To all you AP test-takers out there

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Annie Brown

If you’re a prospective or an enrolled McDaniel student who is taking AP tests this week and/or next, I want to take a moment to wish you the very best of luck on your exams!

I took a total of six AP tests throughout high school, so I know that you’ve put a lot of work into studying for these tests and that you are likely very tired and very stressed out about them at this point. I want you to know that because you’ve worked hard both in and out of class, you will do fine.

At McDaniel, each score of 4 or 5 you get on an AP test will give you four college credits. Certain AP tests will even help you place out of requirements. For example a 4 or 5 on AP Language and Composition or a 5 on AP Lit will allow you to test out of the first year composition requirement and allow you to dive into what you’re really interested in sooner. I also know a lot of students who have placed out of math and science requirements for getting 4s or 5s on math and science AP tests.

Additionally, the extra college credits will give you what I like to call a “buffer.” If you ever find yourself needing to drop a class for whatever reason, having AP credits will prevent you from getting behind as a result of dropping that class.

If you’re applying to college in the fall (or even the fall after that), remember that even if you don’t get a qualifying score of a 4 or 5 on your test, the fact that you’ve taken an AP class (or several) will demonstrate that you’ve challenged yourself in high school and will help your high school transcript stand out just a little bit more. (But you don’t need to take any AP classes to be admitted to McDaniel; I know plenty of people who haven’t.) In fact, you don’t even need to submit your scores to McDaniel as part of the admissions process.

If you are an enrolled student, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the free AP score report the College Board will send to any college of your choosing and make sure you send it here! This will show the college all of your AP test scores (unless you canceled any) and will save you some trouble and some money in the future. I have some friends who took AP tests and never bothered to send their scores here, and I have no clue why they wouldn’t.

Again, best of luck these next couple of weeks! You’ve heard this before, but eat well, get plenty of sleep, and don’t study or cram too much. (Trust me–these things help!) Stay calm, and remember that college is nothing like AP tests–and that’s something to look forward to!

Late Night Denny’s Runs

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Kat

With final papers, projects, and tests to contend with; we all need a chance to unwind, eat, and relax. Last night, I went to Denny’s with a bunch of friends for a late dinner at 10pm after most of us finished wrapping up our homework for the night. First of all, let me say how nice it is that there are food places near campus that are open 24-7. Since it isn’t uncommon for late dinner’s to occur, it is nice to have options when campus food just is not what you are in the mood for. I personally love going to Denny’s because it is really the only time that I eat breakfast food since my usual habit is sleeping as long as possible and ignoring that breakfast is a thing.

So anyway, we arrived at Denny’s around 10:30. All of us ordered our drinks and then conversations began. We talked about everything under the sun from majors to future plans to Probie’s recent date to everyday stuff. It was absolutely wonderful to just relax and talk with Phil, Lyssa, Probie, Dan, and Mehar as we ate and just tried to think about anything other than our homework for a while.

After getting back to campus, we all camped out in Blanche and watched some television before going to sleep. The relaxation time was greatly needed and it definitely helped me to get right back into work today.

Last two weeks in the Spanish house

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Amber Slater

As the year comes to an end, so does my time in McDaniel’s Spanish house. For the past few days, my housemates and I have been celebrating the awesome year that we’ve shared together. On Friday we had a picnic with a few of the professors in the department and tonight was a surprise going away party for our house director, who is from Argentina.

The picnic was fun because, like all of our other parties, it involved food from all over South and Central America. I live with seven native Spanish speakers, so throughout the year I have learned a lot of new recipes from various countries. At the picnic we had dishes like horchata, which is a creamy drink, and platanos, or fried plantains.

After eating we played some games and made a big pyramid that lasted for about a second before we all fell on the ground.

Tonight, two of my housemates planned Karina’s surprise party and invited several McDaniel professors and students. There was a ton of food and Karina got to hang out with the friends she has made and the students she has taught.

Living in the Spanish house has not only improved my spoken Spanish skills, but also given me the chance to learn about the Spanish speaking world and make some great friends. I’m always sad to leave McDaniel for the year, but I think this year will be particularly hard because I’ve had such a great living situation for the past year.

Contrast Lit Mag next year

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Amber Slater

After posting about my plans for Palabras to Words next year in a recent entry, I figured that I would do the same for Contrast, our literary magazine. I recently met with this year’s editing team to learn about what putting a magazine together entails, and we discussed some awesome initiatives for next year, including:

Doing a reading with a guest author. Public readings are a great chance for authors to share work, practice flow and rhythm, and gain feedback from others. We were thinking that next year we might invite a spoken word poet to come and read some work along with inviting students to read what they’ve been working on.

Implementing themed workshops. During the fall, Contrast club members will meet on a bi-monthly basis to participate in structured writing sessions, which could be on topics such as character development, setting, conclusions, etc. Workshops might also involve writing activities such as “found objects” writing in which club members would draft solely based on objects (quotes, pieces of art) that we’d bring in.

Having a fall writing contest. This has been an element of Contrast in the past, and I’m looking to bring it back. Students would enter toward the end of the semester, the top three would win cash prizes, and those winners would be published in our magazine in the spring.

If you’re interested in becoming involved with the creative writing community at McDaniel next semester, be sure to stay tuned for meeting dates and sign up for our mailing list at the fall Involvement Fair!

Surprise parties are the best parties

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Annie Brown

Today, I had the opportunity to throw a surprise party for one of my best friends on campus, and things turned out great!

Earlier in the week, my friend’s mom, who lives in Boston, called me to ask me if I could pick up a birthday cake from Starry Night Bakery in Westminster and surprise my friend with it. I knew with the help of some friends that we could totally pull off a surprise party, but we definitely had to plan it as we went along.

Before going to get the cake, another friend and I drove to the dollar store by the Food Lion to pick up some decorations. For under $5, we got plenty of decorations to spruce up the Forlines common room where we held the party. If you’re trying to hold a party on a budget, the dollar store is the first place to go for great deals.

Then we went to the bakery to get the cake. I didn’t realize this until we got there, but Starry Night Bakery won Food Network’s Cupcake Wars in 2011. This was no surprise; as soon as I saw the cupcakes, I nearly cried tears of joy because they looked so delicious. The cupcakes we picked up were chocolate with a coffee flavor and espresso frosting, and they were absolutely delicious.

After picking up the cupcakes and a yellow cake with butter cream icing, my friend and I had to rush to decorate the common room and get our friend assembled before the cake got too warm. (Neither the cake nor the cupcakes would fit into our microfridges.)

Eventually, we got everyone rounded up and we texted one of my friends to bring the birthday girl to us.

My friend was totally surprised to see us waiting for her and even more surprised to see the cake! We pulled off a low-key but very fun party with some great music to boot. Planning and celebrating a surprise party for one of my besties was an awesome way to spend my Saturday!

One Last Concert

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Mara Seibert

I’m a violinist. I’ve been playing violin since the third grade- and I pity my parents during those early years… There was elementary, middle, and high school orchestra and private lessons. At McDaniel I had the option of taking orchestra, but there are also private music lessons!

Starting freshman year, I began taking half hour lessons with one of the violin instructors, Mr. Currie- and haven’t been able to stop! I have absolutely loved them. I can honestly say that I have never before grown so much as a musician, nor had so much fun in lessons. I’ve learned so much, and also heard the most spectacular allusions, similes, and metaphors eve. “You’ve got to be gangster when playing this piece!” What one always expects to hear when working on a classical violin piece (it actually made total sense in context).

Last night, Friday was my final violin concert, and I was able to perform a solo piece I’ve been working on all semester: Praeludium and Allegro by Kreisler. It’s incredibly intense, really challenging and I was determined to learn it throughout this semester. Finally, on Friday I was able to perform the piece for my family and a few friends and show off all the hard work I’ve been putting into the piece! Despite being nervous, I was able to play it well and was really happy with both my performance, and the fact that it was over!

Several other students and the String Ensemble performed as well, a group that I have been in several times. A wonderful accompanist and a great teacher, I could have asked for more for my final concert. I’ll definitely miss taking lessons here, and hope I have enough self-discipline to keep practicing and learning new pieces after graduation. In the meantime, I still have one last music jury for my violin lessons to show that I’ve actually been learning things and improving. So still some more practicing ahead!

Like learning to play an instrument, or want to get better? Take some music lessons here! I just happen to know an excellent violin teacher…

Final Projects

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Kat

So, today I spent the large majority of the day working on my final project for my Arabic class. Myself and my partner were making a video about her time in San Francisco. In our story, she owned a club in San Francisco, but an earthquake destroyed the club so she moved back to Maryland. It was a fun plot and in the end, she decides to re-open the club in Maryland; where there should not be any earthquakes. We debate about names for the club and eventually settle on calling the club Ahram- the Arabic word for Pyramids.

Filming our video was a lot of fun, we definitely had some interesting bloopers by the end of it. Phil helped out a lot with the recording and we both were quite grateful. We used different backgrounds for different days in the video in order to make it all more clear, and because playing with the backgrounds on my video editing software is fun. Other students in our class also made videos, a few did their final presentation live on Friday. My favorite video was about a girl who was sick, who had a dream about going to the moon. The video animations were very amusing.

I never really thought about how much fun group projects can be. You get time to play with different technology, work with friends, and see how interesting you can make the project. I also filmed my final video project for Egypt today, which was fun. I made the powerpoint presentation and did a voice over to make it a presentation. I really enjoy final projects because they give each student a chance to shine in their own way.

Fire Dancers & Survivors: Senior Honors Banquet

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Mara Seibert

As the end of the semester keeps drawing closer, many departments, sports teams and honor societies are all having their end of the year banquets and dinners. The Honors Program is not exception, and this past Sunday we had our “Senior Honors Banquet”… but it was a Banquet like no other…

Why you ask? First of all because it was only the honors seniors that were invited, meaning that pretty much all of our friends just got to have a nice dinner together. The whole evening was “Survivor” themed. Both in the sense of the show, and the idea that we had finally survived four years of vigorous academic requirements and were about to graduate at last! My friends on the honors exec board had planned out the evening and we had a nice little dinner of various refreshments and desserts- the swedish meatballs and the little baby cheesecakes where my favorite. After some welcoming remarks and some gift giving, it was finally time for the Senior Superlatives. This was easily one of the funniest parts of the evening as people were elected “Most likely to win the Hunger Games” and “Most Likely to take over the world- using kindness.” I received “Most Likely to Achieve World Peace” so I must be doing something right! There were also some fantastic pictures of everyone and a great slideshow our President Catherine helped put together of us throughout our time at college.

It was a really fun time to reminisce… and to get henna tattoos! After all, what’s a party without a henna tattoo artist?? We all took our turns and got some lovely henna (yes even the guys, they were proud of it too) in between games and thank-yous.

But soon the grand moment had arrived. We were told there was to be a mysterious performance and were ushered into Red Square. Our surprise entertainment? Remember the henna tattoo artist? It turns out she is also…. a Fire Dancer! It was amazing. I don’t know if McDaniel has ever had anything quite so cool and unique in the middle of campus. She was twirling fire everywhere, eating it, having it lick greedily up her arms and all around embodying the song “Girl on Fire.” I was going crazy with my camera and got some truly spectacular pictures of her and the fire twisting through the evening air. We also soon attracted a small crowd, and people were watching from the library window and other nearby buildings. What a great way to end our Senior Honors Banquet and our senior year. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends than those I’ve made through the honors program.

FunFest

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Luke Schmidt

After two long rainy days that started off the second to last week of classes, we finally had a sun filled day. This was perfect timing for McDaniel’s first annual FunFest – essentially a mini-carnival. The FunFest was hosted by the Trumpeters (no, we do not play trumpets) as a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of Westminster. We are hoping that next year the new Trumpeters will continue the FunFest and carry on the tradition!

Several organizations on campus joined in on the fun to make the event a success including the Asian Community Coalition, the Writing Center, the Free Press, Alpha Lambda Delta, and Allies. Each organization hosted a different carnival game that students could play to win raffle tickets. The lollipop tree seemed to be the most popular game followed by the “Pie a writing tutor in the face” station. I paid $5 to pie my friend in the face and it was well worth the money! There was also a rubber duckie grab, corn hole, ballon darts, and “Comic Knockout.”

Music was blasting and friends were chatting all afternoon while soaking in the sun to begin their long awaited farmer’s tans. There were a lot of lucky winners who won donated gift cards to restaurants and businesses located all over Westminster. The most sought after gift card seemed to be the Rafael’s $20 gift card (a popular bar to hang out with friends on Thursday nights).

The event helped raise over $160 for the Boys and Girl Club of Westminster, which I am sure they will be excited to hear about!

I don’t remember the last time I was this busy…

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Annie Brown

This is been one of the busiest weeks of my life in recent memory. (I know I’ve had weeks just as busy if not more so, but I try to suppress those details!)

I’ve spent the past week laying out a 12-page print issue of the McDaniel Free Press to commemorate the graduating class of 2013. It’s been a lot of work, and being doing it pretty much on my own, because I have the right combination of skills and available time for the job.

I’ve had to sacrifice a lot of my personal and even academic life this week to work on such a big project, but there have been some advantages to it. I’ve known how to use the basics of InDesign, the program we use to do layout, since the end of my junior year of high school, but I now have a better grasp on InDesign than I’ve ever had before. And yes, this is relevant. A lot of places that want to hire English majors for jobs and internships want the people they’re hiring to have familiarity with Photoshop, Illustrator, and/or InDesign, so having the skills that I have is a great addition to my resume.

So if you have any interest in getting a career with an English major immediately after taking college, I strongly advice you to get a feel for these programs. Courses like Editing and Desktop Publishing offered at McDaniel can help you learn them, but some practical experience is also useful. It’s also difficult to get into this class until your junior year, so if you do come to McDaniel and you want to learn these skills, come join the art staff of the Free Press! You’ll get some practical knowledge, and with enough people participating, no one person has to take on the entire layout by herself!