The Get Involved Fair, was organized during the beginning of the semester. It was a good way for the freshmen to get to know more about Stockton and it’s lifestyle. The fall Get Involved Fair was held on September 17 – 18, 2013 in the lower part of the college. Over 100 student clubs, Greek organizations, and community service agencies had put up their booths to display their what they in store for the students.

I strolled through the fair twice and, both the times saw something new, clubs I hadn’t seen during the first visit. Going to the fair was really helpful. I discovered about clubs I would not have image about. Stockton has a club about ducks, where they watch ducks. This was very fascinating and interesting. I also, didn’t knew that Stockton had a club for the commuters. I really liked the two girls on the booth about commuters. They gave away so many gold coin chocolates. The SET had also organized free popcorns for the students.

I didn’t sign up for too many clubs. But through the fair found some clubs I had been looking for. I found Circle K and Undergrad PT club. I had been looking for these two clubs but going around and looking for them on campus would have been tedious. But because of this fair it was not very hard to find them.

Some booths were very colorful and bright. They had various colorful objects like posters, shits, ribbons etc. The students at the tables were trying their best to attract the strollers. It almost felt like shopping at a Bazar while walking through the booths that were set up.

I was exposed to a completely different Stockton while walking through the fair. And, also as I went to the fair twice, with two different people, I got to see something different each time. But the fair was a very good medium for the students to connect to the Stockton community.

Mary Roach, the author of Spook: Science Tackles Afterlife, was invited to Stockton for a convocation with the freshmen class and talk to the students about her book Spook. Her convocation was in the Performing Art Centre (PAC) on 26th September, 2013. After reading Spook I was very reluctant to go and listen to a writer who had a very annoying style of wetting. But eventually I did end up going.

I had presumed Mary Roach to be someone who would be old, with her hair already turning grey and someone with a very dull personality. But when I saw her, she was nothing like that. She looked young, fresh and full of energy. She diffused positive aura in the auditorium when she stepped on the stage. Her sense of humor which was not very evident in the book could be clearly sensed in her speech. Also, she was not ashamed to confess that she had never talked in a huge auditorium with a stepwise arrangement like PAC before. She was very friendly and bombastic. Her way of talking was similar to her writing style (she got off track very frequently and easily). But her divergent stories were usually very interesting and funny.

Mary Roach kept on stressing the importance of curiosity during her entire speech and said “Curiosity opens Doors”. This explains the reason why her book Spook was so much in depth. Her curiosity had forced her to look for more and more convoluted facts about afterlife, which made the content of Spook very boring and hard to keep track of. But her speech on curiosity was very enthusiastic and pumped up my energy level.

At the end of her speech Mary Roach wasn’t ashamed to affirm the fact that most of the students didn’t like the ending of the book, and they felt like it debunked her research about afterlife. Addressing that Mary Roach confidently said that she was trying to draw a line between knowing and believing when she presented her side on afterlife, but wasn’t clear enough in doing so. And if given a chance she would like to change it.

Roach is so far one of the most interesting speaker I have encountered. It seemed like she was enjoying every bit of the convocation too. After her talk on Spook, we had questions and answers session too. Students were asking her very random question, not related to the book, and she was very friendly in answering those questions. Sadly, I had to leave the convocation half way through the questions and answers session as I had a class. I wish I could have been there for a longer period of time to be amused by Mary Roach’s enchanting sense of humor.

After her speech, when I re-read certain parts of the book, I picked up the humor behind those snarky comments in her book. This was because now I had a general idea of how Mary Roach talked. I would’ve regretted not attended the convocation. I would now like to attend other guest speakers invited by Stockton, hoping they would be as entertaining as Mary Roach.

The event that I attended was Richard Stockton College’s 10th Annual Day of Service  held on 7th September 2013, starting at 8:00 am. The event was  hosted by the Office of Service Learning. As it was the 10th Annual Day of Service it was pretty unique in the way that the services were at different locations in Atlantic City. The Day of Service was a good way for freshmen to start getting involved. Also, the upperclassmen, faculty and teachers had a good time working as a team for the betterment of the community and its residents.

A lot of service options were available at this year’s Day of Service. It allowed the participants to have the taste of perseverance and patience. It was also a great way to work voluntarily towards one’s area of interest or towards one’s career option or just fell free and pick any activity one wanted to do. Out of the many services available some were; helping out artists on boardwalk with their art exhibition, making blankets, cleaning up for Miss America pageant, painting, getting people registered to vote and many more. It was a good way to give something back to the community, learn new things, develop new skills and most importantly get a chance to make new friends and long lasting bonds.

Narrowing down to my personal experience, I was the part of Do Art group. We were helping the artists who were having an art exhibition at the boardwalk. Initially, my group was told that we were just going to help the artists set up their tables for the exhibition and give them anything if they wanted. But after reaching there I found out there was more to it than just setting up the tables. We sold t-shirts for the organizers of the Do Art event on the boardwalk, it was a hard job. Also, I had to look after a crystal jewelry designer’s table when she left her booth to get her lunch and, in the meanwhile I had to deal with some customers too. We also had to get the people from the other side of the boardwalk towards the art exhibition. As the Do Art event was on the boardwalk it required a lot of walking in the scorching sun.

Eventually it was a fun experience for me and other students who were a part of Do Art. I learned how important it was too be patient while selling those t-shirts and also how to keep customers busy and engaged while looking after the jewelry designer’s booth. After the event our group had a small reflection session and then we just took the bus back to Stockton and dispersed. Stockton arranges a couple of more Day of Services around the year which I’m looking forward to attend.

On April 8th, 2014 Dr. Michele Barrett-Ross came to the Honors monthly meeting to give a presentation on her volunteering work she had done outside of United States. Dr. Michele,  a veterinary, received her vet degree from Cornell University, and currently works in upstate New York. She had volunteered overseas in Tanzania. She explained her journey and experience in Tanzania in the presentation.

Dr. Barrett was not giving her dream to visit Tanzania to serve the community. So during her graduate school she started looking into various volunteer organizations. She came across an organization called Global Volunteers, and that was her first step towards her dream. Her journey started from Dar es Salam, with no luggage. She never received her luggage on the airport.

After reaching Tanzania, she was startled to see the difference between the two countries, United States and Africa. On one there was a fully flourished, nourished and educated society (United States) and on the other side there was Tanzania, with no meaningful recourses. On reaching Tanzania, the volunteers were divided into groups and allotted tasks as per the need of the area.

Dr. Barrett was assigned with the construction team. They had to build a building upto its roof starting from the base. She also mentioned stories and happenings with her during her stay at Tanzania. She mentions a story were a African kid sees her and starts crying as he had never seen a white person in his entire lifetime. She continues, and says that things that are ordinary and usual around different parts of the world are actually not even existing for certain people in certain parts of the world.

During the QnA session one of the students asked her the cost of the trip and how much should one expect to have before they plan an oversees volunteers work? To which she replied about $5000 to $6000 for about 4 week trip. It is a quite a lot of money for some people, but at the same time there are people like Dr. Barrett who are doing everything possible to give it back to the society.

Before ending her presentation Dr. Barrett mentioned how important it was for us (people with resources ) to go and help out the needy. She also said that, volunteer and gong oversees didn’t necessarily need a vet degree. For her it was one of the most memorable events of her life. Also, globalizing and good deeds not only in ones vicinity but beyond ones reach is definitely appreciable.

On Wednesday, Sept. 18  2013 at 6 p.m. Stockton celebrated the 9th Annual Constitution Day by inviting Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center to Stockton to talk with the faculty, students, staff and members of local community. The event was organized in the Campus Center Event Room. The number of individuals who attended the event was outstanding. It was not only Stockton students but also the people from the surrounding neighborhood.

Jeffery Rosen was introduced by President Herman Saatkamp. Rosen mainly talked about the breaching of  privacy, security and other constitutional issues due to the increase in technological fields.  Adding to that he said these breechings are also demising the importance of  1st Amendment. He also openly and firmly stated how the naked body scanners that travelers had to pass through at airports were wrong.

Jeffery Rosen was concerned about the future. He said that with advancement in the technology terms like privacy would be irrelevant.  He said that once drones and camera surveillance would be prevalent in the society, the citizens would lose their personal freedom.  The way he expressed his thoughts was very impressive.

I wasn’t expecting to be so much interested in the speech. Being a Biochemistry Molecular Biology major, there were some political terms and definitions that I couldn’t grasp.  I attended the event just to fulfill the dialog session requirement of Honors, but I’m glad that I  had an opportunity to listen to the thoughts of a respectable and known citizen, Jeffery Rosen.

School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics organized the NAMS Poster Display on 25 April 2014, at Stockton College in lower C/D Atrium. The students in NAMS program have to get involved in research in their junior and senior year, and during the display they explain and introduce the audience to their project and their development.

NAMS Poster Display, is a good opportunity for the freshmen and sophomores to get information about the research they are interested in and would like to peruse in the later years of college. Being a Biochemistry Molecular Biology (BCMB) major I decided to walk around the atrium to have a look around the different researches that were being presented. I was surprised by the turnout of students. The presenters as well as students were exited. The first project that caught my attention was Analysis of the Effects of External Electrochemical Charge on the Astrangia poculata Transcriptome. The project was using electric charge to speed up the growth of corals. Corals are very important for the environment and if they go endangered a lot of other water species would go extinct with it. It was an attempt to improve the lives of corals.

There were a total of 55 presenters, but due to lack of time I could not learn about all the presentations. The few other ones that I went to were Streptobacillus moniliformis Genome Annotation Project, DNA Sequencing and Analysis of New Jersey Coastal Corals and The Comparative Analysis of BCAA Content in Whey, Protein Supplements and Fresh Milks. All the researches were very interesting and fun to know about.

The idea as a whole to display the projects done by the upperclassmen is very helpful. It gave me an idea as to how I should now start fishing for research projects that interest and inspire me. It was a very fruitful one hour spent.

Nelson Johnson, the author of Boardwalk Empire came to Stockton on 1st November 2013, to talk to the Honors freshman class. The students of the Honors class had to read his book Boardwalk Empire for the class. I was looking forward to this talk as I had enjoyed reading his book and wanted to know how he personally was.

Nelson Johnson, opened up the conversation with explaining the main reason behind writing the Boardwalk Empire. He said the before Boardwalk Empire the history of Atlantic City was only talked about in components and pieces. There were not any book on the complete history of Atlantic City. So, he decided to do an extensive research on the history of Atlantic City when he was perusing his career as a lawyer, and in the meanwhile compiled his findings into a book.

After his small talk when he asked the students if they had questions, majority of the questions were about the HBO series Boardwalk Empire based on his book. He very serenely answered all the questions. He also told that he really likes the HBO series even though it was not following his book anymore. Additionally, he also said that he got a copy of the script of the program before it aired. This was not because the television crew was asking for his approval but rather he merely asked for the script and that is why he got the script of the  TV series. He was very easy going about the fact that the TV channel wasn’t asking for his approval.

Also, after the talk session he very happily signed the books the for everyone. Unfortunately I had rented by book, and didn’t own it, so couldn’t get his autograph on the book. But otherwise it was a very successful and fruitful talk session presented by Nelson Johnson and I would thank the Honors Program that they arranged the meet and greet.

Stockton hosted the 3rd annual Celebration of Service on 17th April 2014. It was organized by the office of Service Learning. The event was organized to feature the service projects done students, clubs and academic departments from 2013-2014. It was held from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm in the F-wing on campus.

I was expecting a large number of organizations and tables to be presenting and tabling for clubs. But there were not quite as many. There was on by Circle K, one by office of service learning and couple of other by other organizations.

I saw of my friends presenting at a table, so I stopped by to ask about what it was. She was presenting about a underwater robot they were making for a competition called sea perch. I had heard about the competition in high school, so was quite familiar with the idea. They also had a robot that they had made out on the table. It was made to work in water so all that would happen when you move the controller was it would make a large noise. She also explained how different groups would make different robots in her class.

The other tables didn’t have representatives, they merely had posters that displayed the money they raise, pictures of their service and other events they organized throughout the year. But there was no one to talk about their tasks and events they did.

I didn’t see a lot of students at the Celebration of Service. I thought there would a lots if clubs and organizations and it would resemble the Get Involved Fair. I was a bit disappointed. But again maybe because it was end of the semester, I guess I didn’t see a lot of students. It was non when I went there, so probably students were attending lectures and I didn’t them. I hope I can see more tables and organizations promoting next year, and get more insight into the services they have been doing.

Muslim Student Association (MSA) organized Islam Awareness Week at Stockton. It began from Tuesday, 15 April 2014 and lasted till 20 April 2014, and the students organizing the event did various activities to spread awareness about the Muslim community and Islamic religion.

I had read about the events around the campus on TV screens but didn’t think about attending their table. But on Thursday of the same week, when I was working at the tutoring center, my colleagues walked in with stuffed animals. They said a table was giving away stuffed animals just down the hallway. So, me and my other friends who were working decided to go and check. It turned out to be the MSA.

The MSA was promoting their event, they would interact with the students who would stop by their table and talk to them about their religion. They had free food and drinks. The best part about their table was the stuffed animals, but it wasn’t easy to get them. They would ask a basic question about their Islam and the right answer would get you a stuffed animal. Students were swarming around their table. Before one would leave the MSA representative would ask the student to write down one daily struggle on a piece of paper and they would stick it on a poster that read, “what is Jihad?”

One of my friends was a member of the MSA. I bumped into her the day after I went to the MSA table with stuffed animals. She told me they did other events earlier in the week as well and they were surprised by the large response as well. They did an event where they would show girls how to tie a hijab. The MSA did a great job in promoting and educating people about the Jihad they hear and see about on TV related to terrorism is not the only Jihad.

Stockton, is a very diverse school. When minorities organize events and spread awareness about their communities, unity in diversity is established. MSA worked really hard behind this event. The student representatives were studying for their finals and preparing for the table at the same time. It was a great initiative

Two service projects are required for honors students each semester. My first project was MLK Service day held at Stockton. For the second one I chose to go the Animal Shelter and help  them out. It was an honors service project. We visited the Animal Shelter on 12 April, 2014.

Surprisingly, all the students who decided to volunteer for the service project were girls. We left Stockton at 8:30 am for the Animal Shelter. After reaching there the lady who was in charge of the  shelter walked us around the location and explained the things she wanted us to do. She needed us to work both inside and outside the shelter house. So we split up in groups. I chose to stay inside.

The group inside had to clean all the doors and glasses of the shelter house. It didn’t take us too long to do that. Our team was very fast and efficient. Also, the group outside was done with picking up trash and dog feces around the shelter house. We were done very quickly with that. Then we didn’t have anything to do. All the volunteers had to sit around for about 30 minutes  and wait. After that, we were assigned easy tasks like, collecting trash from all the trash cans in the center, do laundry, fill up cat litter boxes etc. But again we were done with all that very quickly. Volunteers had lots of free time at the shelter house as there wasn’t much to do early in the morning.

But then at noon, we had to feed all the cats. That was the best part of the activity. Some cats were very friendly – would jump on the volunteers as soon they opened the box – and some were very shy – they would go to the corner of  box. It was extremely enjoyable feeding and playing with the cats and kittens.

One of the last things we had to do before we leave was to mop the front hall and clean the bathrooms. Team work was very important for all the projects, and we worked very efficiently as a team and got done with everything very quickly.  All the volunteers did their part and completed all the assigned tasks. We took a group picture at the end and headed back for Stockton.  Also, all the employees working there very thankful and pleased with our service.