Stevens Admissions: Regina

Newsletter Envy (Part 2)

Continuing my post from earlier in the week, here are more news pieces in the weekly Student Life Newsletter.  The SNL makes me homesick every time I read it but I also feel pumped about getting back to my home by the Hudson River!

Say Thanks to the Troops  The Stevens Veterans Office (SVO) would like to invite you to join us as we pay tribute to military personnel stationed overseas this holiday season.  Made possible through a special website, we have the opportunity to send free postcards to the troops, honoring their dedication and determination.

I like this concept, very much.  Sevens recently became a “Yellow Ribbon” school which is a program that makes it easier for veterans to attend school and complete their education.  While this is a new program at Stevens I know that the school’s respect for veterans goes a long way back.  In one of the nooks in the library that I claim during finals week there is this big plaque that listed information about all the Stevens veterans and active duty students that had served during World War I.  It really puts Fluids homework into perspective sitting by that wall…

 

New Course: Latin American Societies.  This course will examine the history of Latin America from its ancient period to the modern day. We will explore the rise of the Maya, Aztec and Inca Civilizations, Spanish exploration and colonization, and independence.

There’s generally a few listings of new or interesting classes that different departments want us to know about.  I can see a lot of people being interested in this one.

 

Christmas Carol Sing.  Meet in the Ondrick Music Room, 4th Floor of the Wesley J. Howe Center; then we will travel and sing with the Stevens Choir and Brass Ensemble across campus! No experience is necessary and music will be provided.

This ranks up with one of my favorite things to do during the holiday season.  We stroll all over campus and to the houses of nearby administrators (Deans, Vice Presidents, the Provost) and sing carols.  It really makes me feel welcome and at home, especially because this is also a mid-finals occurrence that helps lift my spirits while I’m trying to lift my GPA.

 

Tutoring Opportunities.

Going back to that entrepreneurial spirit, there’s generally a fair number of advertisements for job opportunities, either through the school (Dean So-And-So needs an assistant) or through a department (Teaching Assistant needed for Class 101) or through the Hoboken community (Babysitting for first graders…mother’s helper needed…).  Easy side jobs rank second only to free food on the list of college student priorities!

Newsletter Envy (Part 1)

Stevens is a delightfully small and close knit community that has a tremendous breadth and depth to it.  There is an outsize amount going on at any given time.  If you have an opportunity to visit campus (I hope everyone even slightly considering Stevens makes it there) you’ll see colorful posters crammed onto every free wall space there is.  Even these advertisements of goings-on don’t always capture what there is to do on campus.

An easier tool that I really enjoy reading is the Student Life Newsletter (SLN).  The Office of Student Lift puts this newsletter out at least once a week and it contains information about what different groups on campus are doing. 

The most recent one was a great example of everything there is to do and made me (again!) very homesick. Below is a sampling.  The bold text is the heading of the newsletter, the italic text is part of what was written in the newsletter.  Plain text is my own commenting.

 

Midnight Breakfast from 10pm to 12am on Wed. December 16^th.

Midnight breakfast is an event that takes place every semester during the later end of finals when the pressure begins to mount all around campus.  It’s a late night, school sponsored event featuring great (free!) food, live music, massages, and palm readers for students who want to know how their grades will turn out.  It’s a widely attended event and a ton of fun.  When I was a freshman RA I particularly enjoyed it because I knew there was at least one night during the finals crunch that my girls had a fun, safe, interesting way to blow off steam.

(Continued after the jump)

Cheeseburger In Paridise

The title comes from a Jimmy Buffet song that's been replaying in my head as I wrap up co-op.  I don't even like cheeseburgers and the song reminds me of Florida!  It's a very strange thing to see palm trees with Christmas lights.

All I want is to be back in Boken with my friends, even if that means taking classes!

Geeky Breakfast

You know what I miss being down here in Florida?  My friends and my food.

Ah, yes, food.  I've probably mentioned that I'm a native of Brooklyn, NY.  A native New Yorker meaning, of course, that there is certain food that I have extreamly stron opinions are.  Pizza, for example.  It horrifies me to see people order chain pizza or somehow attack their slices with a knife and fork.  Last week I asked my friends here in Florida if we just wanted "to go order a couple of pies."  They looked blankly at me until I clarified that I meant pizza pies, not apple ones.  I was quite depressed.

My other opinionated food preference is bagels.  Oh, bagels- I could wax lyrically for pages and pages about bagels.  I did a stint as the president of the Residence Hall Association on campus and one of my responsibilities was to organize Sunday brunches for the student body.  Every Sunday for three years I was able to indulge in warm, fresh, doughy bagels smeared with cream cheese and generously piled with lox as I mingled with student leaders, counseled freshmen, and comiserated with my peers about class assignments.  A good bagel is a glorious thing and pathetically diffiuclt to find outside of the tristate area.

So when I came accross this link floating around the internet, I was nostaligc and happy.  Nostalgic because it's a yummy looking bagel and happy because it was a very nerdy yummy looking bagel.  In every way, it reminded me of Stevens:

A Mobius Strip is a neat little mathematical figure.  It's a three dimensional object with only one surface.  The way this is generally explained (in textbooks, not simply on Wikipedia) is that an ant or some other tiny thing could be placed on one part of the strip and walk the entire exposed surface.  Here's a YouTube to give some more of a visual cue.

Geeky and yummy and fun!  I miss you, Stevens!

The End of the Term

Greetings again, and happy December to everyone!  The end of the fall semester is approaching.  

It makes me feel a bit guilty to be on co-op right now.  While I am attending holiday lunches in the office and taking my final tours of the worksite, my friends on campus are fighting with their class notes and cramming for finals. Wait, did I say cramming?  Of course no one crams in college, we're all totally up-to-date and prepared for the end of the semester.  Of course.  You believe me, don't you?

Well, today's brief post is dedicated to all of those dedicated students dedicating themselves in the most dedicatingliest dedication to their dedicated technical areas.  Glad I'm not you all, but I'll be with you in the spring.

12 Days until I'm back "up North" as they say down here!

Home is where the classes are (part 2)

I mentioned in my last post, the time to think of clever things to do with your schedule is generally not your first semester.  But once you get into the rhythm of things there's plenty of options.

One of these options is to select a minor.  A minor is a collection of classes (generally about 6) that go beyond the classes dictated by your major.  Minors are designed to give you a well-rounded glimpse into an area of study that, while interesting, is not what you want to devote your college education to.  

Minors are also used to supplement your major, making you a more well-rounded <insert your major here> during college and when you begin your professional career.  For example, several engineers I know are minoring in Mathematics because Math was the thing that attracted them to technical disciplines in the first place.  Another new, very popular, minor is Green Engineering.  This is a minor that gives the students an understanding of the way that their engineering decisions have very real impacts upon the environment and I've heard many positive things about it.  Another approach to selecting a minor is to choose something totally non-technical.  The College of Arts and Letters is very popular with minors, including a Pre-Law minor (which I'm currently pursuing) which can present a nice public policy dimension to an education in engineering design.

Of course, minors are not the only way to diversify (and complicate) the ritual of selecting classes.

Home is where the classes are (part 1)

I was very homesick for Stevens last night.  This was intense homesickness, where you look frantically around your rented bedroom for some flash of Stevens' red or gray or even for Attila The Duck's maniac eyes.  What caused this sudden longing for the Old Stone Mill?

Class registration.

College is important because of extracurriculars, friends, scenery, atmosphere and distance to home.  Yet at some point you need to think about actually getting your butt into a seat at Stevens and taking classes.  I don't think there is anything that I appreciate more about the Institute than the trouble-free way that we register for classes.  This blog posting and the 2 following it are going to talk in-depth about registering for classes.  I'll try to answer some of the questions I know I had as a freshman about how registration works, include a bunch of really helpful links if you'd like to learn more about the process, then try to explain why this time of year brings back such fond memories for me.

Scubie-Doobie-Doo!

My picture from my Open Water Scuba certification exam.  Me, with floating hair:

The Class of 2010 (continued)

Continued from yesterday's post.  My second memory from Freshman Parents' Weekend happened during the Saturday of that week, when my parents were introduced to Co-Op.

I've written extensively about my participation in the Cooperative Education Program and the fantastic experiences that have resulted from it.  Co-op is the reason I am currently in a dream job in sunny Florida in the aerospace industry.  Some students enter Stevens knowing they want co-op, even selecting Stevens specifically for the program.  I was not one of these students.  

I think I was too busy drooling over aspects of Stevens such as the Scholars Program to pay attention to co-op during the admission process.  But two weeks into the semester I was dragged to the information meetings by my roommate and was hooked.  During Freshman Parents Weekend the co-op department held a meeting where they pitched the program for parents, like mine, who didn't understand why their child suddenly wanted to spend 5 years in school.

During that meeting, when my parents were swallowing the same co-op hook I was caught on, I noticed that my mother was wearing one of the pins she had been given at the start of the weekend.  It was a round, white pin with Stevens' red lettering that said: Class of 2010 Parent.  I realized that, with every convincing word out of the co-op director's mouth, my parents were moving further away from the Class of 2010 Parents.  They are class of 2011 parents, I am a class of 2011 student.

Last week there was an article about the job offers for 2010 students (yes, Stevens students get their job offers as early as a full year before graduation).  I was startled that I knew one of the profiled students very well and it made me think about when the high school graduating class of 2006 split into the college classes of 2010 and 2011.  It made me a little sad that I will not be joining some of my friends in their graduation rituals, though I would not trade my co-op friends or my job for all the senior events in the world.

So, good luck to my friends who are moving on and I hope the rest of your final year goes smoothly!

The Class of 2010

During your first semester at Stevens, the last week of September, the Institute holds "Freshman Parents Weekend."  I have a lot of fond memories from that weekend, two of which really stand out.

The first one has to do with "Introduction to Programing," a required class for all engineering students that gave us a cursory understanding of the C++ coding system.  As long as anyone can remember, the class has been taught by Professor Tewksbury (who does not answer to any appellation besides "Tewks," to the delight of all the freshmen).  The Friday of Freshman Parents weekend, I had Tewk's class and my mother shadowed me to the lecture. 

Apparently, we were farther ahead in the cirriculum than we were supposed to be for that week, so Tewks stood up in the front of the lecture hall and announced that he felt he should be teaching us important things besides simply programing.  He decided that we were, instead of hearing about C++, going to spend that afternoon discussing cars.  Yes, cars.  Tewks launched into a 50 minute lecture about classic cars, new cars, car engines and colors and designs.  He drew diagrams, reminisced about the vehicles he drove during his life, and polled the class about our favorite ones.

Halfway through the delightful and unexpected discussion, Tewks paused in his enthusiastic delivery and peered out into the classroom.  There were many parents scattered throughout the audience and their salt and pepper hair implied that they were not freshman engineering students.

"What's this?  Why are there so many visitors today?"

Someone in the front row hurriedly explained the presence of the parents.  There was a long pause as Tewks contemplated it and I was worried that the lecture would switch back to programing.

Instead, he grinned at the students and their parents and exclaimed, "then there must be some of you out there that remember these cars!"  The discussion continued, students, parents, and professor, and I was very proud that all of the parents had witnessed such a genuine "Stevens" moment where the flow of information in the classroom was so free and excited.

That was a longer story then I remembered, check back tomorrow for some context to that tale!