About Robert

I'm 19; a sophomore student at McDaniel College. Hometown is Annapolis, favorite color blue, the only thing I love more than my home state is McDaniel!

What to do when nobody’s around

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Robert

To be honest, the rare occasions where the entire campus clears out for breaks and only a few students who have a reason to stay into the weekend are occupying the dorms are the best! The showers are always empty, it’s quiet, the lines in Glar are short, and you can park really close to your dorm building. If you’re one who gets bored in this type of situation, or just get bored in general, I thought this might be a good time to list

What there is to do in the Westminster are for a college student:

1. The Mall – It’s within walking distance, has most major stores, a decent movie theatre, and is certainly a great way to spent an afternoon where you don’t have much to do.

2. Players Family Amusement Center – I’m only listing this one because I wasn’t even aware of it until this year, but Players is like 5 minutes from campus and has cheap laser tag, batting cages, bumper cars, and lots of other cool stuff. It may seem kind of lame but don’t knock it until you try it, cause I had a blast.

3. Bowling – Taneytown Bowl is 20 minutes away, is fairly inexpensive, and is fun for a group of people who are bored on a Thursday evening or something. I think the bowling class you can take through the Phys Ed Department bowls there also if you’re interested in going bowling on the school’s dime

4. Gettysburg – Definitely here me out on this one: Gettysburg is awesome. The outlets are fun if you’re just looking to window shop or if you’re looking for a cheap pair of fresh shoes from Payless. If you’re a history buff, which I know I am for whatever the reason, you can take part in all the fun historic Gettysburg Civil War stuff. And around Halloween, they get some cool haunted house type stuff going on. They have a website where you can find all of that stuff.

5. Baltimore – If you’re into the club scene, there are plenty of under 21 clubs in Towson and Fells Point. These actually become increasingly popular for those who are of age to drink during the weekends, and campus safety runs free shuttles to these locations for anyone who asks.

So I hope this has given some helpful insight into what there is to do at McDaniel. If none of these suit your interests, Green Terror Productions, is always running fun weekend activities; shows at the Hippodrome Theater skiing at Liberty, I went to Hershey Park last Fall, and plenty others and those usually cost between 5 and 15 dollars. I’ve never seen one that costed more than that. Anyway, food for thought.

Holy Midterms

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Robert

If you ask just about any college student what their least favorite part of college academics is, they’ll likely respond with midterms. They do suck, no sugar-coating here. In both Fall and Spring semesters they fall right before break. You’re just ready to unwind a little because the pressure has just started to get to you, and oh hey! 100 point exam, better study. Don’t worry though, it’s only worth half of your total semester grade. Annoying? Yes. Nerve wracking? You bet.

So what do McDaniel students do when the stress is high and enthusiasm mantle-low? Well to be honest they sleep a lot. But when they aren’t sleeping, they’re taking advantage of tutors provided by Student Academic Support Services (SASS) or the writing center, or they’re taking the good old-fashioned approach, decently sized study sessions in their favorite spot in the library (everybody has one).

How do I, and the rest of the McDaniel students know about all of this? Well to begin with, we were all told on the various tours and information sessions that you will have thrown at you when you make your decision to come to McDaniel; but a lot of it comes with practice and good study habits which become a part of even the least diligent student’s life at McDaniel.

Anyway, I’m telling you all of this so that you’ll know that sports tryouts or pledging a fraternity or sorority will not be the most difficult or obnoxious part of your college career. However, with practice, they become easier. By next year at this time I might not even think anything of them, anyway, if all goes horribly, at least Spring Break is less than a week away.

Nice Weather, Good Luck Studying

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Robert

The first truly beautiful day of the year came today, just three days after the biggest snowstorm of the year. Some blame global warming, I just call it luck. Out on the quad between ANW and DMC, two dorm buildings by the gym, students were strewn about with laptops, with laptops and blankets; some tanning, some studying…most tanning. You can’t pass up a beautiful Saturday afternoon in early March.

One fun thing to do at McDaniel when the weather gets nice is run a trail around the golf course. It’s beautiful, the grass smells nice and is a nice soft landing for your knees, and there are plenty of hills. You also cannot overlook the fact that one lap around the course is one mile. In the springtime you can see plenty of students using this trail to get in shape and get outside.

Others who are more desperate to get outside, but can’t take a break from their homework take advantage of the courtyard outside of the library. It provides a nice, quiet study place while still allowing students to enjoy a nice day. There’s also a statue that some have nicknamed “The Pissing Rock” because of the slow trickle of the fountain that is reminiscent of…you guessed it. Anyways it provides a nice tranquil feel to the courtyard and makes it one of the most popular study spots on campus.

Personally, I took a jog on the golf course, worked out in the gym, then tried my luck getting homework done while lounging out on the quad. I was unsuccessful and ended up playing pick up soccer with some of my friends. Either Way, this week has come with a few crazy weather trends and while they haven’t been the most conducive to studying they were certainly great for hanging out and enjoying good company.

McDaniel Does Snowday

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Robert

Today McDaniel students are all in hibernation mode since classes have been cancelled and snow has covered the campus in a pleasant, white, 3 inch blanket. All semester we have been waiting for a snowfall decent enough to cancel classes and now that it has finally happened the campus has fallen to an ironic hush. Personally I did not wake up until 11, but plenty of my friends slept until 12 or 1 slowly awakening and making the perilous trek through the cold to the dining hall.

My brothers and I chose to have breakfast as a group in one of the brother’s apartments to celebrate the occasion, but plenty of other students went and enjoyed a nice hot breakfast at the Pub or Glar. The nice part of a day like today is not having to rush. Everybody could take their time, enjoy conversation, put tomorrow homework off just a little longer.

At about 3, the snow stopped. As if it there were free ice cream offered for everyone who went sledding on the golf course, at least a hundred students wandered out to the golf course to take their turn on the “sled-perfect” hills. Most students did not have sleds, and what you could see were storage bin tops, laundry baskets, couch cushions, even a mattress (don’t tell Res Life). And this was just one activity among the snowmen, snow forts, and snow angels that were made.

For most students, professors pushed Wednesday’s class plans back to Friday so it wasn’t exactly a missed day of school but not a terrible price to pay for a fun day in the snow. To finish off the day, my friends and I went to Chipotle for Burritos, Walmart for a DVD rental and hot chocolate, and my friend Sean’s room to watch Skyfall and enjoy the warm comfort that the day left us with.

When the Flu Hits, McDaniel Hits Back

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Robert

Before this week I would never have known what gastroenteritis was, let alone what it could do to a campus! The term “going viral” has never meant more to me than it does now. Beginning on Tuesday night, what McDaniel students have been calling the “McVirus” or simply “The Plague” began infecting students, spreading like wildfire across the campus. On the Phi Mu floor in ANW, which is the one below my own, 12 girls all came down with it all in one night and 2 of them had to be hospitalized due to dehydration.

Aside from being gross, the threat of getting McVirus inspired the most fear in students. Sanitation can be an issue when so many people live in close proximity to each other, and the physical plant worked almost non-stop to try and disinfect commonly touched objects like doorknobs and counters; Glar changed some of their operational habits to prevent germs from spreading. For example, they began handing out the silverware instead of allowing students to pick their own. Even to their best efforts, however, McVirus spread to a majority of students and even go McDaniel on the 8:30 Baltimore News on Friday.

Lack of hand soap in the residence halls was a big problem. I think the college assumes that most students will bring their own Purell or some other form of hand sanitation, but clearly this assumption does not hold true. The college sent out all kinds of e-mail reminders telling students to wash their hands and avoid the virus as much as possible. The result was that angry students ended up complaining on the McDaniel page about the soap shortage and McDaniel responded by supplying all the bathrooms in all the residence halls with fresh soap and a stack of paper towels.

This goes to show what a little bit of skillful complaining can do on a college campus. I was impressed by the college’s responsiveness to Facebook grievances. By Friday, the school reported a lower number of sick students and like that the epidemic was ended. Hopefully next week will be back to normal. In my case I went home to avoid the school for the weekend and to catch up on some much needed sleep, so returning to school as usual will be refreshing for me.

My Dream of Becoming a Tour Guide Come True

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Robert

I think we can all admit to having a dream at one point or another in our lives, or at least something we want to do really badly. For me, ever since I began the college touring process I’ve wanted to be a tour guide. Something about the idea of introducing myself to a stranger and showing them why my school is such a great place to go. Today I took my first real steps towards making that dream come true when I shadowed a current tour guide and learned the ropes.

In the Office of Admissions, there are three different stages of what they call “ambassadoring,” which is just another term for being a representative of the college, and you get to do different jobs at different stages. Currently I’m an unpaid green, which is the bottom tier. I mostly just performs small jobs around admissions. From 5-8 today I made phone calls on behalf of admission, informing prospective students that they had not fully submitted their applications. This and other jobs of this nature are examples of unpaid green jobs. The next level is paid green which is just an intermediate step to becoming gold which is my goal.

Earlier this morning, I shadowed my friend and tour guide Kelsey as she gave a tour to a nice family from Potomac, Maryland. I got to see what a tour route looks like, as well as get a feel for what information touring families expect to hear. It was insanely different from the other side, and it’s hard to believe that only two years ago I was doing the same thing. What was also an excellent experience for me was finding out that the father of the prospective student on the tour was a member of Alpha Sig from the Gamma Beta chapter.

For me today has really confirmed my dream to go gold and be a tour guide. It’s a chance to meet people, to network, to spend some time outside on a beautiful day like today, and talk about myself…all of which I enjoy. I also encourage all prospective students to take a college tour. Not just at McDaniel but any school you’re interested in. You really learn a lot. I’ve been at McDaniel a year and I had no idea that Campus Safety offered rides to classes if it’s cold out and you don’t feel like walking across campus. Just goes to show, never too late to learn something new!

McDaniel Helping Heroes Helping Hopkins

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Robert

Last night an organization on campus called Heroes Helping Hopkins hosted a night at Buffalo Wild Wings, Bdubs, to raise money for their cause. The Heroes organizes volunteers to go to the Hopkin’s House, which is a residence next to John’s Hopkin’s Medical Center for parents and families of patients to stay at an remain close to the hospital, and help provide food, comfort, and warm beds to people in their time of need.

As a nice gesture, the brothers of Alpha Sig attended and helped promote the event. Though it was an unforeseen benefit, it actually ended up reflecting very well on the fraternity. This entire week while we’ve been recruiting at the table I talked about last week, we also passed out the coupons that students needed to show when they paid their bill so that 15% of the money they spent would go to Heroes.

Then last night a good number of us showed up in letters to do our part, and the turnout was phenomenal! I saw a good number of students show up in the period of time I was there from 6 to about 7 and the event went on until 9. It was awesome to see so much of the campus come out to support a good cause and really made me optimistic for the Bdubs night we are hosting in April to help us reach our Relay for Life fundraising initiative of $2,500. We also managed to kill two birds with one stone since we invited some prospective new members to join us for dinner.

When you come to college, charity and donation are not necessarily objectives on your radar. So for good causes like Heroes it’s nice to see how the community will respond when you ask them to. Apathy is always a problem among college students but it seems that with a little bit of advertising and some good food, motivating the masses can be done.

Get Your Pancakes!

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Robert

This weekend I helped establish and run the first Alpha Sigma Phi pancake sale we have ever had. Taking the idea from Res Life (Residence Life) and their pancake sale last semester, we thought that it might be a good way to make some money as well as get our name out in terms of recruitment. My brother Logan, recruitment chair, and I teamed up to get the ball rolling and through the support of the rest of the fraternity, we were somewhat successful.

The sale was saturday night. I had spent a good portion of time Friday and Saturday during the day making flyers with tear-off numbers that residents of Rouzer, McDaniel, ANW, and DMC (we focused on these residence halls since we figured these building would be most likely to have guys that would want to go Greek and still have time to pledge) could take with them in the event that they had nowhere to write the number down when they saw the flyer, which is usually the case. Students could call in to the number, place an order (two pancakes for $1 = an order), and we would make the pancakes fresh and deliver them to their dorms.

The night started off really strong. We were getting calls right at 10pm when it started, but these were mostly close friends who we had personally demanded call in to the event. We passed the time playing catch phrase, watching family guy, and in general just having a great time. After about 2 hours, we had given up hope, then around midnight the calls starting flowing in one right after another as people were returning from their night’s activities and getting hungry.

All things said and done, we made about $28 over what we spent on the mix and the plates. Not a huge profit but we succeeded in getting the name of our fraternity out around campus and in some great brotherhood bonding among the guys who were there which is sometimes undervalued. Hopefully we’ll make our pancake sale a more regular thing and it will grow in popularity but for now it’s a great memory!

Recruitment: Go Greek

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Robert

Now if there’s anything a fraternity will teach you it’s that recruitment is a year round thing, it’s always a good time to extend a friendly hand to a potential new member. However, there are busier times than others in terms of grabbing the interest of prospectives and the past few weeks have been very busy in this sense as we build up to the open smoker next week. So far it’s been weird being on the other side of the experience since only this time last semester I was a member of the recruited and not the recruiting.

I’ve been using the time as a chance to learn what it means to be efficient at recruiting new members so that hopefully after apprenticing this semester and next fall I can make a case to be elected recruitment chair which is my ideal position. The one benefit to not studying abroad next fall as I had planned to is that I will be here to really find my place in the fraternity.

Today we set up table outside Glar for the first time which is just a broad a approach to recruitment and it helps to get our name out to the community and hopefully have some prospectives sign up for our open smoker. An open smoker is just a meet-the-brothers type event that most social fraternities host at the beginning of the semester to introduce prospectives to all the brothers.

On such a small campus, it can be hard to get independents (non-Greek lifers) excited about all the things Greek life has to offer. In fact many don’t realize the great things that Greek life can bring. A fact I didn’t know for example is that of the 50 large corporations that dominate the American economy, 47 CEOs were a part of Greek life. Not to mention that all US presidents except for two were involved in Greek life. This is not to say that going Greek guarantees you a spot among presidents and CEOs, but that the experiences it brings can be huge in sculpting your people and business schools which will help you all throughout your life.

What it means to fundraise…

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Robert

Thursday, April 18th – Alpha Sig Buffalo Wild Wings night…be there. I’m just kidding, but in all seriousness I’m on top of my game with my job as Fundraising/Philanthropy Chair for my fraternity. Basically my job is to spawn and act on ideas for ways in which to raise money for the fraternity to donate to local causes and drives. The difficulty with my position is that in recent years the fraternity has fallen off its commitment to philanthropy so I don’t have clearly set footprints to follow in. I’ve been pretty successful in making it up as I go, but raising money isn’t an exact science and I’m in a constant battle with apathy among the student body and sometimes among my brothers.

Today I met with a woman from Bdubs (Buffalo Wild Wings) to discuss what it would take to host a fundraiser at their restaurant. Bdubs is a campus favorite, mostly for big game days during football and basketball season, but also for their traditional wings. It’s a prime spot for fundraising. Now I didn’t learn this all on my own, you might say I stole the idea from other organizations on campus (cough, cough, Heroes Helping Hopkins) but, nonetheless, it’s a great idea so I hopped on the bandwagon.

Hopefully we’ll have a good turnout because we’re relying on this particular fundraiser to help the fraternity reach its fundraising goal of $2,500 dollars for McDaniel’s Relay for Life in April, and important cause to me since I lost my grandmother to cancer and should be an important cause to everyone because statistically speaking, you’re probably going to get cancer at some point in your life. Anyway organizing this event has given me some invaluable experience that I can use in almost any career.

I’m currently in the planning stages for an Alpha Sig night at Players Amusement Center in Westminster. A girl I’m friends with who lives on my floor works there and has been amazing in helping me get the plan going and it looks like it might be a success and hopefully bring some money to the fraternity since, like all organizations, we have operating costs as well. In any case, college will throw opportunities like this one to become a leader and if you’re lucky like me you’ll have some great success.

Stories from the Hill

Author Archives: Robert