Inductions, Research, Macklemore, and P-DAY!

It has been way too long since my last post! I've had a lot of work to keep up with lately - the end of the semester always seems to sneak up on me, and so does all the work that comes with it! Big events on campus in the past few weeks have also kept me pretty busy, and I've been thankful for the chance to spend some time with my family and friends on campus!

First, parents weekend/the annual research symposium/our last Accept Students Open House of the year was last weekend. On Friday some members of my family came to Burlington because I was inducted into two honors societies that St. Mike's has chapters of. The first was Beta Beta Beta, the national Biology honors society, and next year I will be the Public Representative for the SMC chapter! BBB hosts many really interesting speakers on campus and puts on other events related to science and biology.

 

Next year's BBB officers!

I was also inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, which is the oldest academic honors society in the country along with best friend and roommate Katie! I was honored to be inducted into both BBB and PBK, and really grateful my family could come share the moments with me!

The "secret" PBK handshake with Professor Walsh

I spent last Saturday morning setting up and helping organize our Tour Guides at the Accepted Student Open House! These Open Houses are my favorite Admissions event to help out at because I actually made my final decision to attend St. Mike's after attending one when I was a senior in high school! It was great to see and meet so many prospective students, especially the ones I talked to who came to the Research Symposium poster presentation. Ali and I presented a poster about the research we did this past summer, and even brought our favorite leech Hubert to show off! Hubert made quite the impression on people that came to see our poster (some good impressions, some bad...). It was fun to get to share some leech knowledge with so many people!

Ali, Hubert, and me in front of our poster!

This week also had many exciting events, beginning on Thursday night with the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis concert! It was really fun, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were so good live! I'm not usually a huge fan of rap, but Macklemore has some really good songs and was an amazing performer. Be sure to check out Lisa's blog about the concert for some amazing pictures she took for the yearbook!

SO MANY PEOPLE!

Then this Saturday was the day St. Mike's students look forward to every spring semester... P-DAY!! It stands for "preparation day" and is a St. Mike's tradition. It is always the weekend before finals start, and is a fun day to spend with friends before the most stressful and busy part of the semester. The best part was that this year the weather was beautiful, and my friends and I were able to spend most of the day outside enjoying it! Everyone makes special shirts to wear, and there is free food and live music in the field in front of the 300s town houses all day! At night there was a show of mind reading/sword swallowing/fire eating. Literally, my mind was BLOWN by the mind reading tricks, it was great!

My P-Day shirt

Alex and me!

Here's what the rest of the semester looks like for me (look for a last week of the spring semester recap blog in the next week!):

-This Wednesday is our last day of classes!

-I have 3 finals: Physics on Friday, Pathogens and Parasites on Saturday, and Literature in the Classic World on next Wednesday. 

-I'm moving out next Wednesday after my final, but will be back to campus to play with the liturgical choir at the Baccalaureate mass next Saturday!

-Marci

East Coast Nerve Net Conference!

This past weekend I presented about the research I did this summer with Ali, the other St. Mikes student I worked with, at the East Coast Nerve Net conference! It was such a cool experience and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do it! On Friday Ali, Professor Weaver (whose lab we worked in), and I traveled to UMass Amherst where the conference was held. The night we got there we had a good dinner and listened to a really interesting presentation by Dr. Marla Sokolowski about the her research with Drosophila melanogaster (aka fruit flies). The next day we listened to many shorter talks about a variety of different graduate students' research, including a really interesting talk about spinal chord regeneration in newts. Then, after lunch Ali and I gave our talk! It went really well, and it was pretty cool to present to a group of people that were so knowledgeable and interested in neuroscience! 

Ali with our ECNN program

Ali presenting

Me presenting

After our talk we got to see the poster presentations and hear about even more research both graduate students and undergraduates are conducting. We also had some time to hang out around the hotel, which was especially fun since Kristin, the other student we worked with this summer, was also able to attend the conference! Yeah leech lab reunion! 

Sunday morning we heard three more really interesting talks from invited researchers, and then headed back to campus. It was really fun to share what we learned from our leech research, but it isn't the last time we will get to talk about leeches this year! Ali and I will also be presenting a poster at the Vermont Genetics Network dinner and also at the St. Mikes research symposium! The research symposium is April 20th, which is also an Accepted Student's Open House, so if you're planning on visiting campus that day you'll have the chance to learn about a lot of awesome student research projects! 

Also, some sad news - Formspring (a great platform for anonymous questions) shut down at the end of March, so I won't be able to answer questions on there any more. I will keep you updated about new ways to contact me, but until then feel free to leave a comment, sent me an email, and connect with me on twitter!

-Marci

The Joffery Ballet at the Flynn

After a wonderful spring break of sleeping and hanging out at home, I'm back at St. Mike's to finish out this semester! We only have 7 weeks left of this semester, which I know will fly by! I didn't do too many exciting things during my spring break, but the relaxation was definitely needed. This semester has been pretty busy for me, so it was great to just have a week of getting caught up on rest and spending time with my family!

One of the highlights of my spring break came towards the end of the week. This past Saturday my Mom, my sister Meaghan, and I saw the Joffery Ballet at the Flynn in downtown Burlington! When I saw on the Flynn's website that the Joffery Ballet was coming to Burlington, I knew my sister would be interested in going because she loves dance and does ballet herself! The timing was perfect because her birthday is in a few weeks, so it was a great early birthday present for her. When I saw that the show was coming to the Flynn, I called right away to get tickets for us. I was able to get a $10 ticket using the St. Mike's cultural pass, and we all got to sit together (and had great seats!). The show was actually completely sold out, perhaps because it's the first time the Joffery has ever come to Burlington.

The theater!

The show itself was awesome. There were three different ballets performed, and they were all amazing. My sister especially liked them because it was more of a "contemporary" ballet. I was glad she enjoyed it so much! I really enjoy going to shows at the Flynn, and am excited to take more advantage of the cultural pass in the future. When we were at the ballet my mom and I saw that Dream Girls is coming in May, and we are going to get tickets to go see it!

Meaghan and me

We spent the night at a hotel in Burlington, and then went to mass Sunday morning at St. Mike's, did some shopping, and ate lunch at Our House (one of my favorite restaurants ever). It was a great way to end my spring break and prepare me for a busy week! We have a Founder's Society meeting on Wednesday, and also choose housing for next year that night. Then I have a midterm on Thursday, and Friday I leave for Massachusetts to present about the research I did this summer! Definitely look for a blog about that early next week.

Until then, feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

-Marci

Senior Seminar

Although I'm not technically a senior, I am taking my senior seminar this semester since it is my last semester taking classes at St. Mike's since I was accepted to ACPHS! Every major has a senior seminar requirement, and although they're all a little different a unifying aspect of all senior seminars is providing an opportunity for students to use all the education and experience gained while at SMC in one class!

I'm really loving my senior seminar, which is focused on public health and epidemiology, or the study of disease in human populations. There are 17 students in the class, and since the central focus is discussion it's nice to have a small class where we can all sit around a seminar table and talk about the different topics we are focusing on. It's very different from any biology class I've taken at St. Mike's - while there has always been lots of discussion in my other biology classes, I've never had a class where the real focus is discussing different issues. The structure of the class makes every one different and very interesting, because we are discussing or learning about a different topic every class.

One of our main projects for the semester is to give a set of presentations based on a chapter in the book The Coming Plague. It's a really intense book, with each chapter describing a different disease or public health issue. After reading our chosen chapters, each student decided on an interesting issue presented in the chapter that he or she wanted to research further. My chapter was about Bolivian Hemorrhagic fever, a disease that is only found in Bolivia, and how the virus that causes it was identified. I decided that I wanted to do more research about this and similar viruses, and give my presentation comparing the public health threats these viruses pose.

Did I mention that our assignment was to first give a 15 minute presentation, and then a 40 minute presenation on the same topic 3 weeks later? When I learned this second presentation had to be 40 minutes long, I was pretty nervous. I've given plenty of shorter presentations during my time here at St. Mike's so I wasn't worried about that one, but 40 minutes seemed like a really long time to talk! I gave my short presentation back at the end of January, and it went really well. I presented my long presentation last week, and thankfully that went well too!! For any presentation, I think the biggest tip is to practice, practice, practice - and thankfully I have great friends who didn't mind hearing my presentation (multiple times) until I felt really comfortable presenting it! I was nervous at the beginning (which I think is totally normal), but after I got over those initial nerves it was really fun giving my presentation and the 40 minutes actually went by surprisingly quickly! I had done so much research on my topic that I was really excited to share everything I had learned with my classmates and professor. In the end, the presentation was really an opportunity to teach others about something I found really interesting, and realizing this made the presentation a lot less daunting!

I think one of the most important things I'm learning in my senior seminar is just how much I've grown during my time at St. Mike's. In high school I was absolutely terrified of public speaking - I never would have believed giving a 40 minute presentation could actually be enjoyable. During my time at St. Mike's, so many of my experiences have prepared me to be comfortable speaking in front of people, both in and out of the classroom. I've had to give shorter presentations in most of my other classes, and a long presentation really isn't that different. Many of the things I'm involved in at St. Mike's outside of the classroom have also really helped me become more comfortable talking in front of people - for example, being a tour guide, online ambassador, and peer tutor! Overall, I'm not only learning a lot about public health in my senior seminar, but also about skills like public speaking that I'll be able to use once I graduate!

Besides senior sem, I'm really enjoying all my other classes this semester too, especially my other biology class that I'm taking. It's called Pathogens and Parasites, and it actually ties in really nicely with my senior seminar because I'm getting a really good background about what causes the problems we discuss!

Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to contact me if you have any questions about SMC! :)

-Marci

Happy Tuesday!

After having a great long weekend at home (we had Friday off, yay!) it's back to another busy week here at SMC! It's midterm time for a lot of students (including me), but thankfully there are lots of fun things happening on campus to look forward to this week!

This morning, my friend Alex and I walked over to the bookstore to buy our tickets to the St. Mike's Spring concert... Thanks to our AMAZING student association, our Spring concert is going to be Macklemore!!! You might have heard the song Thrift Shop recently, and he is going to be on SNL March 2nd! Literally everyone at St. Mike's is SO excited for this concert, and I can't wait for April 25th!

My ticket!!!

There are also a few fun event coming up this week for the Founder's society, which is the club on campus involved with prospective student and alumni relations. Tomorrow there is a Knight chat from 7:30-9 pm especially for the parents of prospective students! You can enter the chat by clicking this link and clicking the Knight Chat tab. It's a great way for parents to get some of their questions answered by some current students and also admissions staff members. I won't be attending this Knight chat, but the awesome bloggers Mike, Emily, Alex, Lauren K., Lauren M., Susanna, and Gabbi will be there! Be sure to check out their blogs and say hi to them tomorrow! :)

Another Founder's event coming up this weekend is group processing for the students applying to be tour guides! I'm the tour guide coordinator (the student leader of our tour guide program), so I've been having a lot of fun coming up with different activities for the group processing day. I'm really looking forward to it, because I know all of the students applying will be super enthusiastic!

Anyway, I'm off to the library to study for my Pathogens and Parasites exam! As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

I'll leave you with a nice squirrel picture (the first of this semester!) :)

-Marci

On Surviving Winter Storm Nemo

So, unless you live under a rock or something you've probably heard (or experienced first hand) the huge winter storm that swept through the Northeast yesterday! We got hit pretty hard by Nemo here at St. Mike's, and we have all the snow to prove it! On an unrelated note, who had the idea to start naming winter storms and WHO woke up and thought, "Oh hey, let's name this storm Nemo!" Because seriously, can anyone think of Nemo without thinking of Finding Nemo aka a tropical fish?

Nemo attack! And 12"+ in Burlington!

(from http://bff.hollywood.com/news/celebrities/55000598/finding-nemo-winter-storm-map)

Anyway, thankfully I've survived my share of winter storms in the past, including an actual snow day at SMC when I was a first-year! We had all our classes officially canceled because we got so much snow! I wasn't too worried about Nemo, especially since I knew I didn't have far to walk to go to class and wouldn't have to be out driving at all. All my professors got here safely, and it was like any other day just with a whole lot more snow than normal!

View out my bedroom window around 9 AM (and we got a TON more snow during the day!)

Many St. Mike's students were super excited for all the snow because they ski or snowboard, but not me! I'm actually kind of terrified of skiing even though I've been a few times before (I'm not a huge fan of falling down and every time I ski I fall down a whole lot). No worries if you're not a skier though, because there is always a ton of stuff to do in the winter! My friends and I decided we were going to have a movie night in to stay out of the cold. We made pancakes and waffles for dinner, watched Pitch Perfect, and painted our nails. I also saw so many people playing outside in the snow yesterday which looked like a lot of fun! If you are a skier or snowboarder, St. Mike's offers an amazing deal on a seasons pass to Smuggler's Notch for only $30!

As far as snow storm survival essentials for college go, definitely be prepared for something like Nemo!  Winter in Vermont can be a little unpredictable, but will involve snow at some point. I suggest having snow boots with good traction that you can trudge though a storm to get to class in, a warm winter jacket (preferably with a hood for when all the snow is blowing around), mittens, scarf, and a hat. You'll be grateful for investing in these things when it's super snowy out! For more great winter tips, check out Susanna's latest blog here!

Hope you're having a great weekend so far, and talk to you again soon!

-Marci

Accepted to ACPHS!

Exciting news!!! I received an email yesterday that I'm officially accepted to Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences! YAY!! I got the email while walking towards Alliot for lunch with my friends Mary and Alex; it was really cool to share that moment with them! The first person I texted was my mom (of course). I then had a ton of people at St. Mike's to share my news with and thank for all their help during my application process! I can't wait to start taking classes at their Vermont campus next semester, and I am so excited to start the pharmacy program!

So there's a (very) quick update about my life, but here's another update for all the accepted students in the Class of 2017! Make sure to check out your super active Facebook page and connect with all your future classmates! It's great to see how excited so many of you are to be SMC students this fall!

If you have any questions for me, feel free to contact me via twitter, formspring, or email! Looking forward to seeing lots of prospective students on campus for tours and the accepted student open houses coming up in the next few weeks!

-Marci