Meeting Places

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Kaitlyn Vadenais

McDaniel is full of places to meet and gather with a friend or two.

Whether you are meeting with a friend between classes, or peer to discuss a class assignment, there is going to be a spot for you. Here are some of my favorite meeting spots on campus.

1. Coffee shop

Of course, this seems like an obvious spot, and it is. The space was made for meetings, with little tables and chairs and even some couches set up throughout. In addition to being able to grab a little pick-me-up snack or drink, it is a nice environment to get some work done or have a more serious meeting. Of course it also works as a place to meet up with a friend between classes.

2. Red Square

There is amphitheater style seating all around and since this is a central point on campus, it is convenient to meet up with anyone. Add some nice weather and a little people watching and it becomes a great place to hang out with a friend.

3. Communication Department Office

We have lots of comfy couches and since I spend a lot of time near there for my classes, it is an obvious choice when I have some time to kill or just want to meet up with a classmate or a professor.

4. Klitzberg Pavilion

Located in our Gill Center (the gym area), this is a nice place to sit or meet up before a workout. There is a large television and lots of different tables to do some work with a friend or just get distracted with a good conversation with someone you know who is bound to walk by.

Intramural Volleyball: Trying New Things

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Robert

Let me just start this one by saying, I’m not very athletic. I’m pretty skinny and I guess you could say I’m toned but not extremely strong or coordinated so when it comes to playing sports at McDaniel, I’m not the first guy on anyone’s mind. I swam in highschool and I’ve always been a decently fast runner so I don’t mean to make myself out to be some kind of loser, this is just to say that Tebow or Jordan. That said, one thing I have really enjoyed at McDaniel are the intramural sports.

Joining my fraternity has been helpful in this field since it gave me a nice gateway into intramurals, this spring especially since I finally have a softball and indoor soccer team that I can just be a part of without signing up. I’ve played all of these sports before though, what’s new this Spring to me is indoor volleyball. I had no idea it was such a fun sport! Having never played before, I wasn’t sure how it would go, but the fraternity had their first game today and I did not do as terribly as I had expected.

Our first game was against the Phi Delt fraternity. They were pretty good. They snagged a girl from the volleyball team to play for them (kind of cheating in my mind but whatever), and then they had another guy on their team who was pretty good. We were better. We lost our first game after staying tied for most of it, then won the second by a landslide. It all came down to the third game in which we had kept a decent lead on them until they snuck up on us in the end and won. The second game was against Phi Kapp fraternity and they crushed us. It might have been that we were tired, or that they were really good, but either way we didn’t stand a chance.

It was a great learning experience though, especially for a non-athlete like me. My brothers taught me how to set, how to block, and a number of volleyball terms that I wouldn’t have ever known otherwise. It was a great bonding experience even if we lost and it’s nice to know that even if you might not be the best at something, there’s still time to learn at McDaniel.

Road Trip!!!!!

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Robert

I think the value of a good road trip has been lost among our age group. For example, some of the best memories I will take from the year’s Spring Break will be from the 13 hour drives there and back with two of my best friends. Regardless of this, three other friends who also came with us to Florida will be flying back, and they have no idea what they’re missing. After all, nothing will help you get to know somebody better than 13 hours of close, personal interaction. It’s an invaluable piece of the college experience, in fact, I would argue that you have not lived unless you’ve packed up the car with a few of your closest friends and driven through the night to a tropical destination of choice.

For the trip down, Rachel and Stevie arrived at my house at 1am and we began our perilous journey to Florida. On the way down we drank red bull, exchanged funny stories, listened to Taylor Swift, Mackelmore, JT, Calvin Harris, whatever we had on our iPods; whatever was necessary to keep ourselves awake. We took shifts for sleep, always making sure that the driver had someone awake keeping them company. It wasn’t easy but by dawn we had made it to South Carolina in record timing. In five more hours we were smelling the fresh ocean air of Cocoa Beach, driving with the top down on the Florida coastal highway blasting Luke Bryant and loving life.

The drive home is less exciting, naturally. We still have the radio going, but it’s raining and the impending classes on Monday have us all a little down in the dumps. Is still fun though, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. Rachel has been reading to us from a book she has to read for her Spanish class which hasn’t been terrible to listen to.

Go on road trips with your friends! And don’t text the whole time either. Because ultimately your friends now will be your friends forever and this is how you’ll get to know them the best. Well, in my opinion anyway.

Spring Break: All The Cool Kids Are Doing It

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Robert

One of the best parts of college is, of course, Spring Break. You’ve seen it portrayed in the movies, tv shows, and you’ve probably had a few great spring breaks of your own in high school, but in all honesty nothing can truly compare to the awesomeness of a well planned Spring Break combined with the freedom of college. Most students at McDaniel look for warmth after spending a winter in the chilling Westminster wind, and to experience any noticeable difference in climate, that means Florida. I don’t have any definite number, but I could name at least 20 people I know on campus who are in Florida right now and in the process of thawing out.

My friends and I have pinpointed Cocoa Beach, Florida as our salty-aired, sunsaturated, beach of choice. We’re returning this year for a second time; mostly because it’s dirt cheap and you still get all the warmth of the more expensive destinations, but also because Cocoa Beach is one of the Best beaches on the Eastcoast for surfing and two of my friends are really into that. Plus who could pass up this view:

Anyway what I discovered is that you can actually find hotels that have kitchenettes for really cheap. The Days Inn at Cocoa Beach (the hotel we stayed in last year) offered them at a great low fee, and that meant that we could just buy our food at the Publix right across the street. All that was left to cover was the gas to get there. Three of my friends flew because they could afford it, but if you can find two people who are willing/able to split up the driving and the cost of gas, it can actually end up being pretty cheap and easy to get down and back.

What I’m really getting at is that nothing should stop you in college from having an awesome Spring Break. Save up your money and go south, you won’t regret it. Nothing beats 80 degree, sunny weather after a winter on the hill, and it follows a similar principle to pizza: there’s good pizza and bad pizza, but even bad pizza is still good. Unless warm weather isn’t your thing, in which case I hear Killington still has plenty of snow, in fact I think they just got a fresh powdering with this last system that moved through. Anyway, there’s some food for thought.

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.

Snow Day

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Kaitlyn Vadenais

I thought I was ready for spring. With Daylight Savings Time over on Sunday and the air slowly getting warmer, March seemed to be off to a great start. Mother Nature obviously thought differently.

Tomorrow McDaniel students have a snow day! And while I definitely don’t need anymore snow this winter, I’m always a fan of cancelled classes. Even with spring break so close, nobody can say no to a mini vacation in the middle of the week.

My friends and I are already planning a few fun activities for tomorrow including:

Sledding. The 9-hole golf course in the back of our campus doubles as some of the best sledding in Carroll County. We haven’t gotten enough snow to sled since my freshmen year so I am excited to get back out there and relive the fun times.

Board games. What’s better than getting competitive with some friends over the same games you grew up playing?! We have all the old favorites on deck, including Monopoly.

Birthday celebrations. My lucky friend turns 22 and gets the day off of school. That’s one way to accept your old age. Snow means perfect baking weather so there will be plenty of cake for everyone tomorrow.

Today after class, we went out to get everything we might need for a snowy day inside. I’m guessing this will be my last snow day ever, so I plan on getting the most out of it and enjoying every minute!

Staying Connected With Home

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Kaitlyn Vadenais

Rhode Island and my home don’t seem that far from Maryland and McDaniel, but 7 and a half hours driving or an hour flight are difficult to justify for just a short weekend.

For this reason, I usually don’t go home at all during the semester. For shorter breaks, I will go home with one of my roommates. Instead, I usually just wait until the end of the semester. Four months flies by in college.

Unfortunately, I am not very good at long distance communication either. But I have gotten better since I’ve gone off the school.

Neither of my parents are big texters, so I used to send my mom a few emails a week with my random thoughts, some which required responses, some which didn’t. Now she has an iPad so she can iMessage me and we chat more often that way. I still call the house every Sunday afternoon to talk to her and my dad and swap stories about school and home.

When it comes to my friends, it is easy to send them little texts every few days of things that remind me of them or just to say hey. I am not big on long texting conversations however, so we will try to arrange time for FaceTime or Skype at least once or twice a month to talk about things more in depth. With Twitter and Instagram it also helps us keep tabs on our lives.

Even though I miss my family and friends when I am down at school, it is nice to know that everyone is only a text or phone call away.

Winter Break Isn’t a Break from Friends

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Robert

You may think that when classes end in December that the wonderful social life you’ve established at school is just going to vanish and disburse across the many states that McDaniel students come from, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Earlier in the semester my friend Sean and I had the idea of putting together a ski trip to Maine where the skiing is rumored to be fantastic and we could escape from our actual homes during McDaniel’s extra long winter break. With a stroke of luck, we discovered that our friend Barnabas’s uncle had a place at Sugarloaf in Kingfield, Maine. Stroke of luck number two came when we discovered that Sugarloaf was having a college week, with discounted lift tickets and concerts during the week of January 6th.

With all of that, we packed our bags and hit the road on the 6th and made the perilous 14 hour journey from Maryland to Maine. Since Sean and I were the only two going on the trip who lived in Maryland, we picked up everyone else one by one as we drove up through New England. We picked up Jon in Philly, and then Barnabas and Clint we caught in Boston. From there the five us drove another four hours into the depths of the far-north Appalachian Mountains. It was dark when we arrived, well past 8pm. When you are as far from the big cities as we were, you can most of the stars in the night sky, and among the abundance of stars, as you looked in the direction of the mountain, you could see these bright white lights that appeared to hover hundreds of feet up in the sky. As we found out the next morning, we were staring at the gigantic north face of the mountain, and the lights were the snowcats grooming the many miles of trail leaving behind perfect, crisp, corduroy patterned snow.

The sight of the morning sun hitting it was majestic, and we could not wait to hit the slopes. The condo complex that Barney’s uncle owned had a chairlift right at the end of the parking lot which we could walk to and ride right up to the base of the mountain. Though it was cold, the skiing was great. We all had fun on the miles of marked trail, and even some adventure as we travelled off the beaten path into the miles and miles of glades that Sugarloaf has left untouched in their development of the mountain.

I cannot imagine any way I would rather have spent a week while on break; in fun company on a fun ski trip. These types of things are common in college. Last year Sean, Jon, and I went on a trip to Cocoa Beach, FL during Spring break, and we’re making plans to do that again. It’s nice when you can use the independence that comes with age to go on fun trips with your friends, and it’s really nice that the social life you foster at McDaniel can thrive in and out of the actual community itself.

look to the right, there’s the beauty that is Sugarloaf Mountain

Cold and Compromise: Living with a Roommate

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Robert

Roommates are tough business. You’re cooped up in a tiny box with one for a full year and let’s face it, you could be the most unobjectionable, peaceful person and you will still want to punch your roommate in the face after a semester of daily interaction. Their stuff will end up on your side and you’ll complain about their mess, but then you’ll do the same thing a week later, one of you will want to stay up late, one of you will want to have friends over really late; there are countless little differences that will come between you and all of a sudden you’ll wonder how you ever thought living with your best friend was a good idea.

My freshman year, the guy I lived with for my first semester was a little nerdy and had an insatiable taste for Perry the Platypus, messy living habits, and an early bedtime. Now there are worse roommates out there. I hear stories of roommates who would steal and break each others’ stuff (mostly girls) because of small arguments about missing hair brushes and jealousy. Still, I had a friend down the hall whose roommate was also friends with my roommate and I proposed a switch. My bestfriend and I have a lot in common. We both love soccer, hanging out with friends, and Family Guy; yet there is still one thing that he and I disagree on: the temperature of the room.

I cannot stand being even a little cold. Temperatures below 50 degrees might as well be sub-arctic since I get the same amount of sleep as if it was -10 degrees. I think I may have a circulation problem in my legs that allows my feet to freeze before any other part of my body. In any case, my roommate sweats in his sleep even if the room is below freezing. This difference has caused many fights since he likes to keep the window on his side of the room open in order to sleep better.

Finally, the other day, we came to an agreement. I would sleep with my socks on if he closed the window during the day, and so far it has been working. I’m still cold in the room during the day because our heater doesn’t work but that is something I’ll need to take up with my RA. For now bundling up in hoodies and sweats will get the job done. Living with a roommate isn’t easy, but it is better when you come into a problem with a mind to compromise and work things out.

I Am Thankful: McDaniel Edition

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Annie Brown

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!

Stories from the Hill

Tag Archives: Friends