On April 10^th, 2012 the First Annual Celebration of Service was held.  The event was set up in the F-wing Atrium in front of the library.  Group of students presented their own or their club’s ideas and achievements in service learning and helping out their community in various ways.  On group presented Anti-Hunger, made up of many different clubs that worked in soup kitchen to help feed the hungry.  The Circle K club was there, showing their many achievements in service learning.  One group called Books Without Borders showed their work in collecting old books to send to less fortunate countries so they have the same learning opportunities as us.  The Eastern Service Workers Association was there, showing their work in preserving the livelihood of the working class.  There was also a poster their showing the work that was done by Habitat for Humanity in their alternative spring break.  There were even a few posters there about things at Stockton like how the school caters to people with disabilities, resources at Stockton, how to concentrate to study better, and how to deal with stress.  One fellow Honor freshmen, Angelica Pezzino, was presenting her service project which was the Celebration of Creativity Student Art Show through the Jersey Shore Children’s Museum. One section of the project is pre-K, daycare, and elementary school classes competing in an art contest to win a trip to the museum.  Angelica’s part of the project is the poster contest which is aimed more at college art students.  The winner of this gets their poster on the next issue of Jersey Shore Family and on the Atlantic Shore Living Website.  This project keeps creativity alive in schools in order to help children learn and become more interested in expressing themselves.

A few days ago, one of the students that I work with at the tutoring center asked me to go a dinner with her. She said her friend had given her two free tickets and wondered if I would like to enjoy a nice free Italian dinner. Baffled that no one else had taken her up on that offer, I said sure, thinking free food is great and now this is even Italian free food. So I agreed to meet her at 6 in the campus center.
Standing outside, I realized it was supposed to be a relatively dressed up event. Given that I had just found out about the dinner a few hours earlier and I was a commuter and didn’t have a chance to go home and change, I forgave myself for my lack of looking formal and instead showing up in jeans. Then I realized, it wasn’t just any dinner. It was a dinner for the HERO campaign. I had seen the Be a Hero stickers a few places around campus but I had never really given them much thought. There was a good crowd there. Then people started talking about the campaign and how it is about promoting having designated drivers in order to prevent car accidents and reduce death because of that. The founders had lost their son because a drunk driver had hit him when he was on his way home for his mother’s birthday.
It was an important cause, and the dinner was there to honors students that had worked hard to be a hero and to do the most in order to help their friends stay safe after parties or any events when they were having a good time. The founders emphasized that they were not there to discourage us about having a good time, but rather there to encourage us to make good decisions and plans in order to stay safe while having a good time.
The food of course was wonderful. Three different types of pasta and really good bread and some meatballs and some great salad. Overall, I was grateful I went and learned about this campaign and I hope they can grow and raise awareness at more campuses like they said they were planning on doing so.

Today I attended the Day of Scholarship. On my drive to school I was telling my best friend about it and she seemed very excited as well. She was telling me about how one of her friends from her singing group was presenting his project that he had been working on for a long time and that it had turned into this very big and complicated thing. Then she tried to explain it to me and with the lack of her science background, it turned out to be a really funny and confusing explanation. But she raised some interesting points that I had to go find out what this was all about.
The name of the project was Investigating Underwater Acoustics and it was about how sound could travel faster in water because the molecules are closer to each other and therefore sound can bounce off of them at a faster rate and travel faster. The presenter was explaining how that’s why in the old times when people wanted to hear when their enemies were coming in a war, they would put their ears on the ground because sound travels even faster through a solid material whose molecules are even closer and therefore the generals would be able to tell how far away the enemy is and how fast they are approaching. I thought that was really interesting.
Then he went on and talked about how at a certain frequency the wavelength of a wave is as long as the length between our two ears. At this frequency then, we have a hard time locating where the sound is coming from. In other frequencies, the wave lengths differ and we hear the sound faster in one ear than the other because there is a distance difference and so the waves reach one ear slightly faster than the other ear. This small fraction of time difference helps us locate sound and tell where they are coming from. But when the wavelength is as big as our face, then we get confused because whether the sound came from left or right, we heard it in both ears at the same time so we don’t know which way it actually came from.

This is a blog about what it’s like to be a math and science tutor at the tutoring center in J-wing, the process involved with applying and what tutor training is like.
First things first, to be a math or science tutor, you have to have a passion for the subjects and be interested in helping other understand some of the complex ideas involved with these subjects. You do not have to know both math and science. We have all sorts of tutors involved with their own specialties. For example, I’m mostly a science tutor but I help out with math when I can, however there are people at the tutoring center that are far more qualified to help with math than me. The tutoring center is one of the friendliest environments at Stockton. Everyone is nice and willing to help. If you’re interested you have to talk to Luis Pena and ask for an application. Then there is an interview process and if you do well you’ll be hired.
Your first semester you will be working as well as going through tutor training. Tutor training is the most fun training you’ll ever have in your life. We talk about big issues that come up, do role play, draw and when you’re done you get to some arts and crafts. I’m going to keep this vague because I don’t want to give away the surprises of tutor training. But it’s not hard at all, its just fun. Meanwhile you get to start working at the tutoring center and you are paid. They are very flexible around your hours and I say that because I had a very filled schedule and they still managed to work around my schedule and give me the hours I needed. I think that’s a very important quality that they are willing to work with you rather than against you because it creates a comfortable and nice environment to work in. I personally love being a tutor and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in helping others. Some of the subjects we tutor include all levels of chemistry and biology, a whole ton of math and computer science, including statistics and business and economics related things. So stop in, we’re all the way at the end of lower J-wing.

This is about being a Teacher’s Assistant and the process involved with that. First you have to have taken the class you will be TA-ing for and also the lecture that comes with the class and have a grade of A (ok, this part I don’t remember, it’s either A- and above or A alone) in both. Then I recommend getting your schedule for spring together before approaching the teachers because you want to make sure the lab you are planning on TA-ing for is going to fit into your schedule without any conflicts.
Next you want to approach the professor and ask them if they need a TA. In some cases, their sections might be full so you want to make sure that they are free and that they want you. Then when you get an OK from the professor there is some paper work involved and paper work is always annoying and never fun BUT keep in mind the end goal. The end goal is fun.
I TA for Dr.Wohlrab for chemistry 1 and it is a lot of fun. If you are prepared and know your stuff, this will be a stress-free job. You basically go around and help the students individually and make sure that they are doing ok. Sometimes you get to do cool things like throw really reactive metals into water and watch them blow up! I have to be honest and say that out of the two and something hours that I’m there, I’m laughing for 95% of the time. As the TA you kind of get to set the mood in the room. Wohlrab is awesome and kind of gives me my own space and lets me do my thing, but other teachers are good too, which brings me to my second TA job for Dr.Baranowski and Bio 1.
This lab is different only because it is a group setting. It’s more open and you’ll have to walk around less and you’ll be helping three people at once instead of 1 but its always fun. The biology labs I would say are a little easier because you get to work with other people and so you have three minds working at once, whereas in chem lab its just you. Either way, I suggest being a TA to anyone who is interested because it is a really FUN job. I also recommend Dr. Baranowski too because she’s super nice and organized and again lets you do your own thing and help out. It’s good when the teachers let you have some charge because you get more of an experience helping kids and you’re more involved.
one last thing: these go as zero credit courses on your transcript.

Dr. Heather Boschey, a Stockton College Alumni, now works for the center of American Progress in Washington, D.C. She is a senior economist and her presentation was about the differences of men and women concerning the job world. She mentioned that over 50% of women make up workers in the U.S. and women are becoming breadwinners and co-breadwinners, but there is still a salary gap. A woman breadwinner by definition is a single working mom, or a married woman that is bringing in as much or more than her spouse. Women have been taking an advantage and gaining educational attainment over men, but are still getting paid more for the same job. Does that make sense? Two qualified individuals with their pay being different due to their gender. The career wage gap over a 40 year period causes women to make $400-$500 thousand dollars less than men over a lifetime. What would these women be able to do with that extra half a million dollars? Send their children to school? Live in better houses?

Then Dr. Boschey talked about the recession and recovery of the 2008 Recession. There was a $787 billion dollar recovery and reinvestment act set in place by the Obama administration. A lot of state and local government jobs were lost. The U.S. is starting to slowly see a rise in jobs and a decrease in unemployment, but that is only growing very slowly and should be increasing 300% more than what it is. This is a serious problem for the country because another recession in the next decade would be detrimental.

Boschey did an excellent job with her presentation. She was extremely clear in her speech, very organized, and did not read straight off of the PowerPoint. She did a Q and A session and had an answer to every question that came her way. She is very knowledgeable and that is important when you are presenting because you do not want to look uneducated. I am very glad I had the opportunity to attend this presentation because I learned a lot. She opened my eyes to see how effected the average U.S. citizen’s life was effected by the recession.

On April 3, the Annual Multicultural Dinner, sponsored by Multicultural Connection, occurred in the Campus Center Event Room.  This event was free, though donations for the KONY 2012 campaign for Invisible Children were taken.  While I had not initially been planning to go, I’m happy I did, for it was a very fun night full of different foods and entertainment!

At the tables a few little things from different cultures.  There was Japanese Pocky, German Merci chocolate, a Dutch coffee candy, and fortune cookies.  The real food for dinner was also just as diverse!  There was some Chinese beef, a Spanish rice dish, and more!

Once our food had been happily eaten, the entertainment began!  The entertainment consisted of dances from a variety of cultural.  An Asian club at another school did a Chinese New Year (Dragon) dance complete with dragon costumes and a beating drum.  They also did a dance to an American song and a waltz to a Chinese one.  There was some hip hop by an African-American dance company, some various Spanish dances including one used for zumba, one girl belly-danced, and more!

Also, prizes were given away at a raffle.  They were little banks shaped like globes, so that really brought the theme together!  The event ran for 2 hours with all of these things going on, and it really was amazing!

This experience was like no other.  I saw dances and heard music from other cultures that I may not normally have seen and heard.  While I listen to Japanese music, I don’t usually listen to much Chinese or Spanish music, so this was a great time to expand my music base. I would definitely recommend this for anyone looking for a fun, free night!  I will definitely return next year.

I am a commuter. I am a movie lover. I did not know that Stockton had movie nights on Thursdays and Saturdays and when I found out, I sure freaked out. I think for anyone who doesn’t know about this, I hope you read this blog, or some other blog that tells you about it because its just such a fun thing to do (for movie lovers) that I just decided to write this blog as another way to get the word out to those of you who didn’t know.
I took my brother Ilia; he’s nine, to the Cars 2 movie night. He had a great time. I don’t think you are limited to just taking Stockton students. I think its open to the public but only Stockton students get the raffle tickets. Now not only is the movie free, they give you a snack, they give you a drink, they give you a free raffle ticket, then they raffle off more free stuff, and they even had cookies. It doesn’t get better than this. Now they show the same movie on Thursday and Saturday so if you have a busy day on Friday then you have that Saturday option. Or if you just want something to do, on a boring Saturday night then head on over to the Campus Center theatre at around 8 cause the movie starts at 8:30 and you want to get good seats.
I just want to thank who ever that came up with this cause I’m personally going to try and go to as many as I can. I hope at least one person benefited from this by learning about the movie night on Thursdays and Saturdays. If you go online and write “movie night” in the search box on Stockton.edu you can find a list of movies that they are showing on each date. I’m pretty sure Harry Potter is going to be shown really soon, just letting you Harry Potter fans know.

Let me begin by saying, I personally love all types of social gatherings. That does include dances. The Osprey’s ball overall was very nice. I feel like more people could have gone out of their way to match the 70’s theme, but its alright that they didn’t.
I’m going to try and recreate the night for those of you who did not go, or for those of you who did not know what to expect and want to know for next year. It took place in the Campus Center Event Room, so having it be a nice location was a given. The tickets were very cheap, even for someone spontaneous like me who had to buy it at the door for double the regular price. But if you are a planner, they were only 5 dollars! I think for those of us straight out of high school, and having the memory of prom in our minds: Five dollars is nothing. They were taking free photos and printing them out for us. You could pick from multiple frame designs and pose with your friends or your date. There was only one person taking pictures so the line for it did move slow, but since it was something fun to do, most of us didn’t mind.
The food was good. I personally enjoyed the chicken. I heard a hot dog spontaneously caught on fire. I kind of wish I could have witnessed that in person, but we cant get everything we want. The DJ wasn’t my favorite because he switched up the songs too fast, but that was a minor detail. The important thing was that you were surrounded by your friends and just having fun.
As for my favorite parts: The decorations were adorable and we could all take a little key chain home. The Cake, well the tiramisu was absolutely amazing. My one regret is not going back and getting more of it, because it was just divine. Overall, I think this is a great experience and a fun opportunity to get dressed up and have some fun with your friends.