Summer 2014

This has the potential to be the best summer of my life. I will be done with my freshman year of college which has not been easy. My last final is on Monday, May 5 then I leave on Tuesday the 6th. I am going to spend a majority of my summer with my brother in Los Angeles. He owns his own business and I will be taking two classes at Los Angeles City College probably a math course and an easy corse which will most likely be an art course like a entry level drawing class because I am interested in becoming a better artist. I don’t know what I really want to do with my life like so many students here at Xavier seem to do but I do know that I have always been creative and that no matter what I do I want art to be a big part of my life. While I am in California with my brother I plan on making money and trying to “find” myself so I can somehow figure out what I want to do with my life. I was thinking about leaving after this year but my brother convinced me that I would have more opportunities here at Xavier than I would have back in my home town if I went to the community college or something like that. After the 3 months in California I fly back home to Virginia  for three weeks to see the firends that I have missed all school year and beach trips and all of that until it is time for me to fly back to Louisiana with tears streaming down my face. So really this summer I am just looking for some kind of clarity in my life that can show me what path I want to take with my life, my education, and my career goals.

My summer plans!

After such a stressful semester, all I want to do is go back to New York! But I know I have finals and tests to take, so I’m mentally trying to stay focused so that I can close this semester strong. With two papers due, a portfolio, and tests and juries coming up, I’m trying to just focus on doing my very best and putting hard work into all that I am doing to study and prepare for my finals. On another note, this summer my plans are to work and save money for school and my future, but god always has other plans for me. Besides working, I am trying to take a summer English that I am missing. This semester hasn’t been as bad as last semester, but musically, I have learned a lot. With all of the junior and senior recitals that have taken place, I have been inspired to work even in the field of my major. Although I am not yet in Theory, and Theory lab, I will be in the fall and over the summer when I am not working, I plan to study my musical fundamentals (theory, sight reading, sight singing, etc), and hopefully I can network musically. Although I do want to work and have a regular job over the summer, my very first voice teacher doesn’t feel that I should. He feels that whatever I work on or am apart of should be involving music; I partially agree. During the middle, and towards the end of my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity sing in a vocal competition against music professionals, and other operatic upcoming artists ( the Harlem Opera Theater competition in fact). The competition changed my life, and the end results where even more fascinating! Now, before the judging process was even introduced, I immediately had a private prayer with god, telling him that even if I didn’t win anything that I was just grateful for the opportunity. Furthermore, I did win first place in the collegiate division and one of the judges personally thanked me herself and gave me her number for a private lesson free of charge. I had listened to this famous operatic star before on YouTube and other opera’s and I was honored to work with her, and I hope to work with her this summer; who know what my summer holds, but whatever it is, I will make the best of it!

Summer Activities

All year long at the freshman premed meetings Ms. QV has instilled in us the importance of performing service activities and completing programs that show your interest in the field that you are trying to go into. The display of interest in the medical field through these different activities will make the difference in convincing professional schools that I am a student they would like to have at their school. Under the umbrella of medicine, my field of interest is optometry. To show interest in optometry I plan to volunteer at the Chicago Public School clinic at the Illinois College of Optometry. Along with this I found out on Thursday that I was also accepted into the Illinois College of Optometry Focus on Your Future program. This is a week long program made specifically for underrepresented minority students interested in optometry. Throughout this program I will be able to observe at Illinois Eye Institute clinic, as well as be introduced to several concepts such as time management, optometric procedures, financing school, OAT test prep, etc. I also applied to another optometry summer program at the Ohio State University called I-DOC (Improving Diversity In Optometric Careers). This program is three days long and will allow exposure so different optometry related concepts as well as more observation opportunities. I am still waiting to receive status on my admission to the I-Doc program. Aside from optometry I am planning to get a job this summer. I am super excited about this because I have never had a real job. I am planning to work alongside my mother at a catering company. It will be nice to take a break from writing essays and put in some hands on work in my planned career field. It is experiences like this that give me motivation to continue studying throughout the year so I can do this work for life.

Blog 9 – Service activity

During the service activity, I met this really nice lady named Ana. I met her in the kids areas of the festival, where we helped little kids decorate crowns to put on their heads. Ana was very kind and energetic. I don’t know if she had kids or not, but she definitely seemed experienced at dealing with children. She was good at playing with the kids and making them laugh. She even knew how to stop them from crying when they became upset. She also did a good job or teaching us how to interact with the kids. This was extremely helpful to me because I’m not too good at interacting with kids. She was very hardworking as well. She never took any breaks, and she was constantly doing something. I could tell that she took pride in participating in this service activity. She took her time to make sure that me and the other service volunteers knew what we were doing. I can’t remember the last time I’ve met someone as energetic and passionate as her. The service activity most likely wouldn’t have been as fun if she wasn’t there. The other volunteers thought the same as well. I over heard them talking about her, and they felt the same way as me. They talked about how she was cool, and they were glad they got a chance to meet her. The kids favored her as well. Whenever she left, they would repeatedly ask when she was coming back. To summarize, she seemed very hardworking and enthusiastic. She took pride in what she was doing, and that’s not something you see everyday. These attributes seem like the characteristics of a well-adjusted adult, and I feel like more people should be like her. The Earth Day festival was fun to begin with, but she was definitely a major contribution to the experience.

My Summer

My answer to the question “What are your educational and career goals planned for this summer?” is probably something you aren’t expecting.  I plan to do makeup for my friends for the events they have over the summer. Since I will be attending Aveda Institute next year for cosmetology instead of continuing here at Xavier for my studies, my plans this summer aren’t what the typical “pre-pharmacy student” would say. I just plan on practicing hair and makeup so I have a good base for when I start school in August. I plan on experimenting with different types of skin types, hair types and ages so whenever it’s thrown at me in school I will have some sort of understanding where to start. I will start building up my kit by trying new makeup and finding the things that work on everyone and make everyone look good. This summer I also plan on having fun and just hanging out with friends. My freshman year was nothing but stressful and losing two people in my life over the course of the past year makes me realize that time is precious. I’ve realized that you have to live life every day and surround yourself with people that matter because tomorrow you or them could be gone. You need to do things that you love, which for me is doing people’s hair and makeup. So that is why I am not continuing at Xavier and am going to Aveda Institute. Who knows what the future holds? Definitely not me. All I know is that whatever makes me happy I’m going to do so in ten years when I look back on this moment I’m not living in regret. So thanks, Xavier, it’s been a good run. The friendships I’ve made here will last a lifetime and so will the memories.

Summer plans for Japan

Is it just me or has this school year completely flown by? Literally, it seems like yesterday when I was introducing myself to my color group during freshman orientation week. During this school semester, I have had many ups and downs, but definitely I can confidently say, my first college freshman year has been a complete success. From my grades to my extracurricular activities, I believe that I have truly grown as a person and fulfilled my goal of re-creating a new me.

I remember in my first blog, I wrote, “I want to be somebody I wasn’t in high school. I want to be brave, bold, daring, and outgoing with nothing holding me back.” The me that wrote this statement isn’t the same me now. I have had a chance to literally start anew, and I like this me better. But my transformation will not end with this school year. I have many plans and goals that I want to achieve before the fall semester of 2014.

Of course, many people will say that they plan to take summer classes, find a job, and get ahead for the next semester; but, my plans will be a little different this summer. Because I was fortunate enough to be accepted into a study abroad program in Japan, my summer will be filled with getting prepared for the trip. In order to study abroad, you have to be extremely careful that you fulfill all of your duties in America first. Studying abroad requires a lot of careful pre-planning and extra work so that nothing will go amiss during the actual “study abroad part.” Over the summer, I have to re-apply for a new passport, get a whole new set of immunization shots, fill out important legal documents, take summer courses to prevent me from falling behind, apply for scholarship and grants to help pay for the trip, study Japanese, and much more. I believe that studying abroad will be a fun and positive experience for me, especially because I have always wanted to go to Japan. But the “behind-the-scenes” of studying abroad is a little nit-picky but necessary. Hopefully, this summer can be very productive for me, and I will be in Japan for the fall semester. I am really excited for what’s to come!

Blog 10

One of the things I plan to do this summer related to my career goals is to attend summer school. I will be taking calculus and chem lab. If I do well in my calculus class, I will not have to take pre-calculus so I will work extraordinarily hard to do well. I believe that I can do it. The second thing I have planned this summer is to do a community service project to help children that come from abused families. I plan to spend time with them by reading to them and teaching them how to draw. I believe this will help them escape for a while from the harsh realities they have lived in. This will also help me in my career because not only will I be doing a community service, but it will help me learn how to build relationships with children. Since my major is premed, I will have to know how to interact with children. I also plan on working in a doctor’s office to get a feel of the everyday practice of medicine. By doing this, I am hoping I see the complete interactions of how a doctor’s practice works. This includes how patients are checked in to the office and are entered into the patient’s system, billing practices with insurance and patients, and how the doctor treats, diagnosis, and interacts with his patients. Finally, I plan to participate in the Order of the Eastern Stars. This will help me increase my knowledge about God and encourage me to serve others even more.

Blog 10 Nothing Exciting Confirmed

Such a late blog, I’ve been fumbling around a little over a lot of things lately. Again, there’s just a build-up of things to do. Luckily, by the time Monday comes I’ll have a lot less going on. I am pretty sure I do fine on my exams and juries. Though I think there were occasional blogs that reflected over the semester and year, it was a great year for me at Xavier. I learned a lot, not just from education, but from new experiences too. My grades are a reflection of my effort and who I am, they are not everything, but they say a lot. I’ve worked hard for what I have.

I had to talk about that quick. Honestly, this summer I am not doing anything in particular. I should be getting my first job. It won’t be related to music, just a good government job for students. It relates to my educational goals, and in the long run, career goals, because it will be paying for them. If I don’t completely mess-up at office work, I can finally put in some work experience on my resume! I am nervous about working, all the instructions and formalities. They best way to understand it though, is to do it.

I may still be fumbling around in the summer too. Dr.Turner talked about taking the Jazz band to China either this summer or the next. I haven’t heard much more about it, but the band has been fairly busy preparing and rehearsing for performances. So maybe we won’t go this summer, or I just won’t know until after today’s performance. Whatever the chances of a trip to China happening, I am going to simply be at home. I will just sleep and practice, all summer. Thank you for the good year Dr.Adams!

Summer Plans

In the summer, I mostly just planned to relax so that I can be re-energized to complete more semesters of school after this one has ended. It has been a long and hard year and while I do have minor things planned in the summer that will help me further down the line, I have not planned anything major. Unfortunately, I will not be attending the summer program for pre-pharmacy students. This would have helped me later to know how to take the PCAT and have a general understanding of the information included on the exam that we are not directly taught. I would have loved to get to come back this summer and learn these things, but as previously stated, I believe that I really do need a break. Honestly, I am not very sure about being a pharmacist at this point anymore and I feel that if I am to become a pharmacist that I want to go to school for the career after I have earned a bachelor’s degree. My main goal over the course of this whole summer is to figure out what career path I really do want to take. I have joked about dentistry, but it actually does not seem that bad of an idea. I believe that I have a lot of growing to do in all aspects of my life. Academically, spiritually, and pretty much personally, I feel that I may be a tad bit too immature. The responsibilities that are coming with the fact that I have to complete my undergraduate work in two years and then go straight to a professional school are a little too much in my mind. Ultimately, I just want to find something that I feel will be worth all of my time that I am willing to spend in school, and if this basically “soul-searching” experiment leads me back to pharmacy, then so be it. As of right now, however, I am looking forward to researching the many careers that are out there. I feel that I should not limit myself and I am actually excited that in the summer I will be able to focus on career paths more. Also, I plan to continue learning both sign language and Spanish. This is something I really want to accomplish before I complete college. I would love to be fluent in more than one or even two languages. I feel as though this can open up the door to so much more opportunities in life. All in all, I really am hoping to come to a consensus with many things over the course of the summer while enjoying a nice little break. Hopefully everything works out in my favor.

Blog 10

This summer I plan to get a summer job and take classes late in the summer at Xavier. My mom got my family a cruise trip for the summer so in June I’m going to the Caribbean. Im getting a job so I can get a car and save up some money to use at school on books and other things I need for school. Once I come back from the cruise I plan to come back to New Orleans to take summer classes at Xavier to help my GPA. In the beginning of the summer I’ll be working at Sam’s Club part time while doing an internship with a family friend from church. She has her own psychology business and she has allowed me to work with her this summer. I’ll mostly be answering her calls but it’s good to have someone who knows you personally who can vouch on your credibility. I’ve recently changed my major from psychology pre-med to general psychology; which requires me to pick a minor. I made my minor mass communication so i plan to take classes that pertain to that aspect in the summer. I’ve had such an experience at Xavier for my first year. It was veery eyeopening, stressful, but overall good. Being a freshman in college was the second greatest experience I’ve ever had (being a senior in high school was the first). I made friends, lost friends, failed a lot, but triumphed in so much more. I lost the person I came here and I’m still on my journey to find the new me. Freshman year was hard for me but it was all apart of my growth. I can’t wait to start the summer and ultimately further my journey to being the first person in my family to graduate from college.