Let it Snow!

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Annie Brown

It’s snowing here in southeastern Pennsylvania where I make my home away from my home at McDaniel! The ground and everything else exposed to the outdoors is becoming blanketed in fluffy snow and I suspect that soon enough, the tips of the grass will no longer be visible.

It’s apparently snowing in Westminster too! Even though everyone is on winter break, Campus Safety is still diligently posting to Facebook winter weather advisories and reminders for people not to travel unless necessary. It’s nice to see that Campus Safety cares about our safety and well-being even when school is not in session. After all, plenty of McDaniel students and faculty live in and near Westminster.

Since I pretty much won’t be going out today (except when my puppy needs to go outside–that should be interesting), today is a perfect day to start packing up my things for Jan Term! While most students won’t be returning to campus until the end of January, those of us who are taking on-campus Jan Term classes have to move back on January 2. This may seem really soon, but for the most part, I don’t mind it. Over the past couple of days, sitting around and doing nothing has started to become incredibly boring. I think I’ll welcome the change of scenery and social interaction of being back on campus!

Of course, I probably won’t do much packing though–at least not yet. Today seems like the perfect sort of day to get a bunch of blankets, stay in my pajamas, and curl up with a good book : )

Making textbooks affordable

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Annie Brown

One of your responsibilities as a college student will be ordering your own textbooks. I imagine that a lot of students dread ordering textbooks, but I embrace it since I like hunting for good bargains!

Before each semester begins, you’ll need to check McDaniel’s bookstore website (mcdaniel.bncollege.com) to see what books you need to get for each class you’re taking. While some students enjoy the convenience of buying or renting books from the college bookstore (you can order online and pick them up right on campus), this convenience definitely comes at a cost, which is why I prefer to do my textbook shopping elsewhere. (I will say though that by buying textbooks from the campus bookstore, you’ll be able to get a refund on your books if you end up dropping the class that they were for. This won’t always be true of other websites.)

When I know what textbooks I need to buy, I search their ISBN numbers on a site called cheapesttextbooks.com. From here, I can look at different websites’ prices for a book all on one page and select the lowest priced book. Most often, this website directs me to listings on Amazon, Half.com, and AbeBooks.com. And before I check out from these websites, I always check retailmenot.com for coupon codes so I can save even more money. (I use this website for all of my online shopping and I love it!)

This process is time consuming, but the money I save by buying my books this way makes it worth it, especially when it comes to actual textbooks (the savings for novels is smaller, but when you’re buying several a semester, the savings add up). Tonight, I bought eight novels for my literature class Growing Up in America for under $30! And I had them shipped right to the campus post office so I can pick them up while I’m on campus for Jan Term!

For me, buying textbooks works well. As an English major, a lot of the books I need to buy are novels, which I tend to keep after the semester. I’ve also had to buy a lot of reference books for my major that I like to save for continued reference. I also like to be able to sell back books that I don’t keep so I can get some of my money back in my pocket. Some students prefer to rent books though. While it is more affordable to rent, you can’t sell your books back and you can’t keep them (unless you pay the difference in some cases). You can rent from the campus bookstore or you can rent from one of many websites. (Cheapesttextbooks.com has rental listings too.)

I can’t tell you if renting or buying books will be best for you, but when it comes to getting textbooks, shopping around can help you get the best deals!

The Last Christmas Ornament

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Whitney Walker

There is this crazy tradition my mom and I have done every Christmas Eve for the last 22 years. We invite all of our friends and family to our house for an open house brunch on Christmas Eve. We cook and decorate for days for this event. This year, our lives were a little crazy during the days leading up to Christmas Eve. Mom has been working out of town and I had just gotten home from a semester at school to a house full of kittens that had been happy to have the place to themselves for a few months. In the past, all I have been in charge of is cookies and decorating the house while mom does the rest of the cooking. This year, I had to do all of it, except a few dishes by myself. Luckily, my best friend took a couple days off work to come and help me. We got the whole house looking like the North Pole and followed the recipes down to every last pinch of salt. When my mom got home today, she almost cried when she saw all the work we had put into this.

That’s when I finally felt like I was home for the holidays. Most college kids hate going home because they have to listen to their parents rules again. My mom is like my best friend so not having her at home was just strange. It was so nice to have a few days with her before she went back to work. The holidays are useless without family around. Who else are you going to make fun of when they bring up awkward conversations at the dinner table?

Of course, once i get to my hometown I start counting down the days till I get back to campus. My friends at McDaniel have become part of my family and if I could have everyone in the same place all at once it would be the happiest time of my life. For now, I’ll just enjoy my time with all of them separately, be grateful that I have so many wonderful friends and family, and have an amazing time at my annual brunch tomorrow!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

A little networking

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Annie Brown

I’ve found that it’s possible meet some pretty interesting people with just a little talking. While your parents might have told you not to talk to strangers when you were a kid, it actually doesn’t hurt to talk to some of the people you encounter once you’re in college. You’ll never know when you’ll meet someone with similar interests or someone you have common experiences with. These are the types of connections that can help you get a job!–It’s called networking.

Though I didn’t get any new jobs this weekend, I did meet a couple of interesting people. The first was a waiter I met at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant. He struck up a conversation with my table and me, and we found out that he works as a blogger for his main job at an entertainment site called Mania.com, which earns him a lot of neat stuff for free, like movie posters and merchandise. Excited, my mom told him that I like to blog and write reviews and that I write for you guys here on Stories from the Hill before I had a chance to tell him myself. Impressed nonetheless, he asked me if I would be interested in writing about anime for his site. Unfortunately, anime’s not really my thing, but it’s cool to think that an entertainment site would be interested in my writing!

The second person I met was a little less interesting than the blogger but she shared with me a connection to McDaniel. I met this woman on a bus to New York City, and when she found out that I go to McDaniel, she got really excited! Apparently, her father went to McDaniel when it was known as Western Maryland College, and since a number of her high school friends went to WMC, she visited campus often. She and I both share a love for Baugher’s, a local restaurant in Westminster. Sometimes, it’s easy to think that McDaniel’s small, but I realize that the size of its student body doesn’t limit the number of people who have connections to the College. There’s more than you might think!

So don’t be afraid to converse with the people you meet. You’re bound to meet some interesting people and make some great connections!

Embracing the Liberal Arts

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Annie Brown

I’ve been thinking a lot about liberal arts lately. I’ve been thinking back to my Great Works I experience; the section of Great Works that I took last fall as part of the Honors Program sequence focused a lot on liberal arts and liberal arts colleges. And last night, my sister, a freshman in high school, was required to read a newspaper article about the liberal arts and colleges, which also got me thinking.

While I was on my college search, I seemed to be more under the impression that a liberal arts college was a small college with a small student body. I’ve since learned that while many small colleges are in fact liberal arts colleges, many are not. In fact, some larger universities are also liberal arts schools.

So what is a liberal arts education? I learned throughout my first semester at McDaniel that in a general and modern sense, being liberally educated means that you’ve been educated in a variety of academic disciplines, throughout the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, in order to advance your personal and intellectual development. (And in case you weren’t sure, the liberal arts has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative.)

Is McDaniel a liberal arts college? Absolutely! During your time at McDaniel, you’ll be expected to take courses in a variety of disciplines, and the requirements set forth by the McDaniel Plan will be your guide!

As an English major, I wasn’t initially too keen on taking classes that strayed too far from my major, like math and science. However, I’m starting to realize that my exposure to all of these disciplines has made me a deeper, more analytical and creative thinker, which has in turn made me a better and more confident student and individual. Instead of shying away from the liberal arts, I now embrace it! And even though I want to take as many cool English classes as possible during my time at McDaniel (and I still have to take enough to complete my major), I’ve become much more open to taking classes outside of my major, which is why I’ll be taking Logic and an Honors class about number theory in the spring in order to expand my horizons and my mind.

So when it comes to searching for and choosing a college, my advice is this: your academics an important part of your college experience. When researching them, don’t just zero in on your major. Take a look at the bigger picture by looking at the entire curriculum of whatever school you’re looking at. A good curriculum is a foundation for a good education, and it’s up to you to decide what sort of curriculum is best for you.

Home at last!

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Annie Brown

After an exhausting finals week, I am finally home! I’m thinking that for the most part, all of my final exams and projects went well, so I haven’t felt the need to obsessively check my grades. Given the amount of time I think it will take my professors to calculate my grades, I’m not expecting them to be posted until Monday at the earliest anyway.

Looking back on my finals week, I’d say my proudest moment was finishing up my paper for Approaches to Everyday Discourse on Advice Animal memes. It was a fun paper to write, except for the fact that I pulled an all-nighter to finish it, and my presentation about it went really well. My professor really liked it and most of my classmates seemed to enjoy it too.

More memorably though, my suite mates and some friends and I took a few hours out of our evening on Wednesday to dress up (in suits and dresses) to celebrate one of my suite mate’s birthdays. This was the perfect occasion to come back to after having an evening final from 6:30 to 9:30, and I’ll remember it well.

It’s fun like that that makes me miss my suite already, but it’s so nice to be home! My mom picked me up on Thursday evening after my last final, and once home, I spent some quality time on the couch watching The Big Bang Theory with my parents, sister, and puppy.

Since home, I’ve been working on tackling odds and ends around the house, decorating the Christmas tree, journaling, and of course, sleeping quite a lot! I’m so glad to have a break so I can catch up on rest, relaxation, and reading!

My Last Finals Week

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Jess Hague

As the semester comes to a close, so does my last finals week ever! Since I’ll be Student Teaching next semester, I won’t be taking any classes, except for the one that goes along with my Student Teaching experience, which means–no finals! Any student will tell you that finals week is stressful, no matter where you are. The hardest thing for me has always been the cumulative finals, especially in my literature-based English classes. Since we read so much in a semester, it is very difficult to know what to study in order to prepare yourself for an exam.

Fortunately for me, this was the easiest finals week I have ever had. I watched my roommates, friends, and residents all stress about all of their tests. I felt bad for them, but at the same time, was grateful that I had such an easy week. Of course, two weeks ago was my busy week, considering that I had a Unit Plan due, a presentation on my Senior Seminar, and my Senior Seminar paper due. Once you turn in your paper and do your presentation for Senior Seminar, you’re done, so that class actually ended two weeks ago for me. I had two things to do during finals week: a Digital Portfolio for my education class, accompanied by a 10-minute presentation, and a cumulative final for my Literature By Women class. I was very nervous about the final for Literature By Women, just because there was so much information to remember. Luckily, I have friends in the class, so we all got together and studied together, which I think really helped, since we were able to bounce ideas off of one another.

Of course, now that I’m officially done my first semester of Senior year, I’m very relieved, but also nervous! I can’t believe that next semester is my last semester at McDaniel. I’ll be sad when I have to leave, just because McDaniel has become my second home over the past three and a half years. However, I am very excited to start my Student Teaching on January 9th! I cannot wait to be around my students all day every day! I’m sure it will be a fantastic experience!

The End of the Semester

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Kaitlyn Vadenais

Whoa. Another semester down. Except for me this is my last fall semester EVER.

But I’m not going to get all sentimental yet. Even though I am finished with my finals, I feel like I have so much left to do before I can actually leave McDaniel for a month and a half.

Instead of flying home, since I will be on a plane for much of January, my father is coming to get me tomorrow afternoon and we will drive home the next morning.

Before then, I still have one last final, an appointment with the Center for Experience and Opportunity so that my resume is ready for job applications, a tour, packing for home and for Italy, cleaning the apartment, and hanging out and saying goodbye to my friends.

This is the fun part of finals week though, when you are done with your academic obligations and you have no real schedule to your day and you’re just hanging out with friends and enjoying the end of the semester, reminiscing on how it was August like, yesterday.

Break seems long before it starts, but it always flies by, and with my break separated by two weeks in Italy, I know mine is going to go even faster. I can’t wait to get home and see my family, see my cat, and see my best friends. I am excited for driving, fridge water, television with DVR, and my own bed and shower.

Salvation Army Toy Drive

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Jess Hague

During finals week, I took a trip to The Salvation Army with two of my sisters and another McDaniel student that was interested in doing community service. As soon as I heard about this project, I was very excited about it and really wanted to go. Even though it was right before the day I had a final and a presentation, I still thought it would be a blast!

The biggest challenge was fitting all of the donations into our cars. We had bags and bags of stuffed animals and a few boxes of books that we were bringing to donate when we volunteered. Because of this, even though there were only four of us going, we still had to take two cars since my trunk and backseat were stuffed! After arriving and bringing in all of our donations, we were led to a huge warehouse. The warehouse was filled with boxes, each with a number on them and names and ages of children in the family. We were given a short orientation by Peggy, the volunteer coordinator. We had to pick a box, which represented a family, then go “shopping” in the bins of toys. Our goal was to try and find toys that the children asked for, but if we couldn’t find them, we chose toys for them that were age appropriate. We also had to put clothes into the boxes. Each child was given one or two outfits, a pair of shoes, and a coat if they asked for one. Some of the families also asked for socks, underware, and pajamas. It was so much fun to go through the boxes of clothes, which were all donated, and pick out outfits for the children. My favorite outfits I picked out were for a 10 year old girl. I picked out jeans, a Cinderella t-shirt, Disney Princess pajamas, Disney Princess socks, pink shoes, and a pink coat! The hardest thing to figure out were the shoes. Since I don’t have any younger siblings, I had no idea how to understand children’s shoe sizes!

Overall, the project was a lot of fun. I loved looking through all of the toys and picking out items for the children, especially because I know that the children I was sorting toys for do not have very much, so they will be grateful for anything that they are given. I was shocked that there were so many toys to choose from. A lot of the toys were newer toys and I know that some of them are very expensive! It touches my heart to see so many donations that will help children in need have something to open on Christmas morning. My hope is that people will not just walk past the people from the Salvation Army ringing bells outside stores this holiday season! Those donations go to helping children have something to open on Christmas!

Joy, Kelsey, Whitney, and myself after a night of volunteering!

With Love, From Home

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Annie Brown

It’s easy to get bogged down by all the stress, work, and sleeplessness of finals week. But not everything about finals week is bad: this is the time of the semester when many of our parents and loved ones become sympathetic about our plights as finals-burdened college students and send us care packages and other goodies to make our survival a little sweeter!

McDaniel makes it easy for parents to think of their students during finals week. At some point in the fall, the College mails out order forms so parents can choose from a variety of care packages from a company devoted to putting together care packages. These care packages were available for pickup yesterday, and I’m sure they made a lot of people’s days a little brighter! My parents sent me one of these last year, and I really appreciated it! However, I’ve convinced my folks that they’re better off sending me packages they create themselves (which they usually did my freshman year anyway) because unlike the care package company, they know what snacks and candy I like and don’t like.

When I was a freshman, some of my extended family members thought of me a lot too. I often received cards and letters. I also received several packages full of candy throughout the year, and my uncle even sent me a pillow pet for my first finals week. I still get a lot of letters from my loved ones, but it was during my freshman year that they spoiled me!

My freshman friends have gotten a lot of cute things in the mail over the past couple of weeks. One of my friends got a festive holiday Beanie Baby. Another one of my friend’s parents made her a family newsletter that talked about how much fun they had over Thanksgiving as a family and how much they couldn’t wait to have her home for Christmas. This is probably one of the most adorable “thinking of you” things I have ever seen!

As for me, my care package, with candy carefully selected to my liking, showed up today–just in time for the worst of my finals week experience to already be over. The fact that it was late was out of my parents’ control, but it still would have been nice to have some of that chocolate while I was writing my 12-page paper yesterday. Either way, it’s always the thought that counts, and when it comes to the gift of chocolate, I say better late than never!