University of Richmond

Archive for the 'Campus Events' Category

Getting Settled

August 29, 2009

So, it feels like I just left campus for the summer, but I’m back once again. Somehow, I find myself as a Junior. I’m still trying to figure out where the first two years of my college life went. Man, time is flying by. Unfortunately, this weekend is also disappearing, so I need to keep this post relatively short. To say that’s easy, though, is rather difficult. I’ve had five classes this week, a million and one welcome back events, plus meetings and tons of other stuff I would love to share with you. Before all of those activities, though, I arrived to help the new freshmen move in. It was broiling hot, but I was actually quite helpful for two freshmen and their families. The next few days of Orientation found me representing InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at several open houses and events. I also had the fun opportunity to document several Orientation activities as the photographer for our school newspaper, an opportunity made available through a friend of mine. It further astounded me how much time had passed since I was doing these exact same activities.

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The freshmen meeting each other for the first time
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The unexplainable Orientation event of Playfair
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Having fun at Playfair

Being the Events Coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, this week was rather chaotic. We hit the ground running with events that are planned via e-mail communication, which is often sporadic and quite difficult. We had a cookout to welcome the new students to UR as well as to give the returning students a chance to reunite. We had 200+ people attend and went through 150 hot dogs and 150 hamburgers. It was a huge success.

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Our shopping trip for the cookout supplies
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Taking charge of the grills
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Spontaneous hot dog eating contest

We also hosted a Field Day after the first week of classes ended on Friday. There was Ultimate Frisbee, watermelon-eating contests, a “snowball fight”, soccer, and a water balloon fight. The weather wasn’t ideal, but I was able to relax after a chaotic week, due to the lack of a routine in my life. At the Field Day, I reconnected with friends I hadn’t talked to over the summer as well as made new friends, such as Mark from Northern Ireland. I must quickly add that all of the current freshmen are really amazing and cool. Those of you who are prospectives will have a tough act to follow, but I have faith in you.

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Watermelon-eating contest

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Julie wearing her watermelon as a hat


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Aftereffects of the “snowball fight”
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Everyone was absolutely disgusting after Field Day

While I did do many other things this week, such as move into my room, have organizational meetings, and numerous other things, classes are what I shall conclude with mentioning. I have three Business courses (Marketing, Business Statistics II, and Organizational Behavior) as well as two Leadership Courses (Theories and Models of Leadership and Competition, Cooperation, & Choice). They all seem pretty good. I attempted to drop one Business course since I had taken a very similar course in the Leadership School in the spring, but it wasn’t meant to be. There looks to be lots of reading and it’s still uncertain how many papers I will have, or how long they will need to be, which is slightly disconcerting to me.

I’ll make sure to update you as to how classes are going and what they’re about, in addition to some pictures and video of my room, but that will have to wait. There was so much other stuff going on in my life to share with you first.

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Our neighbor, Cameron, reading us a bedtime story from
Billy’s Organic Chemistry textbook

Quote of the Week: “But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. they laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” -Carl Sagain

YouTube Video of the Week:

Since summer is the time for barbecuing, here is the most unhealthy thing in the world, except for the deep-fried Twinkie perhaps

An Eventful Two Weeks

April 19, 2009

I’m back!!! These last two weeks have been a whirlwind of events and activities. Sure, I’ve had academics and other things on my mind, but there have been so many other fun things to do that I simply had to take full advantage of them. Plus, the weather has been amazing. Since there’s been so much that I’ve done and so little space to say it in, I’ll try to do a Spark Notes-esque version of my life over the past two weeks. That way, I can get back to finishing my end-of-the-year projects as the last week of classes begins tomorrow.

ExSCAVaganza: My friend casually asked me if I wanted to do a scavenger hunt with him last weekend. I thought it sounded like fun, so I agreed. I didn’t know it was going to be a 24-hour scavenger hunt. Yep, 24-hours. It kicked off at midnight with a 300 item list and also a treasure hunt of sorts. It was fun, but very time-consuming. My friend and I did finish second, though, earning us a $50 prize.

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Things containing the word “wall” (ie: wallop)
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A Mary Kay representative

Last Lecture: The University of Richmond brought the famous “Last Lecture” series to campus. Students voted and selected my former accounting professor to speak. I knew I had to go and see him dispense advice and life lessons since he was a great professor. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see him, though, since I was forced to watch it in an overflow room since the other room was standing-room-only. It was a great speech and I’m very glad that I went to it.

Easter Weekend: My friends from church and I went to the sunrise service for Easter, which meant a 7:00 AM service. After the service and a few more hours of much-needed sleep, we went to our church’s campus minister’s home for lunch. We had an amazing meal and spent a wonderful Easter afternoon playing games and relaxing. It was so nice to simply get away from campus and escape homework for an entire day.

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Easter with fellow UR students from my church

Honors Convocation: I was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, a Business Honors Society, this past week at an Honors Convocation. That same day, the rankings were released for Business Schools. UR moved up to #12 in the nation overall earlier in the year, but the specific specialties’ breakdowns were not released until that day. We were ranked #1 in the country in the areas of Corporate Strategy, Financial Management, Macroeconomics, Marketing, and Quantitative Methods. That’s five #1 rankings!!! No other school had more than one, including the Wharton School of Business, UVA, and MIT. Our Business school also received very high rankings in Microeconomics, Accounting, Sustainability, and Business Law. Furthermore, we had the smallest class sizes for core Business courses of all ranked schools. It’s clear to see that our Business School is truly going places. For the full list, check it out here.

Rent-A-Dog: One of my organizations, InterVarsity, did a fund-raiser where we had professors bring their dogs to campus for a day and then rented them out to students. The students flocked to the dogs, many of them missing their own pets from home. It was a perfect day for the event and it went quite well.

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Brittany playing with Zeke

Bellis Fest: Every year, the Westhampton College Student Government puts on a carnival on the Westhampton Green for the entire student body. There are inflatable activities, live music, a dunk tank, free popcorn, cotton candy, and lots more. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and the perfect way to end the week.

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My friend, Billy, dunking the Student Body President

40th Anniversary Celebration: InterVarsity also celebrated it’s 40th Anniversary at the University of Richmond this weekend. Lots of InterVarsity alumni returned to campus and enjoyed festivities including campus tours, an alumni vs. students volleyball game, and a dinner.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: The spring musical was being performed this weekend, so several of my friends and I went to watch the show. It was a very funny and very well-done show satirizing the business world. Plus, it was fun to see some of my friends perform in it.

Sorority Social: I was invited to a sorority social by a friend on Saturday night, so a group of us went out to eat at Carytown Burgers. Then, we attended their Semi-Formal downtown at the Berkeley Hotel. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a really good time.

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My friend and I at her sorority social

That’s pretty much everything that I’ve been up to from the past few weeks. It sounds busy (and it was), but it was very enjoyable. I only have one more week of classes and then one week of finals before I am a Junior. What a scary thought. I just won’t think about it. Back to work. Adios.

Quote of the Week: “Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content” -Louis L’Amour

Thought to Ponder: A Pennsylvania law: If you spy a team of approaching horses, you are required to pull to the side of the road and cover your car with a blanket or dust cover that has been painted or sewn to blend into the scenery. But, if the horses react skittish to your efforts, you are then required to disassemble your car and hide the parts in the nearby underbrush.

Shout Outs: David for being such a good friend and a great person… and because he asked for one.

YouTube Video of the Week:

In case you have not yet seen this viral video phenomenon

Planning For the Future

April 5, 2009

Howdy!!! I am sure that many of you are still deciding what to do in terms of college for next year. It can be a daunting and difficult decision, but I wish you the best. As I’ve said before, try to not be so anxious and worried about making the wrong decision, just trust yourself and enjoy the process. You applied to all of these schools for a reason. I’ll try to post a blog next week that should be able to help you some, at least I hope so.

Just like many of you are planning for your futures, so am I. It’s been a very busy week for me. Last Saturday required eight hours of pouring over Leadership applications for InterVarsity and selecting next years’ team. It was a long process, but actually quite enjoyable. I will be returning in my role as the head of the event-planning team for all of next year. So, I will continue being able to create really fun events for the entire organization and campus to enjoy.

I also had to register for classes. I thought I was on the right track with Business and Leadership, but Business requires you to declare a concentration, such as Economics, Finance, Marketing, Management, etc…, which requires you to go down own path or another. I flopped back and forth many times this week. I started as Finance, then switched to International Business, but then ended at Management or Marketing, all within a few days time. I won’t have to officially decide until the end of Junior year, but it caused a lot of stress this week. Determining the path I thought would be best, I finalized it on Friday by registering for classes for the Fall semester. I will take Business Statistics II, Principles of Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Theories and Models of Leadership, and Cooperation, Competition, and Choice (an negotiation-based Leadership course). I’m pretty excited for them. I also registered for classes for my period abroad this summer. I will be at Saint Louis University in Madrid and plan to take a Legal Environment of Business course as well as a Principle of Finance course.

The last major decision regarded housing arrangements for next year. There was a lot of drama earlier this week, most of it unexpected, regarding who would live together and where, but it has been resolved and our suite finally came together. The University of Richmond has a lottery system and I had a good pick, so I’m really happy with the room I got. Three current freshmen and myself will live together in a double-double suite in South Court. That means that two people will live in one room and two in the other. Both of the rooms are connected via a private bathroom. The room even has a fireplace, which is probably not usable at all, but it’s still really cool!!! The four of us living together will be Alex from Virginia and Chris from New York in one room and Billy from New York and myself from Wisconsin living in the other. I’ve switched roommates every year and will have lived with people from Alabama, Virginia, and New York. What a diverse group.

Besides major decisions to make, I also had major projects to complete for some of my classes. I had two fourteen page papers due at exactly the same time. I finished one early for Rhetoric regarding the contemporization of rhetoric and the on-campus Speech Center by proposing that both of them be brought to YouTube. It was a fun topic to write about. The other project was a paper that I wrote with one other person for Critical Thinking. It detailed the failure of the New Orleans criminal justice system by not revising Article 701 of the state law which mandates suspected criminals must be released from jail after sixty days if no evidence or conviction is brought forth. It required working from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM the night before it was due to finish it, but we did finish it. Sure, we accidentally deleted almost six hours of work, but we discovered the one solitary updated file that had been saved. What a relief.

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My friend was also hard at work with me in our
favorite place to study-the hallway

Considering all of the hard work, it resulted in me having a completely free weekend. I was done with all of my work and ready for some fun. So, I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends, playing games, and watching online episodes of “30 Rock”. Plus, there was the annual extravaganza on-campus that we call Pig Roast. It’s a chance for everyone to dress up and hang out at the fraternities where there is free food, music, and a lot of fun. So, my friends and I went over for several hours and enjoyed the glorious day. Seriously, it couldn’t have been much nicer. Mid seventies and pure sunshine. Amazing.

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Some of my friends enjoying Pig Roast

Finally, I should mention that one of the major remodeling projects on-campus is now complete. It is called The Gameroom and it looks really cool. It has giant flat-screen TVs everywhere that students can play video games and watch TV shows on. It’s basically a giant lounge where students can come to hang out, play video games, and relax. It’s really cool.

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The new Gameroom

Quote of the Week: “Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.” -Robert Babson
Thought to Ponder: Why do we drive on parkways when we park on driveways?
YouTube Video of the Week: