Ben, ‘11

April 30, 2009

Hey there prospectives. I’m sorry for neglecting you for almost two weeks. I feel as though I have a legitimate excuse, though. I was studying for finals. Finals have been this entire week and I am finally done!!! I had five finals this week with four of those occuring within a span of thirty-one hours. I walked out of one to simply start studying for the next one. It was basically a marathon, but composed of many sprints. I think everyone on-campus is worn down right now. We had to peak for the last two weeks with year-end projects and culminating papers, then we had the illusion of coming down from that peak for a weekend. However, we were forced to peak our performance again with finals this week. It’s been exhausting, but that’s finals for you.

It’s all done, though, so it’s time to celebrate. My birthday is tomorrow and I hope to have some fun. Upcoming is a week at an InterVarsity retreat called Rockbridge, a week home, then I am abroad for the summer. It will be the first time that I have left the United States. I will spend one month at Saint Louis University in Madrid taking courses in Finance and Business Law. Then, I will take the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do–travel Europe. So, the following forty days will be spent backpacking on my own through eight Western European countries using the Eurail system and hostels. The current itinerary is as follows, spending roughly three days in each of the following cities:

Hudson, Wisconsin-> Madrid, Spain -> Barcelona, Spain-> Chamonix, France-> Paris, France-> Normandy, France-> Amsterdam, Netherlands-> Rothenberg ob der Tauber, Germany-> Munich, Germany-> Vienna, Austria-> Bern, Switzerland-> Interlaken, Switzerland-> Venice, Italy-> Siena (Tuscany), Italy-> Rome, Italy-> Bari, Italy-> Athens, Greece-> Santorini, Greece -> Hudson, Wisconsin

I am hoping to keep blogging through the summer and keep you updated on my travels as I go. So, that should be an exciting summer, but it means that I have a very short period of time to get ready. Uh oh.

Before I go any further, I have to share a video I just found that is really cool and also quite relavent. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you watch it. It’s a video asking University of Richmond students “What is your passion?”. See if you can spot me. Definitely worth the watch.

“What is your passion?”

Besides studying and packing these past two weeks, I did get the chance to get out and have some fun. An emerging theme of the past two weeks was that of a Culinary Tour de Richmond. Last Friday night was spent hanging out with friends and going out for ice cream at Bruster’s. This past weekend found me at the Cheesecake Factory on Sunday afternoon. We went there as a church group to say goodbye to our graduating senior and to celebrate the end of the semester. The food was fantastic and my pasta carbonara was amazing. That same evening, my scholar group went to Bertucci’s for another Italian feast. Once again, great food and a fun way to end the semester. We had pizza, cheesy bread, antipasti, several pasta dishes, tiramisu, canolis, and gelato. My last stop was at Coldstone on Tuesday evening to celebrate with some of my scholar friends and to wish the seniors good luck. Plus, I personally celebrated finishing my first four finals.

Enjoying ice cream at Bruster’s

Some of the “Oldham family” at Coldstone

Lastly, my friends and I from my church helped out with Rebuilding Together, which is a city-wide event that aims to help fix-up homes in Richmond. So, my friends and I spent Saturday afternoon painting the shed of an elderly couple in need.

Helping out at Rebuilding Together

It’s time to end the semester now. I’ll post a recap of my semester in a week or two. To end this post, though, here’s several random pictures from the past two weeks:

My friend tried to blow off some steam from finals
by endlessly shooting Nerf darts at me

Our last church service together

The weather has been amazing as of late

All packed up and ready to go

Quote of the Week: “Instead of studying for finals, what about just going to the Bahamas and catching some rays? Maybe you’ll flunk, but you might have flunked anyway; that’s my point.” -Jack Handy
Thought to Ponder: Why are the copyright dates of movies and television shows written in Roman numerals?
YouTube Video of the Week:

April 9, 2009

Hello Prospectives!!!

I realize that this is the time of the year when stress is high and people are worried about what they’ll do for the next four years. Yep, it’s approaching the deadline for deciding which college to attend. If I remember correctly, you have to respond by May 1st. It looks like we’ll all be celebrating May 1st. You’ll have the decision over with…. and I’ll be celebrating my birthday! Anyways, I wanted to see if I could make the decision easier for some of you. I don’t want to directly pressure any of you attend UR…. well maybe just a little. Still, I think that there are a lot of great things about this University and I’d just like to give you an overview of some of them. A lot of these features are what I believe sets UR apart from any other institution. I apologize in advance because this post will get a bit lengthy, but I feel it’s important to share all of this with you. If you have any questions after my monologue, feel free to send me a message. There’s a contact link at the top of the page.

The reasons for my own acceptance were quite numerous, yet very diverse. I was interested in Business, but wasn’t sure that it was what I would graduate with, yet alone like after a year or two of classes. I wanted to keep my options open. If I didn’t end up pursuing Business, I wanted plenty of solid options to fall back on. That is the main reason UR stood out to me. It is the only school in the country to have a Top 25 Business School and Liberal Arts Education. The Robins School of Business moved up to 12th in the nation this year in the BusinessWeek rankings and we look to keep on climbing. One of the coolest things is that we are tied for first in the nation for Academic Quality with the Wharton School of Business. That’s pretty incredible.

I was also very intrigued by the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. We were the very first school in the country to have a School of Leadership Studies, which makes our program very distinctive. I’d taken on many of leadership roles in my lifetime, so it seemed like a natural fit. It was mainly because of my dad’s urging, though, that I pursued this course. The Jepson School doesn’t exist to teach one how to be a leader, but rather how to properly analyze the relationships between leaders and followers. Through Leadership Studies, one also gets involved in the community, applying the in-class knowledge that one has acquired. Plus, Leadership is so diverse in it’s topics, from Statesmanship to Leadership in Politics to Religious Leaders, that I can take classes that are specifically related to what I would like to explore.

Within all of these classes across the different schools, I have had small classes and amazing professors, another reason why I came. I knew I would never be able to sit in a lecture of five hundred students and learn, like what might have happened at a state school. My biggest class has been twenty-four students, with the average being roughly sixteen students. Everyone in the class knows each other and becomes good friends by the end of the semester. With such small classes, you can do so much more. You can’t skip class or hide in the back of the class. Discussions require active participation by everyone. Furthermore, you’re probably not going to get some simple multiple choice exam. You will have papers (up to twelve pages regularly) that will require you to show what you know. Don’t be daunted. It’s not as bad as it sounds. But, it makes you learn the material so much better than other formats of teaching might allow. The professors will do their best to aid you in whatever way possible, whether it’s giving initial critiques to a paper, heping to brainstorm, or going over confusing material once more. They beg me to visit them during their office hours and freely give out their cell phone, home phone, and e-mail. These professors at UR are here to teach. It’s not “publish or perish”. Sure, they often do research, but they will (more likely than not) bring students in to help them with their research, that way they can teach while doing research. They truly love to teach and that’s why they’re here.

Speaking about research and outside-the-classroom learning, there is also plenty of that here. In fact, that’s definitely one of the top reasons I came here. I knew that I wanted to engage what I’d been learning in ways that the classroom couldn’t allow. Research, study abroad, and internships were all things I wanted to experience. It looks as though I will definitely accomplish all three. Last summer (that’s after my freshman year, mind you), I did math research for ten weeks with another student and a professor. We were each paid $4,500 through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Now, I was not a math major or math minor at the time. Still, a professor asked me if I would be interested and, knowing that I wanted to at least explore possibilities in the field of mathematics, I agreed. Those ten weeks were spent doing cutting-edge research in the field of mathematics. While I learned that a math career wasn’t in my future, I was still grateful for the opportunity to experience the hands-on opportunities of math. Some of my other friends have done science research even before their freshman year, been asked to co-write a book on politics in Virginia with one of their professors (as only a Sophomore), and examined cosmic radiation in an attempt to examine the Big Bang theory.

I will study abroad in Spain this summer fulfilling my second of the three aims. All financial aid transfers for studying abroad for a semester (which means you won’t pay any more to go abroad than to stay at UR) and over seventy percent of UR students take advantage of it through one of the over seventy programs in forty different countries. These opportunities are probably why UR was ranked by Newsweek as on the the “Hottest Schools in the U.S.” for International Education.

Lastly, internships are plentiful. I plan to do one back home next summer, completing the trifecta of my three aims. We have internships reserved for UR students that most other schools could only dream of. I’ve had friends intern for Senator Arlen Specter, every major accounting firm, and the Mayor of New York City. They’re fairly simple to find. Plus, we have business firms come to us to recruit rather than us having to go to them.

In addition to the basics such as a small undergraduate population, exciting sports teams, strong academics, incredible dining center and fitness center, financial aid was probably the number one deciding factor for me. UR gives amazing merit-based and need-based financial aid. I’m sure some of you have discovered this in the past few weeks. I knew there was absolutely no way I could pay $50,000 per year to attend college. Growing up in a family of five kids on a hobby farm in western Wisconsin and having only one parent work, I knew that this was absolutely the best choice. If I ever plan to go to graduate school or get an MBA, as many students choose to do, I knew I wanted to avoid graduating from college in debt if at all possible. I can do that here.

So, as a result of the Business School, Leadership School, small classes, amazing professors, research opportunities, study abroad, internships, and financial aid, I found myself 1,200 miles from home and here at UR. Looking back, I know that this decision was the best one for me. I am confident that it is going to get me to where I want in life. Sure, I dislike some things about UR, but that’s the case for absolutely every school. I’ve embraced the opportunities and tried to make this education everything that I dreamed of and wanted. I worked to change things that I didn’t like, whether through my role on Student Government or through other means. I also met many great friends through my many different organizations.

I think that the future of this school is even more exciting. Our football team won the National Championship for the Football Championship Series. Our Business School is soaring up the rankings. Opportunities for engagement are more and more plentiful. For example, Lakeview is continuing the Living and Learning theme next year and funding students to go to Peru to study global health after taking a course on it and living together on the same hallway, just to give one example. Construction projects are enhancing the campus everywhere. The football stadium is coming on-campus, the Business School is expanding, we are building a Center for International Education as we speak, and renovations to the Commons have just finished. The President has finished his exciting plan on where we would like the University to be in the coming years. The list goes on and on. It’s an exciting time at the University of Richmond and we would love you to become a part of it.

-Ben