Dear Frosh...

With the final week of freshman year classes over, it’s amazing how quickly this year went by. For as much as people warn you it will, you don’t realize how quick it went until it’s over. The people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had remind me why I chose IU in the first place. From the first day of classes, the home-opener football game, first snow, to today’s Frisbee game, this year has been full of good times with great new friends. To those of you who read on a consistent basis, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed my posts. To any incoming freshman, this is for you…

           

Dear Incoming Frosh,

            Congrats! I hope your freshman year is as amazing as mine. Meet new people, experience new things, and maybe learn a thing or two. To the workaholics, skip class every once in a while so you don’t drive yourself insane. To the procrastinators, get up for your 9 a.m. and actually GO to class. To both, keep up on your work, life sucks when you’re knee deep in papers and can’t have any fun.

            Get to know professors and upperclassmen; they’re a great resource both for learning academically and learning about the surrounding area. They know the town; make use of their knowledge. They’re not as scary as you think.

            Don’t lock yourself in your dorm room, it gets claustrophobic and boring; get outside and enjoy the beauty of IU’s campus. Find your favorite places to get away, and the quite places where you can think. Learn the campus from north to south, east to west; don’t lock yourself into one region of campus. Eat everywhere, you WILL get sick of eating at the same dining hall every single day; explore your options!

            Experience Bloomington. Take a trip into town and find it’s hidden gems. Bloomington is an amazing town with great food, nice people, and its own unique culture. Take a walk through town and strike up a conversation with a stranger.

            So don’t waste your freshman year. Meet as many people as you can and get your feet planted in IU’s society. It’ll be over quicker than you think.

-Dan

Lucky Streak

With Little 5 over, things quieting down around campus, and Easter right around the corner, I can tell that the school year is wrapping up. Preparations for finals have begun and my to-do list for the year is getting shorter. My last packages of the year came in featuring the most addicting cookies ever from my sister, and common Easter basket treats from the “Easter Bunny” (thanks parents!) My newfound love for Vitamin Water has replaced my former addiction to Arizona Ice Tea, and I just registered for fall classes. I thought my luck for the year had burnt out.

WOOHOO! I WON! Or at least so said the email I received last Sunday. Back in January I took the National Survey of Student Engagement or NSSE. The survey is given each year with a goal to determine the level of student involvement in activities and academics. This year IU was one of 761 schools polled and I was one of 4,419 IU students to participate (393,630 total).

            IU was smart about the survey, leaving it completely optional. They did however automatically enter you into drawing for any one of numerous prizes from an IPod Touch to free movies if you participated. Funny how fifteen minutes of my time that I took during my physics class (yay multitasking!) resulted in free stuff!

  I opened up the email to find I won five wooden nickels at Bloomington Bagel Company.  I had no idea what a wooden nickel was, absolutely none. Turns out they’re “coupons” for a free naked (without cream cheese) bagel, or 95 cents off your total order. I love bagels and go to BBC way too much, so this was the perfect prize! I’ve got a wooden nickel! (and yes, it's better than a golden ticket...) :D

The Times Are a Changing

             Just as the weather has started changing, so have things around campus. Things are getting fixed or built, and campus will look quite different when everyone returns in the fall. Here’s an update on renovations happening on campus.

 

Showalter Fountain is being repaved. The cement circling the fountain is being removed and replaced.

The first half of the Briscoe Quad renovation is nearly complete. The newly done Shoemaker (west) tower will re-open next year, while the Gucker (east) tower will close down to undergo similar renovations. You can see a 3-D representation of the new building here (http://www.rps.indiana.edu/briscoevid.cfml).

 

The Jacobs School of Music just held its groundbreaking ceremony for its newest building. Located on the corner of 3^rd & Jordan where the West University Apartments used to stand, a new building containing practice rooms and teacher studios will be added. Also included in the project is an extension onto the backside of the MAC, adding another large rehearsal room and an audio control room. You can read more about the project here (http://info.music.indiana.edu/news/page/normal/17875.html).

 

Finally, the HPER building is being refurbished this summer. The roof of the upper basketball courts (room 293) is being replaced!

Keep a look out for the changes next fall!

This is Classified

The Classified Listings.

Need to dump off a pair of basketball tickets? Sublet an apartment? Sell everything because you just graduated and don’t need it anymore? Then the IU Classifieds are just the place for you. Hosted on IU servers, the classifieds serve as Indiana University’s very own version of Craigslist!

  The classifieds can be found by logging into OneStart. On the left side of the page under the “Most Popular” section is the link. Once you reach the classifieds homepage, you will be asked to pick a category such as Books, Electronics, or Tickets & Events. Pick a section and start searching. Look for deals such as cheap electronics, used musical instruments, or even your next job! Departments such as Sociology and Psychology consistently post ads looking for test subjects, as do local businesses looking for an extra hand.  

Classified Category Screen.

  The classifieds are the perfect place to look for carpools and sublets. There’s an entire thread just for rides. Put up an ad or scroll through what’s already posted and you might not have to take Bloomington Shuttle Service back to Chicago next break.  If you’re going away for a semester or need to cover rent put up your location and price; you might just find your next roommate! 

A common classified ad.

  Take use of this great resource. Snag some cheap tickets to the next home basketball game, find a job, sell your old iPod, or find a ride home. The classifieds serve the perfect medium for getting into contact with anyone of the 43,000 students on campus!

Angles of Art

By day, the IU Art Museum looks like just another building surrounding Showalter Fountain. Occasionally confused with the MAC due to a common red sculpture outside, the museum becomes one of IU’s most iconic buildings by night thanks to the light totem.  The totem projects colors down the wall that illuminate it and pop in the night sky. Students are constantly found lying on the ground looking up the wall, reliving their youth imagining they are once again racing on Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 64. While the buildings main attraction is its nighttime lights, within the museum is a collection of works worth seeing.

 Lucky for you the museum is free! That’s right, free to everyone! Closed on Mondays, the museum is open every other day until 5 opening at 10 AM (noon on Sundays).  Housed within the museum are works by Picasso, Matisse, Pollack, and Monet. Also, the museum brings in special exhibits that rotate throughout the year; currently on display is a collection of works by Andy Warhol. The museum however, is a work of art itself. The building contains no straight lines. Nowhere in the building, except the stairs, is there a right angle. 

 

          Within the museum is Angles, a coffee shop that doubles as the museum gift shop. Offering free trade items and merchandise directly related to the museum’s exhibits, Angles is a hidden gem on campus. Not many people know about it, and the coffee is outstanding. Stop by and grab a cup, then feel free to take a stroll through the galleries!

How To Deal With It

In a busy week back from break, my blog post was sadly neglected. I was stressing out about it, unsure of a topic, only to realize it was right in front of me: how I was dealing with everything. Everyone’s bound to have a busy schedule in college, and learning how to use your time wisely and get everything done without freaking out saves you a lot of trouble. So in a week where my iCal was filled with overlapping colors due to homework, over 200 pages of notes, a voltmeter to build, an analog tape edit, three tests looming on the horizon, four concerts to record, and four meetings to attend, here are my tips to make a busy week a little less stressful.

Make a List - Write down everything you need to get done, because you’re bound to forget something. Plus, crossing things off makes you feel like you’ve completed and made progress. That’s why the first thing on my list is, make a list.

Keep Your Schedule - If you have a standard schedule, stick to it. Changing it only makes you feel like you have more to do. If you usually go to the gym on Tuesday, go! That way “Go to the gym” doesn’t end up on your list.

           
Take Breaks - Don’t just sit down and try and do everything at once. You’ll go insane. Do a couple hours and then take a half-hour to watch an episode of your favorite TV show or something ("Big Bang Theory" for the win…)

REMEMBER TO EAT! - No food = No energy =No good work.

Don’t Sit In Silence - Throw on some music or something in the background, but nothing distracting. Instrumental or music in a foreign language goes a long way.

Prioritize and multitask when possible and you’ll quickly have a list of crossed-off accomplishments... and your colorful iCal won’t be so scary.

Get Connected!

Computer bank in Read lobby.

In the technology-based world that we live in, computers are a must.  Internet access is necessary and having it anywhere is a requirement. For those with laptops, IU’s entire campus is wireless and every student has access via their IU login information. If you live in campus housing you are also supplied with an Ethernet cable which, after extensive use, I can safely say nearly doubles the speed. 

For those of us that don’t carry our laptops everywhere, there are multiple locations on campus with computer banks open to the public. Places like Jordan Hall, the IMU, and residence halls have banks of 3-4 computers where you can check your e-mail throughout the day. 

Computers in the Music Annex.

It’s the day before your paper is due, and your computer crashes; what do you do? You may be sitting there thinking, “That will never happen to me. It’s too cliché.” Trust me, it will. It happens to everyone. Thankfully, IU makes it easy to overcome this disastrous situation. Most residence halls and libraries have computer labs where you can sit and type. And type. And type. The labs in the Wells Library are even available 24 hours a day, for those times when you don’t start your paper until 2 a.m. the day it’s due.

Paper is finished, now what? Print! While some students have a printer in their room, it’s really not worth the cost. Keeping up on paper and ink cartridges is expensive, especially when IU gives you 650 pages per semester, with the option of rolling over up to 300 pages if you don’t use them all! Color printing is also available at certain labs for $1 per page. Take advantage of the computer resources available to students throughout campus. IU’s services can make a horrible situation a manageable one. Get connected!