Hello Clark Community. This is Allison Jacobs, a freshman here at Clark University. As this is my first blog, I figure I should tell you a little about myself. I have lived in Massachusetts my whole life, only coming an hour here from Burlington. Although I’ve been here for less than two months, I’m already jumping back and forth about what I want to major in. It’s really a tough question. People ask it as though you’re going to know for sure. There are so many things to be interested in. Right now I’m finding myself torn between working with the environment and pursuing animal studies.
I’m taking some really interesting classes this year. Discovering Environmental Science seemed like a good option to see if working with the environment is really something that I’m going to want to do for the rest of my life. It’s fascinating, but I give you fair warning, there’s a lot of math! Speaking of which, I’m also taking Calculus – definitely a challenging class. It’s interesting how differently it’s taught in college. I took calculus last year in high school and it was nothing like it is here. The approach in college seems to be much more abstract, yet it encompasses a lot more material and really gets you to think. My first-year intensive (FYI) class is Biology 101. I had no idea that there would be classes so close to 200 students at such a small university! No worries, though. If you sit near the front, it’s really easy to focus and act as though you’re in a smaller atmosphere. The lab that comes with it – three hours long – is a huge adjustment from what I’m used to in high school, but in a good way. My first impression of a three-hour lab would be me struggling to keep my eyes open while recording data in my notebook. I lucked out. My TA (teaching assistant) is really fantastic and the lab takes up the three hours with multiple tasks – some hands on and others working out equations and definitions in our notebooks.
The last class I’m taking is the Art and Science of Management. So I’m looking into going into science and taking a management class. Yes, I know the word science is in the title, but it really has nothing to do with science. So why did I choose that class? In my last two years of high school, I was Editor-in-Chief of the Burlington High School newspaper, The Devil’s Advocate. I wanted to take a management course because I loved organizing group activities, especially ones that are specific goal oriented – for example, producing a newspaper on time. Meeting deadlines was probably the biggest challenge of being the editor of peers, so I really wanted to learn how to more efficiently be a leader.
I came into the class with a set of expectations and was immediately thrown into something completely different than I expected. Well, not immediately. The first couple weeks we learned the basics of management – seems logical. Anyway, right now, we’re working on our service learning projects. For those of you who don’t know, a service learning project, as defined by servicelearning.org, is “a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.” Basically, we work with the community to increase our knowledge and to also improve the aspect of the community on which we are focusing. Our professor put us into groups of about five people and the first thing we had to decide on was which organization we wanted to work with. Our group decided to work with the Thrift Store, a non-profit group run by Clark students. We talked with them about what items they needed for the store and are setting up a raffle which will be happening this Saturday.
This isn’t a normal project. We are working for our class, but also impacting the community. That is something I have never done in a class before. Okay, you may argue that I made impact with the newspaper, but you know what I mean. This is really what college is about, especially Clark University. Challenge Convention, Change our World. It’s already happening and I’ve been here for just under six weeks.
