Blue Jay Buffet

As you get older, you get wiser!

Name: Adam Hack

Class: Class of 2003 Graduate

Current Residence: Baltimore, MD

Major: Economics major; Entrepreneurship and Management minor

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In October 2007, I came to a terrifying realization.  I got a note from the JHU Alumni Office.  The note congratulated me on my graduation and invited me to my 5 year college reunion.  It took me a few minutes, but I eventually convinced myself there must be some mistake, I could not have possibly graduated 5 years ago.  This moment of denial was quickly followed by a moment of clarity.  I had graduated 5 years ago…and I am getting old.

But as I mentioned, growing older is not necessarily a bad thing.  Yes, I have a little less hair, and yes, I move a little slower, but 5 years post graduation has afforded me a more astute perspective on my experiences at the Homewood Campus.

Here are the brass tacks of my Hopkins education.  I was an Arts and Sciences student and I graduated with honors with a degree in Economics and a minor in Entrepreneurship and Management.  However, as I sit in my living room and look at my diploma, I realize this is the physical manifestation of my education, but most of what I learned at Hopkins was not taught in the academic classroom.  Also, most of what I “got” from Hopkins cannot be summed up on a piece of paper.

In fact, most importantly, and I am sure your parents will like this, I got a job!  After all, this is the end game.  At some point, you will have to bite the bullet and make enough money to support your Chicken Parmesan addiction (or at least that’s mine, fell free to insert your guilty pleasure here).

Most people say their college experiences helped get them their first job.  For me, that’s an understatement.  That’s because I was hired by a college professor of mine.  I was hired to help him design and run a software development company.  What did we design?  I don’t know if you will have heard of this, but we designed an online college admissions application called … The Common Application Online!!!

But certainly, work is not the only thing in life, and certainly not the only “thing” I got from college.  My philosophy is, if you work hard, play hard too.  My passion is soccer!  At Hopkins I was a member of the Men’s Soccer Team and was a two-time All American (Scholar and Athletic).  I have continued playing as a weary weekend warrior for the past 5 years.

Through my friendships at Hopkins, I hooked up with the Baltimore Colts (not the football team, although they may have left town before you were born, so don’t worry if you missed the reference) a competitive men’s soccer team.  Over the past two years I have won an outdoor and indoor National Championship. 

Finally, and yes, here comes the nostalgia, I have gained a wonderful sense of Hopkins pride.  I must own:  6 Hopkins hats; 5 Hopkins shirts; a jacket; a blanket; a bumper sticker; 3 coffee mugs; and more pens and pencils than I care to count.

Alright, so that might be a bit much, but as you’ll find out, life is about accumulating stuff.  More practically, however, I show my pride by volunteering with Hopkins.  I have been a graduate assistant soccer coach, commencement volunteer, admissions office open house speaker, entrepreneurship and management department guest lecturer, and I even came up with the idea to “name the Blue Jay.”  Needless to say, I am still connected to the university.

I am, however, just one of this very fine network of Hopkins alums.  As an undergrad, I don’t think I realized just how terrific this university is and how man doors professionally and personally it would open…but then again, as you get older you get a little wiser!

From One Bay to Another

Name: Brian Kaminski

Class: Class of 2006 Graduate

Hometown: Waukesha, WI

Current Residence: San Francisco, CA

Majors: International Studies and German

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Life’s quite the ride, and it’s what happens while you’re moving that matters in the end.

As you’ve probably figured out from above my name is Bryan Kaminski. I’m a 2006 graduate with a B.A. in International Studies and German. I grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and I spent four years as a Hopkins Undergrad – three years in Baltimore and one in Berlin, Germany. After college, I took a job with my college Fraternity working with college students at 25 different schools throughout North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. In April 2007, I joined Google and moved to San Francisco.

Currently, I work on Google’s University Programs team. We focus on hiring the top college students to start their careers as Software Engineers at Google. It’s great to be part of the team that recruits young, talented people to join a company that cares about its mission and the people who work there.

Now we’re at the part where I look back, and try to distill into a few simple points – six to be exact – everything that I’ve learned along the way. So here it goes.

Number 1: Ask for help when you need it.

I was a terrible college applicant. I don’t mean I was unqualified, but rather I had no clue what I was doing. I knew I wanted a small school in the city, outside of the Midwest. After that, everything was up in the air.

I got lucky. Hopkins had a great viewbook, so I decided to apply, got in and decided to attend.

For some reason, I was afraid to ask questions during the process. I was afraid to admit that I didn’t even know the questions to ask. I’d been successful in high school, yet I didn’t know where to start when it came to college, and I didn’t want anyone to think I didn’t know what I was doing. I struggled. I made mistakes, I stressed myself out, and I left a lot of knowledge on the table.

Only after serving as an Admissions Representative did I realize how important it is to ask questions when you find yourself outside of your comfort zone. Making a decision about college is an important choice. There are people that can help – find them. As I found at Hopkins and have found in my professional life, people not only appreciate being asked questions, but are impressed by the curiosity and want to help out.

Number 2: Stretch yourself – get involved and take risks.

College is a change. One significant challenge is figuring out what to do when you’re bored. For some reason, it’s simple to blaze a new path of do-nothingness. Throughout my four years I watched as many went from over-involved high school students to uninvolved college students. Interestingly, the uninvolved looked back on their college experience as disappointing.

It’s easier than you might think to slide into mediocrity. There’s no manual to success in college. Sometimes, instead of jumping in, people seem to say, “I’m going to focus on my academics the first semester, and I’ll get involved the second semester.”

Yeah, right.

While they “focus” on academics, college passes by. What if the first semester is rough? Think anyone gets involved then? What if it’s great? Think they’ll want to jeopardize that initial success by adding commitments? It’s a self-perpetuating doom-loop.

Take it for what it’s worth, but academic success and collegiate success is neither one in the same, nor mutually exclusive. I look back at my time at Hopkins and feel like my co-curricular activities made a major impact on where I am today. The pressure of deadlines and commitments taught me how to prioritize and forced me to buckle down so I could maximize my time. The different experiences allowed me to take what I had learned in one activity or class and apply it in another. The diverse ideas and knowledge one picks up allows for the development of innovative ideas. These are all important skills that I find myself using repeatedly now that I’ve graduated.

By taking myself out of my comfort zone and taking risks, I discovered interests I didn’t know existed. I made lifelong friends with people I never would have met. I created opportunities, opened doors, and grew my social network just by being busy and involved. Sure, I cut back over time; you have to figure out what’s best for you. Most importantly though, I had a long list of options, and I had an incredibly diverse college experience for which I can always be grateful and look back on with no regrets.

Number 3: Give back or pay it forward

We all have high aspirations and along the way, we’ll likely face challenges, difficulty and frustration. Sure, we want to chart our own course, but we’re probably following some footsteps of those who have come before us. Growing up, my parents taught me to work hard at everything I did. My teachers taught me to challenge myself, and hold myself accountable. My friends pushed me to keep up with them in the classroom, on the athletic fields, and in other activities.

Somehow, I developed a pay it forward mentality. For me, that was taking on leadership roles in co-curricular activities in high school. In college that was serving as an admissions representative and student council, working for the Orientation program and being a member of Spring Fair and SigEp. Now, it’s volunteering and giving to the organizations that made a difference in my life.

At times this involvement was and is frustrating, but I always saw it as part of my responsibility to work through the frustration. Asking only, “What’s in it for me?” would have caused me to miss out on the reward gained by hard work and perseverance. By sticking through the rough patches and making it better for those who followed, I feel like I learned a lot, and helped out some people in the process.

Number 4: Don’t forget to say thanks.

A lot of people through the years will make a difference in your life. Often these people don’t even realize what they’ve done, and we don’t say thanks for that help often enough either. It’s not intentional; we just don’t think to do it.

I’d always been told the importance of saying thanks, of writing thank you notes, and such, but I’d never really believed it made a difference until I tried it out.

While working for my college fraternity, I came to realize that undergraduates and volunteers do all the work; they don’t get paid, and all too often they get no gratitude or appreciation from those they impact. One thing I learned during that job was the most significant thing we could do to encourage our members was to remember to say thanks and recognize those who did outstanding work. A quick note or thoughtful gift made all the difference in the world and led to better communication, increased performance, and better friendships.

You’re going to have a lot of great achievements in college, take some time to celebrate those achievements, and reflect back on the people who made it possible. If you can spare a few minutes and maybe a few dollars, pick up a card or something else meaningful let people know how much they’ve helped - it will make their day.

Number 5: Make time for your friends.

College will fly by. You may not believe me on your first day of Orientation, but when you’re crossing the stage to shake the president’s hand and collect your diploma, you’ll be wondering where that time went. The next thing you know, you’ll be moving out of your place and into some other city, far from your friends, and far from the place you had called home for the last four years.

From time to time, it would snow significantly in Baltimore. For us, that meant snow football. We’d round up three or four people, and start working the phones. Pretty soon we’d have 15-20 sliding across the field, while much of the school spent the time inside thinking about their next Chemistry midterm.

You only get four years to make the most of the experience. Too often people get caught up in the future and lose sight of the moment. In my experience, we do about the same amount of work whether it takes us two hours or twelve. We just expand the amount of time we spend “working” to fit the window. Meanwhile, we pass up an opportunity to deepen our friendships and share some experiences that may stay with us forever.

Make time for your friends. Take a break and recharge; it’ll allow you to dive back in with more focus and dedication than you might think. You’re a college student, but college is about more than grades and what comes after graduation.

Number 6: Do what you love.

The best question a college interviewer ever asked me was, “What are you passionate about?” I bombed the question and it has stuck with me through school and into my career. I’ve learned that if I’m not passionate about something, it’s difficult for me to put 100% into that particular project, class, or group.

The decision of what to do after college challenged me. I wanted to do something I was passionate about, since I learned that it was hard for me to fake interest and enthusiasm. I sought out a lot of advice from family, friends, and professors. In the end, I got some great suggestions, but one of them stuck out until a former professor said the best job you can have is one where you figure out a way to get paid doing something you would do for free.

That made my job search that much easier. I had taken a class called Leadership Dynamics, which helped put a lot of what I already thought into focus. It helped me realize I enjoyed working with people, and I enjoyed the challenges of working with organizations to make them successful. I’d also been spending a week every summer volunteering for an American Legion government program, and was able to watch first-hand as rising seniors built an understanding of government through an experiential learning program.

In college I spent my time on activities and groups that involved working with others. Most of these things didn’t pay, but I loved the time I spent working of projects for these organizations. I spent my first year after college working for SigEp traveling to different schools in the region and working with undergraduates throughout the country. This experience provided me with a way to get paid to work with people, serving as an important resource and challenging them to get the most of their experience in college.

Working for SigEp taught me a lot about leadership, organizational development and recruitment strategy – a couple of things I really enjoy. As my year came to an end, I discovered Google offered positions that matched my background. I thought it would be exciting to be a part of building that culture and seeing first hand how breaking all the “rules” could be successful. I also felt that my experience at Hopkins and my experience at SigEp put me in a position to lend a unique and valuable perspective to Google’s college recruiting efforts, as well as its growing career development organization. I guess I was convincing.

I’m lucky that I found a job and a company where I can look forward to work every day. I attribute a lot of that to looking for my passions while I was in college, and taking the advice to get paid for something I would do for free.

Six years and six ideas later, I’m able to look back and appreciate the experience I had at Hopkins. You’re all at a very exciting time right now. You’re facing a big decision, you have a lot left to accomplish, and you have a few months left of your senior year before it’s time to start again on a new adventure. Make the most of it – these opportunities don’t come around very often. 

Life as an Eternal Student

Name: Leigh Lieberman

Class: Class of 2006 Graduate

Hometown: Delray Beach, FL

Current Residence: Princeton, NJ

Major: Classics

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Greetings from the Garden State!  Although I may have ventured far from the JHU Admissions Office, I certainly haven’t gotten away from the academic lifestyle.  Having graduated from Hopkins with a Bachelors Degree in Classics in 2006 and a Masters Degree in Classics in 2007, I am currently a first year PhD candidate studying Classical Archaeology in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton (don’t worry – I’ll be wearing blue and white come the long awaited lacrosse game!!!). You can read some more about my research pursuits and travels while a Hopkins undergraduate in my Guest Blog entry, "Diary of a World Traveler," or about my experiences reading applications last spring in my Hopkins Insider Guest Author entry, "Introducing an Admissions Reader."  

I knew that after my well spent years in Baltimore I really wanted to be a student for as long as possible.  There’s something about the academic lifestyle – the people you meet, the ideas that pop up all around you.  It keeps me on my toes, and that’s the way I like it.  I really do see myself as a professional book-worm.  I feel that my time at Hopkins prepared me as well as a student could have been prepared for further work in academia.  My mentors at Hopkins, in the classroom, on the stage, and in the office, helped me to achieve my goals while I was there and prepared me to succeed in the future. 

Enough of the pep talk, though!  More to the point...

I’d love to tell you what I’ve been up to since relocating to New Jersey last summer.  You might be asking yourself what a graduate student studying Classical Archaeology actually does on a day to day basis.  In short, we read.  A lot.  We drink coffee.  A lot of coffee.  We always drink coffee when we read.  Oftentimes we read articles and books in languages that we wish we understood better than we actually do. 

The fun consequence of higher academia is that most disciplines are wholly international.  I’m going to need to read German, Italian, and French fluently, in addition to Ancient Greek and Latin, in order to do the research that my studies require!  Needless to say, there are several large dictionaries on my bookshelf in the library.  My department library is incredibly comfortable, a real necessity seeing as I have to spend a good deal of time there.  But, I still manage to frequent some of the quainter coffee shops, both on and off campus, whenever I need a change of scenery. I couldn’t abandon all of my Baltimore routines!

Being a professional student does come with some perks.  This past fall, I was part of a seminar that explored the art of divination in the ancient world.  Our sessions ranged from communicating with goddesses in the ancient Near East, to the role of lot oracles in early Christianity.  This interdisciplinary course also traveled to Greece for a week and a half in October to explore Hellenic oracular sites, all expenses paid! 

We began our journey in Athens, traveling south to Epidaurus and Corinth before heading north to Delphi, Dodona, and the Nekromanteion at Acheron.  Although I’d been to Greece before it was wonderful to be able to travel with such an enthusiastic group of people this time around.  I had never been to most of the places we visited, and traveling with a specific focus was also an inspiring experience. 

After returning to Princeton, we began working on our semester long research papers for the seminar.  As this course was part of a Princeton-Oxford Exchange Program, we invited students from Oxford University to a conference this past January, during which we all presented our diverse projects.  More than just being an academic colloquium, the conference allowed us a good amount of time to just socialize and really get to know one another.  Overall, I came out of this class with a great group of friends, both in and out of the classroom.

My nose isn’t always that close to the grindstone, though. In my free time so far, I’ve been tutoring high school juniors and seniors in preparation for the SATs.  It’s been fun to come at the college application process from a different angle this time around!  The SATs should by no means take over your life when you’re applying to schools – the test really is only one piece of the puzzle.  But for me, I’ve really grown to love being in front of a classroom and knowing everything there possibly is to know about the test.  Don’t get me wrong though – I couldn’t abandon my former glory days in the Admissions Office entirely!  I also frequently interview students in the Princeton area for JHU.  Talking to prospective students has always been one of my favorite aspects of the college admissions process, and after having such a wonderful time at Hopkins during my own time there, I can only hope that I am able to convey some of my enthusiasm now. 

Being so close to New York City also has its benefits.  There seemed to be a mass exodus to New York after graduation, so a good number of my close friends from Hopkins now call "The City" home.  As a former Barnstormer, I always meet up with my theatre friends, sometimes for an experimental theatre show, or sometimes just to eat things that make us feel bad about ourselves in the morning. 

I’ve got no complaints about life after Hopkins, save for the fact that the expensive train ride from Princeton to Baltimore has really limited the number of visits I’ve made to Maryland this past year. I do hope, however, to make an appearance at the aforementioned lacrosse game that is looming in the near future, where I will proudly don Blue Jay gear.  The cherry blossoms and the crab chips are calling my name too, but first, I’ve got to get some coffee.

Blue Jay on The Hill

Name: Emily Ethridge

Class: Class of 2006 Graduate

Hometown: Charlotte, NC

Current Residence: Washington, DC

Major: Writing Seminars

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Winter is here and every night lots of fancy, well-dressed people get out on the streets of D.C. on their way to what must be fabulous parties. I’m s till waiting for my gala invitations, but I’ve got lots of other things to keep me busy. For example, my office holiday party (there was a karaoke machine).

After graduating from JHU I began working as a reporter that covers the health care industry. I write for the daily publication, as well as being in charge of a weekly publication that covers Congress.

At Hopkins I majored in Writing Seminars, and I love that now I get to write professionally! All my Writing Sems classes not only developed my skills, but helped me so much with learning how to edit and be edited. It’s not up to just your professor to review your work and grade you – all your classmates read, analyze, and comment on your stories. Then you get to write another draft! In the reporting world, it’s a similar situation. I’m not finished once I turn in a story at deadline – the process of calling sources, doing my research, editing and proofreading has just begun. Although I’m working on much tighter deadlines now than I did at school…

I couldn’t have asked for a better preparation for writing professionally than the Writing Seminars department, and the liberal arts education I got at Hopkins helped a lot too. One of the reasons I chose Hopkins was the lack of a core curriculum. Being able to pursue my interests and having the freedom to explore things I wasn’t familiar with enriched my four years at school. And that prepared me to jump into an industry I didn’t know. I had no experience with health care or policy making before I took my reporting job, but Hopkins taught me how to learn quickly and dive in to untried terrains.

I love covering Congress, though. At JHU I was involved with the student-run theater group the Barnstormers, and served as their president senior year. So I have to admit: I love drama. And Congress is all about drama. There is something behind every move a Congressman makes, and I always want to get in there and find out what it is. Research comes in handy here – another skill I developed at Hopkins! When I’m spending hours pouring through long bills and the Congressional record, I always think of all the time I spent tracking information down in MSE, the Hopkins library.

Most of the lawmakers don’t remember my name yet, but Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) once told me I was a “glutton for punishment” for following him on his 15-hour day, so that’s a start.

It’s not all work and running after elected officials down marble hallways in high heels, though. Many JHU graduates, including some Barnstormers, are down here in the District. And I’m happy to report they all remember how to strike that perfect balance between work and play, although now it’s easier because we don’t have homework to deal with.

I also incorporated some volunteering into my routine. At Hopkins I admired how many student groups were set up to help out in the Baltimore community, from tutoring children after school to cleaning up nearby parks. I did most of my volunteering through my sorority, Alpha Phi, which helped me fit it in with all my other activities, and gave me the motivation to continue volunteering on my own.

Here in D.C. I volunteer at the Washington Animal Rescue League, which cares for animals until they are adopted and provides low-cost care to pets of low-income families. So basically I get to play with dogs and cats to socialize them so they will be adopted…not a bad deal!

The other best thing about D.C. is that it’s close enough to Baltimore to come up for young alumni events and see some of the Barnstormers shows. I hope when y’all get to see Hopkins you find as many things to love there as I did. Please feel free to get in touch (use the comments section below) if you’d like to talk more about JHU or anything else. I would love to hear from you!

Greetings from *finally* fall-like Washington, D.C.!

Name: Michelle Tellock

Class: Class of 2007 Graduate

Hometown: Hortonville, WI

Current Residence: Washington, DC

Major(s): Cognitive Science and Sociology

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I’m writing to you from the 2nd-floor balcony of the beautiful Hotel Mt. Pleasant (yes, we have a website/blog!)– the affectionate name my housemates and I have given to our residence in DC. Why is it a hotel, you ask? Well, it’s because we have a seemingly-endless list of guests and visitors – friends, former classmates, new coworkers, high school buddies, and out-of-town family members. At any moment, someone new could be coming over or crashing on one of our couches. It’s certainly never routine, and there is ALWAYS someone who wants to hang out or explore the city.

For the past four months, I’ve been working as a research analyst at a consulting firm in DC, just a few blocks from the White House. I do research into all things computer-related, which I find really interesting. The web design and database work I did at the Center for Social Organization of Schools while at Hopkins has definitely made it easy for me to start a job that isn’t exactly (okay, at all) related to my majors – cognitive science and sociology.

Living in DC has also given me the opportunity to stay connected to an activity that I devoted a TON of time to while in college – the JHU debate team. There are a handful of DC-area tournaments each fall, and we live close enough to Baltimore to be able to help at Hopkins’ home tournament, too. It’s nice to see a bunch of my friends, help out by judging a few rounds, and get to know the new Hopkins novices when they stay over at our house on DC-tournament weekends.

Besides debate, in college I was involved in a variety of other on-campus student groups and activities. I was a resident advisor for my junior and senior years – I lived with between 40-50 underclassmen in dorms, which was a blast. I also did research in the Language & Cognition Lab in the cognitive science department. Combined with my courses in sociology and at the JHU School of Education, my research experiences and my summer internships have led me to a goal of working in education law and policy creation. It’s fitting, then, that during my junior and senior years, I worked at the Center for Social Organization of Schools and also in the Admissions office – two more education-related jobs.

Lately a lot of my time has been taken up by doing what many of you are doing – investigating schools, writing essays, and filling out seemingly-endless applications! I am currently in the midst of completing about a dozen law school applications, so I feel your pain. I spent about three months studying for the LSAT that was administered in September, and now it’s really crunch time for turning in all my forms. It’s definitely exciting to get lots of e-mails and packages from law schools telling me all about their programs, and I’m looking forward to visiting a bunch of the campuses, too.

Though I’m glad that I took some time off after college to work (and breathe!), I’m really looking forward to going back to school. I can only hope that whichever law school I end up at provides me with an experience as fulfilling and enjoyable as I had at Hopkins – the academic and extracurricular activities at Homewood have definitely prepared me for what I want to do in the future, and I have met some of the most amazing people who I am now lucky enough to call my friends – including the seven (yes seven!) of them that live with me.

Well, time to go back inside the house…it’s our weekly “Kid Nation” viewing (we’re seriously addicted), and we have to pick up the Chinese food from the place down the street before we settle in for the night. I hope your school year is off to a great start – please feel free to leave me a comment or ask a question – I love talking about my experiences at Hopkins! You can also check out my archived blog from when I was a Hopkins student: Not-Quite-Daily-Ramblings.