Blogging from SHC
When I read the title of Popek’s last blog, the first thing that came to mind was “WOW someone else is writing about PSU Swing Dancing too?!” Haha… apparently, he didn’t mean THAT kind of swing. But I do!
Here’s a brief deviation from the PSS 101 series to talk about my recent obsession with…… swing dancing. Continue reading ‘Semester in “Full SWING”– literally’
We are nearing the end of January, and today is only the 12th day of class this semester, but most students here at Penn State have already readjusted their schedules from winter break and are throwing themselves into their classes, extracurriculars, and homework. It has been an extremely busy past two and a half weeks for me, and it will likely only be getting busier. Full details after the jump.
Being sick sucks, no matter how old or young you are. But getting sick away from home for the first time sucks even more. You’re taking your own temperature, heating up your own chicken soup, and wishing that you could either fast-forward a few days, or rewind back to grade school when being sick generally meant that you got to stay home and watch cartoons.
Fortunately, however, as much as we all hate feeling sick, I’m here to tell you that Penn State’s University Health Services pretty much rock. Continue reading ‘A shout-out to University Health Services…’
Over the first week weeks of college, expect to be hit by a giant avalanche of unfamiliar acronyms and vocabulary. (I definitely was.) Once you get familiar with PSU, all of these words will seem like second nature, but initially, they can be really overwhelming.
I can’t cover everything, but this blog and the following blog are devoted entirely to college vocab that me and/or my friends didn’t know before we got here.
This blog is Part I of the Vocabulary Series. It’s focused on Academic College Vocab, language you will hear in the context of classes/academic life. Part II will be all about Social College Vocab (look for it sometime next week).
Hopefully, doing your homework and studying this Prospective Student Seminar lesson will help wipe that lost-and-confused-first-year-student look off your face!
Part I, Academic Vocabulary…. Continue reading ‘PSS 101: Lesson 2, Academic College Vocab’
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1/29/05 – If interested, email Lisa Kerchinski (esk10@psu.edu) for details and application instructions.
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Anyone want to go to China for the summer?
Accenture and the SHC have justed announced three new internship opportunities exclusively for SHC students for this summer. The location? That place everyone wants to be right now – China.
The SHC recently kicked off the first in what could be a series of new international partnerships by announcing an exclusive opportunity for SHC students to do consulting work in China. Stint of duty is 3-6 months, knowledge of basic Mandarin is required, and people are already lining up to have a go.
Mr. Steve Snyder and Mr. John Semmer – both PSU alumni – gave the presentation on the internship partnership tonight in the GFC, and IMHO, it looked very promising. For uninformed, Accenture is a huge multinational consulting company, which basically means they hire talented workers in just about any field and then deploy them into a company where they help that business optimize their operations (speed, accuracy, efficiency – name the buzzword and they’ve probably got it somewhere in their job description). They’ve got clients in hundreds of different countries – from the largest multinationals all the way down to the home-grown domestic corporations. And it’s those corporations that they want to connect into with the SHC internship.
The internship sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Accenture will hire three-four SHC scholars and hook them into a team of consultants working with a local Chinese company. The interns will be treated exactly like real hires – meaning they’ll be working on authentic projects in a 90% Chinese work evironment…not stapling papers at the nearest branch back home. The exact companies and projects are still flexible right now, but essentially, those will depend on the intern’s skill set; someone with a math background will be put with a market analysis team, while a computer science major may end up helping set up and deploy a new server. And it’s not all work – another part of the experience will be hardcore cultural immersion and Mandarin learning.
Personally, I’m excited. Though I don’t know if I’ll ever end up working for Accenture, it’s a great opportunity for SHC students and IMHO, an interesting career field. Both Snyder and Semmer are technically trained (Synder – civil engineering and nuclear construction, Semmer computer science), but neither of them was ever confined to the stereotypical grad-prof tenure track. According to them, consulting is the one field where you will never get bored (In fact, they advised…if you want to spend 6 months on a project, you’re not really a consultant).
Which is good. While I certainly respect my peers who are headed the professional route, that kind of job is not for me. I need something interdisciplinary, fast-paced and teamwork-oriented. And while I may never make a career out of consulting, it’s certainly nice to have that as an example of an alternative. [It's also nice to hear, after many doubts about the necessity of learning Mandarin, an affirmation that Mandarin is where it's at.]
So yeah. If things go well , you may see me in China over the summer. And if not, well, there’s always next year.
Hi everyone,
My name is Mark Cannon, and I am a freshman. At the risk of saying the same thing, I’ll just have you know from the start that I love it here. The honors college is such an amazing experience, and combined with the Penn State, boundless with opportunity. I am writing to everyone who has so many interests and wonders what he or she will do with the rest of life. I am now a double major, mathematics and accounting, technically still undeclared. I started out as a premedicine major, I shadowed doctors, and I loved biology. When I came to college, it became apparent that I liked math and business so much more. I spoke with my teachers and multiple advisors, who all helped with this decision. In the end, the situation was not nearly as big of a deal as I made it out to be. I am so glad I made this change, and I don’t regret taking a few extra science classes first semester. Being indecisive is rarely a problem for a freshman college student, especially at Penn State (having over 160 majors alone). I have taken several honors courses already, and I am doing honors option on a course. These courses enhance the material and look so good that even students not in Schreyer take them.
-Mark
Hello Internet!
This one of the SHC Bloggers who hasn’t felt like his life was exciting enough to post yet. However, with the new semester in full swing, I now have the time and the experience to write posts. But that’s for later; you still don’t know who I am.
My name is Wil Santivasi, and I’m a freshman majoring in premedicine and neuropsychology. This semester, I just started working in a biochemistry research lab where I study how DNA and proteins interact in the cell. I am also a member of Alpha Epsilon Delta (the premedical honor society), SHC Student Council, PSU Red Cross Club, Swing Dancing Club, and Science Lions. Long story short, I’m keeping myself busy. Of course, if anyone has questions about any aspect of life here, leave a comment and I’ll give you the inside scoop… unless I don’t know the answer, then I’ll ask someone else and pretend like I knew it all along.
I bet by now you are all wondering what I actually have to say now that I’m an active blogger. It took me a while to get an idea, but luckily I’m surrounded by people that are much more creative than I am, so I have decided to lovingly rip off of Meg’s post-theming concept. I got to thinking that there are a couple of places that PSU likes to show the world (ex. Beaver Stadium), but there are so many more that are really awesome. So, my next posts will show all you people The Best Places On/Around Campus That You Probably Haven’t Heard About. For the next few days, I’ll be getting pictures and insider info from some of my favorite places that are unknown to current and prospective students alike (and to answer the question you’re already going to ask, no, I’m not going to find the steam tunnels any time in the near future… maybe next year).
On that note, if anyone has a suggestion for a locale I should cover or a catchier title than the one I thought up, just let me know by leaving a comment and I’ll get around to it.
I feel like this post is long enough now, so until next time!
Wil
PS- LOST Season 4 starts in 8 days!
Today, as I walked through the blustering snow to get to my research lab, an idea popped into my head. Taking in the idea, I thought about how the college experience is truly special.
Continue reading ‘The new semester brings about new options’
My first day of class was kinda rough. I woke up later than I wanted to so I was rushed, had a splitting (caffeine withdrawal) headache, and then I needed to hightail it across campus to Intramural Building for ballroom dance. I get to ballroom and she calls the girls attendance. And my name isn’t on the list. So I figure, maybe it’s because I just signed up for this class a few days ago? Then my ballroom teacher said, “You know, your name really looks familiar…”
flashback :I signed up for ballroom by copying/pasting the scheduling number into elion 100 times a day, waiting until it gave me the message “that section is closed but this one is open.” Little did I know… it didn’t discriminate between the MEN’S section of Kines 017, and the WOMENS’s section.
My teacher flipped over the attendance list andddd.. yep, there I was, signed up for Men’s ballroom dance. She told me I could stay for the day, but I had to drop the class IMMEDIATELY so they could get a boy in my slot to make the numbers balance. I can look back and laugh now, but it was incredibly embarrassing at the time!
I went to lab. I was starving and stressed. And then it took forever. While waiting, I dropped the men’s ballroom dance class. Then I added a plant bio class. Then I dropped that and added a nutrition class, which I promptly dropped for another section of the same nutrition class, which I dropped for a history class, UNTIL…. .a miracle occurred and a spot opened up in the Women’s Ballroom Dance section!! I checked at least ten times to make sure I was actually signing up for a women’s class this time.
So now everything is good and my schedule is all straight again.
Today I had three classes, all of which I LOVED. My neurobiology teacher is really entertaining. Sign language was awesome. Then I had CHEM 597C, my first grad course. The teacher ran a very interactive class with many questions and she seems really nice. If you’re interested in my full schedule, you can check it out http://lionschedules.com/eekdul (this doesn’t show my independent study research credits though).
I just wanted to put up a quick blog to say hi! Unfortunately, I am totally swamped with applications for summer research and thesis panicking, so I haven’t had time to write the next PSS 100 entry. But soon! It will be coming soon….
It’s been eight months since I was reborn.
Not reborn in the metaphysical sense…nor even the old-fashioned miracle way, but birthed into that great ocean of the Internet. Since I discovered the RSS feed, things have changed, and mostly for the better.
The RSS feed is a marvelous toy (for playing with RSS, try Google Reader) . No longer do I have to bounce around a plethora of pages before finding articles I need. Every article is conveniently delivered right into my inbox. And all that crazy site formatting is simplified into the online equivalent of Large Print Reader’ s Digest. (minus the Metamucil ads)
Easy reading, however, does not mean simple texts. In fact, it’s rather intimidating plunging into subcultures with their own jargon and knowledge bases (take Robert Cringely’s technocast blog, for example). But at the same time, I’ve been continually impressed by how much detailed information information there is online. From everything from expat life in China to playful American literature or simply watching the SHC blog site, RSS feeds are indispensable for getting the skinny on issues (outside of the sound-bite media). And there’s a lot of things that you can’t write in normal media that works well on the Web – including that weird mix between personal and professional writing called blogging.
IMHO: if you don’t have a feed reader, get one. Start with Google Reader, add a few subscriptions and read them. It’s easier than most other ways of getting the news and might possibly be more accurate. Try it out and see if it appeals…I think it probably will…
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