners have been reinstated: essentially, after working out for two hours and sharing showers in the locker room, all endorphin-high 24 of us troop over to the Lulu, swarm over two tables, and proceed to talk and eat for close to an hour. Meals are pretty much the only time I reserve the right to not do schoolwork, and hanging out with happy people who will become my closest friends over the rest of the season (we finish at the end of February. Swim and Dive is in for the long haul) is easily one of the best parts of the day. Plus, there are all of these side benefits from swimming: I get disturbingly bubbly, I get to eat more, I can teach swimming lessons, I get a beautiful blue Wellesley Athletics jacket, I can properly say I’m an athlete again, I get to see all of my friends every day, I get to mentor some of the first-years, I’m finally exercising in the 4-6pm slot that I’ve been saving… :). Really, I’m just very excited to be back in the groove again; swimming is my primary social activity, and for anyone who is interested in talking about Division 3 varsity athletics, I’d love to talk to you.
When else do I engage with my peers throughout the day? Well, that would have to be during the many, many hours that I spend doing what we do best here: schoolwork :). You’d be surprised about how little interaction usually occurs during class—despite Wellesley’s amazingly low professor-to-student ratio (which is absolutely essential for my learning, and is one of my favorite things about Wellesley), most of us walk into class, take notes on the lecture, and then run to our next one. The exception to this rule is very hard classes—because once you get into one of those, you’re spending 3-4 hours a week out of class with your peers working on problem-sets (“fondly” known as ‘p-sets’). This is definitely true for my hardest class this semester, Math 215, or “Math for the Sciences”. It’s an applications class covering differential equations, linear algebra, and multivariable calculus… and I’ve already spent many hours getting acquainted with my professor’s office and my fellow math peers’ varied scrawls. And yet, I do love the challenge and meeting all of my fellow students; most of my science friends are from the very difficult Chem 120 class last year, and I can tell this will be one of those classes that bring us all together :).
However, as a science student my classes are not only taught in class (otherwise known as “lecture”), but in lab as well! And as our labs are 3 ½ hours long, with a lot of group work and a hands-on mentality, I often get to know my classmates through the lab portion of the course rather than the lecture portion. I was tempted to make the theme of this post “Labs” due to the copious amount of pictures I have for two of my labs (Organic Chemistry and Neuroscience 200) from last week, so be prepared to meet all of my labmates :). I’ve written some of what we were doing in the descriptions of our pictures… at one memorable moment in Neuro 200, one of the mice even went up my lab coat!
My other social interactions are a little less formalized :). For example, I met up with a few of my economics-major friends at the Goldman Lecture, where Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, delivered a presentation on the U.S.’s federal spending deficit. (I love lectures. The idea of listening to experts in such different fields coming to tell us about their life’s work is thrilling to me.) I also meet some of my peers at the lunch table, where I occasionally sit with strangers and interview them about what they’re studying and doing here on campus. It’s so strange to me that I never will meet most of my peers here, even though everyone has something interesting to say; so I do my best when I have the mental capacity to go say hello :). There is also my research group (which I’m unofficially calling my fifth class) with the Conway lab, whose members have been welcoming and I’m gradually getting to know.
And so those are where my friends are, and who I am lucky enough to spend time with :). I know I’m atypical in many aspects of how I divide my hours; I was talking to my friends, and we all agree that the balance between school and social is a very difficult one to maneuver :). I try to combine the two as best as I can, and though I tend to err more on the school side compared to my peers at Wellesley, I love the balance that I have and am happy that I am in an environment where such a combination can be possible :). And now my time is wrapping up—please feel free to email me about any topics you think I should address, any questions, or anything at all :).
I hope you all have a marvelous Wednesday afternoon—it’s beautiful here and I wish you all the best!
Cheers, Monica