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January 05, 2010
December at Hopkins
December at Hopkins is certainly a busy time for all--it brings the end of the fall semester, and of course, final exams for students. Despite the busy weeks, the campus was still hit by the holiday spirit, ushered in by the fifth annual Lighting of the Quads at Homewood and JHU Museums' holiday decorations. As the progress in Gilman Hall becomes more and more apparent, we're looking forward to ringing in the new year--and decade--with another wonderful semester at Hopkins and the return of the historic landmark building later in the year.
LIGHTING OF THE QUADS
This annual tradition was postponed at the start of the month due to inclement weather, but was re-scheduled to land on the last day of classes for the Fall semester, Monday, December 7th. Students welcomed the study break and celebrated the 5th annual Lighting of the Quad at the steps of the MSE library.
GILMAN HALL RENOVATION CONTINUES
As the massive renovation of Gilman Hall enters its final nine months, many of its historic glass treasures have returned with a pristine sparkle and luster.
The Hutzler Undergraduate Reading Room’s 19 stained glass windows and Memorial Hall’s four steel-sash picture windows that feature stained glass were recently reinstalled in their bays after almost a year’s worth of restoration work. Worcester Eisenbrandt, a local restoration firm that oversaw the project, mended wood and metal frames, sealed cracks, reglazed the windows and re-created lost or damaged art.
Read and see the latest on the transformation of Gilman Hall, including photographs of hundreds of glass panels installed in the skylight that will top Gilman’s new atrium space.
MOUSETRAPS AND RUBBER BANDS
The assignment: deliver a one-and-a-half-inch weighted plastic ball to a specific point on a three-dimensional course. The twist: the ball must be delivered by a car built using balsa wood, a foam core, and powered by no more than two mousetraps and six rubber bands. The course: Freshman Experiences in Mechanical Engineering.
At stake for the winners in the five-round, single-elimination tournament called Plant Your Flag was “the adoration and green-eyed envy of their peers for their remaining three years,” said course instructor Lester Su, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “For the rest, so will begin the Sisyphean struggle to extricate oneself from a morass of ignominy. Fun times." Check out the JHU Gazette article for further details.
In celebration of holidays past, the Johns Hopkins University Museums will showcase the sights and sounds of the season with lavishly decorated period rooms, artfully
Catherine Rogers Arthur, director and curator of Homewood Museum, said that the landmark inspiration for the Homewood campus will once again feature decorations by the Homeland Garden Club throughout the museum’s 11 period rooms. The decorations will be in keeping with the early-19th-century time period, when the Carroll family lived there.
Arthur said that the holidays provide an opportunity to see Homewood in a new and different way. “The house and the 19th century come alive with the magical effect of music and decorations—the most beautiful time of year for a most beautiful house.”
WE THANK YOU
"It is impossible to adequately acknowledge in simple words the enduring generosity and inspiring support Johns Hopkins University has received over the past year. So we have enlisted help from our amazingly talented faculty, staff and students, who have joined together to create the video on this page."
December 14, 2009
Keep the Change
Name: Philip Castrovinci
Graduation Year: 2008
Programs of Study: Public Health Studies
Current Residence: Baltimore, MD
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So I’m 23, and graduated Hopkins in 2008. Bill Nye the Science Guy gave us our send off into the world, which is ironic because he could indirectly be attributed to my attending Johns Hopkins. I took a job with plans for grad school. Of course, the plans I set were instantly changed by my circumstances, and now I find myself on a more interesting path with a fist-full of stories that include circumnavigating the glove, and biological defense. So I’ll tell you a bit of what has happened in the last year, and a bit more about how I can view Johns Hopkins one year removed.
I took a job as a project manager at Epic Systems, which implements healthcare software all over the country. It was a fabulous exposure to the healthcare industry. In a nutshell, I took a software package that Epic developed and in conjunction with a team from a particular hospital, would customize it to fit the hospital needs. I flew around the country helping out nurses, docs and interacting with nearly every position in the hospital. I enjoyed it. I recommend it to anyone.
They have an incredible facility in Madison, WI. (Well, technically Verona, WI.) It’s a huge complex that was designed by architects from Disney and Microsoft. It sits in the middle of a cow field with multiples buildings, each with their own theme: “Swedish,” “Jungle,” “Asian,” “New York City,” and “Country Garden” to name a few. Of course, no corporate facility would be complete without its own tree house conference room. You would think that you wouldn’t want to leave an dynamic and unique environment where you got subsidized gourmet lunch, and could wear anything to work, as they fly you around to different hospitals on their dime. But something for me was missing. Most people don’t graduate thinking they want to implement software, and talking to doctors at my project site pulled me back into the health arena. I applied to The Bloomberg School of Public Health to study Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Of course, I put aside some money, and I would attend in the fall…but I had one thing to do that was on my plate since I started working at Epic…
Right after I was hired, my buddy came for a tour of the Epic grounds. He was going into his Senior year at Hopkins and studying International Relations. He had a few interesting post-graduation plans: he was going on The Mongol Rally. What is that? He explained to me that he was planning on driving, in an underpowered vehicle, from Spain to Mongolia.
How could I not go? Of course I was just hired, and they wouldn’t allow me to take six weeks off to go do something dumb like this. But after I got into Bloomberg…how could I not go? There is more to the story: the race is one for charity, and each team needs to raise money, in addition to their own supplies.
Long story short, we raised the money, got all our visas and got all our plane tickets together. We arrived in Barcelona, purchased a car, stocked up on supplies, and made our way around out of Europe. We drove through Spain, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, and Russia….what happened to Mongolia? Well you can read all about it in our upcoming blogs on SilkRoadWarriors.com
There were some ridiculous times, as you can imagine, right up to the end. The time I was caught at an Azeri checkpoint, barely being able to leave Spain, the Castle party in the middle of Czech Republic, the time we were assailed by a car that came up behind us, the frequent road issues in Georgia, and tire trouble. I warned my team, that I might be the most unfortunate traveler to be with, as things quite outside my control happen to me. I leave you, dear reader, with that. Onto the next step…
Being a public health major at Hopkins, I was equipped to deal with many subjects, but wasn’t prepared to master any one in particular. I also was able to take classes at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and I knew that it was THE place to study and work on public health issues. I’ve started my own blog to talk about infectious diseases. I am here currently, taking courses like Advanced Virology, Public Health Ecology, GIS, and Immunology. I need to pick a thesis topic. I think I would like to do something with disease modeling: showing mathematically how diseases could fluctuate in populations with a given set of parameters. I might also want to do something with biological warfare. Whatever I do, I need to figure it out quickly!
The next few years might be interesting, at least I hope they will be. I am applying to doctorate programs in a variety of fields related to disease. Not too certain what might happen there. But over the next year, there are a variety of government jobs like the NIH and CDC, which might be worthwhile. I am waiting to hear back for a Fulbright Grant to India. We shall see. I feel uncomfortable writing a synopsis of my past year in two pages, but you get the idea.
I thought about some send off advice that might be pertinent to those who are looking at Hopkins, or recently attended, or whatever. Advice can normally come one of two ways: you either don’t agree with it, or it’s so general and abstract you find difficulty applying it to your life. So here are a few ideas:
- Don’t waste your time. Have goals that you are working toward, and set time aside for them. In college, it’s very easy to do nothing for days on end, and easier to fill your schedule with useless activities or studying that is in effect busy work for your to feel good about yourself. Set aside a schedule that works for you, preferable 8-5. Have chunks of time devoted to your course work, weeks in advance of assignments and tests. School work can be challenging, however, nothing is designed for your to make draconian investments of time if you plan properly. You can work your tail off from 8 to 5 everyday, and still have enough time to do nothing on the weekends and in the evening.
- Whatever you want to do, do it well. Work at it. I come across thousands of people who “could do well if they tried.” WHAT? You get one shot at doing this life. One shot at high school (well, normally) and surely one shot at high school. If you want to do well, DO WELL. Put in the effort. There are people who think school is for the birds, and want to go skateboarding all day. FINE. Go skateboarding, but understand that if you are a bad skateboarder, you might not go far. (No pun intended.) Don’t sit on the couch and watch skateboard videos. Even if your friends are with you, be the best among them, and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Get it together, and get it right. School might not be for everyone. Skateboarding might not be for everyone. But something is.
- Take learning a language seriously. In high school, go abroad to study your language. Take it in college, go abroad in college. I think language is one of the best ways to discover the world. Sounds cheesy, and it might be, but it’s something everyone wants to do, but never does.
- If you want to stand out, then stand out. If colleges wanted to fill up their classes with 4.0 and high SAT kids who are also in NHS with varsity letters, they could. They largely do, but there is also ways you can stand out that most young people don’t do. Write a book. Patent something. Start a small business. Sky is the limit. It will be an interesting learning experience, even if it doesn’t take you anywhere, and will certainly make you stand out.
Yeah. I hope this was interesting or worthwhile for you all. Take care, and let me know what questions you have. Check out my old blogs, and check out my new one that I keep semi-regularly updated about my thoughts on infectious diseases castrovinci.blogspot.com, and public health!
December 01, 2009
From Hopkins to Zynga
Name: Zoe Bell
Graduation Year: 2009
Programs of Study: Writing Seminars
Current Residence: Baltimore, MD
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I am a member of a select group of people. Born in 1986 or 1987 we all had the distinct privilege to watch and come to expect years of great prosperity. And then, when it came our turn to join the happy fray, the rug was pulled out from under us.
Which is not to say that I am bitter about the timing of the recession, but it did make it significantly more difficult to find a job at the end of my senior year. As graduation approached, part of me wished that I had chosen to attend law school or graduate school like many of my fellow Hopkins seniors, but I knew that they were truly dedicated to their fields, and what I needed to do was to get real-world work experience and then possibly further educate myself with a masters in business.
And so I networked. I pulled every string I knew from every job, internship, or casual conversation at a coffee shop that I ever had. It was a stressful situation as I felt the constant ticking of the graduation clock at the dismissal of each Hopkins class.
When I finally graduated my only plans were to continue working for the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association, who had offered me a job working in the Reunion office. Then, not more than 10 days after graduation I got the call I had been waiting for.
“Would you like to interview for Zynga?” he said. “Of course!” I replied.
If you’re familiar with Facebook (or MySpace or Friendster or the I-phone) then you’re probably familiar with Zynga. Launched in July 2007 with the mission of connecting the world through games, Zynga makes a variety of games on social networking platforms including FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Café World and our newest game, FishVille. Don’t lie; you’ve always wanted to grow digital strawberries and plant a horde of elephant topiaries all over your virtual farm.
And what do I do at Zynga? Well, I’m a producer, which basically means I do everything and anything Zynga needs me to do. I got a taste of production during my time at Hopkins. I was the president/producer of Throat Culture, a film and stage sketch comedy group, that puts on six shows a year for the Hopkins community. It was a lot of work but I loved the frenzied pace of writing, casting, costuming, advertising, and performing three times each semester. I also interned in the production department of Hill Holliday, an advertising firm in Boston that makes all the Dunkin’ Donuts commercials. I worked with the editors to learn more about how a commercial gets made and enjoyed the frenzied pace there as well.
So, when I graduated Hopkins I knew that I wanted to work in production, the only problem was that I also wanted health insurance and a steady paycheck. I needed to find a job with an advertising firm (they didn’t do so well in the recession) or in a production company. Zynga ended up being an interesting fit for my production goals. I consider myself much more than computer literate, but I couldn’t take apart a Tickle-Me-Elmo and reprogram him to be a satanic dancing doll like someone in my office did. In other words, I had and still have, a lot to learn about how programming works.
My main job at Zynga is to ensure communication between the art, design, and tech departments and Zynga HQ in San Francisco. But there’s so much more to my job than simply arranging conference calls. I was the East Coast point of contact for our office renovation and move. I lead daily morning progress meetings to make sure that everything is on track for our projected launch date. I get everyone all the tools they need and want to get their work done more smoothly. I plan travel for the company when we go out to San Francisco. And, of course, I fill out expense reports. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it gives you an idea of how varied my day can be.
There is one question people always ask me when I tell them where I work: How does Zynga make money? Is it the ads? I think that this is one of the most interesting parts of Zynga. The company sells virtual goods. Want to have a blue barn instead of the standard red? It will cost you 27 FarmVille dollars. At an exchange rate of ten US dollars to 55 FarmVille dollars it can seem like a steal. Maybe you’re thinking right now, “I would never spend money on virtual goods. That doesn’t sound like a bargain at all.” Some people feel that way, but many of the other 63 million people that play FarmVille and other games every single day, disagree with you and that’s how Zynga makes money.
So, I’m still in Baltimore, living in Fells Point and working on making games in Timonium. Overall, it’s a pretty exciting life, I see a lot of fun in my future and I wouldn’t be here today without my experiences both in and out of the classroom at Johns Hopkins.
November at Hopkins
November was been a very busy month here at Johns Hopkins! The month brought to the Homewood campus engaging speakers, film crews, cultural and arts performances, and unprecedented athletic success. Read on for the full details, and don't forget to click the header links for even more about each story.
HOLLYWOOD AT HOMEWOOD
Film and Media Studies students and theater minors delighted in the opportunity to pick the brain of director David Fincher and other principal members of the upcoming major motion picture “The Social Network.” For two days, Johns Hopkins’ Homewood campus served as a shooting location for the Columbia Pictures film, which chronicles the founding of Facebook.
FALL SPORTS UPDATE
Fall 2009 has been the most successful season for Hopkins Sports. All of the teams have posted amazing accomplishments, many of them reaching milestones that have never been reached by Hopkins athletics.FOOTBALL
First NCAA playoff victories ever Faced with the unenviable task of playing just the second NCAA playoff game in school history on the road at undefeated and 14th-ranked Hampden-Sydney, the Johns Hopkins football team turned in a dominant second-half performance to ease past the host Tigers, 23-7, and advance to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in school history.
In the second round, the Blue Jays headed to Kentucky to take on tenth-ranked Thomas More, another undefeated team. In a last-second, 43-yard field goal from junior Alex Lachman, Hopkins pulled ahead in a 31-29 victory over the Saints. This win, the tenth of the season, matches a school record. On to the Quarterfinals in early December and another undefeated team on tap.
WOMEN’S SOCCER
Makes it to Elite 8 for first time ever
The Johns Hopkins women's soccer team defeated Middlebury, 1-0, in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament at Homewood Field. Erica Suter (Ellicott City, MD/River Hill) scored just 1:24 into the game. This would prove to be the game winner. This is the first time Johns Hopkins has advanced to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament.
Unfortunately, the #7 Johns Hopkins women's soccer team fell to #1 Messiah, 3-1, in the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament. Messiah took a two-goal lead in the first half and this proved too much for the Blue Jays to overcome. Johns Hopkins finishes its season with a 19-4-0 record.
MEN’S SOCCER
Makes it to Sweet 16 – heart-breaking double OT loss
The Johns Hopkins men's soccer team jumped out to a 2-0 lead over top-ranked and defending national champion Messiah on Saturday night in the NCAA Sweet 16, but after scoring two second half goals to tie the match at 2-2, the Falcons scored in the 106th minute to win 3-2 in thrilling fashion. The Blue Jays see their season end at 16-4-3, one of the best records of all time.
WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY
first woman’s team ever to be ranked #1 during the season finishes best season ever with #7 finish at NCAA Championships
The Johns Hopkins women's cross country team finished seventh at the NCAA Championships hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College. This is the best finish in Hopkins history and an improvement of six spots from last year's 13th place finish. Johns Hopkins finished with a total of 306 points. All five of Hopkins' scoring running finished within one minute of each other. Seniors Laura Paulsen and Mira Patel led the Blue Jays. Paulsen (23:09.1) finished 37th overall and Patel (23:14.7) finished just five spots later at 42nd. Sophomore Cecilia Furlong (23:30.8) finished 57th, which is more than 100 spots higher than her 2008 finish at the NCAA Championships. Freshman Liz Provost (23:37.8) ran a strong race at her first NCAA Championships finishing 65th overall. Senior Nadia McMillan (24:02.9) rounded out the scoring group finishing 105th.
Against tough Division I talent, team finishes fourth at Eastern Championships (one of the top 16 teams in all of NCAA Water Polo – and top DIII team)
Bucknell edged Johns Hopkins, 3-2, in the fourth quarter of the third place match at the Eastern Championship Sunday to win 10-9. The 20th-ranked Blue Jays got a pair of goals each from seniors Kyle Gertridge and Peter Sauerhoff and junior John Barrett in the loss that ends JHU's season at 17-17. Hopkins' fourth place finish is a program best. The Blue Jays had never placed higher than sixth at the Eastern Championships prior to 2009.
ENGINEERING CENTER TO PROBE FORCES THAT CAUSE CANCER TO SPREAD
Researchers from JHU’s Institute for NanoBioTechnology have been awarded $14.8 million from the National Cancer Institute to launch a research center aimed at unraveling the physical underpinnings of the growth and spread of cancer.
The Johns Hopkins center is one of 12 being launched by the National Cancer Institute to bring a new cadre of theoretical physicists, mathematicians, chemists and engineers to the study of cancer. During the five-year initiative, the NCI’s Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers will take new, nontraditional approaches to cancer research by studying the physical laws and principles of cancer; evolution and evolutionary theory of cancer; information coding, decoding, transfer and translation in cancer; and ways to deconvolute cancer’s complexity. For more information, click here.
CULTURE SHOW 2009
The Johns Hopkins Office of Multicultural Affairs cordially invites you to the 22nd annual Culture Show. Culture Show is a time when various cultural student groups from the Hopkins community come together to present a night full of vocal and dance performances. This year's lineup ranges from traditional Irish dance to Hindi a cappella as it covers just about every corner of the globe. The theme for this year is "Cultural Vibrations: Can You Feel It?" We want you all to come out and enjoy a night full of song and dance.
Johns Hopkins Bboying closed the show with “E Pluribus Unum." Check out a clip of the performance here:
There were a ton of other Art events this fall including: (all with free admissions and some free food it seems)
Here is just a small sampling:
Fall jazz concert
Johns Hopkins University Jazz Band and Jazz Ensemble for an evening of fabulous jazz on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 7 p.m. in the Mattin Center SDS Room. Free admission. Free food.
Wind Ensemble fall concert
The Johns Hopkins University Wind Ensemble presents its fall concert, featuring acclaimed pianist Rachel Franklin. Come get your Gershwin fix with us, and we'll even feed you after.
Flight of the Vocal Chords: AcappellAir!
Come enjoy the Vocal Chords fall a capellla concert tonight (Thursday) at 8 p.m. in the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy. Free.
JHU AllNighters Fall Concert
Come see the AllNighters a cappella group's Fall Concert this Saturday Nov. 21, 8 p.m. in the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy. Free.
SPEAKERS INVADE HOPKINS
Now dedicated to Miriam Frankl, the 2009 MSE Symposium continued in November with RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Congressman Aaron Schock on November 5th and then Hollywood actor Sean Astin on November 17. Video from the Michael Steele and Aaron Schock event can be found here: Video
The JHU Politik Speaker Series Inaugural Event
Professor David spoke on his book "Catastrophic Consequences: Civil Wars and American Interests," with commentary by Professor Deudney. The JHU Politik Speaker Series is a forum specifically for Hopkins professors to showcase their work.
November 13, 2009
Real World: Take One
Name: Julia Pilcer
Graduation Year: 2009
Programs of Study: Political Science
Current Residence: New York, New York
*************************************************************************************Where do I even start? I'm excited to return to the Hopkins Interactive blogs as an alumni! Last May, I made the scary and daunting cross from college life to the real world and I'm here to report that it's actually not so bad. In fact, I might venture to say it's better. Better than college?? I know, nothing is really better than college but it comes pretty close. See, there's this great thing where you get a job and they give you all this work to do (ugh) but then this crazy thing happens every two weeks where they pay you like....actual MONEY! It's amazing! And when you get home from work at night (which is sometimes later than I care to admit) you don't have any homework! No papers, no reading, nothing!! You can sit and read a book or watch TV and not wallow in guilt about procrastinating for that stupid exam you have tomorrow.
And if you actually like your job and get to meet great new people, the awesome factor of the real world increases exponentially. Since I do, in fact, love my job and have met wonderful new people, my real world experience has been nothing short of fantastic so far. So what do I do now? I work as a paralegal for the United States Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York (aka, Manhattan). That
makes me an employee of the Department of Justice's local branch in New York. Was this my dream job? No. Did I always want to be a paralegal? Definitely, no. This was a job that I accidentally stumbled upon while looking through usajobs.gov (great resource!). I figured, "oh, paralegal, I could probably do that" and sent them my resume. However, the USAO wasn't even on my radar of places I was considering working and I didn't look at any other paralegal jobs. In the end, I couldn't be more happy that I found this job. I work in an office that handles the most exciting prosecutions in the country and I get to be an integral part of those cases. Moreover, I work with about 30 or so other paralegals who are all my exact age and we have a blast together. I really couldn't ask for anything more.
Even though I've left Hopkins for New York, I certainly haven't forgotten about my Hopkins family. I get to spend time with the many other New York area Hopkins alums--two nights this week I met up with Hopkins people for dinner. And I still make the occasional visit down to Baltimore for old time's sake. About a month ago, I made the trip down to campus for Young Alumni Weekend and had a great time being on campus and catching up with many classmates who I'm not in touch with anymore but who I miss nonetheless!
By now I'm sure you've all seen Lauren C's most recent post about an
It's times like this when I appreciate what a wonderful family of friends I made at Hopkins. I've been back to campus about four times in the past few weeks to be with the Alpha Phi sisters and help them get through this and I can't say enough how much their support has meant even though I'm not on campus anymore. When I attended Miriam's memorial service last week, two Hopkins Interactive members--Jessica and Lauren B.--came up to me and gave me a huge hug. Seeing them was wonderful! When I talk about my Hopkins family, I don't just mean Alpha Phi, I mean admissions, Model UN, the political science
As the cold starts to set in here in New York, I start to miss the Hopkins campus (which always looks so beautiful after a snowfall), but, like I said in my final entry of senior year, Hopkins comes with me where ever I go. To those who have recently applied Early Decision--good luck!!! And to those applying Regular Decision, hang in there, April will be here before you know it.
**Editor's Note: Be sure to check out Julia's archived blog from her four years at Hopkins: Julia's Journal!**
November 04, 2009
JHU Networks: The Strength of Alumni Connections
Name: Michelle Tellock
Graduation Year: 2007
Current Town: New Haven, Connecticut
Programs of Study: Cognitive Science & Sociology double major
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With the economy in not-so-fabulous shape and lots of Americans looking for work, one big piece of advice being repeated ad nauseum to recent graduates and career changers alike is something along the lines of “take advantage of your network!” While I’m lucky to be in the sheltered world of law school for another year and a half before braving the “real world” of paid legal work full-time, I’m happy to report that my relationships and connections with other JHU grads has helped me to build strong personal and professional networks that I can turn to at any time.
By getting involved in a bunch of different activities during my time at Hopkins (most notably, the Woodrow Wilson Debate Council, the Undergraduate Admissions office, and Residential Life), I was able to meet a lot of fellow students from really diverse backgrounds who had personal and career goals as varied as one can imagine. As we’re now graduated (or graduating soon!), my friends and I have spread far and wide across the globe: some are studying in England, others are working with the Peace Corps in Africa, and more still are just a train ride away as they continue their schooling or take jobs in Washington, DC, New York, or Boston. Everyone is doing such different things – working for think tanks, writing computer code, doing medical school clinical rotations – but we all have common experiences that bind us together.
When I lived in DC – a particularly popular post-graduation destination for Hopkins alums – I was always running into people I knew on the street, while riding Metro, or at galleries and sporting events. The JHU Office of Alumni Relations also sponsors a lot of events for DC-area alums to meet and mingle, such as happy hours and outdoor excursions. Those events were really great opportunities to see lots of familiar faces and also discover who was new to the city, when I hadn’t already seen the news on Facebook.
Now that I’m in law school relatively far away from Baltimore, I still find myself surrounded by Hopkins grads. Besides the two other former JHU students in law school with me, one of my Wolman Hall 4E floormates from freshman year is a student at the med school and we pass each other on the street all the time. Of course, I also try to convince my JHU friends to come visit me in New Haven (one of them even got engaged in a burrito joint just down the street!), and having friends in lots of different cities all across the country makes for fun and relatively inexpensive getaways. I’ve been to Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas, an Albuquerque to visit Hopkins friends, and others joke that I practically live in Boston with a group of other JHU grads.
As I’ve started to think seriously about what kind of job I might like after graduation from law school, the Hopkins network has again shown its strength. During my summer internship this year, I met some JHU graduates in Kansas City, Missouri, and one of them offered to help me find a permanent job there if I wanted to stay in the Midwest. Then, when I was interviewing for positions for next summer, a number of the attorneys I was meeting with happened to have graduated from Hopkins, too; almost every one of them told me they were surprised by just how much the Homewood campus has changed since their time in Baltimore. One law firm associate and I bonded over our shared love for the cream of crab soup at Gertrude’s, the restaurant in the Baltimore Museum of Art on campus. In fact, I’m happy to report that in just two short weeks I’ll be back on campus for the wedding of two of my friends…and I’m hoping a meal at Gertrude’s can squeeze into the schedule!
Being admitted to Hopkins and choosing to enroll provided me with four fabulous years on the Homewood campus. I feel truly blessed that my connections with Hopkins have continued to grow, even as my classmates and I have largely moved away from Baltimore in order to pursue our own goals. Having a strong alumni network has helped me to feel as though no matter where I go, I’ll have the support of my fellow Blue Jays!
*** If you enjoyed this alumni blog entry then we recommend you check out Michelle's other guest blog entries: Reflecting on the Application Process and Greetings from Washington, D.C. -- and also her archived blog from her time as an undergraduate -- Not-Quite-Daily Ramblings.***
October 29, 2009
October at Hopkins
As fall weather comes upon Baltimore, so too does great recognition across all divisions of Johns Hopkins. October brought the announcement of Hopkins’ newest Nobelist at the School of Medicine, a top-ranked women’s cross-country team, marking the 30th year of leading the country’s academic institutions in research and development, and great progress on the renovations of our beloved Gilman Hall at Homewood.
NOBEL PRIZE AWARDED TO HOPKINS PROFESSOR
Carol Greider was folding her laundry when she learned she had been named co-winner of a Nobel Prize and had 45 minutes to get ready for the official announcement. “My heart just really started racing at that time,” said Greider, the Daniel Nathans Professor and director of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences.
Greider, 48, one of the world’s pioneering researchers on the structure of chromosome ends known as telomeres, was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday, Oct. 5.
The academy recognized her for the 1984 discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that maintains the length and integrity of chromosome ends and is critical for the health and survival of all living cells and organisms.
She became the 33rd person associated with Johns Hopkins University to win a Nobel Prize and the 20th at the School of Medicine to receive the honor.
WOMEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY TOP-RATED IN COACHES’ POLL
“Rankings are just a few coaches’ opinions,” Van Allen says. “So whether we are ranked No. 1 or No. 2, we know that we’re one of the top three teams in the country. All that really matters is what we do Nov. 21 [at the Division III Cross-Country Nationals]. Right now, we are focused on what we need to do between now and then. Still, I think our women’s team should be proud of that No. 1 ranking and proud of what they accomplished up to this point in the season."
JHU: TOP RESEARCH INSTITUION 30 YEARS RUNNING
The Johns Hopkins University performed $1.68 billion in medical, science and engineering research in fiscal 2008, making it the leading U.S. academic institution in total research and development spending for the 30th year in a row, according to a new National Science Foundation ranking.
The university also once again ranked first on the NSF’s separate list of federally funded research and development, spending $1.42 billion in FY2008 on research supported by NSF, NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.
In FY2002, Johns Hopkins became the first university to reach the $1 billion mark on either list, recording $1.14 billion in total research and $1.023 billion in federally sponsored research that year. To date, no other institution has reached that mark. The University of California, San Francisco, ranked second in R&D spending in FY2008 at $885 million. The University of Washington was second in federally financed R&D at $614 million.
The National Cancer Institute has awarded $10.4 million to Johns Hopkins and the University of Southern California to decipher epigenetic marks in the cancer genome. The joint five-year grant is expected to help scientists develop drugs and tests that target epigenetic changes in cancer cells.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins and at USC’s Epigenome Center will focus on all major cancers, including those of the breast, colon and lung. The data will be collected as part of the Cancer Genome Atlas, a program funded by the NCI and National Human Genome Research Institute to develop a molecular map of alterations in cancer.
Mark Denny’s new book, titled Froth! The Science of Beer, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press considers the visual appeal of a beer.
Accomplished home-brewer and physicist Denny hazards that many folks, not just “beer-ophiles,” contemplate their pints. He certainly does, and now he’s given armchair physicists and beer lovers something to sip on.
In Froth!, his fourth book for the JHU Press, Denny provides a scientifically sound and often witty investigation of the physics and chemistry of beer. He recounts and explains the history of and key technological advances in brewing, provides basic instructions for making your own and then looks at the physical phenomena contained within a pint of beer. Along the way he defines the main concepts and terms involved in the beer-making process and shows how you can subject the technical aspects of brewing to scientific analysis.
UPDATE: GILMAN HALL RENOVATIONS
Crews — with the indispensable assistance of a 200-foot, 350-ton crane — last week completed the steel grid frame for the 60-by-60-foot glass skylight that will top Gilman Hall’s new atrium space. Designed, fabricated and installed by Novum Structures, the skylight will feature 154 square glass panels and span the entire courtyard without intermediate support. The arched structure, a precisely engineered combination of compression members and tension cables, will be less than 10 inches thick. The glass panels and cables will be installed in the coming weeks to shut out the elements and allow work to continue in the atrium below. Gilman, the oldest academic building on the Homewood campus, is scheduled to reopen for the fall 2010 semester.
October 01, 2009
September at Hopkins
The beginning of the new semester came with the installation of our new university president, the selection of a new provost, awards and accolades for members of the community, and overall, as you might see, a very strong start to the 2009-2010 academic year.
http://jhu.edu/index_share-microsite.html
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York and former chair of the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees,
received the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for public service. The honor recognized Bloomberg “for employing sound science in political decision making, setting a world standard for the public’s health as an impetus for government action, leading the way to reduce the scourge of tobacco use and advancing public health through enlightened philanthropy.”
Charles L. Sawyers, a graduate of the School of Medicine, was one of three recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. The scientists were recognized for “the development of molecularly targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia, converting a fatal cancer into a manageable chronic condition.”
First given in 1945, the Lasker Awards, often dubbed the “American Nobels,” are considered by many the nation’s most prestigious honor for basic and clinical medical research, and for public service.
More information is available at http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/2009_p_description.htm
PRESIDENT DANIELS' INSTALLATION WEEKEND
On Sunday, Sept.13, Johns Hopkins officially welcomed Daniels to its family as he was installed as the university’s 14th president. The formal ceremony, held in Shriver Hall on the Homewood campus, capped off a busy inauguration weekend jam-packed with events that allowed the university and Baltimore to be reintroduced to the man who took office on March 2. Friends and colleagues old and new dubbed Ronald J. Daniels a man of passion, a man of wisdom, a man of ideas, a man of compassion, a man of ideals and a man of boundless energy who brings results. Then, once depleted of superlatives, they all wished him well as he begins the challenge and adventure of a lifetime.
Also check out a highlights video of the weekend’s events
For more information:
http://jhu.edu/index_share-microsite.html
Lloyd Minor assumed the office of provost on September 1, though he has been a member of the Johns Hopkins faculty for 16 years, most recently as director of the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery in the School of Medicine. He said he is humbled and honored to serve as the university’s 13th provost and as senior vice president for academic affairs, and that he looks forward to forming a close working partnership with President Ron Daniels and collaborating with faculty and staff members all across the university.
Johns Hopkins engineers are using LEGO toys to help them visualize the behavior of particles, cells and molecules in environments too small to see with the naked eye. These researchers are arranging little LEGO pieces shaped like pegs to re-create microscopic activity taking place inside lab-on-a-chip devices at a scale they can more easily observe.
Learn more and see pictures and a video at: http://tinyurl.com/jhulegos
MSE SYMPOSIUM BEGINS WITH DR. BEN CARSONPediatric neurosurgeon Benjamin Carson began the university’s annual Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium Tuesday, Sept. 15, in Homewood’s Shriver Hall Auditorium, followed by a meet and greet and book signing. Carson’s lecture was the first of six events making up this year’s symposium, A Transition Between Generations in a Changing America.
Established in 1967 to honor the university’s eighth president, the MSE Symposium is an undergraduate-run lecture series that brings to campus renowned speakers with a variety of perspectives on issues of national importance.
For more information: http://www.jhu.edu/mse/carson.html
Johns Hopkins’ only weekly-published political newspaper is entirely student-run and has been hugely successful in its first full year. At the start of its second year on campus, JHU Politik has a completely redesigned website and layout, including online issues of each week’s publication.
To view past issues of JHU Politik and learn more about the publication, please visit this link: http://www.jhupolitik.com/
EMMY WIN FOR HOPKINS GRADUATE
Jeffrey Blitz, a graduate of the Writing Seminars, won the 2008-2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series for an episode of "The Office." The episode, entitled “Stress Relief” was an hour-long special that showed after the 2009 Super Bowl. Further details and links to clips from the winning episode can be found here: http://alumni.jhu.edu/news/jeffblitz.
The university has won more than 250 research grants, totaling $114 million, through provisions in the federal stimulus package designed to advance scientific and medical knowledge while jump-starting the U.S. economy
The grants will underwrite investigations ranging from what strategies best motivate drug addicts coming out of in-patient rehabilitation to enroll in sobriety support programs, to the role that certain proteins play in the development of muscle-wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy.
Equally as important, however, the grants are generating jobs at Johns Hopkins and fueling regional economic activity, as employees spend their paychecks and Johns Hopkins laboratories hire personnel and buy supplies.
Two Johns Hopkins alumni received prestigious awards from the Lasker Foundation.Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York and former chair of the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees,
Charles L. Sawyers, a graduate of the School of Medicine, was one of three recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. The scientists were recognized for “the development of molecularly targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia, converting a fatal cancer into a manageable chronic condition.”
First given in 1945, the Lasker Awards, often dubbed the “American Nobels,” are considered by many the nation’s most prestigious honor for basic and clinical medical research, and for public service.
More information is available at http://www.laskerfoundation.org/awards/2009_p_description.htm
September 16, 2009
A Tale of Many T-shirts
Name: Rena Barch
Year: 2009
Hometown: Hillsborough, NJ
Current Residence: Baltimore, MD
Programs of Study: International Studies and Economics
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After saying good-bye to all of my friends and coming to terms with leaving Hopkins, perhaps the hardest part of graduation was packing up. Last month I finally moved out of my senior year apartment, and doing so required going through a lot of stuff that has accrued over the years. Since I’m spending the next year in London getting my master’s degree, I had to go through it all and decide which of it I definitely was going to take with me and what would stay behind. In the process, I discovered that my bottom drawer became home to every free t-shirt I’ve received over my time at Hopkins. These shirts sort of tell the story of my college experiences.
One of the best tips you’ll learn as the leader of an organization is that if you offer free stuff you’re likely to drastically increase the attendance to your event. From your first day on campus, you will receive dozens of shirts: orientation t-shirts, Dorm Wars t-shirts, service day t-shirts, HOP (Hopkins Organization for Programming) tshirts....and so on. I actually got rid of most of my Orientation and Dorm Wars t-shirts, and still had a whole drawer filled with Hopkins t-shirts.
I suppose, then, the best place to start would be with my debate team t-shirts. I was member and later on the board of the Woodrow Wilson Debate Council, the parliamentary debate team on campus. It was one of the most incredible and rewarding experiences I’ve had in college. The debate team was my greatest source of support during my first years here. Seniors on the team helped me select classes and navigate the Hopkins system. You’ll see on the shirt to the left is the painted face of Woodrow Wilson, a Hopkins alumnus. We first made those t-shirts my sophomore year in an effort to raise some money. By my senior year, we upgraded to a more professional t-shirt for the team (to the right).
Some of the shirts are reminder of some of the more random blips of activities in which I’ve participated. For instance, the summer after my sophomore year, in a desperate attempt to find something to do near campus, I took a job working for Hopkins IT. Far from a computer science or electrical engineering major, I often felt out of place helping punch ethernet jacks in the dorm rooms. Still, I learned some really valuable skills, as well as learning a lot about networking and how to make my Hopkins internet work. As a part of the job, I worked on the SWAT team during orientation, which helps freshman set up their laptops for the Hopkins network and make sure that everyone will have access to the internet in their rooms. That was actually a great way to meet some of the new freshman. To this day, I still have people come up to me and say, “You fixed my computer once!” Needless to say, I never had to take my computer to IT again after that summer.
Other shirts are reminders of events that I helped put on. For instance, in my sophomore year, I was the Chair of UNESCO at the Johns Hopkins University Model United Nations Conference, a conference for high school students. I was also on the board of Hopkins Engaged in my senior year. Hopkins Engaged was a political festival of sorts. We spent the summer bringing together speakers, NGOs, political activists, and musicians. The festival was intended to promote political discussion before the presidential election in November 2008. Unfortunately, Hopkins saw some of the worst rainstorms we’d had since I’ve been here. My roommates were practically flooded into our apartment. Because of the weather, we had to move the event in doors, and we did not get quite the turn out we had hoped for. Still, I made some great friends in the process, and it was great to be apart of such a great cause. While I won’t be around, hopefully Hopkins Engaged will make a strong comeback in 2010 for the next round of House elections.
Next, I discovered some t-shirts I’ve received from friends trying to advertise their events. I have many shirts from the HOP, but chose what I thought was the cutest one. The “Cancer Sucks” t-shirt was an advertisement for the Hopkins 4K, a group of student who bike across the country for sponsorship. Each rider must raise $4,000, so needless to say they are able to contribute quite a bit of donations to the American Cancer Society. Over the years, I’ve had a number of friends who participated in the event, and truly loved the experience.
One of my closest friends, Sam, was the station manager of the radio station in our junior and senior years while my boyfriend, Matt, was the technical director, so as you can imagine I have quite a few WJHU shirts. WJHU puts on a lot of cool events around campus, from dance parties to bringing music groups to campus. They also offer DJs for other student groups, so when sororities need DJs for date parties or StuCo would like some music for a BBQ on the beach, they often turn to WJHU. In my senior year, Sam put on what I thought was one of the coolest events to hit Hopkins. It was called the Six-Day Jam Session. For six days straight, there was music coming from the Mattin Center. It was the longest continuous jam session in history. The entire session was recorded and sent to the Guinness Book of World Records, so we should find out soon whether Hopkins was able to break the world record!
Just this summer, I’ve accrued a couple of new shirts. One was from my boss at Cafe Q, the coffee cart in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. I first started working at Cafe Q mid-sophomore year to earn some money after I quit my IT gig. You can learn more about Cafe Q in my previous blog post. My boss, who I’ve become pretty close with over the years as he’s helped my juggle my coursework with my hours at Cafe Q, just left to pursue a MFA in San Francisco. I had been bugging him for a couple of years to get us Cafe Q t-shirts with the slogan I had come up with, “We’re the Crema of the Crop.” This is a joke that only select coffee snobs would understand, but I was really proud of how clever it is. As a departing present, he finally made me the t-shirt I asked for.
There is a bit of a downfall to all of these shirts. While they make great gym shirts and night shirts, there are an awful lot of them and they take up a ton of space (the equivalent of about a small box). Yet, as I go through all of my stuff trying to throw stuff out, I can’t bring myself to part with my box of Hopkins t-shirts because they remind me of all the things I’ve done here, all the friends I’ve made, and the experiences I’ve had. That may be worth lugging this box with me wherever I go after London.
August 21, 2009
Summer 2009 at Hopkins
Between the departure of the JHU Class of 2009 at the end of May and the arrival of the JHU Class of 2012 at the end of August, a lot has take place at Johns Hopkins. Let's take a look back at the top headlines of the Summer of 2009. (Click on each headline for further details.)
FAREWELL TO THE CLASS OF 2009
Commencement 2009 was once again a memorable event for all involved. Thousands of Johns Hopkins students completed their journey as President Ronald Daniels offered his first university wide commencement address. Degrees and certificates were conferred on a record-high 6,776 JHU scholars as the 133rd academic year in Johns Hopkins University history came to an end.
Click here to check out a photo slideshow of the Commencement festivities and enjoy this short video re-cap:
END OF THE SPRING SPORTS SEASON
A tremendous year in Hopkins sports history came to an end, with four teams winning bids to spring NCAA tournaments. Men's tennis, women's tennis, men's lacrosse and baseball all capped off outstanding seasons with strong performances in their tournaments. Women's tennis made it to the sweet sixteen, having gone on a 13-game win streak (a school record). Men's tennis lost in the regional championship, ending their season with a record of 16-4. The baseball team made it to the regional finals, and men's lacrosse made it to the quarterfinals; all of the teams gave us Blue Jays something to be very proud of.
ROADMAP TO GREENER JHU AND BEYOND
The Johns Hopkins Task Force on Climate Change has released to President Daniels its final report, a landmark document that includes a series of major recommendations, prominent among which is that the university reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 51 percent by the year 2025. The report also calls on the university to expand focus on the student experience--allowing students opportunities to get involved.
To read the Task Force's full report or to learn more about other projects on campus and in the community, check out Hopkins Sustainability's website.
Louis Whitcomb, a Whiting School professor of mechanical engineering, played a key role recently in guiding an underwater vehicle to one of the coldest, darkest, most remote places on Earth. Details of his work were part of a Baltimore Sun feature, linked above.
STUDENTS EMBED STEM CELLS IN SUTURES TO ENHANCE HEALING Johns Hopkins undergraduate biomedical engineering students demonstrate a practical way to embed a patient's own adult stem cells in the surgical thread that doctors use to repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons.
JOHNS HOPKINS SCIENTISTS PICKED FOR CANCER DREAM TEAMS
A TV industry- and celebrity-driven cancer research project has chosen scientists at Johns Hopkins for two of five multi-institutional "dream teams" financed by Stand Up to Cancer grants totaling more than $6 million.
LLOYD B. MINOR APPOINTED PROVOST AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Lloyd Minor is an exceptional scholar, clinician and scientist with an outstanding record in academic leadership. He brings to university leadership a driving passion to make Johns Hopkins stronger in all its crucial dimensions: research, education and service. His passion is surpassed only by his ability to build consensus and implement ambitious, strategic priorities that are characterized by an uncompromising commitment to academic excellence.
Blue Jay Buffet - We've Moved!
- We've Moved!Our blogs have moved! Keep up with the newest updates and changes to the Hopkins Interactive blogs at our new blog central: http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/buffet/.
