I arrived at Stockton unsure of what to expect. There were so many new faces in a place that felt so unfamiliar, a place that I had yet to explore. Although I was immensely excited to embark on a new journey and create a whole new world of experiences for myself, I was also anxious about the instability that comes along with change. Everyone received the key to their new dorm rooms as well as verbal confirmation of which tribe they would be part of during SOAR (Stockton Orientation Adventure Retreat). I was told that I would be part of purple tribe and although I didn’t know what this meant at the time, my first objective was to determine if anyone else I already knew was also on purple tribe. This seemed an impossible task considering that at this point in time I didn’t know many people here at Stockton, but one friend happened to also be on purple tribe. This gave me a comforting sense of security and I proceeded to move my things into my new dorm room.

It seemed like I had just arrived at Stockton and we were already preparing to leave. After being served lunch, we met with our tribes where our TALONS introduced themselves. They would be our tribe leaders for the next few days. They were wonderful at motivating everyone to engage with each other through the use of ice breakers and making new friends became an easy task. We loaded our luggage onto the buses, attended a few presentations regarding the trip, and finally advanced towards Camp Matollionequay where we would be staying from August 28th until August 30th, 2012.

There was so much to take part in at SOAR. Everyone participated in a variety of ice breakers as well as other fun games. Each tribe worked together to create a chant that would be used to express everyone’s pride in their own tribe throughout the trip. Everyone got very engaged and enthusiastic with this. A campfire was held where each tribe acted out a skit pertaining to their experiences at the camp. They were all quite humorous due to the inclusion of various imitations of TALONS and staff members of the camp. In terms of other activities there was swimming, archery, and boating. There were low ropes courses that were used as team building exercises and high rope courses that allowed everyone to test their abilities and face their fears in an effort to have fun. Interestingly enough, it was one of the low ropes courses that resulted in two TALONS falling into a dirty swamp and being covered head to toe in mud. Everyone had such a great time at SOAR and leaving only seemed easy due the desire to no longer sleep in the cabins or take showers with the spiders as well as the knowledge that all the new friends we’d acquired at SOAR were coming with us back to Stockton.

SOAR gave students a chance to connect and make plenty of friends before the start of classes. Stockton staff members as well as those who worked at the camp contributed greatly to the wonderful experience that SOAR continues to be. I would recommend to all incoming freshmen to spread their wings and SOAR right into the beginning of their college experience.

Today I participated in Stockton College Day of Service.  For my service project for the day I decided to help Books Without Borders.  This organization is an on-campus club that collects, sorts and donates books.  The books go to students in third world countries who lack sufficient educational materials.  The hope of this organization is to spread education throughout the world.

During the Day of Service we assisted in the sorting of the donated books.  When I picked this project I was under the impression that we would be inside in the air conditioning while we sorted the books.  However, to my surprise, they walked us outside as soon as we were told to exit the Event Room.  Not only did we go outside, but we walked for quite some time out to trailers that were sitting within the trees.  Once we got to the location of the books we began to move the boxes out of the trailer.  We made an assembly line of people and handed the boxes down.  This worked very well and we were done faster than the coordinators had expected.

After removing the boxes from the trailer, we began to sort them by genre.  At first, the amount of books that there were to sort was intimidating.  However, there were plenty of people who volunteered to help with this event and they were all good at getting the job done.  Soon the many boxes of unorganized books turned into just a few.  Soon after that, the unorganized books were nonexistent and everything was sorted.  A task that seemed at first to be impossible got done quickly because of the hard work of all of the volunteers working on the project.

In the end I was happy to have worked to help Books Without Borders, even if it did mean the project was being held outside.  What this club is doing for the world is something amazing.  Education is one of the most important things for a successful person to have.  By sending these books out to third world countries, Books Without Borders is spreading the wonderful gift of education throughout the world.

Tonight the first and second floors of the Freshman D Building got together to watch 13 Going on 30.  This floor program was put on by our RAs because the movie reflects our move into college.  In the movie, 13-year-old Jenna Rink makes a wish to be 30 years old and she wakes up the next morning as the 30-year-old version of herself.  Almost overnight we went from being children living under our parents’ constant supervision to being almost adults, doing what we want to do with our new found freedom.

Jenna Rink relates to a new college student in that her expectations differ from reality.  Jenna wants to be 30 because of things that she sees in magazines, which glorify that age.  She is having a tough time feeling beautiful and wanted as a 13-year-old and believes that when she is 30 everything will be perfect.  However, when Jenna actually wakes up at age 30 she learns that not everything is as she expected it.  She still has to deal with mean girls, she has to work hard to keep her old friendships and when things get really hard she even winds up going back to her parents for a little while.

Jenna’s shock about what the world of being 30 is like is sort of like the realization of the reality of college.  Throughout all of last year I wanted nothing more than to leave for college.  I wanted to live away from my parents. I wanted to make new friends.  I had this illusion that I was going to be friends with everyone because college meant a new me and I thought I was going to be the best at making friends as this new person.  Now that I am here it is great in many aspects, but I have hit reality in some areas.  I am the type of person who likes to have alone time.  Coming to college did not make me someone who wants to socialize non-stop in order to make friends with everyone.  I still like my alone time.  It is great living away from my parents, but I do miss having my favorite dinner or my laundry magically cleaning itself and sitting there waiting to be folded.  And now that classes have started reality has really hit.  This is school, which means school work and all the stress that comes with it.  This new chapter of my life may be awesome, but it is not going to automatically be as perfect as I imagined it. I am still going to have to work for it.

At the end of the movie we did talk about how it relates to our own lives and the lessons found in 13 Going on 30.  Some of the lessons that appeared in the movie were things such as watch who you choose to be friends with, hold on tightly to your true friends, and do not grow up too fast.  All of these are good to remember as we start this new chapter of our lives.  Watching this movie was the perfect floor program as we start our lives here at Stockton.

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.