autumn 2013
I participated in Clare Bright's Philosophy of Gender in Western Civilization class in the Autumn. At the time, one of my best friends was becoming more active in the Q community and engaging in campus advocacy, so I found the material both relevant and thought-provoking. In high school, our humanities classes had a strong philosophical bent, so this class was a more in-depth throwback to various important philosophers that have shaped human thought in western civilization. We occasionally touched on the fact that other cultures likely had very different treatments of gender, and that they were out of this class' scope; in talking to said best friend, in retrospect I believe that gender is a lot more cross-cutting than I previously thought, and segregating our current concept of gender by its origins leads to an imperfect understanding of how we perceive gender in our everyday lives. I would be curious to try to understand gender from a different cultural viewpoint.
winter 2014
Pre-college presentations tend to be stressful affairs, filled with shuffling notecards, lack of eye contact, and over-filled PowerPoint slides. In reality, the best presentations tend to be the ones where the presenter has such a thorough understanding of the subject matter that they can lecture on it as if they were telling a story to their audience from their own life. Just look at TED talks - the slides often only contain supplementary images, statistics, and videos, while the speaker is the driving force onstage. In embracing two topics that I'm passionate about - ornithology and music - my presentation in Deborah Pierce's Power of Music class was in the same vein. The physical presentation contained auxiliary material that complimented my words, but the main content came from my own understanding of these two disparate fields now combined into a single analysis.
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experiential learning
Though this was my third year as an RA, I found renewed energy and enthusiasm in my co-RA, Jordan Cobb. As a senior but a first-time RA, she was a ball of excitement with wisdom, a unique combination for sure. That's not to say that I didn't have my own spin on things. I gain energy from leading groups of people and learning about individuals...that's why RAing for the third year was a no-brainer for me (the free room and board doesn't hurt either). I was able to interact with a great group of residents and staff, and it inspired me to create this montage/dub-over of songs from the hit musical film Frozen. Unfortunately, many other hall staffs had the same idea, making our presentation perhaps not the most original during the end-of-year RA banquet, but I think ours is the best executed. I was responsible for filmography and recording, while Cameron Burke put the finished product together. If you listen carefully, the last song ("Love Is An Open Door") backing track is slightly off from the vocals, but I learned to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and let it be since it was a collaboration that didn't necessarily require the level of oversight that I would have liked to give it.
I've included the Experiential Learning reflection I wrote at the end of this particular project below:
Composing a piece of music is nothing like baking. You don’t have all the ingredients, your oven runs on electricity generated by fickle neurons, and the end result isn’t pictured in a nice color photo on page forty-three of Martha Stewart’s Cakes. Rather, it’s more of a walkabout, where you wander the wasteland of your mind until you stumble upon a hidden oasis of inspiration.
Likewise, reflecting on a single quarter of a whole year of RAing is an incomplete task at best. The community that develops on your floor builds over time, just like a piece of music develops from chance encounters of inspired moments. That being said, I am positive that I have made a difference in the experience of the residents on my floor. My Co-RA and I made a point of visiting apartments early in the quarter so that people felt cared for and connected. We hosted more programs than necessary, mostly because we wanted to have fun with our residents, but also so that there would be many opportunities for them to get social with their new peers. In our Autumn Resident Survey, a majority of our students expressed satisfaction with the level of social activity on the floor: 83% approved of the number of opportunities available to meet others, and 89% expressed satisfaction with the variety of programs and activities offered. It is usually rather difficult to promote a social atmosphere in apartment communities, where people are more shut off from each other than in traditional dormitory living arrangements. Not on our floor.
And connections continue to form. Last quarter, one of my residents introduced me to a great card game called Dominion. Easy to understand but complicated to master, it has become a perfect catalyst for new, inter-apartmental friendships. Since my introduction to the game, we’ve taught it to at least ten other people on the floor, and the playgroup is continuing to expand. I’ve already noticed differences on the floor that go beyond the network of Dominion players. In my experience, the most successful floors are the ones that have a critical mass of active members: a virtuous cycle where the mere presence of a group of people tends to attract more people. For example, even if a Dominion game is going on, other people will come to do homework, play Super Smash Brothers, or just hang out. Dominion has been a great example of how unexpected moments can end up having a disproportionate influence on the dynamic of the community. As a side note, however, the game is slightly more difficult to grasp for international students since explaining the game is very language-heavy. Fortunately, the game isn’t as language-dependent as a game like Catchphrase or Taboo!.
Balancing a demographic that is nearly half international students has been another challenge of working in Mercer. Non-domestic students tend to clique together (drawn together by their common language) and/or have many friends outside of the floor that they hang out with often. As a result, most of the friends groups that form tend to be polarized toward either domestic students or international students. These two broad demographics also tend to have differing expectations of apartment living: cleanliness, bedtimes, guest expectations. The community development model that we formulated as a staff has successfully addressed these problems. RAs host quarterly apartment meetings that give residents the opportunity to anonymously voice their opinions on how things are going. Food-related programs also tend to attract a lot of residents regardless of their cultural background…everyone likes free food!
The Mercer community has offered new opportunities to me, even as a third-year RA. Every new housing community builds a reputation over time, but no year is more integral to shaping this reputation than the first year. As a result, in Mercer the RA staff and the resident hall council have had an unusual degree of influence over the social dynamic of the community. For my part, I co-designed the template for The Mercer Remix, a bi-quarterly newsletter that delivers a digest of college-related activities and topics of interest to both undergraduate and graduate residents. I’ve also been able to invest more of my time in hall council, giving input during executive board interviews, attending more meetings, and assisting with the winter retreat. Because leading hall council is one of the responsibilities of the Assistant Resident Director position, which I will be applying to at the end of this year, I hope that my experiences in Mercer will give me valuable insight on how to successfully promote, support, and nurture a successful hall council.
It’s a common belief that third-year RAs are the first to burn out during the course of the year, being the ones busiest with graduation plans, difficult classes, and the same-old, same-old of a job that can put serious time constraints on a full-time student. However, the new challenges and interactions of Mercer, combined with a truly motivated group of student leaders on my staff, have led me to feel anything but burnout. It’s really empowering to love what you do. I’ll have to keep that in mind while searching for a full-time job in the future.
I've included the Experiential Learning reflection I wrote at the end of this particular project below:
Composing a piece of music is nothing like baking. You don’t have all the ingredients, your oven runs on electricity generated by fickle neurons, and the end result isn’t pictured in a nice color photo on page forty-three of Martha Stewart’s Cakes. Rather, it’s more of a walkabout, where you wander the wasteland of your mind until you stumble upon a hidden oasis of inspiration.
Likewise, reflecting on a single quarter of a whole year of RAing is an incomplete task at best. The community that develops on your floor builds over time, just like a piece of music develops from chance encounters of inspired moments. That being said, I am positive that I have made a difference in the experience of the residents on my floor. My Co-RA and I made a point of visiting apartments early in the quarter so that people felt cared for and connected. We hosted more programs than necessary, mostly because we wanted to have fun with our residents, but also so that there would be many opportunities for them to get social with their new peers. In our Autumn Resident Survey, a majority of our students expressed satisfaction with the level of social activity on the floor: 83% approved of the number of opportunities available to meet others, and 89% expressed satisfaction with the variety of programs and activities offered. It is usually rather difficult to promote a social atmosphere in apartment communities, where people are more shut off from each other than in traditional dormitory living arrangements. Not on our floor.
And connections continue to form. Last quarter, one of my residents introduced me to a great card game called Dominion. Easy to understand but complicated to master, it has become a perfect catalyst for new, inter-apartmental friendships. Since my introduction to the game, we’ve taught it to at least ten other people on the floor, and the playgroup is continuing to expand. I’ve already noticed differences on the floor that go beyond the network of Dominion players. In my experience, the most successful floors are the ones that have a critical mass of active members: a virtuous cycle where the mere presence of a group of people tends to attract more people. For example, even if a Dominion game is going on, other people will come to do homework, play Super Smash Brothers, or just hang out. Dominion has been a great example of how unexpected moments can end up having a disproportionate influence on the dynamic of the community. As a side note, however, the game is slightly more difficult to grasp for international students since explaining the game is very language-heavy. Fortunately, the game isn’t as language-dependent as a game like Catchphrase or Taboo!.
Balancing a demographic that is nearly half international students has been another challenge of working in Mercer. Non-domestic students tend to clique together (drawn together by their common language) and/or have many friends outside of the floor that they hang out with often. As a result, most of the friends groups that form tend to be polarized toward either domestic students or international students. These two broad demographics also tend to have differing expectations of apartment living: cleanliness, bedtimes, guest expectations. The community development model that we formulated as a staff has successfully addressed these problems. RAs host quarterly apartment meetings that give residents the opportunity to anonymously voice their opinions on how things are going. Food-related programs also tend to attract a lot of residents regardless of their cultural background…everyone likes free food!
The Mercer community has offered new opportunities to me, even as a third-year RA. Every new housing community builds a reputation over time, but no year is more integral to shaping this reputation than the first year. As a result, in Mercer the RA staff and the resident hall council have had an unusual degree of influence over the social dynamic of the community. For my part, I co-designed the template for The Mercer Remix, a bi-quarterly newsletter that delivers a digest of college-related activities and topics of interest to both undergraduate and graduate residents. I’ve also been able to invest more of my time in hall council, giving input during executive board interviews, attending more meetings, and assisting with the winter retreat. Because leading hall council is one of the responsibilities of the Assistant Resident Director position, which I will be applying to at the end of this year, I hope that my experiences in Mercer will give me valuable insight on how to successfully promote, support, and nurture a successful hall council.
It’s a common belief that third-year RAs are the first to burn out during the course of the year, being the ones busiest with graduation plans, difficult classes, and the same-old, same-old of a job that can put serious time constraints on a full-time student. However, the new challenges and interactions of Mercer, combined with a truly motivated group of student leaders on my staff, have led me to feel anything but burnout. It’s really empowering to love what you do. I’ll have to keep that in mind while searching for a full-time job in the future.