PSA to all incoming freshmen

The end of semester is near which means it's time for the newbie to reflect on completing my first year of college. It's had it's ups and downs but I survived with all my limbs with a couple scrapes and bruises and bags under my eyes.
             The biggest thing I learned that is important for freshmen is a strong support system to help us remain standing as we lose sleep doing class work in the wee hours of the night when only the infomercials play and adapting to living on our own. The first thing you should try to do is get involved in the campus community and make friends in your classes and to get a head start, for the overachievers, try and make friends at orientation. You'll definitely see this people on campus again and possibly in your classes.The worst thing to be in college is being shy. It gets you nowhere.
    You must make your name and create connections with other students, university workers and professors. This is mostly because sometime in the near future, you will need a letter of recommendation or someone to use as a reference. It's absolutely no fun sitting alone in the MET or Chick-fil-A.Whilst the next table is a loud energetic group of hooligans cracking jokes who are slightly annoying to the other students who are trying to eat peacefully. It's easy to lock yourself in your room and sleep the days away and not attend class. It also easy to lock yourself in your room with your homework and only leave to eat and go to class. You are in charge of what you do.

Final Projects in Communication "Impress Me"

This was my professors final project in our small group class. “Impress me.” Not only do I have other classes, but now one of my classes gives me an assignment and NOBODY knows what it is... not even him! How did this turn out? Well, it didn’t. Let me explain.

After MANY ideas got thrown around, my group decided we would post signs from our professors’ house to the classroom telling him about how much we loved our semester in his class. (A pervious assignment included a meal at his house, see my Girls Just Wanna Have Fun blog, so we knew he lived only across the street.) To accomplish this task we decided to meet at school at 6AM the day the project was due. This was the first of our many mistakes. Our Morning:

6:00 AM: One of our group members forgot their part of the signs, another member did the wrong part, and yet another member would not wake up no matter how many times we called. We had no Markers and no paper!

6:15 AM: Borrow supplies from the Herrington Patriot Center to make our missing portions of our project.

6:30 AM: Head back to our get-away-vehicle.

6:35 AM: Our missing group member finally wakes up.

6:40 AM: The stapler newly purchased for this project does not work!

6:45 AM: We remember our professor has a dog after he chases us out of the yard.

7:00 AM: We split up one group to get a camera and one group to run and get Duct Tape from their house.

7:05 AM: Sign hanging officially begins

The Quest for the "Perfect Schedule"

Don't run from your fall schedule... REGISTER NOW!

      It is again that time of year where I am finally trying to figure out the ‘perfect schedule’ for the Fall semester registration. Because I don’t have very many hours left to take, my next two semesters of my undergraduate career will be a seemingly lighter load. The desire to accomplish the elusive ‘perfect schedule’ is still very much present. Only Tuesday/Thursday classes or only Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes? Early morning and get it over or later classes and sleep in? So many questions in the quest for MY perfect schedule.

         In my experience there is a few things which will help you in your future scheduling conflicts you will encounter.

11.       Register EARLY. If you are in a bigger department, all of the ‘good’ classes (or the classes everyone HAS to take) will be full if you do not get there in time.

Nights in Israel

A beautiful sunset in Jerusalem

      Once we finished all of our meetings and events for the day we would usually eat dinner together. I know, food was really a theme on this trip. We would talk about the events of the day and what we thought of all of the different situations. Then we would all say goodnight. Well, kind of.

       Depending on where we were we would do one of two things. We would go to bed or we would go adventuring. Now the second sounds much more exciting I understand, but sometimes we really didn’t have a choice. When you are in the mountains of the Golan there is not much to do besides go to bed, but sometimes we would try to figure out something to do because 7:00 is just way too early to retire for the night! So we would walk around for a while, or possibly just congregate in our room and talk about anything and everything; from political issues to school work to future goals! On nights when were actually near bigger cities, we of course had to have this time for further exploration of local life. A few classmates and I would catch a cab and head into town for the night! We would walk the streets and hit up all the local shops and street venders, though we never did really buy anything. While wandering we would run into random people and get the chance to talk with them for a while. See, we REALLY looked and sounded like tourists most of the time. The usual group was me and two other girls who were also blonde and loud. So this would usually strike up a conversation asking why we were there and where we were from. Sometimes people would take an interest in what we had to say and even offer to let us interview them about our papers. Other times, which was much rarer because the Israeli people are incredibly nice, the conversation would end at a simple response of “Good luck with your class and enjoy Israel!” It was during this time that we got the opportunity to see the current Israel, and really get to know its people.

Afternoons in Israel

Afternoons in Israel

Me with my Pita!!!!!

Most afternoons were filled with adventures in eating and speaking. My adventures in cuisine, I admit, may have been limited to mainly Pita bread but that was only because it was so delicious! I am not sure why I was so obsessed with the idea of stuffing bread full of falafel, shawarma, veggies, and humus, but for some reason I could not get enough! Almost every chance I got I would eat Pitas and Humus. There were a few times I would experiment with other types of food like soups and pastas, but none could measure up to the wonder that is Israeli Pitas!

After these adventures, we would make time for meetings with Israeli professionals. We got to talk with members of Knesset (this is like Israeli Congress), Demographic experts, Terrorism victims, city officials in the Golan, local members of Kibbutz, and military professionals. It gave us the opportunity to ask the questions our questions about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and get an answer from people who are on the front lines of the conflict. We were able to get great answers and honest perspectives from people that we learned to really respect and admire.    

One of my favorite afternoons we got the opportunity to interview the head of the Golan Heights settlements committee. The legend goes “An Israeli woman named Romona wanted a town, so her husband went out and built her one.” Although she denies it, Romona and her husband were the original settlers in the Golan Heights. We were able to discuss the importance of the people that chose to live in the Golan, and how it feels to see a city grow from the very beginning.  I probably honestly liked this meeting because of the appeal of some sort of love story, but I also felt like the people in the Golan were very unique. The members of the committee we met with were candid and personable, at no point did I feel like they tried to dodge our questions, or talk down to us because we were only students. Absolutely a unique experience… it’s like the stuff of legends ya know?

Mornings in Israel

This sign pointed to all of the important places in or around Israel like Jerusalem or Bagdad.

So I spent the majority of my Spring break in Israel. As in that country across the ocean fondly referred to as ‘the Holy land’ not to be confused with the violent place seen on TV. I went with The Center for Global Education on a Political Science study tour. While there my classmates (who later would become my friends) studied the conflict between Israel and Palestine and talked to some crazy influential people; but we will get to all that later. I have been trying to figure out how to break this blog up, which is why it is slightly overdue. I experienced so many things in Israel and I THINK it is all very important, although the truth is some parts could probably be left out. So I am going to inform you on MY VERSION of the Israel trip and you can fill in the gaps and conclude from it whatever you wish. Deal? Deal. I am going to break this into three separate parts. Mornings, Lunch (because let’s face it meals are basically a time of day and this one happens to be my favorite), and Nights in Israel.

MORNINGS IN ISRAEL

Student Money Management at UT Tyler

    Money Management. This is not a foreign subject for any college student. In fact, most college students cringe when you mention this topic for the simple reason that most of us are perpetually broke and really do not wish to be reminded of that fact. If they do not have questions about it now, many students will unfortunately face this harsh truth when they graduate because according to forbes.com “The average American is $ 4,000.00 in debt!” I know I have hit on this     topic before in my Breaking the College Poverty Cycle blog, but I have recently found new resources and I must share them with the world.

        Student Money Management, this is a new organization on campus which aims to equip The University of Texas at Tyler students with the knowledge to control their money instead of letting their money control them. The graduate Assistant in Student Affairs, Christina Gibson, has been participating in the implementation of the program by researching other schools money management programs, finding educational resources, and creating the Student Money Management website. She will be conducting the outreach and facilitating programs to engage students in discussion about good money management.  Basically, she is the brains behind this organization! So I decided to get the answers directly from the source and ask her a few more questions about the organization!

ME: What is the goal of this organization?

Christina Gibson (CG): The Student Money Management (SMM) Program’s main goal is to educate students on how to become financially independent and graduate college with a sense of how to manage their money. We currently offer student's a money management education through presentations and workshops, online resources on our website, and eventually like to offer personal consultations with a financial advisor. We want to give students the opportunity to:

-          Learn how to create a personal budget

-          Make a plan to repay student loans and personal debts after graduation

-          Learn ways to protect their identity

-          Learn how to track and manage expenses during and after college

-          Understand and build strong personal credit

-          Find educational resources that offer advice, tips, and tools to better their financial situation

ME: Who can benefit from this program?

CG: All students! We want all of our students to make good financial decisions. College students are in dire need of financial guidance. Out of a recent survey of more than 1,000 colleges, 98 colleges said their 2010 graduating class owed an average of more than $35,000, and 73 colleges reported that more than 90% of students graduated with some amount of debt. Average student loan debt tops $25,000.

With college students consuming this amount of debt, and spending such vast amounts of money during their college experience, students can benefit from financial advice being provided for them from their universities.

ME:  How do students get involved?

CG: Students are welcome to check out our website. There are many resources, tools, informative articles, and beneficial items to get them started on their money management journey. It is separated by different categories, depending on what type of information they are looking for. We will update it periodically with new resources, along with adding videos and pictures from the different events we have! On our website, there is also a link to our UT Tyler CashCourse. This is a program the University has invested in for our students to use in the Student Money Management program. 

So, as you can see, this organization is a great hands-on organization tailored directly for the students of UT Tyler. For more resources follow Student Money Management on Twitter where they repost TONS of helpful articles from places like USA Today Money, Dave Ramsey, and our own UT Tyler Departments. Be on the lookout for events in the fall. Trust me you DO NOT want to miss out on this!

The Blog Team

UT Tyler Student Vlog: Family Dinner Night

This my college family I hope you enjoy!!!

Mingle, Dine and Dress

This past Thursday I attended the “Mingle, Dine, and Dress for Career Success” which career services hosted. I honestly had no idea what I was stepping into when I began. At the beginning there was a “mock-tail” hour followed by a lovely etiquette dinner. I honestly had no idea what I was doing, but I don’t think anyone did. No, I know that basically no one had any clue what they were doing. I was under the impression in the beginning that there would be only other students there and we would learn how to mingle with one another which would then prepare us to mingle with other professionals. This was not the case. I was surprised to find out that there were actual employers present looking for potential employees. Yep, I had put myself in front of all these professionals completely unprepared. I actually didn’t even realize that they were looking for future employees until one of the employers handed me an information seminar invitation to come and intern for Buckle. (I may have been a little behind the ball that night) Anyways, after about an hour of mingling we got escorted into the dining area where we would now all become well versed on the ins and outs of formal dining (well kind-of). I learned more than I expected, for example I have been using my knife and fork wrong for the last twenty years, who knew?!? All things considered I did in fact get a free meal out of it (and a good one at that because one tip of college not all free food is created equal!), I learned it is not polite to ask for a business card, I feel confident dining in front of most anybody, and I may have gotten a potential internship out of the deal. This was a good day!

How-to Eat an Elephant....

Drawing by Sean Gallo - at - www.seangallo.com

My semester seriously threw up on me! I am not going to lie, this semester so far has been relatively easy. I have really had too many assignments, not really any test which was too hard, no big projects… until now! I believe professors have a sixth sense to know when spring break is coming and make your time right before you leave extremely exhausting and miserable. You may think this is so you are more able to completely enjoy your spring break, or you may think it is so all of your real anger comes to the surface at once and they then give you a week to cool down, but I believe the answer to be much simpler. I think it is easier for professors to assign major projects due right before spring break, because this way they have more time to grade them. Either way this week I have two tests, one paper, two projects, and a presentation all before Thursday! Why Thursday? Because I leave for Israel on Thursday! (I know I super excitedJ) Yeah, I leave the country on Thursday and my professors expect me to get all this done. Like any college student who gets way over stressed I called my mom who piped in with her usual logical advice which I most of the time despise. But this time, it made a lot of sense. The conversation went like this: 

2012 Bucket List

Today I went to lunch with some friends from one of my many jobs I have had while in college! It was amazing to spend time with people who I have not seen or talked to in a while. While we were at lunch one of my new friends (we met today) asked us all what was on our bucket list for this year. I was seriously stumped. I had no idea what I wanted to accomplish with my life this year. So after much more deliberation, I have limited it down to my top ten and I decided to share this list with all of you!

My Bucket list for 2012:

1    1.       Do something adventurous everyday

2    2.       Get another tattoo

3    3.       Make new friends

4    4.       Help someone do something really cool

5    5.       Take more pictures

6    6.       Learn Spanish

7    7.       Expand my musical horizons

8    8.       Get a ride on a motorcycle

9    9.       Go mountain biking and NOT fall

1    10.   Save up enough money to buy clothes!

All of this being said there is a chance that I won’t achieve any of these goals. But, that’s ok with me. It is college and college is like a free pass to take time to figure out who you are. It’s like for these four years society gives us a “get out of jail free” card. So I want to take this time to explore myself and figure out what I am passionate about and what I enjoy doing. I have joined this online site which is kind of like living social (I am sure you have all seen these commercials). It’s called Moolala. I personally think this is a really weird name but I get all sorts of deals on it like a trip to the Caribbean for like 200 dollars and a diamond bracelet for like 15 dollars! It’s pretty awesome! I am hoping that this site or maybe a site like it will help me achieve some of these goals, like the buying clothes goal. Who knows maybe it will give me a discount motorcycle ride! Any tips are always welcome and I am excited to share this with yall!

My Professional Journey Starts Here!

In my last post I talked about my internship and how excited I was for the experience and everything that lay ahead of me. Since then my enthusiasm has not diminished in the slightest. I am just as excited as ever to be given this opportunity for experiencing not only the place that is Colorado Springs, but also the company and the people that I will be working for. So excited, in fact, I have been planning my wardrobe and places that I need to visit once I am actually in this position for probably 12 hours in total this weekend. After dwelling on this for some time I decided that I should be focusing less on what I will wear and more on how I will do the job and how I can make that position as successful as possible. I want to replace the question of “what will I wear?’ with “what will I do to make an impact?” To do this I have decided to go on a journey of talking to people within my university and people whom I know to be successful and try to get as many helpful hints and tips to make my internship a success. I have had the amazing experience of being a part of UT Tyler and being given the opportunity to know members of the university who are very successful and willing still to talk with me and teach me whatever they can. As I have begun to explore I have realized that this internship will require a lot of me. I don’t think that I realized how BIG this was until within the last couple of days. I will be gone for an entire summer. I will turn 21 in Colorado away from my friends and family. I will leave everyone here while I go and explore this new chapter in my journey to become a professional. WAIT!! When did I start this journey? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why am I remarkably close to being a real grown up? Can’t we slow this thing down?!?!  NO! Life is going to continue with or without me. It’s like I am up to bat in a baseball game and  it is my job to take all of these curveballs being thrown my way and just swing away!  No matter how sure or unsure I am about that pitch I just have to swing and hope something good comes from it! So this blog marks the beginning of my professional journey. Let’s do this thing!

The Best Day Ever!

I could seriously jump for joy! Today could quite possibly be the best day ever!!! You may be thinking to yourself “Self, today doesn’t seem very special. What is this girl talking about?” Well, let me tell you! Today is the day that I got an internship with Compassion International! For those of you who are currently asking yourself a new question “Self, what is Compassion International?”  Compassion is a Christian child advocacy ministry which desires to release children around the world from the grips of poverty through education and sponsorship. They currently sponsor 1.2 million children in 26 countries!

 I have been involved with this ministry since high school when I began to sponsor my first child. Since that point my sponsor child has left the program and because I am now a broke college student I could not support another one. I found out in August that Compassion was hiring college interns for the 2012 summer and immediately knew I HAD to apply. Unfortunately I could not apply until December, but even then I could not guess the journey I would go through from that point until now.

How To Not Cut Your Hair

Several times we have posted about being a broke college student, and this is completely true, but there are ways to live in a way that doesnt make everyone around you know that you are in fact completely out of money. For girls this can prove to be especially hard considering the maintenance costs of simply being a female, but not impossible. One of these ways is disguising the fact that your hair has not been cut in quite some time. This video shows you how to do this in some small ways, but here are some links to help you out more:

- 17 Hairstyles in Less than 10 Minutes

- Marie Claire How-To

- and the best...  How to Fix a Bad Haircut

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

This morning I woke up and went to my professor’s house for breakfast! You may be thinking that is a little weird, but it’s not. One of the great things about UT Tyler is that you have the opportunity to not just learn from your professors, but get to know them! This professor in particular is an amazing teacher and person! Once a semester he opens his home to all of his classes (at their designated times of course) for a meal and a slightly different class time. For this class we made an 80’s music video. I am not sure what the point was, but I think it may have had something to do with trying to schedule a pretty huge chunk of time and make all of our ideas blend into one cohesive final product. SO, that’s what we tried to do! The video is below.  Let me know what you think! Girls Just Want to Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper 

Campus Community

UT Tyler is a wonderful school tucked in the forests of East Texas. We have one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever been to and I truly enjoy getting to spend so much time here. When you are a college student your school becomes your home. I know you may be thinking to yourself “self, wouldn’t your apartment become your home?” To that I respond, nay nay. You spend so much time in class (anywhere from 12 to 18 or more hours a week), then you have to come back for projects, and studying in the library, then you eat here (because you are already here), then you have organization meetings you have to go to, and if you work on campus… you get the point. Your campus literally turns into a community to you. You have your buildings with familiar faces and places that you NEVER go into (for me that would be the engineering building). On holidays I am reminded of this, and although I am a bitter single, Valentine’s Day is actually a widely celebrated holiday. So on campus today we had a bake sale, many of the offices made treats, and flowers coupled with plush animals were scattered all around campus. Because our campus is smaller I know people in the organization that had a bake sale, I know administrative staff in the offices that had treats and many of my friends received these wonderful gifts. I know these people and it is great to get offered some of these tasty treats on amazing holidays like this! It is an amazing opportunity to be involved in a campus that gives you this opportunity. I encourage everyone to be involved in some sort of community while in college whether that is in college or it is your college itself. 

Courtney's College Vlog: Off-Campus Housing

This is a tour of my off campus apartment near The University of Texas at Tyler. On-Campus housing is not the only way! Off Campus housing is what I have found to be the best fit for me and I encourage everyone to give a try towards the later part of their college career. There are perks to living both on and off campus, but for me living off campus has allowed me to gain more independence, live by my own schedule, and have the ability to make my apartment my home! Let me know what you think!

The Many Types of Professors

So many people tell you that college is different from high school and it’s true. I think the sole contributor to this change is obviously the difference in teaching styles. Professors teach in a completely different manner than your education major high school teacher. At every University there are a few select types of professors that I believe you should be aware of before entering any institution.

Past Professor: This professor at one point in time was at the top of their academic field. They are now out of touch with the members of their classroom and aside from their abnormally slow speech they usually have a particularly hard time hearing any question you ask. “What is the page requirement?” will more than likely lead you on a longer discussion about a political reformation you may have or have not talked about in recent lectures.

Progressive Professor: This professor is not too far removed from you in age or ideas. They are up to date with what is happening not only in their academic field, but also in the latest entertainment fads. They encourage you to think for yourself and their classrooms are a place for discussion. The assignments are mentioned in passing and they are not really sticklers for format, but rather content. They encourage any radical new ideas and or any thought that goes against the main stream. Sometimes when you see this professor you may think to yourself “self, I might be friends with this person… if they weren’t my professor.”

Passionate Professor: This is a professor who is excited not only that you are in their class; but that because of your attendance you have now showed that you too are passionate about their field of study. If you are a student who is not outwardly excited about the joy of chemical equations or molecular structure you might find this professor to be a little over zealous.  Do not be frightened if they begin to yell or move around the room frantically flailing their arms in the air. They are simply excited to share their passion with you.

Peculiar Professor: This professor is not so rare. This professor thinks that they are absolutely the most hilarious person in the world. So much so, that they may even die laughing at their own jokes in the middle of a lecture. (If this happens again, don’t be alarmed give a fake sympathy laugh so they can feel comforted that someone else gets their humor and move on. This professor may wear awkward sweaters, huge glasses, mismatched colors, and or black and brown (because we all know black and brown makes a frown). When you are in this class you will probably feel awkward FOR this professor, but they have been doing this for a while so they are comfortable being who they are.

Finally Power Professor: This professor for some reason struggles with the idea that any younger twenty-something student wants to disrespect them. They will probably restrict your seating, or make sure you do not leave until they say so, or may even tell you if you can or cannot use your laptop. Although, all of these things probably have good reason with normal professors, with the power professor they will reply with the infamous word “because I said so.”
Some of these professors, we can all agree, sound kind of ridiculous. It’s true, you will encounter professors you don’t like, but that is one of the ways college teaches you! You may not like your boss one day, but he is still your boss and you still have to listen to him. Having these professors has given me the opportunity to learn to appreciate, and even sometimes embrace, their wacky personalities. It’s all part of the college learning process. :)

O-Hall Three Bedroom Tour Vlog

Three Bedroom O-Hall Tour!!! Take a look at what it really looks like to live in a three bedroom at The University of Texas at Tyler! I hope you like it!!!