Why I selected Saint Mike's

Hey everyone!

Library lawn, 13 April 2015.

Two blogs seven days apart? Ben must be done with his thesis!

I'm not, but I'm pretty darn close to it. Got about 20-30 pages left to write and I'm hoping to have that done in the very near future. Fingers crossed!

It's absolutely beautiful on campus right now, and seeing as the 'days til graduation' ticker is down to 27 (less than 648 hours but who's counting?), I'm feeling kinda nostalgic. It's not hard to believe that 4 years have gone by, because so much has happened in that time that it couldn't have been any less than 45 months or so. But since I'm leaving so soon, I find myself longing for the beginning. I miss that first Alliot swipe, and the wonderful realization that yes, I can eat french fries here all the time! I remember the overwhelming process of meeting the other students on my floor, and the mellower, longer process of getting to know them. I imagine the various moments that I decided to call them friends, and I recall the many other friends I've made in the years since that first semester.

Then I think back to my college selection process, and I wonder why I chose Saint Mike's in the first place. No matter how intentional I would have liked to think my decision process was at the time, in retrospect it was little more than a feeling that led me to SMC. During the college application process, I had no idea what I wanted. To give you context, my final decision came down to a large research university in a big east coast city, or a small liberal arts college buried in the Champlain Valley. I was at a crossroads; I had narrowed my options down to two extremes. Ultimately, I felt that Saint Mike's was right for me.

It must have had something to do with a beautiful view of the mountains. I grew up in Syracuse, NY skiing at a little hill outside the city, so memories of trips with my dad and siblings up to Smuggs, Sugarbush, Jay, Killington, etc. filled my consciousness with a romanticized notion of VT at the ultimate wintertime mecca. Part of my decision was probably shaped by the warm familiarity of people I know here. My dad is a Saint Mike's alum ('88), and friends of his from college have settled in the area. In my time here I've been hosted for home-cooked meals with them, instilling in me a broader notion of the idea of home. Some element of my decision must also have been impacted by the professors who teach here. My dad and I were walking around campus the spring of my college decision process, and we ran into a handful of professors walking across campus, all of whom knew my dad from his undergrad years. I remembered stories of my dad having coffee with professors, going to their houses for dinner, and developing friendly and intellectually stimulating repertoires with them. I've been a learner and a bookworm as long as I can remember, so the idea of intimate professor-student relationships must have appealed to me.

In these regards, I've not been disappointed. One can always ski more (in my opinion), but the quality of my skiing experiences here have been fun and fulfilling, as the snow-capped peaks of Camel's Hump are beautiful. Having the opportunity to go visit with close family friends for a meal has given me a sense of home away from home. It's easy to forget the value of dinner-table conversation, until you've been chatting for so long your coffee's cold and you have to go finish that econ paper. And perhaps most importantly, there are too many professors that I like a lot at Saint Mike's. If I and my professors had two weeks with nothing to do, I could spend hours in each of their offices talking about political theory, and the history of economic thought, and problems with development and the World Bank. I could shoot the breeze over a cup of coffee about why Islamophobia in the EU is so darn infuriating. I could write papers about multiculturalism every day for months if only I had the weekends to ski and nothing else to do.

I guess I don't have a very tangible why that drove my decision to choose SMC. But whatever it was, it has certainly served me well.

Thanks for reading!

I Decided to Come Back from Spring Break.

The SMC group lunching at Fort Sumter.

It's been an active few weeks for this student-blogger, so in the words of Lil Wayne, sorry for the wait.

Like I briefly mentioned last time, I spent my spring break week in Charleston, SC kayaking with other SMC students thanks to the Wilderness Program. At that point warm weather days for us had been few and far between, so even the buggy south was a nice reprieve from the frigid north. The weather was beautiful, the kayaking memorable, and it was a nice way to wave au revoir to my time as a student-instructor in the WP. As I write this now graduation day gets even closer, which is a source of relief (and just a bit of stress).

Since I presented my thesis research last Tuesday, March 31, the week after spring break was spent heavily on working out the remaining details of my project. I still have yet to write the paper, but once I do the rest of the semester will be (relatively) smoother sailing until the end.

A dragon statue in the desert near Anza Borrego.

More importantly, however, than spring break or my thesis is the voyage I took to LA for an extended Easter weekend. I got out here last Tuesday night (I flew out of BTV mere hours after presenting my thesis), and will board a plane to return tonight around 10.45. I spent the trip visiting with my boyfriend Trevor, who graduated from Saint Mike's last May. He's been out here doing a year of service with the LA EUIP program, through which he interns at an Environmental Charter School in the city. It's been a year of long distance, so a reunion was overdue to say the least.

We spent the week visiting the desert with Trevor's parents, who were still in town at the time. We've also been to the beach, spent time with people who've been part of Trevor's community this year, and eaten so much delicious food. Imagine a city filled with every 'Little [insert country name]' you can think of, and you're darn close to an accurate representation of Los Angeles' culinary scene.

Unfortunately, I return to the airport (and reality) this evening, but the last few weeks of my final semester have much to look forward to. P-Day, Saint Mikes' spring festival, is coming up, I plan to see Guster at Higher Ground with my friend Bri at the end of the month, and soon enough I'll be finished with homework and projects well into the foreseeable future. After graduation, I'm traveling to South Dakota for a final extended service trip with MOVE. After that, I'm moving to San Diego to work in a kayak shop. A spring of lasts, but with an eye on a summer of firsts.

Until next time, and thanks for reading.

T-Minus Six Days: Spring Break in Charleston, SC with the Wilderness Program

This Monday marks the final week of classes before Saint Mike's students depart for Spring Break. Many choose to go home and see their family, visit friends, go on service trips with MOVE, or join the Wilderness Program on an extended excursion. My blog post history might lead you not to be surprised that I'm joining the WP, once again, for a spring break excursion. This year, we're headed to Charleston, South Carolina.

Nautical geography of Charleston Coast.
Chart credit.

Every year the WP offers programming for spring break, usually including a paddling trip, climbing trip, and an extended hiking trip. This year, the climbing crew is headed out to St. George, Utah, and the hiking crew is Grand Canyon-bound. Each trip consists of no more than 8 or 9 participants, and the WP offers students a price for these opportunities that will not be found after college. To put it in perspective, I have knowledge that the market price for the same trip I took to Baja last year would cost no less than three times what I paid as a student. If you're thinking about an extended excursion in the outdoors, I'd give it a go while you're still at Saint Mike's.

The paddling crew this year will be crashing at the cottages of Charleston County Parks and Recreation, from where we'll base most of our water travel for the week. Generally each day consists of some amount of touring (covering distance as a means to locate a feature), and surfing (you don't just do this on a board). Depending on what the coast offers around our location, some days might be more devoted to rock play or surfing, for example. In any case, coastal kayaking offers boaters much opportunity to play in a very dynamic aquatic environment, and that's the main goal of the week (with the intent of having fun :D).

After travel days are subtracted, our group will have six days in the field. Since we're staying in cottages, we'll get to prepare some pretty substantive meals at night, and the park surrounding our lodging is quite a beautiful space. From what I understand, Charleston has an impressive Parks and Rec system, and I look forward to checking it out next week!

Thanks for reading!

If I Coulda Done it Differently...

I tend to be a 'no ragrets' person. One can't change the past, and it's silly to carry emotional baggage for what's no longer within one's control. That being said, I'm at the point in life where I have to ask the big question, 'what's next?' As I come to the close of my life's latest 4-year plan, I'm being forced to think not only about what I want to do, but what I actually can do.

Having taken not a single physics class in college, it's unlikely I could launch into a PhD in Astrophysics (ahhhhh, see what I did there? launch into astrophysics!). But I also haven't much of a desire to do that, so no worries on that front (lucky it's not the final frontier! I'm on fire today).

While at Saint Mike's I took a breadth of classes. And I'f I'm being honest, I never really found a niche of academia that called to me louder above the others. I dabbled a lot, because I couldn't nail down what I wanted to study above all else. I declared my Econ major at the end of my fall semester junior year. That is very, very late to declare a major, and even then my decision was driven by the necessary fact that I graduate in the near future. None of this is to say that I don't like my major; from my perspective the Econ dep't is stacked with people I'd love to be as smart as in my wildest dreams. I even got to do research with Prof. Walsh last semester, and Prof Natarajan is advising me for my thesis research this semester. I've learned a lot from my experience as a student in that department, but after four years I've come to realize I love being a student. Of what? Well... lots and lots of things.

In fact, just to give you a glimpse of the variety of classes I've taken, here's a literal snapshot:

Course/Section and Title Credits Term EC-311 A Macroeconomic Theory 4.00 2014/FA EC-315 A World Economies 4.00 2014/FA EC-410 A Senior Seminar in Economics 4.00 2014/FA HO-301 A Honors Colloquium 2.00 2014/FA PH-103 A Pursuing Wisdom 4.00 2014/FA EC-103 B Princ of Microeconomics (HON) 4.00 2014/SP MA-120 E Elementary Statistics 4.00 2014/SP PO-365 A Multicultural Theory/Practice 4.00 2014/SP SP-203 A Third Semester Spanish 4.00 2014/SP AN-333 A Anthropology of Refugees 4.00 2013/FA EC-333 A Economics of Education 4.00 2013/FA PO-101 A Introduction to Politics(HON) 4.00 2013/FA SO-221 A Race and Ethnic Relations 4.00 2013/FA BI-153 F Intro Cell Biology & Genetics 4.00 2013/SP BI-205 A Biological Communications 4.00 2013/SP CH-117 C Organic Chemistry I 4.00 2013/SP EC-325 A Economics of Health Care 4.00 2013/SP BI-151 C Intro to Ecology & Evolution 4.00 2012/FA CH-110 A General Chemistry I 4.00 2012/FA EC-101 A Prncpl Macroeconomic (Honors) 4.00 2012/FA GS-308 A AdvTpcs: Gender & Development 4.00 2012/FA RS-242 B Christians and Muslims 4.00 2012/FA AN-310 B Native American Cultures 4.00 2012/SP FR-203 A Third Semester French 4.00 2012/SP FS-103 A Essays and Essayists 4.00 2012/SP RS-120 H Christianity: Past and Present 4.00 2012/SP AN-109 A Introduction to Anthropology 4.00 2011/FA FR-101 B First Semester French 4.00 2011/FA HI-161 A Early Latin America 4.00 2011/FA MA-150 B Calculus I 4.00 2011/FA

Like I said, I love being a student... but of what?

So my one takeaway is this: if I could do it all over again, I would have taken more math classes.

'That's kind of a strange takeaway, why do you say that, Ben?'

I've come to the realization that if I want to go to grad school to study econ (which I do), I'll need a heck of a lot more background in math in order to apply my econ knowledge at that level. Plus, I really like math. I was always a strong math student, and I think that mathematical thinking translates well into the fields of philosophy and theory, both of which interest me. So, yeah, I wish I would have taken more math.

But at the expense of not having taken one of these courses... I'm cool with doing some post-grad math courses before I apply to grad school. I gained a huge base of knowledge from being exposed to all these subjects, and I wouldn't change that even if I had a time-turner (I'm looking at you HP fans).

Til next time, and thanks for reading!

Family Weekend in Burlington.

If I haven't mentioned already, my little brother Nick is a first year at SMC. Also an avid skier and lover of all things mountainous, Nick was drawn to SMC just like my dad (Tim Rosbrook, '88) and I were.

This past weekend Nick turned 19, and the whole family came up to celebrate. We took many a ski adventure up here as kids, but our big sister hasn't been up in ages. And, we certainly haven't been here all as a family in over a decade. For that alone, it was a really special weekend.

Friday I only saw my parents briefly (I couldn't turn down tickets to see Gogol Bordello at HG!) during my break at work, so the weekend for me began Saturday morning. Nick and I, along with our dad and older sister Katie, piled in the car down to Mad River Glen for a day of skiing those notorious slopes. Since our mom doesn't ski, she passed the day in Burlington. She spent a few hours at a spa, but our mom also thinks Burlington is one of the cooler towns on the planet. She's an arts&craftsy, do-it-yourself type person, so the many art stores and cafes, to her, are a playground.

Nick is the type of kid to celebrate with a steak, so that night we went to E. B. Strong's for his birthday dinner. Our family can talk, so after a salad, main course and a coffee, we still spent much longer than the casual out-to-dinner-at-a-restaurant amount of time around the table. But it was fun, and since that Saturday had Mardi Gras festivities elsewhere in Burlington, we chatted the night away in relative peace. Afterwards we stopped at the Crow bookstore next to the restaurant, and picked up a few novels and other books for later indulgence. At that point we parted ways; our parents back to their hotel, Katie and I for a quick glimpse of Mardi Gras as it faded into the night, and Nick back to SMC. The next morning, we had a quick breakfast at Henry's. After this Nick and I resumed the college thing, Katie went back to life in New Haven CT, and our parents made their way home to Rome NY.

Check out some photos below!

Skiing at MRG.

Apres-ski with the siblings.

Out to birthday dinner.

Church St. post-dinner.

Thanks for reading!

Common Ground (LGBT+) Staff and Faculty Social and 'It Gets Better'.

Hey y'all!

It's just about the middle of the week, but I swear the closer I get to graduation the faster days fly by (wasn't it just Wednesday yesterday??).

In between extended library sessions this afternoon and evening, I took a break over at the Center for Women and Gender where our LGBT+ club hosted a staff and faculty social. Common Ground (our LGBT+ club) meets every week, and is a large part of the LGBT+ presence on campus. We organize speakers, events and other programming to promote LGBT+ issues and pursue policy that creates a safer space on campus.

Every so often we get together for a business-free meeting, and invite faculty and staff in the community to a social for snacks and good conversation! Today there was a great turnout; the CWG's common room (pictures of the room can be found in this post) ran out of seating room, and we spent about 90 minutes talking about relevant/current issues, as well as some LGBT+ history here at Saint Mike's! Apparently the first organization for non-straight, non-cisgender identified people began here in 1984, and we've had some such club or group (under different names) ever since. Apparently the student who founded the inaugural club returned for a CG meetings a few years back, which we thought was pretty powerful.

We also talked about two media projects that the Saint Mike's community has pursued to promote inclusion on campus. At the moment, senior student-athletes are compiling an SMC-edition 'You Can Play' video, which aims to promote awareness and acceptance of gay athletes in sports. This one is still in  the works, but as I understand it should be out in the near future! The second media project was done a few years back as part of the 'It Gets Better' campaign, and similarly focuses on gay athletes in sports. I'm not sure what position these campaigns take on the inclusion of trans* athletes in sports, but if I find anything new I'll be sure to share that here. In any case, you can check out Saint Mike's 'It Gets Better' video below.



Anyway I have to get back to my studies, but cheers to fostering acceptance of socially marginalized identities!

Thanks for reading!

Forgoing the Slopes for a Day of Thesis-Writing

As I sit in my favorite building on campus, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't rather be skiing. Luckily for me it was so far in the negative-degrees farenheit up at Smuggler's Notch this morning, that I don't mind taking a day away from the bitter cold to be productive.

Since my mind is consumed with thesis (and my other academic requirements for graduation), I figured it was worth brain-dumping my process to offer a glimpse of what it means to be in the midst of such a project. For what it's worth, I really like research. My favorite classes as an undergrad have been those that include some research paper or project; because even though assignments like this can be a lot of work, I enjoy learning deeply about a topic and using the tools of analysis I've gathered from a course. So for me, the thesis is not just a huge (and somewhat daunting) project, it's also enjoyable in a lot of ways.

I find that there are a couple mental tools that help me to organize my thoughts around the whole project. First of all, I try to remind myself that there is a terminus. It's my intention to do well, and produce a very complete project that incorporates as much analysis as possible. But ultimately, come April I have to turn in whatever project I happen to have completed. By thinking of the project as something finite and definitive, I find that I can sit down and chip away at it slowly, rather than allowing it to be elusive and freaking myself out about it constantly. Second, I intentionally set progress goals that are pretty ambitious. If I know I need to get 3 hours of work done by the end of the weekend, and I set a goal of 6 hours, then it's okay if I only accomplish 4 hours in reality. By allowing myself some leeway in terms of expectations, I find that I'm able to alleviate some of the self-induced pressure and resulting stress that tend to accompany research for many students.

Basically, there are a lot of ways to freak oneself out about research. One can easily get anxious about the amount of data collected, journals read, or pages written at any step in the process. But these are only distractions; worry and anxiety tend only to detract from my ability to do good work. By minimizing these distractions as much as possible, I'm able to forgo some high blood pressure AND get more work done at the end of the day. It's a constant process, but when I'm productive it feels so much better.

But it's so very good (photo source).

Finally, it's important to find outlets for the stress that one will naturally experience (because minimizing stress does not mean getting rid of it entirely, also coffee elevates your heart rate). That's why as soon as I hit 'publish post' this afternoon, I'm taking off to the gym for a brief workout to blow off some steam. After taking a few hours to exercise and get dinner with a friend, I'll be able to come back to my work later feeling refreshed (and skiing tomorrow will feel so much better!).

Thanks for reading!

Self-Care in College: Staying Healthy.

College is wonderful for the opportunities to learn, work, gain professional experience, gain research experience, expand social and professional networks, and to learn more about one's interests and passions. In the midst of all that, it can become quite easy to lose track of one's own mind and body, but when combined with stress this can be an unfortunate circumstance. My parents tell me to take care all the time, and I'm sure many other loved ones, parents and family say the same to my peers. Thus, here's a *condensed* checklist of things to pay attention to in order to maximize self-care, and make your friends/family happy :)

1. Do your homework. This implies doing it in general. I've seen more than a handful of classmates fall behind in challenging courses for neglecting to do work outside of class. In my own experiences, getting behind on work (even reading/practice problems) can be a huge bummer, and very stressful. That being said, at no point should schoolwork shroud one's entire existence. If those orgo problems are just not happening some night, come back to it later or schedule time with a tutor. Luckily, if you're really struggling with a class there are resources to get you through. Do your best, but don't stress!
2. Do something with your body, sometimes. Different people enjoy/prefer a variety of exercise pursuits, and by no means should every student on campus be lifting three times a week. But exercise has been shown to heighten feelings of happiness, enthusiasm and excitement (Hyde et al.), so moving your body with some level of regularity will probably make you feel better. Even while doing homework in the library, I'll get up every so often for a five- to- ten-minute stroll around the book stacks and when I get back to my work, I feel much better. This might be especially important in the winter, when the snow and cold can get one down.
3. Get some sleep. Whenever it works for you. I know people who are most productive from the hours of 10PM til the early hours of the morning, but they'll sleep during the day (hopefully when they don't have class). I tend to want at least 7-8 hours of sleep between the hours of 12AM-9AM, and that's what I shoot for. But what's important is to make sure sleep is happening in a reasonable quantity, at whatever hours work best for one's schedule.
4. Find some way to chill that doesn't include a screen. I really, really hate staring at a screen all day. That's why I'd rather do something like read or talk or play a game to chill. I think watching a show or a movie is a great way to unwind, but I also think that doing that all the time will make you boring. Especially at a moment when so many of our peers have screens fit for an HD movie in their pockets, it's important to find ways to pull away from those distractions and unwind differently. Taking a bus ride downtown to do nothing but people-watch or walk around or grab a coffee will occupy about the same amount of time as a Netflix binge, and probably yield greater happiness and fulfillment.
5. Eat well. To the point about exercise, I don't mean to say that one should only eat salad and lean protein in college. But the way I like to think about it (and I'm ripping this off from my dad) is that there's food for fuel, and fuel for fun. Food for fuel includes the stuff that you'd eat before a workout or when you're not at the Friday/Saturday night grill. Examples: veggies, protein, some carbs, and some dairy if you like/eat that. Food for fun is more obvious: wings, fried foods, extra cheesy foods, candies/sweets, cakes, etc. would fall into this category. My rule is that most of the time (75-85% of the time), I'm focused on eating food for fuel. The rest of the time, I'll eat food for fun in moderation. I also think it's important not to be too harsh on oneself here (like exercise and homework). Say your parents are up some weekend, and you do nothing but eat delicious junk food with them, That's awesome, because it doesn't necessarily happen every day. Long story short, it's important to know what makes your body feel good.

So there's the short (ish) list, but the point of all this is the importance of being healthy in college. When you're surrounded on one side by school/responsibility, and on the other by friends/fun, it can be easy to justify behavior that doesn't serve your mind or body well. But at the end of the day your body keeps your heart beating, and your mind keeps you happy and focused. 

Cheers to practicing self-care to the best of our abilities! Thanks for reading.

P.S. - I really like this video, and it's somewhat related to self-care. It's about being alone, but the woman in the video covers a lot of self-care topics and offers good habits to practice. Check it out!

Works Cited

Hyde, A. L., Conroy, D. E., Pincus, A. L., & Ram, N. (2011). Unpacking the Feel-Good Effect of Free-Time Physical Activity: Between- and Within-Person Associations With Pleasant-Activated Feeling States. Journal Of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 33(6), 884-902.