Faculty | Stories from the Hill

Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I love the combination of lots of great food and lots of great family, and it’s a really warm, cozy, and fun holiday. I’ve also taken time over the last few years to reflect in writing about what I am thankful for each Thanksgiving, and I would like to share with you all of the McDaniel things I am thankful for this year.

I am so very thankful to be having such an incredible semester. I’m taking great classes with fabulous professors, and I live with such wonderful people.

I’m thankful that my suite mates are not just the people I live with but have also become my friends. I could not have imagined my suite being such a family unit, and I am truly blessed that we are.

I’m thankful to have strengthened my relationships with some of my friends who live outside of my suite. I am so lucky to have so many great people to rely on.

I’m thankful that I pushed myself out of my comfort zone a little to take a badminton class. My physical education requirement is now a quarter of the way done, and I got to learn badminton and get to know some people within my major because I took the class.

I’m thankful to have some great opportunities coming my way next semester. My schedule looks pretty good at the moment, and I’m adding in a course about working in the Writing Center and working on a presentation about Harry Potter and the Hero’s Journey to present in April at a Jungian conference.

I am thankful for the ever-supportive and amazing faculty at McDaniel College.

I’m thankful that in three weeks, the semester will be over. I’m going to miss this semester a lot, but after all of the stress that the next few weeks are going to bring, I’ll be so glad for things to wrap up so I can go home for a little extended down time before I get to return to McDaniel for Jan Term!

Lastly, I’m thankful to have such a great job at Admissions blogging for you guys, the prospective students. I truly enjoy sharing my stories, and I hope that some or any of the posts on this blog have helped you get a feel for what McDaniel is like.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful, and I hope you’ll remember to be thankful too!

I had the opportunity to eat lunch with a prospective student for a little bit yesterday along with a few other McDaniel students. When he asked us what one of our favorite things about McDaniel is, one of the first things we all said was the professors. And then we spent the next several minutes gushing about how fantastic they were.

Professors at McDaniel are truly exceptional in so many ways, and they’re one of the reasons I came here. Most of our professors are very well educated, but they are so much more than the degrees they hold and the excellent institutions they came from.

Our professors are wonderful because they care about their students both on an academic and personal level. They are truly great teachers and great people. One of the girls I ate lunch with yesterday pointed out that professors are almost always readily available during their office hours. But if a student needs to meet with a professor but his or her office hours conflict with the student’s schedule, the professor will schedule another time to meet with the student. Our professors are also very understanding when students have extenuating circumstances, and I know this to be true from my own experience. I had some hard times in my personal life last semester, and my professors were able to give me the flexibility I needed to continue to succeed in my classes while dealing with my personal needs.

Professors at McDaniel are just as wonderful outside of the classroom. I’ve had some fantastic conversations with my professors about things barely or not at all relating to any of my classes. McDaniel professors also enjoy opening up their homes to students for celebrations and fun activities. My First Year Seminar (FYS) professor invited my FYS to her house to carve pumpkins last fall, which was super fun! It was especially neat since some of my classmates had never carved pumpkins before. She also took our class out to ice cream a couple of times.

I’ve never had a professor at McDaniel I didn’t like. In fact, there are several professors on campus I like who I’ve never even had for a class, and if they don’t know my name (which many do), they still smile and wave hello in passing. McDaniel professors are truly phenomenal people, and I am quite fortunate to have them in my life.

Stories from the Hill

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I Am Thankful: McDaniel Edition

McDaniel Professors Rock!