Spoiled

Professor Pittman is one of the most involved and caring professors I have ever had. She is such a sweetie. Everyday she sets up a little goodie table for us. She knows that colds are going around, so she brings cough drops, tissues, purrell, lotion, candy, and even drinks. She brings a random assortment of drinks for us everyday such as bottles of coke, vitamin water, orange juice, even starbucks drinks!!! Tonight we are having a pizza party. For extra credit, we can work on our family tree during the three weeks. We need to get back to the turn of the century on one side. She is going to give us an overview of how she would like it done and some useful resources tonight, and is bring pizza. I am really glad I am in the class. It has been a positive experience for me. It is not a time to slack in any way. We were reminded that missing one day of class is equivalent to missing one week's worth of class in a twelve week. We have two or three readings every night and we have to take notes on them that will be graded at the end. I am enjoying the material a lot. I am thinking about the dynamics of African American Families today in a way I never thought of them before. The enslavement of African Americans in the past, and their treatment even after they were freed, has left a lasting legcy. A few things we have considered are the involvement of the mother versus the father in child rearing. During slavery and reconstruction, it was not easy for a father to be involved. Did you know that during slavery, slave owners didn't even recognize any type of relationship or connection between a father and children? ...that a slave family was a mother and children? ...that it was perfectly fine to sell a father away from his family, or even a mother separate from the children? The class is long at times, but never dull. Either the teacher or other students are constantly interjecting personal stories or jokes. We have taken so many notes!!!! We have to take notes (that will be graded) on every lecture, movie, presentation by other students, and article we read because they are all fair game for our mid-term or final. Anyway it is time for pizza so I will write more later!

First day of the three week

Today was my first day of the three week class. The class I am taking is Sociology of Black Families. I chose the class because a.) it would count toward my biomedical humanities requirements and b.) my advisor said it would be good for me to consider the life structure of people different than me especially if I plan on going into the medical field. This made sense, not everyone I expect to treat as someone in the medical field will come from the same background as me. I assumed most of the people in the class would be there for the same reason I was, they were recruited to expose themselves to different cultures as it would be pertinant to their future careers. This is not what I found on the first day of class. I realized I was one of three white students in the class. I was not sure what to think at first, because this was a different setting than I had ever been in before. I wasn't sure what to do, continue with the class or drop it. It probably took me about an hour to get back in my comfort zone, and by the end of the three hour class I knew I was not going to drop it. Everyone in the class was very open minded and friendly. The girls were very welcoming and I didn't feel like and outsider. The teacher assigned us "families" that we will work on our two presentations with. I am in a group with Nikita and Rob, and I think we will make a great "family." The teacher is LaShawnDa Pittman, who is here through a fellowship while she works on her Ph.D in Sociology through Northwestern. She is really friendly and seems like she will be a good teacher. I will keep you updated on my progress in the class.

60.72%

What does 60.72% mean? Well I will tell you. This is finals week, and is obviously stressful. My mom sent me a note with lots of goodies, including a magazine clipping that says "60.72% is the difference in salary between someone with a bachelor's degree and someone with a high school diploma (the Bureau of labor and statistics fall 2005)."



Hiram has very unique semesters. A normal semester is 15 weeks, and a typical load would be about 4 classes. At Hiram, the semester is broken into two parts: a 12 week component in which we take 3 classes, and a 3 week component where we take 1 class. The twelve week ends before thanksgiving break and spring break. This mean it is almost impossible to have any assignments over break, literally, because you are between classes. Our finals started on Sunday afternoon and will go through Tuesday. Then we will be off until next Wednesday. Finals are very stressful!! I have been cramming for about a week now. In chemistry we had a test on chapters 6-9 on Friday, and then today we had the final on all the chapters (1-9). John Andrews is my teacher and he is very good! I promise you. It is hard work, but it is well worth it. If i had it to do over, I would still take his class. I am hoping it will help me as I continue toward a science degree. Another professor I would suggest is Joseph Gallant for physics. He is new to Hiram but has a great sense of humor and is very realistic about his expectations. All of my teachers seem to have been realistic about the finals. They all realized that we have other finals and tried to make it as bearable as possible. My cumulative math final was turned into a take home test. Don't think I got off the hook too much because it still took a little over five hours!!! My room mate has a paper that is due tomorrow, and just a few hours ago she got an email from the teacher giving them a week extension. I have heard a few stories of hard teachers; I'm sure we have our share. I heard we have a new psychology teacher that has a pretty high standard. One of my friends, Ben, has an intense calculus class. For each test they take, they have a retake the following day where they can get up to half of the points back that they missed during the first try. Well on the final, the highest grade was a 55%, but they still get their retake. Where every you go, you just have to study and you will be fine! At any rate, I am off to study Physics. Tomorrow after 11 am I will be homeward bound for a week! Happy Thanksgiving!

Yet again, the professors shine through!!

I am taking a one credit hour class entitled Cancer and the Arts. It has been a great class. Last night was our last night. I was going to stay after class and talk to the professor - Jon Moody - about possibly picking up an ethics minor. I heard him ask a few other students to stay after. When everyone left I saw that it was our four international students he asked to say. He asked each one if they had somewhere to go for Thanksgiving. He didn't let them off the hook with just a yes answer. He went through the whole, "are you sure?" "Where are you going?" set of questions. He said he has extra room at his dinner table and he wanted to make sure everyone had somewhere to go. I thought that was one of the sweetest things. Oh, and did I mention that he also went home before class to bake us delicious brownies?? Well, he did.

A college full of awesome professors.

So yesterday I was studying for my statistics test with two other girls. We weren't really getting anywhere so we decided to go to the Professor for help. She, like every other teacher, always encourages us to come by, especially before a test. She also told us to wait for a few minutes if she isn't there because she went to get food. Well, she wasn't there. We decided to sit outside of her office and wait. Brad Gubser, the other math teacher, walked by and told us that our teacher had gone home. He then told us he knew we had a test tomorrow and asked us if we had any questions. We had a lot! He had two meetings in the next two hours, and he insisted on moving the second one to help us, even though he wasn't our teacher. We tried to say it was ok, we didn't want to make him move meetings. He helped us for an hour, and went over both chapters. I was so amazed that someone who wasn't even our teacher rearranged his schedule to help us!!! To top it off, he sent us an email the next day asking us how we did. I am really impressed with all of the professors I have come across so far at Hiram. They all seem to go above and beyond. They are very supportive of the students and have a very, very open door policy. One more example. My chemistry teacher, the guy with the great British accent, invited all of the chemistry students to his house yesterday for dinner. Every year, him and his wife host a dinner. They live right here in Hiram, basically on campus. He said we were more than welcome to come in our Halloween costumes since it was only the day after Halloween. I walked in with my friends, and every room in the lower level of the house was packed with students. His wife made wonderful food and about four types of deserts. Professor Andrews told us all about the food: they had beef tips (or something, I don't eat meat so I don't remember exactly what it was), rice and curry for the vegetarians, and an organic salad. They also had cucumbers in dill and something else (very delicious!). The science students and teachers hung out for a while. I couldn't believe how relaxed the night was, and how comfortable I was in my professor's house. When it was time to go, we went up to his bedroom and got our coats. It felt more like I was in the house of one of my parents' or grandparents' homes, not a professor. We really do have amazing professors here at Hiram.

Is anyone out there?

I was just wondering if anyone is reading my blog. I hope that I'm not just writing to thin air... It would be great if you could leave a comment or something. Maybe your name, school, how you found out about Hiram, how interested you are.... Feel free to ask questions, and I promise I will answer them as truthfully as possible. I know I appreciated honesty when I was looking at colleges. Muchas gracias!!!

It must be said...

It was the first week of school when it happened for the first time. For some reason, there is a bit of an obsession for pulling the fire alarm in the middle of the night this year. I live in centennial, and it is always around 3 AM when it happens here. I remember the first time, waking my roommate up, putting decent clothes on, contacts in, trying to find our shoes and still get out of the building in a descent amount of time. We waited outside for about a half hour. We had to wait for the volunteer firemen to get a call, get out of bed, and check the *whole* building. Within the first month, there were 13 prank alarms pulled. Last year at this time there were ZERO. The college posted signs that (I believe) say falsifying a fire alarm is punishable by up to $1000 and six months in jail. They finally stopped!!!

So fast forward to last night. I was up till about 1 studying and was going to get up the next morning around 7. Wouldn't you know someone decided to pull a fire alarm once again. Three AM, as usual. So far, no one has been caught. I wish some people would start talking!! I know our senate has looked into possible solutions. Problem is, the fire alarms are everywhere, so even if a solution is found and is reasonably cheap, there are like a hundred gazillion fire alarms you need to take care of. I also happen to know that our security is looking into solutions. We asked about the specifics, and they weren't comfortable telling us the details. It makes sense, why would they tell the students what precautions they are taking. The point is for those students to fall into the trap. I hope it happens soon!!

** Fall Weekend **

Another great weekend!!! Last week was week 7. That may not mean anything to you yet, but if you come to Hiram it will. Hiram has a cool set up for there semesters. Instead of a normal 15 week semester, we have a 12/3 program. We take an average class load of three classes during the 12 week and one class during the three week. I am really looking forward to the three week parts, but I’ll talk more about that when it comes. The semesters are somewhat intense, but isn’t that what Hiram is all about? My classes are definitely moving along, as you can tell by how stressed I seemed about my chem. test. At the end of the 7th week, we get a fall weekend. We have no class on Thursday or Friday. Most students go home, and for students that live far away, this is often their first trip home. I absolutely loved it. It was so wonderful, first of all to have a shortened school week, but most of all to have the time off. I went home and spent the majority, ok basically the whole weekend, with my boyfriend. I was really in the mood to celebrate autumn this year. I never really had a favorite season before, but this year I decided it is fall. The campus is really pretty in the fall, which first put me in the mood. But I was really in the mood to take advantage of the apples & pumpkins & fall goodies time of year. I got online and looked for different festivals. I found some cute ones around here, but Zak wasn’t up for any of them. My favorite would be the apple butter festival. We decided to spend the weekend home instead. To keep in line with my fall festiveness, we went to my uncle’s fruit farm and got pumpkins. We then proceeded to spend our Friday night drinking apple cider and carving pumpkins. My mom cooked us wonderful meals all weekend! I have gone home a lot, probably at least every other weekend. But this weekend made me realize exactly how much I missed being home. I miss my mom – she is like my best friend and it is hard to be away from her. I miss how cozy my home is. I miss having quite time. It was nice to wake up and have the whole morning to myself, in a completely quite and deserted house while my mom was at work. I miss good food. It’s amazing how my mom can make like one thing for dinner with two side dishes, and it is sooooo much better than Hiram’s 25 different options. I came back and spent most of today being sad and frustrated. I sometimes feel that my dorm is my bedroom/closet/bathroom/kitchen. I miss having a whole house. I am so much more relaxed at home. Sometimes I get stressed just by walking into my dorm because of how little it is. This is my little home. One little mess makes the whole room look messy. I just get frazzled about all the things I have to do – clean, homework, call this person, do that. I just haven’t found that system that works for me yet. I need to get into a grove; develop a schedule. Being home was such a contrast to this. I had to consciously stop dissing the dorm and stop telling myself that a home is better. I do like the dorm, it’s just a bit of an adjustment. It really helps that I still have very supportive people around me, namely my mom and Zak. I’m sure eventually I will love being here more than at home.

This weekend was homecoming and it was a blast! Starting last Wednesday, there were homecoming activities. They had a dodgeball tournament, a comedian on thrusday, and a bon fire on Friday. There was a parade Saturday morning and then the dance Saturday night. The theme was Hollywood nights. I heard they were having an outside company come in to decorate. When I got there, I was a little disappointed in the decorations. It doesn’t matter tho, cuz it’s not the decorations that make the dance. I also heard that they had limos for us. It sounds kind of corny, but they had 3 limos picking students up in front of the kenedy center, driving them maybe ½ mile to the coleman center, the athletic center. My boyfriend didn’t see the purpose of waiting like 7 minutes for a 2 minute ride, but it was part of the experience. We went down early for dinner. The dinner is free to the first 400 people to go get tickets. It was delicious and the deserts were great. The dance was so much better than my high school dances. The dance floor was packed tight. At my high school, there people were always very spread out, and probably only half the people there were dancing at any given time. Not this. It was really fun. Originally, I was going to wear one of my fancier prom dresses, but ended up opting for the little black dress per request from my boyfriend Zak. I think that I may have felt out of place if I had worn something super fancy.

Homecoming was a big relief for me. I had spent the whole week before studying for my chemistry midterm. (I’m not sure how homecoming and a chem. test fit in the same blog, but I’m doing it anyway.) I actually didn’t participate in many of the homecoming activities during the week cuz of the upcoming test. I have Professor John Andrews. He is very competent and moves kind of fast. Don’t misunderstand me, he is not a bad teacher moving too fast for you to keep up, you just have to make a conscious effort to stay ahead. It all worked out tho, cuz Katrina, who is in that class with me, and I dominated the test. I guess a week of hard studying returns good rewards, homecoming and a good grade.

Meet my roomie!

These are pictures of roommate Katrina and me. We met when we were both here for a scholarship competition. We talked online for a while and then started talking about all the “big questions” you would want to know before rooming with someone. It seemed like we would be compatible so we decided to be roommates. As it turns out, we get along great! We turned into best friends. It’s really weird, even after a week, we would sit here talking as if we had been friends for years. I was a little bit nervous about living in a dorm since I am an only child. It worked out fine for Trina and I. We hang out together all the time. Basically, we are inseparable. I have seen some roommates like this and I have watched some problems emerge for other people. One girl went home for the weekend and later found out there was a party in her room and a few couples may have ended up on her bed. Needless to say, she switched roommates. There is an RA on each floor (an upperclassmen that kind of controls the floor). They are wonderful and are very helpful whenever you have a problem. We also have an RD, resident director, in the building that is a grown man living in a 4 room apartment. His full time job is solely to take care of the problems in our building. Both the RA and RD will help anyone having problems with a roommate. It seems like the majority of people do not have many problems. They may not be best friends, but they get along just fine. As long as you are a descent person, your roommate should be too. It seems like communication and courtesy may be the key. I live in Centennial, which is an all girls building. It is connected to booth, which is co-ed. I love my building! Everyone is friendly, for the most part. It is a calm place to live, not to mention in smells *much* better than anywhere there are guys, haha.

Campus Day

Today was sweet! Hiram has this day every fall called campus day. The students get the day off school and the professors serve the students brunch. The purpose is that all the students will spend the day volunteering. There were so many things to get involved in. Some students went to local places such as animal shelters and Hattie Larlham, a home for the mentally disabled. Lots of groups did work around campus like landscaping, painting or composting. I think it is a great idea. How can you turn down volunteering when you get a free day off school. It couldn't have been a better day. Today is my long day, so I got out of chemistry, physics and stats!!! My physics professor is hilarious. He is new this year, and isn't always sure of Hiram's traditions. He appearantly doesn't read his email, cuz he didn't even know about the day. Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious to hear him complain about missing class because of a so called "Save the World" day. He kept asking if it was for real or if we were trying to pull one over on the new teacher. To make it even better, tomorrow is my birthday!!!

The beginning of a crazy week..

My day was crazy. Let me back up a minute and tell you I was really motivated when I made my fall schedule. I have an 8 am chem class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday morning physics lab and Thursday morning chem lab, both at 8:30 am. This morning, Tuesday, my physics lab was canceled. This was a huge deal... I don't even think you understand. For the first time since I've been at Hiram, I got to sleep in past my room mate!!! I am always the one trying to be quite and get ready in the dark, and I finally had my turn to sleep in. I set my alarm for 11, sure that I would be up much before that. Lo and behold my alarm went off and I was still fast asleep. At noon, I attended a convocation by Eric Coble and Laurie Frey. They co-wrote a musical called Unbeatable. Let me say it is phenomenal. From noon to one, we were able to listen to a shortened version, as well as talk to Laurie. The musical is based on her bout with breast cancer and it is hilarious! Although it is sad and depressing at times, it came right back up rather quickly. She is an amazing woman, with a great sense of humor and a large dose of courage. She hopes that it may make it Off-Broadway and even Broadway. If it makes it big, and you ever get the chance, *go see it*. I promise you it will be worth your time. It worked out good for me. I am taking two one credit hour classes. One is Cancer and the Arts. This class was thrown together as an after thought. It turns out that there will be two plays a couple speakers at Hiram this fall, all dealing with Cancer. The powers that be (haha) decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to make a class incorporating all of the events. Therefore I was required to go to this presentation for my Cancer and the Arts class. My other one credit hour class is Writing about Illness. We are reading short stories about illness as well as writing short stories ourselves. I love how the class is set up. Each week, a different student writes an essay. On Sunday the student emails the essay to all of the class members (all 10 or so of us) who then make corrections/suggestions and send it back by Monday. (Our class meets on Tuesday). This class also required that I go to the Unbeatable convocation. In case you missed it, I was killing two birds with one stone.

I caught up on homework and started studying for my upcoming Chem test after lunch. Then from four to five, I went to my Writing About Illness class. 5:30 pm was the science mixer where all the science students and professors got together to talk about research and career opportunities. At 6:30, my Chem teacher (thankfully) held a study session for next week's test. Let me tell you about Professor John Andrews. He is British and has the sweetest accent ever! I know you've all heard stories from other college kids who have had professors with such thick accents they couldn't even understand them. Not him. His accent is so proper and his choice of words is so interesting that it actually helps to keep me interested in an 8 am class. Then at seven I went to the student senate meeting. I am filling in for another bio-med student, Emmy Lou. She was elected representative of our major then found out the meetings conflicted with her psych class. I love going to the senate. Granted, this was only my second meeting, but I really enjoy them. They meet every week and seem to actually represent the students very well. This week we met with Jack, the man in charge of our food. Let's be honest here, Hiram food service isn't exactly in the top ten in the nation (it would actually be easier to describe our position from the bottom, not the top) but they are working on it. I realize you can't make "home cooked meals" when you serve 1,000 students three meals a day, but it was still a bit of an adjustment. I guess that Hiram switched food companies a few years ago. Before then, they ran their own food service and now they are owned by a national company. Jack talked to the senate about improvements and concerns. The students in the senate had many comments for him, and he answered each and every one. I can say that he honestly is looking to make the food better and takes our suggestions seriously. He was in the cafe during my first week here, and had no problem coming right up to me to ask my opinion. He pushes students to write comments, and we have seen the comments put into action. We thought it was really cool when we walked into the cafeteria last week and saw all the comments students leave with a typed response from him beneath. Students typically ask for more variety, and for the food to appear more appealing. We have asked for things like different salad dressing and they showed up on the salad bar the next week.

Ok this blog got really long and I have other things to do so I guess I'll just tell you more later.

Allow me to introduce myself....

My name is Stephanie Gasper. I graduated from Western Reserve High School, just out side of Canfield, Ohio (about 45 minutes from Hiram). I chose Hiram for the cliche reason that I knew it was the college for me when I walked onto the campus for the first time. Different people in my life had told me that I would know which college to pick when I walked on the campus. I all but laughed in their faces. How would I know what I wanted? How would I know what type of college will work for me? If I have never lived in a dorm room, how would I know which one would suit me better? I didn't think I could pick from a first impression.
As it worked out, I didn't have any classes on Friday's during my senior year of high school. Each Friday, a friend and I went to a different campus. We ended up at Hiram one week. I absolutely loved the campus. If I had to pick one thing that sold me on the campus, it would be the people. I'm not even kidding when I say that everyone - students, teachers, and faculty - is the friendliest bunch of people I encountered at any college. Students here talk truthfully to prospective students. Any student I asked a question to would answer it gladly. (It is such a cool feeling to make friends with the students I met when I was here for tours and at other prospective student programs. In physics, I am actually lab partners with one of my tour guides from last year.) The teachers and faculty were just as nice. I met with a teacher on one of my visits to Hiram and he was another reason I picked it. Denny Taylor (pictured on the left) reminded me of my favorite high school teachers. He had such a passion about his work as a biology professor. He is a genuine nice guy. He told me about the trips he takes students on both internationally and locally. He seems to think of the students as his friends, in a sense. I am really looking forward to taking a class from him sometime in the future.
Ok, so I applied, got accepted... blah blah blah. In April, I came to Hiram for orientation. I met with my advisor, Sandy Madar, about my classes. Being a pre-med student, she suggested that I look into the accelerated biomedical humanity major. With this major, you can graduate with the equivalent of a pre-med degree in only three years. In order to graduate early, you take a little heavier course load, but you also take a summer class. Call me weird, but I thought this sounded fun. I ended up signing up for a three week summer class. It was a biology class called "What is Human." There were only 8 students (6 girls and 2 boys), and it was a blast. First of all we developed a great friendship that we still lean on. Secondly, we ruled the campus. We had it all to our selves for a little over a week, and then we were sharing with the sports teams. It was so amazing to be able to get used to everything w/o the craziness that goes on when the campus is full. Thirdly, we had two amazing teachers. Colleen Fried and Carol Donley are a great pair. They were very laid back and easy to get along with. We did a lot of work, but it didn't seem like it. It wasn't till the class was over three weeks later that I realized that I had written 5 papers and read 3 books. We were in class for three hours a day and probably spent 3-4 hours a day doing homework, but it was spread out between eating, working out (well ok only once or twice a week) and hanging out with friends. I have no regrets about coming early. The only thing is it has kind of changed the way I made friends. We had an awesome group of eight, so even when the rest of the students came we tended to stick with our original people. We have "adopted" roommates and new significant others. As far as people breaking up with their high school boyfriend/girlfriend and how quickly (almost) everyone found a sig. other on campus is a whole different blog. I have so much I can say, but that's about all the time I have for now.
*Stephanie*