Quick Transition!

The past month has been a whirlwind of relaxation, education, busyness and traveling. After the Urban Fellows graduation ceremony and moving everything out of my dorm at the University of Rochester, I took off to meet the rest of the family in Burlington, Vermont for 10 days of vacation in paradise. It was so relaxing but also active of course with many bike rides, tennis matches, runs along the lake, waterskiing, rollerblading, yoga and more fun time with the family, including my whole mom's family and Liz, Ryan's fiancée and my future sister-in-law!

After returning from VT, I had about a week in Pittsford before leaving again. I crammed a bunch into just this little time: nannying for three days, going to the lake, getting some things ready for Spain and Gettysburg and trying to spend as much time as possible with friends and family! Phew!

On Monday I took off for Gettysburg (of course my flight was delayed, but I got there eventually!). After reuniting with many friends, the next day rolled around to kick off my externship at Gettysburg College's Admissions office. (An externship is essentially an internship crammed into one week to give a glimpse at a specific career field - more shadowing and learning than mundane tasks) After our terribly long commute across campus, my friend Jenny and I, my fellow extern, met with our host, Admissions Counselor Ian Harkness, Gettysburg class of 2004.

[This is outside of the office: Jenny, me and Gail Sweezey, the Director of Admissions]

To save you from reading a terribly long essay, I think I'll just highlight some of my favorite parts of the week:
-meeting with the Gburg Women's Lax Coach about athletic recruitment (her team won nationals this past year!)
-meeting with Dr. Kay Hoke, Director of Sunderman Conservatory of Music, about music recruitment
-the high energy and contagious enthusiasm throughout the office
-shadowing 4 different interviews with a counselor and a prospective student, which really revealed how each counselor has a unique way of conducting interviews
-data DRIVES all of their decisions for application review. We learned about the "admissions funnel," which visually shows how they can accept 2,200 people in order to get a class of 720 students.
-learning how complex the different populations are that apply to Gettysburg: domestic, international, transfer, wait listed - quite the diverse group of people to craft the next excelling class at Gettysburg College!
-summer "melters" are those who give their deposit in May but withdraw by September 15th (usually they have about 40-50 each year!)
-definitely high point: mock application review process...After discussing the process with some staff members, we were set loose and independently reviewed 5 applications (actual applicants from 10 years ago). Ian gave us a profile of an imaginary school very similar to Gettysburg with a few minor differences. Originally he told us that we were to admit 2, wait list 2 and reject 1. Half-way through he came in to give us an updated list of institutional priorities, such as decreasing the size of the entering class and to cut admissions offers by 5%. They also wanted to increase student body's regional diversity, emphasize sports, recruit student leaders, increase enrollment in English majors and increase enrollment for females in the Engineering major. This really changed what I had started to plan for my decisions, especially because Ian now said we had to admit 1, wait list 2 and reject 2. This activity was really fun and eye-opening to how stressful it can be because many applicants are so strong but all in different areas. It seems to become a very sticky decision making process with such a strong candidate pool for review.

In summary: I may consider working in higher education, within or outside of Admissions, in my future. Also...I am SO proud to be a Gettysburg student!!

Following the externship, I've been staying on campus, spending time with friends, working a bit at HR and just finished up DCF (DiscipleMakers of Christian Fellowship) Leadership Team kick-off retreat. It was incredibly encouraging and refreshing to be with everyone before heading off to Spain. I sure am grateful for the time I've had with friends here the past two weeks, especially my dear sister Melissa!

While they are all eager for the semester to start here in the burg, I am starting to feel more and more excited to finally get over to Spain. I am convinced I have some great opportunities waiting for me over there and I am thrilled for the blessing of the time I'll be spending abroad.

Silly Hurricane Irene has caused me to push back when I am heading home, so it'll be even more of a whirlwind transition. I'll have approximately 48 hours from when I land to when I need to be back at the same airport to unpack and repack everything needed for an entire semester in a foreign country, not to mention spend as much time as I can with my family and relax a bit! I take off Wednesday afternoon and get in Thursday morning (Spain time - 6 hours ahead). I will be meeting my program at the Madrid airport that morning and we take a bus together to Salamanca, where we'll meet up with our host families!. I'm hoping all goes smoothly with my flights and everything, but I am just looking forward to kicking off another exciting adventure!

¡Hasta luego, mis amigos!