Hopkins Interactive Guest Blog

Teaching About the Social Web

Name: Daniel Mirota

Year: 4th year Graduate Student

Hometown: Flemington, NJ

Major: Ph.D. in Computer Science, focus in medical applications of Computer Vision

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By now, many folks around campus may have noticed the film crew that was on campus in the first week of November.  They were filming for The Social Network the upcoming film about the start of facebook.  The film crew being around reminded me of the course I taught with Carol Reiley, “Computer Vision Application for Online Social Networks” or informally facebook 101.  I wouldn’t doubt most of the readings of this blog have a facebook account. 

It was my first time teaching, aside from being a TA.  Carol and I worked tirelessly to complete the design of the course and write the curriculum.  We even stayed on campus through New Years to have the course ready for intersession. 

When intersession started, we had ~150 slides for the first week of class.  With this many slides we though the slides would last to entire week.  However, we used them all in the first day and found that we needed to quickly work to keep up with the class.

Our class was the first time, to our knowledge, a facebook computer vision application course was taught at Hopkins.  Teaching a class so fresh and current I found very exciting.  As Carol and I researched the different features of facebook we discovered many interesting parts of the facebook API and what possibilities were available for Adobe Flash and other multimedia application. 

By the end of the course Carol and I were both very impressed by all of the student projects.  We presented a tough course covering a broad range of topics from a brief history of facebook, to basic computer vision methods and developing in a web framework.  All of our students did a wonderful job.

Overall, while taxing at times and requiring some late nights, teaching the course was very rewarding.  Hopkins gave us a great environment to teach in.  Carol and I also thank the Digital Media Center (DMC) for finding our curriculum an innovative use of technology and granting us funds to purchase webcams and wii-motes.  Both of which are available for student projects at the DMC.  So take advantage of the DMC anytime you can.  They have many resources for all of your media needs.  As well as people there to help with their service and don’t forget the game room.

It was excellent teaching the course.  I received a real appreciation of what it takes to build a course from just an idea to making the course successful for all of my students.  This level of experience I personally feel is only available from teaching an entire course.  While my experience TA was also satisfying, it was simply not the same.

Toward the Saving of Sweatshirts

Name: Hannah Reade Joo

Year: Class of 2012

Hometown: Seattle, WA

Majors: Neuroscience

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I’m on a plane flying back to Hopkins from Seattle, which is a pain because there isn’t a single airline that believes, during non-summer months, that there is a need for a direct flight between Seattle and Baltimore.  AirTran believes it only seasonally and every summer they offer a direct flight.  In four hours, after a plane change in Philadelphia, I’ll land in Baltimore.  I’ll see it out the window before we touch down, and just like every other time, no matter how tired I am, I’ll feel this little thrill.

Two years ago today, I was probably on the Stanford University website ogling pictures of Hoover Tower. I had wanted to go there for college since I was fifteen—I had wanted desperately to go there—and my obsession peaked shortly after I turned in my early application in the Fall of my senior year.  By that time, it had been years since I had started wearing my homemade tank top with ironed-on felt letters that read, “IWGITS,” for “I will get into Stanford,” every night to bed.  I refused to tell anyone what the letters stood for, preferring to keep my obsession secret. I truly believed that if only I wore that tank top enough, if I kept learning and working hard and becoming my best self, everything would work out exactly the way I had planned it. If that girl from two years ago, preserved true to emotional form, could see me now, she would wonder at the fact of my existence.  How could it be that I did not simply cease to exist the moment it became clear I was not going to my first-choice school? 

It was my father’s idea that I apply to Hopkins, and even by my senior year in high school I wasn’t convinced I’d want to actually attend.  I missed the interview date and I neglected to send any of my columns from the city paper, which I painstakingly cut out to send to Stanford; given the relative amount of effort I put in, it’s a small miracle I was accepted.

During my junior year in high school, I applied to the Stanford Summer College program and waited for a group of nameless, faceless St. Peters, steeped frustratingly in the subjective stuff of humanity, to make an objective decision about whether to open their gates to me for the summer.  Meanwhile, my mother took me to the East Coast to look at other schools. I was subtly unkind about all but one of them.  U Penn smelled, Yale failed to resonate with me, I was “saving” Boston for graduate school, the Princeton tour bored me and its thick booklet on its diversity made me suspicious.  The only school we visited that that I liked, and that I have any photographic record of being at, is Hopkins. The night we first drove through campus, I saw people exercising three floors up in Charles Commons and was thrilled at the thought of living there.  The next morning, I heard a student at admissions speak about being a philosophy and neuroscience double major, and since that was what I wanted to do at the time, I secretly considered it a Sign. The classes I attended excited me, and the neuroscience program looked fabulous.  It was the only school at which I could really envision myself; but still, there was Stanford, and I was reluctant to admit I might ever like another school more.  Before we left campus, I bought a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts. 

At Hopkins junior year of high school

At the end of our East Coast College Tour, my dad called to tell me Stanford had sent a letter and accepted me to their summer program, which sent me into a month-long fit of general ecstasy. I was obnoxiously overjoyed once I got there, too, which prompted even my truest friend to write requesting, jokingly, that I “please, for the rest of our sakes, tone it down.”  It wasn’t an unreasonable request.  I still can’t comfortably cite San Francisco, the undergraduate neuroscience program, or the people I met there as reasons I wanted to go there and feel like I’m giving a complete explanation of feelings at the time.  For anyone who has ever been truly, madly, unsaveably in love for the first time, that is what it felt like.  My reasons were beyond the realm of reason, and perhaps that made it idiotic—but whether it was or was utterly irrelevant, because it could not be helped. 

At the top of Hoover Tower, Stanford University, summer after junior year

For the most part, I forgot about Hopkins completely.

In December of my senior year, Stanford deferred my application to the pool of regular applicants and in April they rejected me.  I spent an afternoon clipping the letters off the sweatshirt I had bought at the Stanford bookstore the previous summer, until it read not “Stanford,” but “Stand.” Last summer I went at it with the scissors again and clipped away the rest of the letters.  It had finally started looking silly to me.

This year, I live on the ninth floor of Charles Commons.  Some evenings I like walking by outside so I can look up at it from street level the way I did the first time I visited Hopkins. I live in a suite with three other girls, just down the hall from where my boyfriend and some of my closest friends live.  Our suite is always stocked with fat-free frozen yogurt and the best vegetables Charles St. Market had to offer that day, and because we mysteriously have free cable, there are almost always people in our living room.  Down the hall, they’re usually playing competitive Uno with rules they’re always modifying.  They spend evenings doing things like learning Morse code off cereal boxes so they can try, in vain, to communicate with people in nearby apartment buildings via flashlight.  I often walk in to find them the throwing across the room the molecular models we all got for organic chemistry. Cyclohexane is a favorite.   

 My room in Charles Commons

In just three semesters, Hopkins has left me a more concentrated and distilled version of who I was two years ago. I’ve had many truly excellent writing, math, and science classes, and they have made my thought process both cleaner and more creative. I work in two labs, a vision lab in Seattle and a learning and memory lab in Baltimore, and I love both of them. I’ve presented a poster at two meetings, and I’ve discovered that this is one of my favorite things to do. Because Johns Hopkins has been able to forgive me for not recognizing its greatness from the beginning, it has awarded me Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the money from which I plan to use on independent projects in the two labs.  I am also toying with the idea of also using some of my money to travel and work on a fiction-writing project.  Just the thought of any of these projects has me grinning like an overambitious lunatic hovering some 30,000 feet up in the air between Seattle and Philadelphia. Thank you, Johns Hopkins.

 Getting ready to present my poster from the Dacey lab at the Fall Vision Meeting for the Optical Society of America; next to me is the graduate student, Jo, who works in my lab. She is charming, brilliant, Australian, and my hero.

Lest I sound too much like those suspicious people who have terrible things happen to them (loss of spouses, jobs, limbs, etc.) and then claim these were the Best Experiences of Their Lives and they feel no sadness when they think about it now, let me acknowledge that when, last week, I had to sign in on the Stanford website and order an official copy of my transcript from the summer I spent there, I was not exactly filled with joy. When I’m reminded, it still upsets me that I failed so thoroughly to meet one of my longest-standing goals, but I’m also coming to understand how arrogant it was of me to think that I alone could ever ensure they let me in.  As in romantic relationships (of which I had one that paralleled my experience with Stanford and, curiously, taught me some of the same lessons), you’re never completely in control, and, by definition, it all works out.

As I told my academic advisor a month ago, I feel that by ending up at Hopkins and not Stanford, I dodged a very large, very attractive bullet. That is not to say it would be for everyone, but for me it was, because I would have been missing out on Hopkins.  Given the stochasticity and the subjectivity of admissions committees and of all the other forces at work in the universe, I consider myself extremely lucky. 

I guess there are two goals I have in writing this, the first of which is that I can convince people who are unsure that Hopkins could be an amazing place for them and that they should do their very best not to miss the interview deadline.  The second goal is more targeted, directed at anyone out there who, like my past self, has ever looked at a picture of Hoover tower or any correlate and felt that particularly powerful hybrid emotion that results when hope, ambition, wistfulness, and the insecurity of being seventeen are allowed to steep for too long in a very young heart. I very sincerely hope that if things don’t turn out the way you expect or want them to be, you don’t take it out on any of your sweatshirts. If you do, it will be the only remaining scar in a few years, and you’ll regret that whenever you’re looking for a sweatshirt, the first one available makes you look like a hobo because of all the holes.

Hopkins Soccer

Name: Laura Moody

Year: Class of 2013

Hometown: Rancho Palo Verdes, CA

Majors: Neuroscience, Applied Math

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 When applying to college I had only one thing in mind: academics.  From day one, my parents had made it clear that a good education was top priority.  So when I was making my final decision, Hopkins stood out and seemed like the perfect academic match for me.  Like every other excited incoming freshman, I began to peruse the website and the numerous pamphlets, looking at all the opportunities and campus activities.  After countless hours of research, I came to the realization that Hopkins was more than just an academic powerhouse; it also had a competitive Division III athletic program.  Sure, everyone knew about the famous Hopkins Lacrosse team, but other sports teams seemed relatively unknown.  I started thinking that I actually might have a chance of continuing my athletic career and playing soccer in college.  I had never really thought about varsity athletics beyond high school because I never considered myself good enough to play at the next level.  Plus, I was supposed to be focused on schoolwork.  But after careful consideration, I finally decided to email the coach.  I waited for a reply, hoping that he wouldn’t dismiss me as just another player.  But by the end of June, it was official: I was to come to Baltimore a week before move in day and tryout during preseason.  I didn’t know whether to be excited or scared or anxious.  All I knew was that my plans had changed and I was ready to see what happened next.

I arrived on August 21st.  Stumbling into my bare room in AMR, I half expected to find my roommate already there to greet me.  But upon examining my room and exploring the entire dorm, I realized that I was in fact the only student in the whole building (I later found out that almost all the other athletes lived in Wolman).  It was hot and humid, yet I managed to unload my two enormous suitcases from the car and unpack just enough clothes and bedding to get me through the week.  I didn’t want to completely settle in just in case my roommate had other ideas about furniture arrangement.  It was my first day at college.  I was alone in a half-inhabited room 3000 miles away from home.

The next few days were a blur.  Three practices a day, team dinners, weekend scrimmages; it was a tad overwhelming to say the least.  Not only was it physically demanding, but meeting 25 new girls was also a challenge.  Awkward silences dominated our conversations.  While the upperclassmen talked and joked, we freshmen huddled together and kept to ourselves.  But things got better after a few days as we got to know each other and become more comfortable in our new environment.  The freshmen naturally became friends and the other classes eventually warmed up to us.  The upperclassmen were more than happy to share their traumatic college stories, being sure to add pieces of advice here and there.  We spent almost every waking hour with each other and bonded over our intense soccer schedule and the anticipation of the start of the school year.

The next week was more hectic than the first.  Students were moving in and the hallways were filled with unfamiliar voices.  I started to miss having the whole dorm to myself.  Once again, I had to go through the painstaking process of meeting everyone in the dorm.  But once again, we eventually broke through the awkward phase and became more relaxed around each other.  Before classes began, most of my day was consumed with soccer.  Even during orientation, I had to miss many of the activities to attend practice and scrimmages.  However, my schedule became more consistent with the start of school: class in the morning, lunch, free time, soccer practice, homework.  Balancing soccer and schoolwork was less challenging than I predicted.  I had plenty of time to finish homework and study for tests, and I even had time to play a casual game of Rock Band here or there or watch an episode of Desperate Housewives with my dorm mates. 

By this time, soccer season was in full swing.  Being a freshman, I didn’t expect to play much and at first I didn’t.  I worked hard in practice though, and it eventually paid off.  I’ll never forget playing in my first college soccer game against #1 ranked Messiah College.  We lost, but it was amazing.

I had time to handle my homework and social life, but soccer was still a large time commitment.  We played games at Homewood, but we also traveled.  The 7 hour bus ride to William Smith College was one of the most memorable trips.  We were supposed to leave at 4:00 but the bus had a leak, so we ended up leaving at 7:30 and arriving at approximately 3 in the morning (There’s nothing like going to bed at 3 and waking up for an 11am game).  But spending such extensive periods of time with the team only brought us closer.  Music is playing the whole drive, people are laughing, and the atmosphere is lively.  But it always amazes me that no matter how friendly the girls are off the field, they always switch modes for the game.  The team’s intensity and competitive spirit are what made us the team to beat in the Centennial Conference.

Fast forward to November.  Conference play is coming to a close.  With a 16-3-0 record, we are seeded second in the Conference Tournament.  The season has been good, but a conference title would really be the perfect ending.  Today is the final, Hopkins vs. Dickinson.  We step onto the field confident but not cocky, ready to work hard.  After over an hour of back-and-forth play, a scoreless stalemate seems inevitable.  Yet right when we begin to feel discouraged, we score a goal and the momentum changes.  With only 20 minutes left to play, we hold off Dickinson for the win.  Not only do we win our fifth consecutive Centennial Conference title, but we also get an automatic spot in the NCAA tournament.

So far, playing soccer has been the best choice that I have made in college.  It keeps me in shape and makes me feel like an active part of the school.  The best part is that I’ve made 25 new friends.  The season thus far has been great, but I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming weeks.

Life in Technicolor

Name: Anna Kochut

Year: Class of 2013

Hometown: Athens, GA

Majors: International Studies

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During the final weeks of high school, visions of college bliss clouded my consciousness.  I daydreamed about meeting exciting new people, taking fascinating courses from renowned professors, and experiencing all that an urban campus could offer.  Daydreams are all well and good, but honestly, when I decided to attend Hopkins last spring, I had no idea what to expect.  Looking at my life, I realized that I had spent the past nine years at a tiny independent school in Athens, Georgia and was about to graduate alongside the same 62 kids that I had known for most of my life.  What was I getting myself into? Needless to say, I was terrified at the prospect of moving over 600 miles away to attend a school several times larger than I was sure my comfort zone could handle.  Before I knew it (or could accept it), it was move-in day.

The first few days of college were a blur.  There was intense heat, sleepless nights due to said ludicrous heat, fun and informative Orientation events, and learning more names than I could ever hope to remember.  In all honesty, it was overwhelming—and a lot like summer camp. I felt uprooted and confused, but at the same time exhilarated at the prospect of a new beginning. It was a lot for me to deal with, so I’m pretty sure I appeared quiet and reserved when people met me.  It’s funny, because in reality that’s the last thing I am.

Once classes started, I felt more comfortable.  I love a good routine, and for some reason settling into a new one always filled me with a sense of purpose.  I clung to it. My classes, needless to say, are amazing. I’m taking five classes this semester: Intro to Greek Philosophy, Intro to Cognitive Neuropsychology, Contemporary International Politics (CIP), High Intermediate French, and Intro to Fiction/Poetry Writing.  While the selection might seem random, I promise there was at least some method to my madness.  Before Hopkins, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in, so I decided to take classes in whatever interested me.  I’m so glad I took this path; I not only learned more about what I’m interested in, I have also broadened my worldview. While I love them all, I must say that CIP is my favorite.  Professor David gives such concise, intelligent, and frequently hilarious lectures that present the information in a new and exciting way. It’s basically impossible not to be engaged. My intimidating TA, once I got past the intimidation factor, is incredibly brilliant and a valuable resource. I definitely wouldn’t have gotten as much out of this class without going to his office hours. I realize now that classes like this were a huge part of reason I came to Hopkins. 

As for social life, I honestly wasn’t expecting very much.  Hopkins’ academic reputation precedes it, and I was pretty much expecting to be drowning in homework. Much to my surprise, this didn’t prove to be the case at all.  With careful time management (by that I mean lots of time spent holed up in the library, forcing myself to do my work) I have had plenty of time to spend with the awesome friends I made in my house (Griffin house in AMR II—the best).  We have hot chocolate parties, go out on the town for each other’s birthdays, and spend hours just hanging out together in the dorms. Together, we’ve been exploring more and more of Baltimore.  Once, we went to Little Italy and ate at a cute Italian restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of my friends. We also ventured into Fell’s Point for the Halloween festivities.  That was an interesting adventure, to say the least. Needless to say, having whetted our appetite, we definitely plan to explore more and more of the city.

Now, nearing the end of my first semester here at Hopkins, I realize I could not be happier. I love my classes, my friends, and my roommate (I got so lucky!).  I’m so excited to start next semester.  I have a feeling it’ll be even better than this one. However, I must say that happiness definitely takes effort.  I will be the first one to admit that I was terrified when I first got here- scared I would fail out of my classes, scared that I wouldn’t find anyone I got along with, and most of all, scared to discover that I made the wrong decision.  Admittedly, it was hard to get my fresh-to-college-shy self out of my dorm room and make friends, but it wouldn’t have happened any other way.  It’s hard to remain caught up with schoolwork so I can have time for social life.  But I’m so glad I made the effort.

At first glance, the first months of college felt like some strange combination of summer camp and high school. However, now I can definitely say that it has morphed into something else.  Don’t get me wrong, it still feels like a combination of camp and high school (with more homework), but it’s starting to sink in that this is where my life truly begins.  Walking around at the beautiful campus, listening to interesting lectures, hanging out with my friends, I realize that this is the reason I moved so far away from home—to start my life.  Looking back on my time here, I realized that nothing in my life up to this point has felt as real, as solid as my first months at Hopkins.  Moving far away from home and being forced out of my comfort zone definitely put things in a new perspective, and I feel like I’m living life in an amplified version… life in Technicolor.

Back On My Feet

Name: Laurin Wolf

Year: Class of 2012

Hometown: Faribault, MN

Majors: Writing Seminars

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Hi readers! I’m Laurin, a sophomore Writing Seminars student from Faribault, Minnesota. For those with a sense of the Minnesota geography, it’s a pretty small town located about an hour south of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I can’t believe I’ve almost completed three semesters at Hopkins already—the time has just flown! I love my life at here a lot, and here are some of the reasons why: the people are smart, unique, and inspiring, my classes never fail to simultaneously excite and challenge me, and the campus is beautiful and easy to get around.  But another aspect of JHU life that I can’t get enough of is the city of Baltimore itself. It’s a manageable urban setting that offers a huge variety of theatres, music venues, restaurants, museums, and opportunities to get involved with the community through service projects.

Growing up in the great Midwest, I developed a love for the outdoors and being active, and especially for running. I guess having two marathoner parents also encouraged this (but don’t think I didn’t call them crazy when I was younger!) When I got to college, running provided me with a great way to burn off steam, stay in shape (or at least try!), and see my new city from a different perspective.  There’s no easier or more interesting way to discover cool nooks and crannies than by literally running into them. I quickly discovered my favorite routes in the neighborhoods surrounding campus.

This year, I started running with one of my awesome sorority sisters, Charlotte. She’s a great runner and also a Baltimore native, which means she’s been able to add to my collection of routes. Running with a friend makes those miles go even faster! Every year, Baltimore puts on a Running Festival, and we decided to run the 5K distance (3.1 miles). So one dreary October morning, we took a cab down to M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Ravens, and joined thousands of people out there doing exactly what we were there to do. It must be said that runners are an unusually happy group when they’re all together early in the morning. But one group stood out to us in particular: the people wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Back On My Feet” seemed to be having an especially great time running and cheering each other on. We wanted to get in on the fun, so we decided to investigate.

An Internet search taught us that Back On My Feet is a group that organizes running clubs at homeless shelters. It started in Philadelphia and now has a chapter in Baltimore. After attending an orientation session, Charlotte and I became official “non-res members” (meaning we don’t live at the shelter) of one of the 4 BOMF clubs here in the city. We get up around 5 a.m. on Friday mornings (sooo early, I know—but it’s only once a week!) and head down to the shelter in order to start running with our new friends by 5:30.  The group has pre-planned routes that take us through the still-dark, sleepy streets of Baltimore. Some of us run slow, some of us run fast. Some have been running for 30 years, some started a month ago. Our lives have taken different paths until now. But we’re all same when we’re out there at 5:30 in the morning, huffing and puffing up the hill on Charles Street. We all just love to run.

I know this sounds pretty cliché—my Writing Sems professors would probably give me a hard time if they read this! But it’s true, and I’m realizing that my experience with BOMF reflects many of my experiences at Hopkins. The student body here is as diverse as one can imagine, but we’ve all come to this great city and awesome school because we’re passionate about something, and together, we form a strong community. During one of our recent runs, a BOMF “res member” told me that he felt like the other runners had become his second family, which was a pretty powerful statement to me. I’m excited to keep discovering new paths with the BOMF crew and my new Hopkins family.

Notes from a Hopkins Teaching Assistant

Name: Adam Bisno

Year: Second Year PhD Student

Department: History

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My name is Adam Bisno, and I’m a Teaching Assistant for an introductory history class called “Occidental Civilization, 1789–present.”  I really enjoy teaching my subject area, which is modern Europe with a focus on German cultural history. (I’m a PhD student in the Department of History.)  My responsibilities include grading exams and papers and leading weekly discussion sections of 10-20 undergraduates.  I’m here not only as their instructor, though, but as a fellow student and historian-in-training, too.

Lecturing is one of the skills I’m still developing, so the course professor let me give this term’s talk on fascism. My preparation was guided by two questions: What is the vision of interwar and fascist Europe I want students to have, and what are the ways I hope that students might find to question the perspective I offer?  In the end, I opted for an explanation of fascism that took the ideology seriously, that located its cultural appeal to contemporaries, and that highlighted the continuities and discontinuities in modern European political culture up to 1945.  This is only one way of looking at fascism.  In choosing it, I didn’t hope to persuade students that culture and ideologies are the stuff from which we must build our understanding of fascism; rather, I tried to give them a concrete approach with which to engage, against which to push, and from which they might form their own ideas about the origins, meanings, and legacies of interwar fascism.

The way I teach is really the way I learn: through problem-oriented, question-driven discussion.  I always try to bring the conversation back to the historian we’re reading: Why did she choose the evidence she chose? How is she using it?  What is her argument?  Do we agree?  Why not? For Hopkins undergrads, dates and facts are just as easily memorized at home; class is where they should learn to read for argument, question evidence, and think through problems.

I also meet with a fair number of my students outside class.  It’s always a pleasure when somebody comes to ask about a finer point or broader theme in the course, and it’s fun for me to help students to historical definitions of concepts and categories we otherwise take for granted–like citizenship, the individual, and rights.  Most of my students won’t even major in history, but I’m pretty sure they’ll take with them the discipline’s unique approach to the past, an approach I hope to have helped them discover.

At my sections on Friday afternoons, I don’t spend much time imparting information. I try very hard not to do that.  Better to provoke, sit back, and gently guide a discussion toward some useful, possibly mind-expanding conclusion.  Of course, conclusions aren’t always forthcoming, not in history and not in any discipline.  Sometimes it’s just as satisfying to end class on a question with no solution and then send everybody off to their weekends.

Salaamaalekum ci Senegal (Greetings from Senegal)

Name: Katie Firestone

Year: Class of 2011

Hometown: New York, NY

Majors: International Studies and Africana Studies

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I knew I wanted to study abroad starting in high school, and maybe even earlier. I had imagined myself going to France, given the fact that I started taking French in middle school. I definitely surprised people when I announced I wanted to study abroad in Dakar, Senegal. West Africa is certainly a world away from Europe.

For me, the choice was logical. At Hopkins, I am an International Studies and Africana Studies doublemajor. Given my study of French as well, a French-speaking West African country was the ideal place to choose to study abroad. Some people asked me why I was not going to Paris if I wanted to improve my French, but for me, coming to Senegal was about more than French. I wanted the chance to live in Africa, to experience a culture and history that I had previously only studied. In my mind, study abroad is the chance of a lifetime—a time when your opportunities really are endless and you can choose to live and study virtually anywhere in the world. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. And I did just that.

Senegal is a fascinating country. The country is 95% Muslim (I interestingly enough live with a Catholic host family). The official language is French, but the majority of the population  cannot understand French and speak Wolof (a lesser number speak other “maternal” languages including  Pulaar and Serer). The city of Dakar is extremely international, with many organizations and groups having headquarters here and a large number of international residents (including French, American, Lebanese, etc.).

I have called Dakar home for the past two and a half months and will be here for another six weeks. While I attend classes with fifty other American students, I live with a Senegalese host family and take most of my classes in French, so I have been able to truly experience life in Senegal. I eat meals with my family around the bowl, sometimes even using my (right) hand. I know how to greet someone properly in Wolof and ask about his or her health and family. I can bargain for a taxi.

I feel lucky that I have been able to experience so much. I have explored Dakar—the neighborhoods, markets, beaches and restaurants. I have met incredible friends through my program,who go to colleges all across the United States. I have also gotten to know neighbors, family friends and other Senegalese host families. I have been able to travel: to the beaches on the coast, to a rural village for a week, to southern Senegal and to the Gambia for fall break.

While I have certainly learned a lot in my classes (French, Senegalese Culture and Society, Wolof, International Crisis Management in African Countries and Colonization and Decolonization in Senegal), I am also learning so much outside of the classroom. I have learned how to navigate language barriers, with the help of my dictionary and the patience of my host family. My French in turn has been forced to improve. I have learned cultural differences: not giving compliments, being a member of a family (versus being an individual), polygamy and the importance of Islam. I have learned to adapt to the heat and to love rice.

I have come to love the little things about Senegal: hearing the call to prayer at six every morning from the mosque near my house, ceebu jen (the national dish of rice and fish), being able to communicate in Wolof with people on the street, the amazing Senegalese teranga (hospitality), the car rapide system (buses/vans that take you around the city). While part of me is excited to return to the US and to family and friends and eventually Hopkins in the spring, I know I am going to miss Senegal.

The Vocal Chords Experience

Name: Kim Skerritt

Year: Class of 2010

Hometown:  Herndon, VA

Major: Political Science, minor in Museums and Society

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A cappella has been infused in every aspect of my college life.  I’ve always been a singer. I planned on trying out for a variety of music groups in college, but I didn’t expect that the one I joined would affect my entire undergraduate experience. 

I still remember the day I tried out for the Vocal Chords. They were so friendly and smiley, it made the entire auditioning process not as overwhelming as it could have been. After the 15 minutes of singing, I had to wait 9 hours to find out whether I got called back. It was so stressful, and to make things worse my friend (of four days at the time) played a joke and called me to say I didn’t make callbacks. In reality, I did. The next day, I had been asked to join the group. After saying yes, spent the next hour calling family and friends with the good news. I was so exhausted by the end of the night I passed out and missed the call from the Vocal Chords to meet for the first time.

Because I joined so close to the beginning of freshman year, I automatically became really good friends with them. As a person from a very strong family unit at home, VC (Vocal Chords) became my family at Hopkins. 7 hours of practice a week turns into so much more time spent together. We do everything together: live, eat, watch movies, go see other a cappella concerts, etc (I have actually lived with two different member of VC for the past 3 years).

     
  

One of the best things about being in a small but diverse group is that you end up becoming friends with people you may never encounter in the first place. The Vocal Chords is made up of all different majors from all different years. As a freshman I was the only one in my group of hall mates to have upperclassmen friends. And now as a senior, I know many more freshmen than I would have.

I find practice like brain break. After spending all day at class or work, I look forward to doing something I love with people I love. It’s true that every semester we work towards a final concert, but really it’s just a fun way to show-off what we like to do. 

There are these moments I have during practice. I called them “epiphanies.”  It’s when I have this feeling of inner joy and awe because I am standing with my friends making this beautiful music with just our bodies. That is one of the most wonderful things about singing. It is something you cannot buy, and it is something that everyone can relate to.
 
As a senior, I know my time with the Chords is coming to an end, only one more wonderful semester together. I know I will be sad, but at the same time I have had such an amazing experience singing in this group that I can’t wait to give more students the opportunity I had. When I remember my time at Hopkins I will always think of my Vocal Chords first.

International Conference on Birth Defects & Disabilities in India

Name: Neha Deshpande

Year: Class of 2011

Hometown:  Monmouth Junction, NJ

Major: Molecular and Cellular Biology, minor in French Cultural Studies

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From October 4-7, 2009, over 350 delegates from 28 countries gathered in New Delhi, India for the 4th International Birth Defects and Disabilities Conference in the Developing World. Conference delegates included leaders from The March of Dimes Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and The National Institute of Health, to name  a few. Delegates ranged from health professionals, policy makers, social workers, patients, administrators, and volunteers – the youngest of whom was me! 

My name is Neha Deshpande and I am currently a junior, Molecular & Cellular Biology major at Hopkins. I am involved in many activities on campus including research at the medical campus, dancing with my team JHU JOSH, working as a JHU Admissions Representative, leading the JHU Women’s Pre-Health Leadership Society, and teaching French to a 3rd grade class at a local Baltimore public school. However, by far my biggest commitment is to mothers and babies across the world. After 9 years of volunteering with the March of Dimes (MOD), the nation’s pioneer in maternal and infant health, I am the 2009-2010 March of Dimes National Youth Chair. I represent over 1 million youth volunteers across the nation who are working towards a day when every baby is born healthy.

As the Chair of the MOD National Youth Council, I assist the organization in the design and implementation of various youth leadership programs such as health initiatives to promote healthy lifestyle choices among teens and young adults, advocacy initiatives to push for newborn screening and maternal and infant health insurance, communication via the national “Youth Times” newsletter, and education programs such as fall and summer volunteer leadership conferences. Currently, I am working with March of Dimes Global Programs to establish an international network of youth volunteers. The goal of this network is to emphasize collective action to improve birth outcomes and help reduce mortality and disability for birth defects and preterm births worldwide. The network would include youth from six academic centers including China, Lebanon, The Philippines, Brazil, Egypt, and the United States.

 

My goal at the 4th International conference was not only to represent March of Dimes Team Youth, but to relay the importance of “The Power of Youth in Global Public Health.” My presentation offered strategies for mobilizing young professionals in developing countries to help reduce the rates of death and disability from preterm birth and birth defects in local communities. I shared my experiences working with March of Dimes Team Youth, a long-standing and successful model for engaging and sustaining volunteer activity in areas of community service, advocacy, education, and fundraising. Did you know that more than 1 in every 4 persons in the world is a youth aged 10-24 years? (Population Reference Bureau, February 2006). Nearly 70% of the world’s young people live in developing countries, which means that youth represent an untapped resource with the time, incentive, and energy to volunteer in ways that can help solve social, economic, and health challenges.

The 4th International Conference was a spectacular opportunity that really showed me that the work we do as volunteers has both national and global impact. Every year, an estimated 7.8 million children are born in the world with a serious genetic or acquired birth defect. Of these children who are born, 3.3 million die each year. The impact of birth defects is particularly severe in developing countries where 95% of deaths of children occur who have serious birth defects. Tragically, every year nearly 13 million babies are born prematurely worldwide, and one million of these babies die. The March of Dimes Global Programs is working hard to combat these disturbing statistics. To understand more about the March of Dimes’ mission on a global scale, check out the recently published White Paper on Preterm Birth (a pdf version).

A trip to India would not be complete without some sightseeing! I was fortunate to have my mother accompany me as my guest and we spent a few days after the conference visiting the Taj Mahal as well as family members in Mumbai, India.

 
November is also National Prematurity Awareness Month so I encourage all of you to show your support for moms and babies worldwide! Visit our website and sign up for our E-newsletter, do something nice for a local Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or Create your virtual band to celebrate, honor, or remember a baby in your life. We have also developed an incredible volunteer toolkit that you should check out if you are interested in more ways to get involved with the March of Dimes.

I would like to thank The Johns Hopkins Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program for sponsoring my trip to India. Without this amazing fellowship program, I would not have had this extraordinary life-changing experience serving as a delegate at an international conference!

**Editor's note: Be sure to check out Neha's previous guest blog entry, "Intersession in India."**

London Calling

Name: Sam Lichtenstein

Year: Class of 2011

Hometown: New York, New York

Major: International Studies 

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As I sat procrastinating (correction: procrastinating is an understatement) in my dorm room last spring, my mind began to wander off to the land of study abroad possibilities. There were simply so many continents, so many countries, so many cities, and so many colleges. As I looked out my window at the sunny, warm, and generally beautiful early spring day we were having in Baltimore, my mind thought of somewhere by the beach in South America, or along the coast in Australia, or maybe next to the Mediterranean in southern Europe.

Yet, somehow I write this blog post from London. So how did I end up in the definition of the rainy, damp, and cold city?

Well, the answer to that question is not terribly difficult: despite my desire for fantastic weather, my mind was much more motivated by where I would get a good education that fit my interests (I guess my parents made me a rational thinker, after all).

To begin with, I knew I wanted to spend my time abroad taking some classes that dealt with Islamic Studies – my concentration at JHU. Knowing this fact narrowed my focus pretty dramatically: somewhere in the Middle East or Western Europe. Unfortunately, pretty much all the programs that were relevant to me in Middle Eastern countries required me to speak fairly good Arabic – something I was not confident in my ability to do.

Thus, I knew I needed to look around in Western Europe, where there were a lot (A LOT) of options. I was able to narrow it down a bit more, though, because I wanted to be somewhere where I spoke the local language. Given the programs that were relevant to my desire course of study, my fluency in English and proficiency in French then left me with three big choices: London, Paris, or Geneva (there are certainly worse problems to have than having to choose among those three countries).

To be honest, I discounted Geneva pretty quickly. As much as I was interested in spending some time there, it simply couldn’t measure up to London or Paris. Then, I spent days going back and forth in my mind: London…no Paris…no London…and then back to Paris. Finally, after about a week of indecisiveness I walked into the Office of Study Abroad and told the staff my problem. After listening to me, Dr. Citi, the head of the office, looked at me and said point blank, “Easy answer: You want to go to SOAS in London.”

Maybe it was easy for her, but what on earth was SOAS?

                              

After doing some research I found out that SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a small  college within the University of London that focuses – as the name suggests – on Africa and Asia (both the Middle East and the rest of the continent). Perhaps best of all, I discovered that it is located in one of the best areas of central London. After looking at the course catalog (which was essentially perfection for someone with my interests), I made up my mind that instant. I knew that I would be spending next semester in the land of the Beatles, royalty, and – most importantly – afternoon tea.

 So what have I been up to in London since crossing the pond in September? Well, perhaps ironically, the big highlight has been…well…not being in London. Sounds a bit weird, right? After all, London has so much to explore that it should in theory keep me more than occupied until I return to the U.S. in December. True, but the really fantastic thing about being in Europe is how easy it is to travel. Needless to say, I’ve done quite a bit – and have a lot more planned.

 Before I even got to London, I went on a week-long adventure to España with my roommate from Hopkins who just happens to go to the same school as I do in London (don’t worry, he made his choice completely independently of me; we’re not COMPLETELY attached at the hip, but we are pretty bad). We spent the majority of our time in Barcelona (where I had studied during the summer between my junior and senior years in high schools), which was truly amazing. It’s such a quirky city with such great culture – not to mention the pristine beach that runs along the Mediterranean. Needless to say, we found plenty of ways to keep ourselves entertained. From Barcelona, we then travelled to Bilbao (pretty much only to see the Guggenheim, which is truly mind-blowing) and ended up in San Sebastian, which was beautiful.

  

Following the epic trip to Spain, I decided to let my batteries recharge for a bit. After all, I did have to  move into my dorm in London and get settled (oh, and that whole starting classes thing). Nonetheless, three weeks later I was back at the airport and headed to Dublin for two days. The great thing about Dublin was that it is perfectly sized to hit all the big sites over a weekend – if you manage your time wisely, that is. As a result, my friends and I were on our feet the WHOLE weekend, but at least we took a lot of good photos as we did all the touristy things.

Since coming back from Dublin, I’ve made three more trips: two to  Paris and one to Berlin. In terms of Paris, it’s simply so easy to reach. The Eurostar train (which gets you to Paris in 2.5 hours) leaves from the train station that is literally a five-minute walk from my dorm, so it’s hard to resist going more than once. It especially helps to have a lot of friends studying in the City of Light who are always far too nice and let me sleep in their apartments. And, fingers crossed, I’m hoping to make one more trip to the city in which I almost spent my semester!

As for Berlin, I couldn’t have picked a more exciting time to go visit. For starters, I had never been and I had always been told that I needed to go – so I was already really pumped up for the weekend. However, I ended up going on the weekend of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Being in Berlin that weekend was truly a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget. There were tons of celebrations and festivals, not to mention reduced ticket prices to lots of museums and other famous sites in the city!

For better or worse, though, my jet-setting days did have to come to some sort of end, though.  After all, there are certainly much worse places to settle down than in London. Now I have to start thinking about those 3,000-word papers due for each of my four classes. Anybody want to help? That being said, don’t think I don’t already have a trip to Prague in the works…

 

**Editor's note: Be sure to check out Sam's previous guest blog entry, "So You Want To Start An Organization"**