From Prison to Student Government President

Hello, hello, hello.

This blog is about to either be super long with a lot of fabulous pictures or just two separate blogs… we’ll see.

So the reason I have not blogged anything sooner than now is because I have been extremely sick and busy. Remember in my last blog when I was talking about how I had some changes in my eating and sleeping habits? Well the culmination of those changes was horrid. I had pretty much an entire week of delirium and two days where I was just… broken! In bed calling my college friends crying asking them to tell me stories! A mess! Please listen to my advice on the importance of maintaining your health during your internship or your endeavors in a new environment! Also, if you have a meal allowance for your internship don’t just rely on your meal allowance for food.  Cook from time to time or at least have some dishes to do so.  I did not bring one dish with me! Not even paper plates!  So tonight, when I wanted to reheat some chicken wings that I had for dinner last night I had to be very original and create a safe plate to heat them on!  Which included using a copy of my resume as a lining!  Don’t be like me lol!  Learn from my mistakes – PLEASE!

Here is a picture of my creation: 

You can see the words on my resume.

Oh me, oh my! The lessons I have learned from this first internship of mine!!!!!! I truly hope this blog helps you in some way lol.

Ok, so the other reason why I have been busy is because today marks the end of the seventh week of my eight week internship! Insane!!! Its almost over! So this last week I finished up my main project, a research paper for the Student Support Services TRiO program ACE, Achieving College Excellence. I tell ya, I don’t know if its because its the summer time and I’ve been out of school since April or what but it took me an entire day to write the first page of that research paper! When I tabbed onto the second page of the Microsoft document it was 7pm! But after that first day I was on a roll and the director of this program has been very pleased with my paper! A blog solely on the paper and its purpose will be coming soon. Now that I have pretty much completed the major project of the research paper, I need to work on my final presentation which I will be presenting to the whole Division of Student Development of Loyola! Yikes! Im actually pretty excited for this presentation but I will be more excited once I complete it as I will be presenting it next Thursday and have not started working on it yet… There will also be a blog dedicated to this.

Today my fellow interns and I went on two arranged college visits to Northeastern University and Northwestern University. I dont think I had ever even heard of Northeastern University before today but I am so grateful for the experience. We spent the morning talking with professionals of their Pedroso Center for Diversity & Intercultural Affairs. The Pedroso Center is a space that not only houses the offices of the professionals but is also used by the students of the university as a hang out spot, study area, and program area. It was beautiful! There were murals representative of different cultural areas in the world and a palpable aura of welcomeness (if thats a word- haha!). Here are some pictures of the murals:

 <Check out those chairs!

The conversations had at Northeastern were largely about the importance of intersecting cultures in diversity and multicultural affairs office at institutions. The simplest way I think I can explain this as it was also explained to me by the Asst. VP of Student Affairs at Northeastern, is that just because a students’ name is Carlos doesn’t mean that when he goes to the office for diversity and multicultural student affairs at his university, that he can only meet with Counselor Juan. Yes, Carlos may identify with Juan and may actually feel most comfortable speaking with him but at Northeastern they make a point to interact with all students, invite all students to all beneficial programs regardless of their demographics… if thats the right word… I don’t think it is- but do you understand what Im saying? I appreciated the efforts of the staff of this office in devoting themselves as advocates for all students and not just those that they solely identify with ethnically. Moving on from that conversation we spoke for a long time about Title 9 and the current controversy with it among American universities. I had not been aware of this either before meeting with Northeastern and since then have actually been compelled to check in with my institution so I can understand where it stands and how it acts regarding Title 9 incidents. Besides these conversations and a few other ones we had, us interns were asked to share out career intentions. After sharing mine one of the older staff ladies told me she could tell I was speaking from my soul when I spoke of my desire to become a global citizen and immerse myself in as many cultures as possible by being a traveling professor and I ALMOST CRIED. I don’t entirely know why… but I think I just was touched that she could sense my passion. Or Im just overly emotional. Probably the latter. So from the wonderful conversations with the professionals of that office we got a tour of the school and I learned that Northeastern is the only HSI, Hispanic Serving Institution, in IL with 25% of its student population being Hispanic. I thought that was amazing and wonderful because I often only hear and see the statistic of Hispanic student enrollment being extremely low. So to see this institution with this many excelling Hispanics and even their orientation for incoming students, that was actually in spanish, was wonderful and I saw all those statistics changing before my eyes. The rest of the institution is made up heavily of minority students as well and non traditional students. Our tour guide told us that the previous president of their Student Government Association had served time in prison prior to pursuing an education at Northeastern and was a phenomenal president – you don’t hear that everyday! Kudos to him!

Alright – that is a lot of words… Here is the funniest video I have watched lately on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK-oQfFToVg

I will blog about Northwestern tomorrow because that will honestly take me another hour to blog about and my eyeballs feel slightly annoyed – LOL.  How do you bloggers do it!!?!??!

 

A Wealth of Health

Hello blog buddies.

I hope you are all doing splendidly and having a great first month of summer.

If you are interning somewhere, I hope your internship has thus far been wonderful – I hope your health has been too…

You’re probably thinking, “… why is she wondering about my health?”.  Well let me tell ya.

Since I have started my internship here in Chicago I have become an insomniac and my eating habit have substantially changed.

Usually I’m a person who turns off the lights and its truly “night night” for the next eight hours or more.  Yes, even during the school year I do not get less than eight hours of sleep every night.  I do not mess around when it comes to the time I spend with the back of my eyelids.  You shouldn’t either!  But, since I’ve been interning here at Loyola University I have barely been sleeping and it is really starting to annoy me.  I am an avid sleep talker as well.  In one of my most recent dreams in which I was giving myself a scientific lecture on miscarriages, I actually got up and removed a balled up blanket that was in my bed and carefully set it on the dining room table – as I thought there was a miscarriage in it that I needed to examine later…  after my eight hours of sleep.

Its ok if you think I’m a little crazy – I am.

But I digress.

If you want to know more about my lucid dreams I love sharing but basically what Im trying to say regarding your sleep habits is to make sure they dont suffer once you start an internship, especially if its in a different environment than what you’re used to.  I have been abnormally excited for this internship so my energy level is not lacking but I definitely feel the consequences of inadequate sleep.  At my school, Illinois Wesleyan University, my dorm rooms have never been near an area of such high volume traffic as my apartment in Chicago so I am probably suffering from the ruckus of traffic – I need to get some ear plugs.  I should have long ago but I feel like they are going to be a hassle to find in the CVS thats two blocks away from me.  Point of advice: If you need earplugs, don’t be lazy, and get them sooner rather than later.

Moving on to food.  I am the type of students that runs out of a meal plan a month before its should actually be gone.  I’m a Sodexo foodie – what can I say? Sodexo being the main campus food provider for most colleges.  Knowing that about me, you’d think that being in Chicago I’d be worried about extreme weight gain from joyously marveling in the many options of food I have surrounding me!!!!!!

Not at all.

Lately I have been eating one meal a day and even then trying to make myself eat more, though I feel as if I am not even hungry….

Its weird!  So the advice I want to share with you all from my own current experience is to keep an eye on your eating habits once you start your internship.  Notice when it begins to change.  Monitor what you eat and when.  You don’t want a health scare that is food related to sneak up on you when you’re miles away from home and your closest contact is your internship boss or a fellow intern.  My fear is that Im going to pass out onto the dirty sidewalk from having low blood sugar on the way to a Dunkin Donuts, thats on like every street corner in Chicago, in front of the Redline Loyola Train Station!!! Yes, my fears are very detailed.

To reverse this eating trend I have developed, I have been trying to drink a fruit smoothie daily as well as snack on something like Granola throughout the whole day.  For some very odd reason eating has not even been one of the items at the forefront of my mind.

Regularly this is me when Im told there is food available for me to eat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFYWbczkwH4

And yes when its my favorite food and from my mom I can totally relate to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RQPXDqooQI

So overall message of this post – take care of yourself while interning!  Its so important!  Don’t get so caught up in what you’re doing that you let your health fall to the wayside.

Also don’t worry about me, I am getting myself together!  I just thought maybe sharing this experience would be helpful because for me my health was the last thing on my mind once I started this internship and I should not have let that happen and I’d hate for it to be something that interferes with your awesome internship experience.

Until next time blog buddies!

 

Roll with me!

I GOT SOME ROLLERBLADES! 

This is an adequate video of what it was like when I first put those bad boys on….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS9OKLAYOx8

But this will be me in two weeks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVEAE5YAYfg

Or.. at least thats what the people who held both of my arms and helped me cross the street said – bless their hearts!

 

Joys of Interning in the City

Alright now, this post is about to get real.

Yeah, Monday through Friday from 9am to 2pm I’m putting in work for my internship and I enjoy doing so but those other hours of the day and weekends, my efforts are in attempting to “paint the town red” -as the say.  This last weekend I went to the Chicago Blues Festival and it was… an experience that I will not soon forget. 

My parents love Blues music so I’ve always had an ear for it as well.  I thought the festival would be kinda chill – people sitting down, relaxing, enjoying the music.  Granted these things were happening, it was not the experience I had.  I was meeting people left and right! Folks wanting to take pictures, sharing their food, dancing, candid conversations- the whole shebang!   Not only were the people that were there great the location was also great- in Grant park right right by the Buckingham Fountain! 

 

(That’s my best friend there with the white shorts on)

So yes, the overall vibe and interactions I had during this event led to a weekend that I will not forget soon.  If you ever intern over the summer in Chicago, go to this festival and as many of the other festivals you can too!!!!  If you don’t know anyone once you begin your internship here, or wherever you may be, don’t let that stop you from getting the most out of your internship inside and outside of the office!  Check this out: http://www.meetup.com.  Meet Up is this website/app where you can join a multitude of different groups based on your interests.  For example say if you’re into Kung Fu there is a Meetup for that where you and other people that are also interested in Kung Fu can get information on cool events and happenings that are related to Kung Fu.  I actually joined a Kung Fu group and went to a Kung Fu class!!! For free!!! This is a great way to meet people that share the same interests as you and I tell almost everyone I meet about it – haha!  This and Groupon – get in the Groupon game if you aren’t already! http://www.groupon.com.  Reach out to me if you want to know more about my experiences with Meetup!   

 

I’m Back!

 

Hello everyone!

I am sorry for just now blogging again – I promise I’ll do better! Forgive the novice blogger!!! Forgive her!

I am writing for you from this wondrous studyland that is the library here at Loyola University at Chicago.  Makes you want to come study something, huh?

Ok where to start…. this last week and a half has been crazy good!  In my last post I mentioned that I had began working on my research project for ACE, Achieving College Excellence where I am to write a report that will potentially help in securing additional years of funding for the program.  I don’t know if its just because my research skills are a little rusty or what, but it was very difficult for me to get this project off the ground!  I went about doing my research in a couple of different ways, looking for the most efficient way, and ran into quite bit of frustration with myself.  The topics I am researching are financial literacy, online workshops, programs for college juniors and seniors, preparation for life after college, and support for high achieving students.  To narrow down the project and to be able to maintain a Jesuit theme, I have only been researching the 28 Jesuit institutions in America.  Those topics are too broad to be searched in Google so the internet has not been much of a help in my research – so I have been making phone calls upon phone calls to the 28 Jesuit institutions and speaking with key personnel.  When I realized this was how I would be need to go about doing my research I was definitelyyyyy feeling some type of way – haha! But then I just hunkered down, got ready to repeat the same phrase over and over again and began to compile information!  I actually found it enjoyable speaking with the different student affairs professionals (they tended to be in their institution’s Career Center) and they were genuinely interested in my project and wanting me to share my end results with them.

Point of advice: when you have a big project in front of you doing get too caught up in your feelings and thoughts about it – jump right in!

 

 

Enter the Internship!

Ok so onto my current internship at Loyola University at Chicago on the Lakeshore Campus!

If you do not already know, Loyola University at Chicago is one of the 28 Jesuit universities in America.  Since I am still learning about the different aspects of a Jesuit education myself, here is what I think to be a good breakdown it from Loyola University’s website:  http://www.luc.edu/undergrad/about/jesuit-colleges.html.   The recurring theme I see is that the faculty/staff of the university are definitely devoted to educating and nurturing the whole student and considering that in all of their student affairs.  Quick tip: If you are currently in NUFP and planning on applying to a Jesuit school for a summer internship I advise you to do a bit of research on the Jesuit tradition in education.  Learning even more about the Jesuit tradition was how my first week of my internship was spent.  I had many meetings with different individuals and did quite a bit of exploring myself.

Considering that, take aways I expect from this internship are many.  I would like to point out – getting an internship is great but doing an internship is even better! The key word is “doing”.  You want to make sure that whatever internship you secure for yourself allows you to do hands on work so then when you speak of your internship later you can speak on experiences you have from things you have done.  That is much more impressive than just speaking on things you saw during your internship.  NASPA considers this and that is why in any internship you get through their program you will be doing just that.  Here at Loyola I have so far selected two projects that are of interest to me.  One is with their ACE program, Achieving College Excellence, which is a program under the umbrella of TRiO programs which is a collection of programs for first generation college students, low-income students, disabled students, and veterans.  Here is a link to Loyola’s ACE program: http://www.luc.edu/ace/ and here is a link to information on TRiO programs: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/index.html.

So here is the situation with Loyola’s ACE program – the program is funded with a five-year grant.  This year is the fifth year of their grant and they will need to re-appeal for grant funding for additional years.  This is where I come in.  I will be doing research on other programs like Loyola’s ACE program and innovative aspects that can be added to it and then writing a report for the program that will be used to possibly secure the additional funding.  Talk about pressure!  But also talk about a hands on experience!!!  I mean yeah, I’m slightly nervous because I am not yet the best writer but I also know that there are plenty faculty/staff members here that I have interacted with who will gladly proof read my writing and give me meaningful feedback.  Also this is an opportunity for me to better my writing as well as deeply familiarize myself with an important aspect of student affairs.  Hopefully within the next five years I can meet a student in Loyola’s ACE program and feel good knowing that I contributed to the continuance of a program that will help that student achieve great successes.  Another project I will be working on is planning an orientation for the parents of incoming students.  That should be a fun and unique hands on learning experience as well!

 

Internalized

Today marks the third week of my eight week internship at Loyola University at Chicago.  I know, I know, three weeks in and then I decide to write a blog.  But the thing is, this internship has been so wonderful and eye-opening that the first week I was just in awe and truly trying to be a sponge and absorb everything I could and then the second week I was slightly less in awe but deeply involved in projects and the people here.  Let me give you a bit more insight into what I have been doing and why this internship in Loyola University’s Division of Student Development is so awesome and why it might be something great for you to do.  It’s already been great for me! I’m trying to share the wealth!

This internship was made possible for me by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, also known as NASPA. Here is the link to their website: https://www.naspa.org.  They are allll about student affairs and are actually THE premier organization for professionals/individuals currently in student affairs and those aspiring to be, in America.  The other major organization with a similar purpose to NASPA is the American College Personnel Association, also known as ACPA.  Here is the link to their website:http://www.acpa.nche.edu.  Within both of these organizations there is a component for undergraduate and early graduate students.  Since I am a Fellow of NASPA- NUFP, NUFP standing for NASPA Undergraduate Fellow Program I will speak and provide information from that perspective.  Here is the link to their website: http://www.naspa.org/constituent-groups/professionals/nufp.  Clearly, Im all about links – haha!

In a nutshell, I came to be in this position through applying for the NUFP program (through the link I posted above) around October and around December I began to apply for their summer internships.  The summer internships revolve around a large variety of areas in student affairs so say if you are interested in Residential Life, Dean of Students, Orientation, Student Coordinating, Student Conduct, International students, or Undocumented students,  just to name a few, there will be an internship available at one of many schools across the nation that are partnered with NASPA.  I may be wrong but I think there are at least 100 schools that NASPA is partnered with though they may not all offer summer internships.  The internship process required little paperwork and much patience.  There was a simple informational form to fill out about yourself and your student affairs interests and then you sent that page and a cover letter to each of the schools you were interested in interning at.  Those school then hopefully will contact you and then set up an over the phone interview if you are across the country or an interview where you will go in and meet with the people arranging your internship.  After you go through those steps the waiting game begins.  However you are notified if you are selected for your internship interests or not.  So that’s nice.  If you have more questions about the process, how I went about it, where I applied to, etc. reach out to me!  I’m only a blog away!