My first volunteering experience since joining the Stockton Community took place last Saturday, the 10th of September at the Noyes Museum of Art. The Day of Service brought Stockton students together through various service projects around the area. By helping many different organizations, from a Wildlife Refuge to the Absecon Light House, the students of Stockton were truly able to reflect on the idea that individuals coming together and offering help can truly make a difference.

My specific task was to help organize and clean the Noyes Museum in Oceanville, New Jersey. When my group first arrived, we were greeted by the museum manager who explained the various jobs that he needed us to do around the museum. I started to assist in cleaning the windows, tables, and chairs. The manager was grateful for any help that we could provide, regardless of how big or how little. Some other people in my group aided in pulling the weeds outside in the museum’s front garden. Ultimately, our team helped in enhancing the aesthetics of the museum to make it enjoyable for the visitors and less work for those working there.

Overall, the Day of Service was a rewarding experience. The students had the opportunity to meet new people by working together and cooperating with others at the different service areas. In addition, it was pleasant to meet the people who we were assisting and to see how much they appreciated the help given to them. It is essential for the community to lend a hand in aiding others every so often. There are many different organizations that could benefit from even a small amount of volunteering. Students can effortlessly find one that appeals to their interests which makes helping out more enjoyable and satisfying.

I’m sure at one time in their college experience, all students have experienced boredom.  What people choose to do with this boredom, however, is the difference among many students.  One Saturday, some of my friends and I were going through this.  We were bored, so we decided we wanted to go to some kind of haunted house, cemetery, or  something similar.  Being honors students, we had just finished reading Nelson Johnson’s Boardwalk Empire, so when we saw Jonathan Pitney’s house come up on a website listing local haunted places, we decided that we had to go!

Of course, we had to go late at night to hopefully experience some ghosts and get really freaked out.  At around twelve thirty in the morning, we all piled into our friend’s minivan and made our way to Pitney’s house.  We did get lost on the way there and drove by it several times before discovering which one it was, but eventually we got there.  Because the house was on the corner of a main street, we had to park on the side street, in the parking lot of a cemetery which was ominous in itself.  After looking around in the cemetery for a bit, we made our way over to the Pitney house.  However, it was not what we expected.  We expected to find the house to be extremely old, possibly quite deteriorated, in a desolate area.  The actual Pitney house is in a residential neighborhood and is kept in good condition.  There are people living in it, so it must be recently renovated.  The house is unique in that it is built to be much squarer than the more modern houses around it, and it also has three stories which are rare to see nowadays.  Also, above the final story, there is a small, lookout tower on the top, at least that’s what it looked like to me.  Whatever one would call it, they are not frequently seen on most houses.  Because there are people living in the house, unfortunately, we were not able to sneak around and get close.

On our way back from the Pitney house, we went through the cemetery again.  This time we found the Leeds’ family graves, Leeds, as in Jimmie Leeds, the farmer who owned all the land in this area and sold it to Pitney.  There were very recent graves from the Leeds family all the way up to graves that were no longer readable. Several of the older graves were also sunken into the ground; one was over three quarters of the way in the ground, completely unreadable.  We could not find the original Jimmie Leeds gravestone, so I assumed that this almost completely sunken grave had a good chance of being his.

Even though the Pitney house was not what I had expected, getting to see it and experience a part of this area’s history that I had read about was very interesting.  The Leeds’ graves were an added bonus!  We had no intention of looking for or finding these, but it was another interesting piece of history to experience. This was definitely a better way to cure our boredom than just watching a movie.

Starting college, for anyone, is a bit nerve-racking. Although at Stockton we were offered to participate in a program that took a little bit of the curiosity off the first day of school- The Honors Experience. All incoming freshmen were welcomed to spend one night in a dorm so they could get a feel as to what they were in for. That does not nearly explain the things done in our two days together. From greetings all the way until the last icebreaker, the Honors Experience did not allow for a dull moment. When we arrived, we were directed into a building that we all know now as the TRLC. Upperclassmen handed out water bottles and name tags. After this moment, the day quickly took off.
All the students and our parents were directed to an area in the new campus center. This is where we ate and some of the students began to mingle. Little did I know at the time, but I met some people who were going to be great friends. Next we all went our separate with our parents for the brief time we had left with them. This consisted of sitting through several extremely motivating speakers. The speakers, knowing that we were all incoming freshmen, gave us great views on the program and ways to start off the year with success. They made me excited and grateful that I chose Stockton.
Next were the Irish dancing and icebreakers. After we each briefly introduced ourselves we were unreadily pushed into the dances. They were crazy but each student could not help but laugh throughout them. Icebreakers continued to keep us opening up to each other. Volleyball also shared the same purpose. We were not told to play volleyball but we all wanted to; the beginning of the bonding of the honors students. Overall the overnight honors experience gave new students a positive attitude on what their college experience was going to be like.
-Victoria Starner

I had the privilege of moving into Stockton two weeks earlier than most other freshmen by attending Stockton’s preseason, or camp for cross country.  Preseason started on August 17^th and ended on September 3^rd.    It was the most exciting, nerve wracking, physically taxing, and rewarding two weeks I have ever experienced.  When I arrived on the first day, I was beyond nervous.  I ran track for thirteen years of my life and cross country for four years of my life, but felt like none of that would prepare me for what I was about to endure.

The first two days of preseason were spent learning about NCAA rules and regulations, health, nutrition, Stockton’s athletic program and all it does for student athletes.  We also underwent various tests and physicals to ensure we were healthy enough to compete for the fall season.  After all that was well and done, we were able to begin practices.  The cross country team practiced twice a day, Monday through Saturday.  We would start off our morning practices with a two lap warm up around the track then get right down to our form drills.  Then we would typically do speed work on the track, followed by a 4k through the woods to cool down.  Our practices in the afternoon consisted of long runs through the beautiful trails on Stockton’s campus and core work.

After our afternoon practice, the team would get  together for dinner and hang out for the rest of the night playing games, going bowling, and enjoying each other’s company.  The guys and girls teams are a close knit group, like a big family.  Our love for running forms a unique bond that makes us so close.  I instantly felt welcomed to the team and became a part of the family. As a freshman, I benefited from this experience because I learned the campus ahead of time so I felt more prepared when classes came around.  I also learned the importance of being disciplined as a student athlete, and how much fun it can be.  I would recommend anyone who likes to run or participate in any sport to try it out and become a Stockton Osprey.

During Welcome Week I attended the monster.com presentation in the Performing Arts Center, along with many other incoming freshman. The presentation consisted of informative videos and an interactive speaker that conveyed information about the Monster website and the current job market.

The speaker told us the specifics about how companies have changed the way they hire employees. Instead of reading each resume, they make a first cut of applicants by their GPA. I found this interesting because I have always been told that having good grades was not the only important thing to have when applying for a job. Some applicants will not get the interview even if they have more experience or more service projects. Furthermore, she told us about the importance of internships. Doing multiple internships during college is the best way to gain experience in an intended field. The speaker also gave us the advice to internship for rival companies in the same field to be able to negotiate salary if both companies offer a job in the future.

Moreover, the videos shown were very informative, while also being entertaining. The
statistics in the first video were extremely interesting.

I enjoyed the presentation because the information about landing a job was extremely updated and helpful, so I felt more confident about getting a job after college. I hope to utilize this information in the future.

On Saturday September 10, 2011, Stockton held its eighth annual day of service.  This day, sponsored by the Office of Student Development, consisted of several different community service projects within Stockton’s campus or near the area.

The day started off with registration and the assignment of the projects.  Afterwards, we filled out a survey that asked us what we hoped to get out of the day.  As I entered the event room to enjoy a continental breakfast, I could see the large group of people already in there, eagerly awaiting a fun-filled day dedicated to service.  Something memorable from that day was when our guest speaker delivered his speech.  He was a first-response firefighter who recounted his experiences of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.  Towards the end of the speech, he stressed the importance of community service and then dismissed us into our groups for the day.

My team, which consisted of myself and six other students, headed to the African American Heritage Museum located in Newtonville, NJ.  Throughout the whole day, we were supervised by Mr. David Pinto, the Director of Stockton’s Library, who is also a member of the board of the museum.  On our thirty minute commute there, he told us how we would be helping the members of the museum unload and take inventory of Jackie Robinson’s memorabilia.  upon arriving there, the founder of the museum, Ralph Hunter, warmly greeted us and without hesitation began to give us a tour.  As he took us around to see some memorabilia of famous African Americans, I could see the joy in his eyes as he proceeded to tell us the significance of the items.  Not only was he excited that we had volunteered to help, but I could sense that he was extremely proud to be collecting some priceless objects in history.  He would have preferred to show us around more, but Mr. Pinto said that we needed to start to work because of the time schedule we were on.

Our team helped life and unload crates of timeless memorabilia with many other volunteers.  As part of the process, we took pictures and accounted for them in inventory until we were finished.  As the day came winding down, some of the volunteers uncovered a signed baseball bat from Jackie Robinson himself, an item so valuable and preserved throughout history from such a major sports icon.  By the end of the day, I realized that I had met some great people from my time spent there and that we had all helped the community.  All the volunteers at the end had a picture taken together in front of some collectibles in the museum.  Before I knew it, it was already time to return to Stockton to reflect on our day and have lunch.

I personally enjoyed myself because I learned a lot about some of the major pioneers in our country during a time of segregation and oppression.  I am very grateful for having had experienced this and I realized how many opportunities there are around Stockton to make a difference and how easy it was to participate.  I look forward to next year’s Day-of-Service at Stockton very much.