HVZ is the acronym for a game that I played for the entire first week of November. The game is called Humans Vs. Zombies and was sponsored by the Live Action Games Club here on campus. Overall it was a positive experience and made me consider leadership positions in the club. The event itself was fun, but the most important take away was a great ice breaker/networking event with both students like me and chair members of the LAG club.

The game consisted of two teams of players: the humans and the zombies. The humans had a green armband on always and usually carried nerf guns or socks to use against their “attackers.” The zombie team had their headbands on their head and attempted to tag human players to turn them into zombies. The goal was for the humans to survive the week without being tagged, and the zombies had to try and stop them. Anywhere and anytime outside was fair play area, which made the event incredibly nerve racking. A threat could be right around the corner wherever. With nerf guns and socks, however, humans had the obvious advantage in both numbers and range to start. Starting Monday, there was a nightly mission that all humans had to attend where they had to perform various tasks under the pressure of zombies who had their own intentions. I stayed a human through Thursday night (the last night) and thus mostly got to see things from the perspective of the humans. Missions consisted of defending people, finding things, or walking through dark areas of campus.  Even in the face of looming danger, I met several new friends that I am now connected with, and while we walked, we sang songs and shot zombies. As a freshman, getting involved with clubs is hard for me, but this event made breaking the ice incredibly easy for me. Nothing bonds people like walking in the dark with people jumping out of nowhere. I also met Josh and Ryan, the President and Vice President of the club, who gave me their contact information to stay engaged throughout next semester and run for the Public Relations position in the club. This will not only look good on a resume, but will also further prepare me for PR work in the Communication fields I plan to go into. Running from zombies is also a major work out. Between shivering in the cold and running, I feel like I am ten pounds lighter!

Overall my experience was amazing, and I would recommend it to anyone who needs help feeling included and active. This club is very laid back, and I plan to join in on their game of Assassin that should be starting sometime next February. Of course, I will also be taking part in the second semester session of HVZ.

The eighth of October marked an important day in my college career. That Sunday was the day I premiered my radio show on 91.7 WLFR, Stockton University’s radio station. This is a long-term event however, so I will talk solely about the first day of being on air and my training. Overall, this organization has had a positive impact on my college career and has shown me the real-life implementation of the theory I am learning in my communication major classes. I went into this experience with incredibly high hopes and then was able to do exactly what I wanted, for the most part, creating an almost completely positive experience. The only negative emotions derived from this experience were that I could not dive as deep into this event as I wanted to.

The training for this job was honestly the worst part of the entire ordeal, but was entirely necessary. It consisted of two shadowing opportunities and two board training sessions, all of which lasted approximately two hours. I got to shadow two veteran disc jockeys, Ken and Matt. Both taught me different styles of mixing music and remaining engaging to the audience on air. They also taught me how to mark time and sign setlist sheets that are necessary to catalog the music that I play and the frequency readings of the radio tower. During my time with Matt specifically, we interviewed a local country artist. This gave me the confidence to ask questions during interviews as well as teach me the proper procedure for conducting interviews on my own. The sound board training refers to learning how to mix music on different channels to create a decently paced radio show that sounds passable. This was incredibly boring and difficult for me, considering I was not able to put my own musical stylings into my performance and was constantly nitpicked over tiny mistakes. I also realize the necessity of this and my own need for humility as I learned everything I know, other than music preference, from these short meetings. Arguably, my two shadowing opportunities taught me a great deal about on-air style while the sound board training exercises taught me the technique.

On October 8th, I arrived an hour early for my show, shaking like a leaf. The first step to performing is filling out the papers that are going to be used throughout the show and picking from hundreds of discs to create a setlist for the show. My show, Indie Wave, focuses primarily on indie pop music and vaporwave creating a dreamy tone that goes well with the 10 p.m. to midnight time slot. I also prepared a list of public service announcements, statements to support local and national movements for the sake of charity and warnings. After I had two hours’ worth of content, I plugged my headphones into the soundboard and spent two hours playing music and back announcing the tracks I had played as well as short anecdotes. My experience was amazing and even at midnight I was ready to keep going for hours. Not only was this a medium for me to express my own brand of creativity, it also taught me the technical aspects of running a radio show and being responsible for keeping track of what I did within that show.

My show continues and I take advantage of this opportunity by learning every day from the people at WLFR how to be a better announcer and how to better select tracks. As a communication major, the radio station is an incredible hybrid of work and training that will one day help me get a job in the field of broadcasting.

The Stockton University Day of Service, held on September 9th, was a collection of events which emphasized service projects as well as being in places of leadership in the community. There, I was given the opportunity to be involved in three distinct service projects which each taught an individual lesson about diversity and leadership. As a precursor, I want to be forward that I believe that the effectiveness of the activities was inconsistent and where I gained little from one of them, another one meant a lot to me, and the third had a slight positive impact on me. I overall had a positive and enlightening experience at the Day of Service.

The first event that I took part in first was called “Books Without Borders.” This event consisted of separating and boxing books to be sent to areas less fortunate around the world. While the notion of this is splendid and was the reason I took part in it, I did not take full advantage of the event. My job was tearing old boxes into pieces to be used as packing insulation in the finished boxes of books. While I know this is a critical part of the process, I was disappointed in the fact that I was not more actively involved in processes directly regarding the books. However, this event did show me how much I take textbooks for granted as people in developing nations have use for even outdated and used textbooks. This also humbled me in the fact that I could be involved in the learning process of people who I have never met. A service project at its core is being involved in the betterment of others and I truly believe I was a cog in the machine for change at this event.

I was also given the opportunity to get involved with packaging meals for those who are starving around the world. With several teams of five, we helped package over ten thousand, six serving food systems to be sent internationally. Not only am I extremely proud of being involved in this, but I believe that this service project best represented what volunteer work is: helping others, working diligently, and using teamwork to accomplish something bigger than ourselves. Not only did the food packaging require leadership qualities, but it let me get to know some other Stockton students within my team. I personally added dried vegetables to the food pouch before the package was sealed. I very much enjoyed how this activity was a sort of ice breaker for awkward college freshman, such as myself, as well as a powerful force for enacting change in the world community.

The final event I went to had the least impact on me personally, but was interesting nonetheless. I went to a presentation about drug misuse and learned some of the terms and stigmas associated with drug use in the Atlantic City area. Being new to New Jersey myself, this was a sort of history lesson for me about drugs in different parts of the state and how it differed from Illinois drug problems. As a drug-free student many of the problems of drug misuse do not impact me, but knowing how to spot drug problems and to help those who are misusing drugs is not information I plan to take lightly. Sometimes the catalyst for change in people’s lives is noticing and acting upon the signs they show. This information will lead me to be a more aware and involved student, and further, person, who can enact that change in people’s lives.

I did have to leave early due to family matters and thus did not get to enjoy a fourth event like many of my fellow students, but I believe that this is factor is unimportant. I believe the true nature of Day of Service is to take students and introduce them to a lifestyle incorporating volunteer work and community involvement. Even with three events I am ready to volunteer again and excited to further my involvement in the world community. There is another day of service coming up and I plan to take advantage of the benefits it provides.