University of Richmond

Archive for February, 2009

Great News!!!

February 27, 2009

So, I realized that one week from today is Spring Break. That’s great, right? Well, right when I thought my day couldn’t get any better, it did. BusinessWeek released their annual ranking of Business schools within the United States today and the University of Richmond has soared up the rankings. We are now ranked as the 12th best Business school in the nation. Plus, we continue to be the only top-ranked Business school that is also part of a top-ranked liberal arts university. Over the past few years, we’ve moved from 25th in the rankings to 23rd to 20th and now to 12th. The rankings are a result of nine measures such as student satisfaction, post-graduation outcomes, and academic quality. We tied the prestigious University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School for No. 1 in academic quality. Our Business school also scored the highest-possible marks in both academic quality and facilities and services. The entire campus has been buzzing about it all day. It’s really exciting and has confirmed what us Business students have known all along. The best part is that we are confident that we will go up even higher next year. We have an incredible new Career Development Center, we are starting an addition to the Business School, and we have also had an even more solid year with job placement compared to other schools. Maybe we’ll crack the top 5 or top 10 next year. Who knows?

Besides the great news about our Business school, I also received great news about a potential opportunity for next year. I have been nominated by both my Rhetoric professor as well as the Dean of Richmond College to serve as the student representative on the Board of Trustees. While I have been only nominated and not actually selected, it is still quite an honor.

On the whole, this week has been very quiet for me. While I’ve had my usual meetings, I have had almost no homework. I have finished all of my work until Spring Break except for four midterms during the last three days of next week. I did have one midterm on Monday and that wasn’t very fun, but it’s been rather enjoyable in terms of academics for the past few days.

To celebrate the free time, I went out to eat twice this past week in downtown Richmond. The first time was for Dollar Burger Night at Capital Ale House. It is a regular event for my friends and I. I brought along a few new friends and it was one of the funnest times in quite some time. We all realized that we don’t do it anywhere near enough.

The other meal was at Elephant Thai. I am a member of the Coordinating Team for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of the on-campus religious organizations, and we decided we needed a break from the weekly meetings. So, we went out to eat together. It was really fun and I learned that one of the other members of the team did almost the exact same trip across Europe that I am planning for this summer. So she gave me a few tips and pointers.

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Being silly at dinner
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The Coordinating Team of InterVarsity

That’s all for now, the weekend calls and I’m hoping to relax, yet also finish some major projects that are on the horizon for after Spring Break. Adios.

Quote of the Week: “Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.” -John Witherspoon
Thought to Ponder: Why is there a Chicago law that forbids eating in a place that is on fire? Isn’t that common sense?
YouTube Video of the Week:

Could You Do This? 

Looking Ahead

February 22, 2009

Spring Break is only two weeks away and the only thing separating me from it is five mid-terms. Yep, that’s not going to be fun. I have one tomorrow and four during the last three days before break. However, that’s about all that I have to do. Most of my other homework is already done.

I received great news this week. I was accepted to my study abroad program!!! So, I will spend one month in Madrid this summer at Saint Louis University. After that one month, I will continue traveling throughout Europe on my own for roughly forty days. It’s required lots of work between filling out confirmation forms, finishing my passport application, and getting in deposits, but I’m really excited for this opportunity.

The rest of the week has been busy, but tolerable. The group going on the Alternative Spring Break met for the first time. It was helpful to actually be able to put a face to an application. I also had ten hours of meetings between my other organizations and I served on an Admissions Panel for prospective sophomores and juniors. Through it all, I made sure to save some time for fun.

My friend from Louisiana received a surprise overnight package from home. Her mom had sent her a King Cake to celebrate Mardi Gras. I had never heard of King Cake before, but it’s apparently a famous dessert from New Orleans. She needed some help to finish it all, which is where I came in. It was very tasty.

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King Cake

Most of my other fun events this week revolved around movies. “Quantum of Solace” was playing on-campus at the Pier this week, so I went on Thursday. I was very disappointed with it. Friday night was spent hanging out in a friend’s room and watching “Mighty Ducks 2″, which I hadn’t seen in forever. Finally, the UR students who go to my church were invited to go out for dinner at Coppola’s Deli and then to the Byrd Theater, which is a magnificent, restored theater in downtown Richmond. Every Saturday, they have an organist play a Wurlitzer Organ before the movie begins, which is pretty cool. The movie playing was “Twilight” and it was quite sub-par. One of my friends basically laughed his way through the entire movie because it was so corny. It was still fun to hangout with friends, though.

Lastly, the University of Richmond Law School invited me to attend a Law School Preview Day for undergraduates. I’ve always entertained law school as a possibility, so I attended. It was worthwhile to meet some of the professors and students as well as to sit in on a mock class on intellectual property rights. UR has a cool program that allows undergraduates who get a certain SAT score as well as who maintain a certain GPA here at UR to be automatically admitted to the University of Richmond Law School upon graduation, without taking the LSATs. That’s pretty cool. Though law school interests me, I still have no idea what path I will eventually take, which is starting to scare me because time is flying by so fast. That’s all for this week. Back to studying for tomorrow’s midterm.

Quote of the Week: “Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.” -General George Patton
Thought to Ponder: Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
YouTube Video of the Week:

Questionable authenticity, but well-made video
with cool basketball trick shots

What A Weekend

February 15, 2009

The weekend may be over, but that still doesn’t mean I’ve recovered. It was quite the weekend for two distinct reasons. One is that I am on leadership for InterVarsity, one of the religious organizations on-campus. My main responsibilities include planning and coordinating the social activities for the chapter. One of the biggest ones of the year is a Valentine’s Dinner and that was this past weekend. While many students and myself celebrated Singles Awareness Day (S.A.D), Valentine’s Day is still a big deal. Not for romance and roses and chocolates, but for the Valentine’s Dinner. The men of InterVarsity throw an elegant dinner for the women of InterVarsity at an off-campus church in order for us to show our appreciation for them.

I was in charge of the planning this year. So, I went grocery shopping for four hours Friday morning. Then, I spent eight hours on Friday evening doing food prep work. I finally left the church at 2:00 AM. The head chef cut himself and had to go to the ER, there were numerous menu complications and alterations, and we were short on help at times, but we pulled off the dinner on Saturday evening. I took over the vegetables and desserts after some initial mishaps and I used recipes from home to create some tasty replacements. We served an appetizer of deviled eggs as well as an Italian salad. The main meal was bacon-wrapped chicken strips and honey glazed carrots on a bed of rice. To complete the meal, there was an option of a chocolate mint brownie or a blueberry cake. I was so proud that my carrots and desserts got such great reviews. Who says that men can’t cook? I think we did a fantastic job. After the dinner, there was a dance, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. All told, I spent twenty hours in the kitchen this weekend either cooking or cleaning. It was a loooooong weekend and I am utterly exhausted. However, I think the women really enjoyed it.

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The men hard at work in the kitchen
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InterVarsity Valentine’s Day Dinner
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The dance after the dinner

The other main event from this weekend was a lecture on Friday afternoon. John Bolton, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and current conservative think tank member, visited campus to discuss the foreign policy challenges facing the Obama administration. Even though it was open to everyone, it was a very intimate setting with only ten or so students present in addition to many Leadership and Political Science faculty. It wasn’t well-advertised, but I was very excited at the chance of seeing such a prominent figure. Not only did I hear him talk, but I also said two chairs away from him. It was a very cool experience. So, between the Valentine’s Day Dinner and the John Bolton talk, I can say that it was quite the weekend.

Quote of the Week: “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”- Thomas Jefferson
Thought to Ponder: Do siamese twins pay for one ticket or two tickets when they go to movies and concerts?
YouTube Video of the Week: