As a member of the honors college, it is essential to complete community service to help those in the community. One of the ways I volunteered this semester was by helping raise money for Stockton’s Global Health Team. In order to do this, I went with other members of the club to the Shoprite in English Creek to help the cashiers and bag groceries for customers. Many people were generous enough to donate to the cause. The money raised goes toward the Global Health Team’s annul trip to a country in need of medical assistance. There they bring supplies and assist the doctors and other organization to provide care for the citizens. Last year, they traveled to Nicaragua to help care for the people there. The location for this year’s trip has not yet been determined, but it essential to start the process of raising awareness and funds for the trip as soon as possible.

My time volunteering was spent bagging groceries to raise money for the club. This allowed me not only the chance to help out the club and raise money, but also to be able to interact with others in the community outside of the campus. I look forward to having the opportunity for volunteer for more events sponsored by this club, as I think it is a really important cause.

In the beginning of the semester, there was a panel consisting of eight students that had attended either the Republican National Convention or the Democratic National Convention. These students were accepted into a twelve day seminar where they were required to carry out certain tasks for the convention. I learned how over the course of time, the nature of the conventions have changed. Originally, they were for each party to come together and vote on one person to represent them in the election. Now they are mainly used to advertise the nominee and put on a show that the entire party supports the nominee. This is because the citizens feel more compelled to vote for someone who has the support of their party rather than a person that does not have the backing of whom they are representing. In order to maintain this front of unity, there are many things that go on behind the scenes to ensure that there will be no displays of support for another candidate. For example, all the signs that viewers see on television are made to look like people brought them, but actually, these signs are pre-made and handed out for people to hold. Similarly, booing and negative comments towards the nominee are drown out by shouts of support and praise for them so that there is not an image of the party not agreeing with the nominee. The topic of a third party was also discussed and the conventions basically make it so that the third party never has a chance of publicizing their candidate as much as the main two democratic and republican parties. They could never raise enough money to host a convention, and this is why that it is unlikely a third party candidate would ever win the election. This event opened my eyes to the techniques that modern politics use in order to sway voters one way or another and I think that more events like this would be beneficial to the common voter.

Welcome week is the first series of events that students at Stockton attend. This year it took place from September 2^nd to September 5^th. It introduces students to one another as well as to Stockton. All of the mandatory events not only informed students of the policies of the school, but were entertaining and promoted making friends with new people.

The first event that every student was required to attend was a mixer that introduced people through ice breakers. Although it was strange at first, it promoted meeting new people and moving out of the comfort zone of those that people already knew. It definitely made sense that this was a mandatory event for freshman, as it was a fun way to kick off the start of our time here at Stockton.

I think that the most important mandatory event was the Maximize Your Buzz presentation. As a college student, it is wise to understand and be smart around alcohol, even if they do not plan on drinking. This presentation provided information about alcohol in a realistic manner instead of using scare tactics. The presenter did not try and sway people not to drink, but instead swayed them to drink responsibly.

Although there were many more events that the freshman were required to attend, these were the two that I found the most helpful and important to a student’s first year at Stockton. The events of Welcome Week were all informative, and next year they should keep the events the same as they were this year.