Hello everyone,
I am super excited to be back and blogging for LC’s Real Life Blog!!
My name is Sarah, I’m originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I am a sophomore this year. I am majoring in international affairs and will be officially declaring it soon - yay! Some things I do at school include rowing, College Outdoors, working in admissions as a tour guide and lunch host, I am also the director of community outreach for the Campus Activities Exec Board, and I help run Adoptee Club.
Where do I even start? I’ve made it through the first 4 weeks of the semester already and so much has happened. I think I’ll start way back at the beginning of the year before school even officially started.
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| NSO Leaders |
This year I was a New Student Orientation (NSO) group leader (I knew since going through my own orientation a year ago that I wanted to be a leader in the future). Honestly, it was such an amazing experience and surprised me in so many ways. An aspect that I really enjoyed was that the other leaders were all from different places: different cities, different majors, different social groups. We came together with the one goal of helping new students transition to college and I think it allowed us to step outside our normal friend groups and meet new friends. I have become friends with people whose path would likely have never crossed mine if it were not for NSO. It was also really fun to get to move back to campus early. I got on a plane on Friday, August 23 (after working at my summer camp that day too) and arrived in my dorm at almost one in the morning on Saturday. The weather was absolutely gorgeous - full sun, bright blue skies, summer was still in full swing.
I remember being so excited and nervous to actually meet my group of new students on the first day of NSO. I was trying to plan out which ice breakers we would play and also trying to remember all the millions of things I was supposed to ask them or remind them. The first hour was a little shaky but by dinner time we were just hanging out and things were good. By the end of orientation my group was solid and that’s all I could have asked for. It was so cool to watch them get to know each other and see everyone become at ease with the new space they were in. I will definitely be a leader again.
This semester I made the decision to take only three classes (12 credits) rather than four. I am taking U.S. Foreign Policy, International Political Economy, and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention and Violence. I wanted to really focus-in because I am taking upper-level classes for my major and want to do well in them while also continuing my multitude of extracurriculars and jobs. So far I have loved all my classes in different ways but boy do I do a LOT of reading. The nice thing is that I only have classes Monday through Thursday as each of my classes only meets twice a week (90 minutes each time - one class meets M&W and the two other classes meet T&TH) so Friday is now a big homework day. My favorite class is humanitarian intervention because it is something I want to become involved in at some point in the future and the readings are so interesting and I love our discussion in class too. I just had my first midterm of the semester in my political economy class and it feels good to not only have it finished but to know that I had prepared myself really well for it.
I have so many more stories and things to share with you all, but they will have to wait for next week.
Have a wonderful day,
Sarah
slind-macmillan@lclark.edu