On September 16th, and 17th Stockton held their club fair in the academic wing. This was an opportunity for people to become more aware of what Stockton has to offer. The University has diverse opportunities for students to get involved in whatever interests them. The clubs range from fraternity and sorority to the gaming club. The clubs that I went to were Chemistry Society, Physics Society, Admission Ambassador, and the community garden.
Going into the fair being a science major, I knew I was going to sign up for the science societies. Around every month they have a meeting where the club plays around with equipment and has study sessions. What I didn’t expect was that the Admission Ambassadors pulling me over. Ambassadors works with possible incoming freshman by helping them get to know what Stockton has to offer. The table of people were very welcoming and kind. They are trying to get more people involved with the position, especially men because the last graduating Ambassador class had a lot of men. Even though it takes some time to get trained to become an Ambassador, the role can be extremely rewarding, often Ambassadors receive internships and connections when they are working. It is important to find a persons individual voice, this can lead to leadership roles, which is good to put on transcripts. Another perk of joining is that eventually Ambassadors can get paid for helping people out.
The community garden is what a person might expect, growing fruits and vegetables for the school. The club might sound boring to some but I believe it is important for humans every so often to connect to our roots with nature. It is easy to get caught up with the hustle of school and constantly being surrounded by technology. It has been too often that we don’t stop to admire the simple things in life. Nature is so elegant in that it has a very simple look but can be so beautiful and intricate at the same time.
The Get Involved Fair showed me that there is something to offer for anyone. I am looking forward to applying for an Ambassador positon and a start to the different clubs that I signed up for.

On the evening of September 17th, Stockton hosted a course for Training for Intervention Procedures (TIPS). This course’s purpose is to try to prevent over intoxication, underage drinking, and driving drunk. I took this course to make myself more prepared for college drinking and to add TIPS certification to my résumé.
I learned how to properly identify a person who might be in a potentially dangerous situation (involving alcohol), and how to effectively use my people skills to get them to stop drinking. A lot of the class was self explanatory; for example, what is an indicator when a person is heavily intoxicated. But a proportion of the class made me re-evaluate the way I judge and deal with a potentially dangerous situation. One potentially dangerous scenario can be a couple of friends drinking Jell-O-shots in a short sitting when one friend has never drunk before. Another valuable tool to get a person to stop drinking is to distract the person with something they are interested in and slyfully take away their drink so the person can’t get even drunker.
I feel that I learned valuable information that can and will be applied in my lifetime. I am better prepared for scenarios when I am confronted with alcohol and will know when everyone is drinking safely. More people should take this course, for it will be practical information and will make students aware of unsafe/safe drinking conditions. Being certified in this course will save lives of people that have drunk to much.

On September 12, 2015 Stockton University held The Day of Service on campus. This was an event that acclimated the students to community services the school had to offer. One of Stockton’s main goals is to keep us (the students) involved in modern challenges and issues. Stockton had many stations to cycle throughout the day such as Civics, Hunger & Homelessness, along with others. Going to all of the events really showed what community service is really about. Progress in the community should not depend on primarily other people making a change, but should rely on the individual’s participation. As the key speaker Todd Bernstein said, “[The] government won’t help change the nation; it is up to us to make a difference”.
One of the stations that resonated with me was the Water Watch Club. As a child I thought that recycling was important, but it was perfectly OK for me to drink as many plastic water bottles as I wanted. The Water Watch made it clear that we have to reduce the amount of water bottles we use. Water Watch showed us that we (humans) are unintentionally making an island of pure trash because trash is thrown out into the sea and collects in spots. They also touched upon how much energy we are wasting for something that we do not need. It takes 50% of the energy they use to make the bottle and then 45% to transport it to local stores. Everyone nowadays talks about conserving gas and how global warming is a concerning issue. It would make sense that something so simple (switching to reusable water bottles) can help these problems. Tap water is checked more frequently for harmful bacteria then the bottled water companies, and the plastic bottles can contain BPA (that can cause cancer and other heath hazards). It is also much cheaper to use reusable bottles of water that costs pennies to fill up compared to buying a pack of water bottles. It doesn’t make cense to spend more money and waste more energy for something that is potentially more harmful for us.
Another station that surprised me was Join Together Atlantic County (JTAC). Its goal was to spread awareness of drug and alcohol use along with rehab. I knew that the state of New Jersey is generally a safe state, but I didn’t know that the biggest drug was heroin. As most people know, heroin is a very heard drug and would wonder why so many people would be using it. New Jersey has the cheapest and pure heroin in the country, making easy for people to get ahold of it. Trafficking the drug is very easy to do because of our location as a state. The scary fact about this drug is that the deaths of overdosing have tripled since 2010 and happen three times more often then homicides, suicides, and car accident deaths in the State. We all know how many accidents we see on TV but never really hear about people overdosing from this drug.
The Day of Service was really eye opening to me. It made me want to get involved and give back to my community. I am really excited to get involved and make a difference.