Life is full of surprises. One minute you have your heart and mind set on achieving a goal and then suddenly a spontaneous decision changes your desires and expectations. I have found that often time’s random occurrences that happen throughout the day somehow become little highlights in the story of my life. In the beginning  many children dream of becoming a doctor, ballerina, firefighter, or famous athlete. They dream of traveling the world, and owning a large mansion with a butler and a pool. They dream of a family with a mom, dad, and kids running around the nice-mowed lawn, in a world where pain, fear and betrayal do not exist. I remember when I was eight years old the only thing that I wanted was to drive a white slug bug. I would paint it rainbow and decorate the sides with stickers. If people asked nicely they would be allowed to ride in my car, if not, well, they couldn’t come. The closest thing I ever got to a rainbow slug bug was a white Ford Explorer I randomly bought a few years back. It served me well until the engine blew one afternoon and I had to kiss it goodbye. But, that is all beside the point. What I wonder is if kids ever dream of serving when they grow up? Are there children that say, “Someday I want to spend 40 years of my life working at an orphanage or be a regular volunteer at our city soup kitchen.”? I have a hunch that many people who chose to live a life of service do so spontaneously. Because, realistically, it is difficult to train yourself for the love and humbleness that servants instill in themselves. Many people are influenced by their parents, siblings, or friends to take part in service projects in their community or across the country, but the truth of the matter is ANYONE can serve. One of the most humble servants that I have every met signs all of his emails with: “You make a difference.” It doesn’t have to be a great project or flamboyant service work, just be open to surprises and don’t be afraid to make a spontaneous decision. It might be big or it might be small, but always remember that you make a difference.

No!!! Not your visa check card, even though that can be vicious if you misuse it. I’m talking about that visa that accompanies your passport when you go to another country. As soon as you are accepted, you should apply for a visa. There are many types depending on your country of study but many find the student visa suits your needs. However, keep in mind you cannot work with a student visa! So if you plan on making some bucks, research the visa types to see which one best suits your situation.

Applying for a visa requires filling out a tedious online application that asks everything you could possibly think of about your life. To fill the application out completely, you need your passport, email address, itinerary, and address of your study abroad residence. You may start it and realize you do not have all the paperwork together. If that is the case , you can resume the application within a certain amount of days to fill out the rest .

Once you finish completing the online portion, you print all the pages and set up an appointment to complete biometric data at an application support center. Biometrics sounds fancy like you are going in for some type of make or break interview where if you mess up and say something asinine you can’t go abroad, but it is literally fingerprinting and a picture. I am from area code 757 and I was able to do all my appointment in Norfolk, Virginia. I did not have to make a trip to Washington D.C.—like I previously thought—for a meeting which took all of five minutes. If I had gone to D.C. for that, I would have been fuming the entire way home.

After the appointment, you can now mail in your application. You should mail the printed off visa paperwork, your passport, the fee, evidence of how your trip is to be funded, passport sized color photograph, and evidence of your acceptance to study. However, make sure the date you send your visa is three months or less away from the date of your departure. For example, if you leave for Spain September 15, you can’t send your visa paperwork until July 15, if you send it any earlier your application will be denied.

As you can see, the visa can be grueling but it is a lot less stressful if you apply in a timely manner and you are meticulous in filling out each portion.

A few nights ago I had the relatively novel idea to turn the TV on while I was working on some research for a class.  I used to study with the TV on all the time in high school.  Within a few minutes I’d turned the volume completely off having adjusted it in small increments every time it seemed to loud for me to concentrate.  Then I looked up, saw the screen, and realized that the last time I’d just watched TV on my own had been over the summer one night while I was doing some mindless task.  Before that I couldn’t even remember the last time I had watched a TV show in entirety.

College will do that to you.  Things that were once pretty common slip out of your routine and other things you find important will quickly take their places.

Social Entrepreneur Corp was a program I had heard about from classmates throughout last year. So when the creator and big shot in the development world, Greg Van Kirk , came to speak , I jumped at the opportunity. He spoke humbly about his accomplishments and enthusiastically about the potential in each of us, to a small group of interested students, last year over sandwich halves. By the culmination of the lunch I was ready to board a plane to some of the world’s poorest areas.

Fast forward three months and that’s just what I did. After applying and being accepted into the SEC (Social Entrepreneur Corps), I would go to Guatemala with 31 other college students from around the country for two months. Within the first two weeks I received four hours a day of Spanish training, lived with a Guatemalan family, and learned about Micro Consignment, a different take on the micro finance model that leaves money out of the equation. As modest as always Greg Van Kirk would come talk to us about how he had thought of this model while living in a remote village in Guatemala’s Northern region of Quiche and how he was being honored that summer as an Ashoka scholar, the biggest of awards in the development world. 

The next six weeks we put the micro consignment model into action, letting it’s amazing cyclical and sustainable attributes do the work. We were merely just support beams there to help in anyway needed. Of course I could go on forever about the amazing work we did, and the amazing not-work that we did as well, such as climbing the highest point in Central America, just to watch the sunrise at the peak. But I will try to leave it at this: the first step to helping is to listen to the people who want the help.

On another great note, the Office of Community Engagement and Service, was able to reward me a summer service grant, financially allowing me to fulfill my dreams in SEC.  Reminding me that if you want something here all you have to do is go after it!

Emily Schulman

Class of 2012

Admit It!  You’ve wondered if there’s a magic formula or a specific “it factor” that college admission offices are looking for.  Recently, it feels like every email I’ve sent or every College Confidential “chance me” thread pleads with me to share what the magic formula is for getting admitted.  Prospective students and parents know that it takes good grades, challenging courses, and strong standardized testing.  They also know it takes “something else” but sometimes they’re convinced that we know exactly what that “something else” is.  I’m here to tell you that we don’t.  There is no magic formula, I promise.  There is no perfect extracurricular resume.  An essay that automatically grants someone admission simply doesn’t exist.  Ignore those people who tell you that colleges are looking for bassoonists over clarinetists or that they really like to see service on your resume or that if you have a heartbreaking story of surviving cancer you’ll be a shoe in.  Likewise ignore those people who tell you that if you cure cancer, you’re also in.  That simply isn’t true either.

It’s up to each individual applicant to express him or herself through the application and to share his or her story with the admission committee.  There are no guaranteed admits and no guaranteed denies.  Everyone starts out equal and the decision will depend on which way the application takes us.  Sometimes we will admit a student whose SATs are a bit low because they have an exceptional talent or perspective to share.  Sometimes we will not admit someone with a perfect SAT because we feel that student is no more than a nice number.  For some students it will be their essay that puts them over the top.  For others it will be an intellectual curiosity born out in raw numbers (GPA and SAT) as well as individual research initiatives and teacher recommendations.  Yet other students will demonstrate a level of leadership rare for a 17-year old.  Most students will be somewhere in between.  What decision we make depends on the application and the application depends on you.

Steve Singer, a long-time college counselor, recently wrote a blog for the New York Times in which he encouraged students to simply be themselves.  There’s no substitute for being genuine, for being real, for being you.  Don’t try to make yourself out to be something you’re not.  If you’re not passionate about athletics, don’t try out for the varsity team.  If you’re not funny, don’t attempt to write a funny essay (I promise you it will end up the opposite of funny).  If you’re not close to your AP Calc teacher, don’t ask him/her to write a letter of recommendation (it will come off as trite or uninformed).  I tell students to make the two-dimensional application seem three-dimensional.  Use your voice to write your essay.  Demonstrate your passions through your extracurricular activities.  Ask your favorite teachers, the ones who truly know you, to write a letter of recommendation.  Or, to quote Mr. Singer, “Be yourself.  It’s the only marketing device the can work.”

What does it mean to live a life in balance? Is it simply a metaphor for trying to find happiness?  Accomplished leaders have reflected often that while leading they were not happy.  That during times of success they themselves felt most empty and alone, that their life was out of balance.   What would have brought them more balance?  It may have been greater congruence with their values.

Our society rewards that which can be objectively measured- progress, profit, and deliverables.   Success is most easily measured by more stuff coming in and being collected.  Problem is that generally over the long-term people do not sustain happiness through the accumulation of stuff.  We think happiness is important, right.  For the short term having new stuff is fun but new stuff gets old fast.

So what does life balance have to do with happiness? ‎The US is the only country in the world that has written the pursuit of happiness into its founding documents so our founding fathers thought it was pretty important, but I bet they weren’t quite sure how to deliver on it.

My take on it is that when you know who you are and what you value you have a map or GPS for life balance.  Not to say that you always follow the map.  Everyone veers off but having a road map or GPS for a long journey makes good sense, right?  If you get off course you go to the map.  For happiness and life balance congruence with values is the map.  Belonging, responsibility, humility, creativity, objective analysis, concern for others, spirituality are all values that are central to certain people’s sense of life balance.

Do you have a map?  Are you your own GPS for when you veer off course?  The best way to get back on course is to live in congruence with your values.  What are your values?  If you are not sure, take the Life Values Inventory at www.wm.edu/studentaffairs.  It’s free and simple and will give you the road map you may have been searching for.

Readers,

Once again, I apologize for my absence. I assure you though, it was not without just cause. These last five weeks I have been participating in an intensive improv comedy workshop at the iO theatre in Chicago. For those of you not familiar with improvisational comedy, the iO and the Second city are the foremost training and performance centers for comedy in, well, the world. They are home to greats like Tina Fey, John Belushi, Tim Meadows, Steve Carrell, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Amy Pohler, and the list goes on and on. Charna Halpern and Del Close created the Improv Olympic together and also created the long form improv style called the “Harold.” They are known for creating and training the careers of many, if not all, of the members of Saturday Night Live, including my personal favorite, Gilda Radner. In short, I literally spent my summer star struck. Just kidding, but taking this opportunity gave me the ability to train from the best of the best.

So, the summer intensive. What is it? It’s a five week crash course through all of the levels offered in training at the iO and Second City. I have had some truly incredible teachers along the way, including William and Mary alum Todd Edwards, ’97, who is living, performing, and teaching improv comedy in Chicago, Andy St. Clair, an alum of the Second City Mainstage, Jet Eveleth, and Craig Ulihr. Now, I have never done any improv comedy before, except for a little in acting class, nothing serious. I had no idea that there were rules, forms, games, and mannerisms to the craft that had to be incorporated into the scenes you were performing. So you can imagine that on the first day when I walked into the iO and stood on the Del Close stage, I was totally freaking out. I learned improv on the same stage that Chris Farley once stood, the same stage that my absolute idol Tina Fey once drew laughs. Being the great teacher and awesome W&M grad that he is the last thing that Todd Edwards told us as we left for class every day was that we should soak up every moment and remember how special we are to have been chosen to participate in this workshop. We should always remember that we are learning among the best of the craft, and in short, walking with giants. What a cool feeling, right?

This workshop also had its perks. I got to see every iO show and most Second City shows for free. So as you can imagine I took full advantage of every show I could possibly see. Which means I saw a ton of shows, standup, long form, short form, and sketch comedy this summer. At one point I was averaging an eight pm and a ten pm show every single night. Outrageous, I know, but awesome. They tell you in the workshop that one of the best ways to learn is to watch, so you better believe I did a TON of watching. One of my favorite shows, and one that I quickly became a frequent watcher was the Cook County Social Club. The show is super well known in the improv comedy world, having performed all over the country at countless festivals and corporate events. Two of the shows members are even Virginia school alums. One from Virginia Tech, and Greg Hess, class of 2003, is a William and Mary alum. You better believe I felt at home with all the William and Mary alums at iO! I even had the opportunity to take a workshop with the Cook County Social Club, and learn from Greg the tricks of their groups particular form. It was great to learn from a William and Mary Alum, it felt like I had an instant friend in a sea of funny people. If you get the chance to see these guys perform, DO IT. They are hysterical. You can even catch Greg in one of the photos up on the wall in the Market Place. What a celebrity.

As for me? Will I head back to school next week ready to try out for IT (the improv group on campus), or 7th Grade Sketch Comedy? Maybe, I definitely feel armed with an arsenal of information and five weeks worth of practice and comedy knowledge. There are some seriously funny people at William and Mary, as evidenced by the William and Mary community represented in the comedy world here in Chicago. Maybe someday I will get the chance to walk among them. Here’s to a great senior year! Holy cow!

Class of 2014,

I was inspired by a fellow blogger to share a few things with you that I hope you will find inspiring and helpful during your transition to your new home. For theatrical affect, I need you to plug in some headphones, open a new tab or window, and play The Temper Trap’s ‘Sweet Disposition’ while reading.

Let down every guard. There are too many remarkable people to meet and befriend. Point blank. Be friendly to every person you encounter; you have no idea how they will influence and affect your own life. Each of us is a part of the divine legacy of William & Mary, all connected in one way or the other. And believe me, some of the individuals you meet will become true friends for a lifetime. This may sound trite because you have been reading, or hearing, it from almost every twamp so far, but it is undoubtedly the truth.

Failure is unavoidable. It will be a hard pill to swallow, but failing is a necessary fissure to cross in the pilgrimage of life. Pride is poison and we all most learn to humble ourselves. As Alfred says in 2005′s Batman Begins, we fall, “So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.,,” And do not be afraid to lean on your peers and confidants/confidantes for help and support. An Arabian proverb states:

A friend is one whom one can pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that is the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keeping what is worth keeping, and, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away

It is our friends who sometimes know us better than we know ourselves, and are able to ‘blow away’ our worries.

Learn to apologize. I have certainly stomped on a few feet and the hardest thing I had to learn that was not in a textbook was the ability to sit down with someone and just say sorry. Do not become a slave to anger and disdainfulness and resentment-iron out every bit of tension before it begins to wrinkle your relationship with others.

Forget fear. Walk out from under the umbrella of lugubriousness, and snatch the reigns. Embrace change. Do things you have never done before. Point blank (triathlon, anyone?).

__

I am ecstatic for each and every one of you. Your lives are truly about to evolve. As Florence + the Machines sing, “The dog days are over.”

I hope to meet you all sometime-do not be too shy to say ‘Hi.’

Justin

Over the summer, William and Mary students can be seen globally doing a myriad of activities. From service trips to study abroad to internships in foreign areas, it’s hard to plan any decent get together with my on-campus friends when my on-campus friends are in locations like China, Japan, Ireland, and France.

But for me, this summer, there were no exciting foreign excursions or exploring funny quirks of people from abroad like last year. I decided to stay right here, at home, in good ol’ Richmond, Virginia.

You see, ever since the beginning of this year, I’ve been exploring a new aspect of journalism at W&M, a broad field called Public Relations, and it only seemed natural to me that I continue it into the summer as a student intern at Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical campus in downtown Richmond.

Before this year, I had only worked as, what many communications professionals refer to as “hard news journalism,” reporting objectively on news as it happens for a newspaper, eventually making my way up to co-news editor, and managing a section.

Then, in January, I decided to pursue this new field, serving mainly as a writing intern at William and Mary News, writing feature articles and “positive” news stories as they occur around campus.

Public relations often get a bad rap from hard news journalists, who often refer to the field as the “dark side” of journalism. In a sense, that’s true. One of the many jobs of public relations officials is to find ways to promote a specific label or message to the general public using the media. Thus, articles that often come out of public relations bureaus are often press releases slanted towards promoting one thing or the other.

Photo taken on a shoot on the last day of internship. Funny how the first and last story I covered this summer was out of that building behind me. (Photo courtesy of Melissa Gordon, VCU Public Relations)

Photo taken on a shoot on the last day of internship. Funny how the first and last story I covered this summer was out of that building behind me. (Photo courtesy of Melissa Gordon, VCU Public Relations)

But it truly wasn’t until this summer, where I realized that being a “public relations specialist” is more than just simply writing positive news articles. It’s maintaining an active relationship with existing media entities, it’s ensuring the safe and effective communication in the case of an emergency, it’s planning and carrying out press requests while simultaneously ensuring the safety of your own organization, all the while promoting the positive message of a label to the local community.

In a sense, my interning at William and Mary taught me about these facets of PR as a foundation. But it really wasn’t until this summer where for the first time, I was put into a situation where I needed to do public relations for a medical center, where I realized just how important the role of a public relations specialist is.

Having a hospital as your label complicates things much more than having a liberal arts college.
Suddenly, you’re thrust into a situation where it’s not just the safety of students, but potential safety of patients that’s also at risk. In addition, because VCU Medical Center, being a Level 1 trauma center, is where they take most victims of gunshot wounds or serious car accidents in the greater Richmond area, as a PR professional, your contact with the local media is unusually higher than at a small school like W&M.

Thus, the importance of having effective PR professionals is suddenly much more important in a hospital setting than ever before.

True, there were certain aspects of PR that I came in knowing. I came in knowing how to write feature articles, how the PR professional relationship with the local media works, and how important promoting the VCU medical center label was.

But there were also several hurdles I had to overcome. For one, getting over the challenge of having to think of patient safety in addition to student/faculty safety in media relationships was especially challenging for me. William and Mary is a relatively small campus with students and faculty that understand media, for the most part anyways. VCU, likewise, but add to that fact patients and their families that have just undergone serious stress, and you have yourself a firm PR challenge when trying to organize the press and promote an image. Perhaps, most importantly, patients in the care of the hospital are the hospital’s responsibility until discharge, which also means it’s the PR professional’s responsibility to ensure their safety too.

I think, for me, another huge challenge I had to get over was adjusting to writing in a medical sphere. At William and Mary, sure, I covered complex articles, but never something that involved terms like “B-cell lymphocytic leukemia” or “hematopoesis” or “hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.” Understanding and gaining a basic understanding of the terms I was writing about, was just part of the obstacle I had to overcome as an intern. Researchers had spent several decades trying to understand a specific topic, I had to learn it in a little over an hour and simplify it for the general public: that was a challenge.

Thirdly, and most importantly, working at a hospital, you deal with miracle-like stories of success most of the time, but unfortunately, you also deal a lot with death. It’s unavoidable, it just comes with the territory. At William and Mary, deaths do happen, but usually less than once a year, if you’re lucky. At VCU Medical Center, death happens almost every day, and it’s how you deal with the deaths that could affect how the media views a particular death. I don’t think I’ve still mastered talking about something like that….

People too often paint a picture of public relations as a bunch of spin-doctors that care nothing about the objective reporting. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The job that PR professionals do in the field to promote a message is indeed important, but they do so much more to ensure the safety of individuals that really made me value my time at VCU’s Office of Communications and Public Relations.

The Class of 2014 will be here in a little over a week and with them comes freshman orientation. One of my fondest memories from the College were my first couple of weeks spent here in August 2007, and I have a couple of suggestions for things freshman ought to do to ensure that their Orientation is the most memorable it can be:

1. Smile, a lot. You’ll be glad you did. Makes you more approachable.
2. Read and learn from the Encyclopedia TWAMPtannica.
3. Try to remember people’s names – getting first and last names often helps.
4. Bond with your OA – they’ll be a primary guide over the next year.
5. Get to know your RA.
6. Hangout with your hall 24/7 and take an active interest in their lives; you’ll be living together for a whole year.
7. Install your AC unit before you do a single other thing on campus.
8. Make a fool of yourself at least once. It’s ok, we’re all awkward here and it creates memorable bonds.
9. Think long and hard about what adjective you’re going to use to alliterate with your name if your OA makes you play that game…the sad truth is that the adjective is likely to stick with you for quite a bit of time.
10. Wear deodorant. Seriously, just do it.
11. Remain hydrated. August is hot and you’ll be sweating a lot.
12. Reinvent yourself – if you’re going to do it, Orientation is the perfect time! It’s a clean slate.
13. Stay up late talking to your new hallmates and friends. The lack of sleep will be worth it in the end.
14. Enjoy Convocation. Take vivid mental pictures, you will carry them with you through your undergraduate career.
15. Sign up for about 50 student organizations at the Student Activities fair – you can parse them later!
16. Pledge do not lie, cheat, or steal. Our Honor Code is the oldest in the country at 231 years of age! Live it.
17. Don’t lose your class button – you will want it as a senior, trust me.
18. Say hi to everybody you pass – even if you don’t know them yet, these will be your closest friends in a matter of months!
19. Learn your hall cheers.
20. Thank your parents for everything they’ve ever done for you.
21. Learn the Alma Mater (and I don’t just mean the first verse).
22. Don’t correct yourself if you start to call W&M “home.”
23. Remember that there is only one William & Mary, that you belong here, and that your relationship to this place will be for life.
24. Don’t hate on your freshman dorm – embrace it with pride.
25. Self-Determine the rules on your own hall with the help of your RA.
26. Get excited for classes! (but really, these teachers will be the best you’ll ever have).
27. Follow fife and drums down Duke of Gloucester street to our venerable old College.
28. Get lots of things for free!
29. Meet and get to know your faculty adviser.
30. Go and “Meet the Greeks” just to see what the oldest Greek system in the United States is all about!
31. S.H.O.W. up and help out our local community through service with the Office of Community Engagement and Scholarship!
32. Enjoy ice cream at the Alumni Association – even though you’re brand new to the College, you’re part of a rich 317 year old history. All alumni and members of the William and Mary family want to welcome you!
33. Attend your first “screen on the green” and your first “fridays at five” in the days following the start of classes.
34. But most importantly, let yourself have fun and get lost in the experience. William and Mary will be your home for the next four years and far beyond, you will meet some of the closest friends you will ever have along these brick pathways, your horizons will be expanded, and you will accomplish things you never thought possible.

As former College President Gene Nichol told the incoming class of 2009 at Opening Convocation in 2005:

“I know, with keen assurance, that this storied institution will make its mark on you. You will be doused in the waters. Your lives will be opened; your frameworks changed. We will expand your sense of the possible. But I charge you today to make your mark on the College as well. Etch your history on these ancient walls. This remarkable community of inquiry is now your own. Engage it. Enliven it. Press your hard won aspirations. Work your magic. Stake your claim.

It would be impossible – and contrary to the patent lessons of history – to assume that anything is beyond the reach of the graduates of William and Mary…Welcome to the realm of the Green and Gold.”

I look forward to meeting all of you as you come home for the first time in 8 days.

Welcome to the College of William and Mary. You have no idea the unforgettable adventure that awaits you.

Brian