As I headed toward my 9:55am Honors Freshman Seminar today, dozens of clubs and extracurriculars were strewed about the halls. Although I was brought up to ignore the countless boardwalk stand attendees and New York City hagglers, I resisted the instinct to walk by. By doing so, I found myself signing up for clubs that I never even knew the school offered while finding the single club I was searching for.

Although I was the Managing Editor for my high school’s school newspaper, I had not considered continuing my amateur journalism career while at Stockton; however, after meeting some of the members of The Argo, I signed up for email notifications and have planned to become a regular writer. I have always been interested in submitting opinion articles to online publications, so I look forward to the criticisms from my peers at Stockton in order to develop my abilities as a writer in the field of journalism.

Outside of writing, my efforts in the vegan movement and my yoga practice consume a significant portion of my time. I had never heard of Stockton having a Holistic Health/Wellness Club and was pleasantly surprised to find a collection of people with my common interest. Upon first looking through the freshman seminars at orientation, I hoped to join a course on holistic health, but did not receive such an opportunity due to the mandatory Honors Freshman Seminar. After finding a extracurricular in the field of my interest, I am glad to be enrolled in a course outside of my comfort zone that is helping me participate in the Honors Program.

Unsure as to whether I would pursue environmental efforts as my service-learning projects in the Honors Program, I knew I wanted to be involved in the school’s garden when I first entered the Get Involved Fair’s halls. I was able to find the garden and sign up for the emailing list right before class started.

I now have new connections to my interests on campus that will hopefully connect me to new people and new opportunities.