Recent Entries by Bre  

While everyone is excited about March Madness my friends and I were excited about March Maroonness. As you can tell by the themes of my past blogs, I am a music junky, so when I found out that Maroon 5 was going on tour with two of my other favorite bands, Owl City and Neon Trees, I bought tickets instantly. Six months after buying the tickets the concert finally came and it was epic. I was not sure how the concert was going to flow since the bands all come from different backgrounds, and Owl City is kind of the outlier in the fact that their music genre is different than Maroon 5 and Neon Trees. In the end though all the bands songs flowed nicely together and the concert was a huge success.

In a way it reminded me of the structure of UMR. The reason for this is because UMR students take a wide range of classes but they all flow nicely together to represent the bigger picture, multiple careers in this case are the health sciences. Even though all the classes highlight a different main theme (or genre) all of them work together to provide the students here with a holistic approach to the health sciences. By the holistic approach I mean that as a UMR student you will see how integrative the classes are here. Many of the assignments that are due in one class will overlap into others, and some of the professors will help co-teach the lectures. For example, in our physics class we have our anatomy teacher come in and talk about the structure of the human ear and how using the equations in physics will allow us to calculate how sound travels down the ear canal. In this way, it shows that even though as a student we will be coming from different backgrounds and gaining a wide range of background knowledge we will all end up in the health sciences field and maybe even working together in the future.

One of the amazing opportunities offered to UMR students their freshmen year is to go to the Chancellor's house for dinner. During my Chancellor's diner there were five other students and an ambassador. It was fun to see were the Chancellor lives, and let's face it; it is always great to get free food. The Chancellor shows you around his house and then has you all sit down for a three course meal prepared by John who used to be the cook at Bridgstreet (the hotel/suits that I stayed at my freshmen year). Since I am an ambassador, I just recently got to go to another Chancellor's diner which reminded me of what a great experience it is. Besides getting to see John again it was nice to get to know current underclassmen and talk with the Chancellor on a more personal level. The Chancellor really wants to try to know all the UMR students at a personal level, which is something that is unheard of at traditional campuses. While at the diner we talked about our future career goals, things that we liked about UMR and things that we would like to change. It was nice to see that the Chancellor really cares about what the students have to say about the college. I can even attest to the fact that he does take the concerns about UMR to heart and tries to fix them as best as he can.

The Chancellor's dinner is another way to make long lasting connections. I met my future roommates at the dinner and continue to talk with the Chancellor on a personal level whenever I see him. I think that it shows the connectives at UMR because you will see the Chancellor stopping in the skyway to talk with students about how their day is going, and how last weeks Anatomy and Physiology test went. Another thing that is kind of unique at UMR that involves the Chancellor is that he actually taught one of my psychology classes my freshmen year. I think that this also shows how much the Chancellor really wants to connect with the students and see them succeed.

With the deadlines of our capstone proposals fast approaching, many of us juniors are thinking about studying abroad. UMR has made it easy to study abroad and still graduate within four years because it fits in nicely with your capstone experience. Studying abroad will allow most of the students and opportunity to learn about different cultures, and to gain a new healthcare "lens." Below is a list of reasons why I think students should think about study abroad options, and to also keep in mind that studying abroad does not always have to be expensive.

1. Gain a new perspective on the world: Studying abroad allows students to explore issues like globalization, development and poverty from different perspectives. This can be extremely helpful in the healthcare field because it will allow students to learn about different cultures, and how they perceive illness, and the common treatments for those illnesses within that culture.

2. Test your interests: By studying abroad it also allows students to test their interests in a more specific and applied direction than just in the classroom. This is one of the main reasons why I am considering studying abroad in Denmark this summer, because it will allow me to gain a more in depth view of the mental health treatment centers outside of the United States. It will also allow me to take more psychology courses since I have already taken all the ones that are offered at UMR.

3. Making new friends: Studying abroad can also allow students to make long lasting connections outside of just their professors and roommates. Ways that students can make new connections can be through home-stays, the study abroad on-campus living, or even just exploring downtown and meeting new people.

4. Get to see where Sherlock Homes lived: Another reason why I want to study abroad is because one of my "bucket list" items is to see 221B Baker Street. Studying abroad can also help students fulfill those life time dreams, even if it is just getting a picture outside of a building.

Aside from all the free food that appears in the commons of UMR during finals week, another change occurs once finals weeks starts approaching. Around a week before finals actually start, I stated to notice that students are listening to music more than normal. I think that this is because listening for music helps distress people, and also motivates them to get work done. Due to the increase in music playing around campus, and the approach of finals week, I have decided to recommend my top 5 songs that students should listen to while studying for finals. I have provided a link to all of the songs, and provided a URL just in case the links do not work.

5. Don't Stop Believing by Journey. Yes I went there, but really this song is one of those that no matter what mood you are in, it makes you believe that you can keep powering on. I also like to listen to different versions of this song because it is interesting to see the different angles that singers take on this song. I normally like to start off this this song and then build up to more empowering songs because this one just seems to be a good song to get me in the mood of starting my assignments for some reason. I could not find the official music video so here is a live version of the song, I hope you enjoy.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iIdZDbbFg

4. We Are Young by MIKA. This song was inspired by the movie Kick Ass, and after listening to this song, you will do just that. This song gives me the empowerment to get through any of the assignments or papers that the teachers give me. While I am listening to this song, and writing my papers or studying I just imagine that no matter how hard it might seem right now, we are young as the song says and that means that even if life seems like it sucks now, it is going to improve. The song/video can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm9d5wAXW5c.

3. Kids In The Street by The All-American Rejects. If I could I would have put all of the All-American Rejects songs on this list because they are by far my favorite band, but then it would not be that interesting of a list. I decided to go with Kids In The Street because the music video is one of the least provocative of them all. Also I love how all of their instruments are light up. The beat with the music also just helps me relax while doing all the projects. This song can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIw7RAfYgI8&NR=1&feature=endscreen.

2. Love Somebody by Maroon 5. Now, I could have just put this song on here because right now I am on a Maroon 5 high because I just found out that I am going to their concert in March, however I do believe that this song is going to be their next hit. I first heard this song while I was working at Express and I must say it was stuck in my head for the rest of the day. This again is one of those songs that no matter what mood you are in before listening to it, it will put you in a good mood. It also is not to strong so it creates a nice background music while you are trying to think of things to write about for your final papers. Maroon 5 does not have a music video for this song yet, so I have just attached a semi-interesting lyric video which can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WQNlPJMIJs.

1. It's Time by Blaine Anderson from Glee. I know that some people might think that they are too cool to be watching Glee, or to be facilitated with the show in any way, but it is time for you to put your pride aside and listen to this one song. I would venture to say that this song is even better than the original. This is the perfect song to listen too right after you just had a stressful day of studying for you finals because it will always lift your spirits. I would also recommend watching the video because I love how they use the cups to make the beat of the music, and everyone just looks so happy smiling and dancing it is hard to stay in a stressful mood after watching this video. Due to the upbeat music and dance number I am putting this song as my number one choice for best song to listen to while studying for finals. Here is a link to the epic song and video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArW6SvANU-0.

This Thanksgiving break I went with my friend Melissa and her family to Chicago to go to a Never Shout Never concert and the Museum of Science and Industry. This Thanksgiving break was monuments on three accounts. First I had my first traditional Thanksgiving dinner (with the mash potatoes and everything). Second I got to see two of my favorite bands play, The Maine and Never Shout Never, and lastly I got to see the Museum of Science and Industry, which is a lot cooler than it sounds.

To start off this epic Thanksgiving break, I joined Melissa and her extended family for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in Sheboygan Wisconsin. While joining her family for dinner I experienced my very first traditional Thanksgiving dinner and I must say that it was delicious. I had too many servings of potatoes, stuffing and French silk pie, but overall it was a great dinner. After having dinner with the family, Melissa and I decided to go out black Friday shopping because we were bored and could not go to sleep. We decided to go to Wal-Mart because we figured that it would be the most entertaining, and her dad wanted to get a new TV. This was also my first experience black Friday shopping because since I work in retail I normally have to work on black Friday and I must say going shopping on black Friday was an interesting experience. The good thing is that no one got hurt and I got all three of the Lord of The Rings movies for only three dollars.

After recovering from both the food coma and black Friday shopping, it was off to the Never Shout Never and The Maine concert in Chicago. The ride was long but it was definitely worth it after seeing the concert. I love going to concerts where it is all general admission because you can get so close the to the band, the only bad thing is that for some reason I always manage to find may way right in front of the "launch pad." Now for those of you who do not know what a "launch pad" is, it is where typically four guys get together and offer to launch people into/onto the crowd so they can crowd surf. The bad thing about being in front of it is that I had to try to lift people up, otherwise they would have done a belly flop right on to the cement floor. Luckily the crowd moved so I was able to sneak my way up to the front of the stage and away from the "launch pad." Below are some pictures of the two bands (who you should check out).

The picture above is of Never Shout Never.

This picture is of the lead singer from The Maine.

After going to the concert, the next and final day in Chicago was spent at the Museum of Science and Industry. This museum was filled with everything! It had different exhibits ranging from space centers to weather centers and DNA sequencing centers. This is the perfect place to go to let your inner nerd out. It was also pretty to see since we went during Christmas time they had different trees set up representing all the different countries. Each tree was labeled as a certain country and then was decorated with traditional cultural aspects from that country. I have included some pictures below of Melissa and I at some of the exhibits but that is not even half of what we saw that day. I would strongly recommend taking the time to go to this museum if you ever have the chance.

One thing that I underestimated my freshmen year in college was show challenging the finals where going to be. It is not that the finals are hard in college, but I found that I need to prepare a lot more for the finals in college than I did in high school. When it comes to finals week I would recommend to all incoming freshmen that you start review the material for all of your finals at least three weeks before the final. By looking over the material that far in advance it allows you to make sure that you have a good understanding of the material that is going to be on the test, and if you don't it gives you time to find the resources to help you. I always love seeing how packed the Just Ask desk is at USquare during finals week, you can barely making it though the hallway because it is so packed with people asking professors last minute questions about what is going to be on the exam. I know that three weeks seems like a lot of time, but once you add in your work schedule and current homework on top of that, it will really only be reviewing for about an hour a day. Not to scare you thought, because finals week is also a lot of fun in college.

During finals week at UMR the Rochester Student Association (RSA), has provided us with free food every day, which gives us one less thing to stress about (finding food that is), and they provide us with stress relievers like bubble wrap, stress balls and bendy sticks. Now the bendy sticks served a different purpose when I was a freshman, instead of bending the stick my roommate Camden and I would hit each other with them while we were studying for our exams. I think this partly happened because during finals week everyone just kind of goes crazy, and will do anything to relive the stress, which in our case was hitting each other with sticks. Below is a picture of Camden and mine arms after we hit each other with the sticks.

Another thing that UMR puts on during finals week is the winter thaw. The winter thaw is when the 3rd floor commons of USquare is turned into a tropical get-a-way (well at least they put up hula skirts around the tables and provide lays for everyone) and provide us with free food, once again, along with different board games to play with your friends (picture below). It was nice to have a break from studying and just play classic board games like checkers, guess who and clue with your friends. So even though finals can be a stressful time in college, UMR does a good job of providing stress relievers so we all do not go crazy.

One of the things that I would strongly recommend to all students would be to start volunteering now. Volunteering has many benefits besides just building your resume. Volunteering is a great way to get involved, build community connections, and get experience in the career field of your choice. I started volunteering at Fairview Hospital when I was a freshman in high school and loved it. By volunteering in the Emergency room at Fairview Hospital it gave me the confidence and reassurance that I would be able to handle and high stress environment like many of the jobs in the health sciences. Volunteering in the hospital setting also exposed me to all the different career paths that are available in the health science. Having this type of experience before going to college helped me narrow my career path even before taking any classes.

Another reason why volunteering can be beneficial is because it helps your build connections with individuals who are already in the career field that you are interested in. this can help you in the future because they can recommend different courses to take in your college career and write letters of recommendations for future colleges and internships. It is also a great way to get connected to do job shadowing. By doing the job shadowing in your high school and early college years it will help you narrow down all the different career options that are out there.

Volunteering in the hospital setting can also give your patient hours, which most graduate programs require of their applicants. Over the summer I took an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) course at the Rochester Community College (RCTC) with a group of friends and had a blast! After all the hard work of studying, ride alongs and lab hours it paid off because we all got our EMT license. I am now applying to be a volunteer EMT in Dodge Center. This will help be build connections in the career that I want to go into as well as giving me direct patient care hours. Below is a picture of my fellow classmates and I in front of an old school ambulance at the Minnesota State Fair which we thought was kind of cool since we all just got our EMT license.

Even if you do not want to volunteer in the hospital setting there are plenty of other volunteer options. I also volunteer at the Paw and Claws shelter in Rochester. Volunteering at the shelter does not really have that many connections to the hospital setting; however it shows my passion for animals and animal rights, plus I get to walk cute dogs like the one below.

So even if you do not want to volunteer in a hospital setting or even if you are not wanting to go into secondary education, volunteering is an important aspect in many ways. Volunteering can teach responsibility, time management, and can even introduce you to new hobbies that you might not even know about yet.

One of the main activities that takes place on the UMR campus happens around Halloween. On Halloween we always have a contest run by the Student Activities Board. My freshmen year they put on a Halloween party that took up the whole third floor! That year they had apple diving (where people would try to grab an able with their mouth while they had vampire teeth in), pick the duck (where there were rubber ducks floating in a bucket and you picked one with a number on the bottom that corresponded to a prize) and plenty of food/candy. It is always fun to see everyone around Halloween time because the majority of the students participate in the costume contest, and are really creative with their costume ideas. This year we had students and staff dressed as minions, Muppets, purple people eaters and loofahs. The purple people eater won the "voters choice" category while "the many phases of Britney Spears" took the prize for most creative.

Halloween week is also a great time to do things with your roommates. My roommates and I spent the weekend before decorating the outside and inside of our house for Halloween, which I must say turned out pretty well. We also all got together one night and carved our pumpkins together. Word to the wise, DO NOT get a big pumpkin. Sure the big pumpkins look cool, but because they are so big they have a really thick wall which means that it is really hard to carve. I was going to carve Dr. Horrible into my pumpkin but because the walls where so big I ended up carving the All American Rejects logo instead.

For Halloween one of my roommates went as a stop codon with two other people (this just shows how much students at UMR love science), while my other roommate went as Agnes from Despicable Me, and I went as Sally from the Nightmare before Christmas. I cannot wait until next year to see all the new ideas for costumes.....I already have one in the making.

Last weekend I went to River Falls Wisconsin to see my friend Melissa at her college. The University was holding a "family weekend" where family members could come and spend the weekend with their college student, and do fun activities that were carnival themed. While I was there it was interesting to see the differences and similarities between UMR and the University of Wisconsin in River Falls because her college is a lot more traditional than UMR.

The first time I visited her college I was overwhelmed by how large her campus was. It would take us a good twenty minutes to get from her dorm to the cafeteria. Having to walk outside in the snow from building to building made me appreciate they skyway systems that connect UMR with downtown Rochester. Once we got to the cafeteria however, I realized how freshmen could gain the "freshmen fifteen." Not having a meal plan at UMR has made it easy for me to not over indulge in sweets and in food in general because it is expensive, however if I went to a school with a meal plan I think I would be in serious danger. They have so much food to choose from and unlike in high school it is a buffet style so you can always go back for more. I think the first time I ate in her cafeteria I had over five glasses of chocolate milk.

Another fun thing that I got to do for the first time while in college was go to a hockey college game. I loved the atmosphere there! All of the students had their own section, and cheered for their team even if they did not know anyone on it. It was also funny to listen to because they had some pretty funny cheers. During the game there is also these two physics majors who dress up as different characters for each game, just to add some more fun to the game. While I was there they dressed up as Batman and the Joker, which was pretty interesting because between calls they would pretend to fight. It was interesting to see how seriously people take the game as well, because at UMR we do not have official sport teams only inter-mural sports which are normally filled with fun competition (even though it does get heated at some points).

After the game, her college was holding a carnival outside in the middle of campus. While we were there we got our faces painted, tie dyed shirts, decorated cookies and learned how to make an origami fox. It was cool to see a big school event like that because at UMR we only have about 1/12 of their population.

After spending the weekend there it made me realize how much I enjoy the small class sizes at UMR because it gives me more opportunities to have one-to-one help with professors, and makes it easier to get hands on experience in my future career field. However, I love going to her college on the weekends to do the social events that go along with a traditional campus like going to hockey and football games.

Being an ambassador and an OWL at UMR, I get asked this question a lot. During freshmen year in college I would advise students to save up money the summer before so they do not have to work, or only have to work a couple of hours. During students freshmen year I think that it is a good idea not to work because then it gives you more time to do your homework, meet new people, and learn how to live on our own. If during a student's freshmen year they do have to work to help pay for rent and tuition, I would recommend trying to find a job on campus. There are plenty of jobs offered through the University like working in admissions, the student resource center, becoming a resident's assistant or helping out in the library. These jobs make it easier to balance college life with work life. Most of the bosses associated with these jobs will understand if you need to take a few days off to study for a final and many of the jobs give you an opportunity to work on homework as well.

If however, there are no openings for any of the on campus jobs and you need to help pay for college then I would recommend finding an outside job but only working about five hours to start off with. Most students only work during the weekends, and then if they find that they can handle going to work and homework they will add hours to their availability. I personally have both an on campus job and an off campus job. I love both of my bosses and got lucky because both of them understand if I need to take some time off to focus on studying. Between the two jobs I work about 25 hours a week, but about half 15 of those hours are on campus so I get to work on homework and can work in between classes so it fits better in my schedule.

Having the off campus job is also a great way to meet new people outside of the school setting, and if you like what you are doing it could also be a way to have fun. I love working at Express and have meet a lot of amazing people. Last year we had a Halloween party in our store which was kind of fun because we got to see the managers have fun instead of always being about business. Once again though I would only recommend working about 10-12 hours a week at any job, because otherwise it is hard to stay on top of homework (I learned that the hard way during my sophomore year). Below is a picture of some of my co-works and I during our Halloween party.