As we all know Loyola is a BEAUTIFUL campus. It seems that there are endless possibilities to hang out and relax on campus. I have spent three amazing years here and during this time I have devoted countless hours exploring many of Loyola’s hidden gems hiding in plain sight. I have compiled a list of my top 5 places to hang out with friends on campus.

5. Damen Student Center

The Damen Student is a wonderful place to hang out with our friends simply due to the fact that at least one of them will be there. Not only is the Damen food court right nearby, you also are right in the middle of all the action of the Lakeshore Campus.

4. Schreiber Center Great Stairs (Water Tower Campus)

The Great Stairs in the Schreiber Center is a great place to relax. Not only are there multiple outlets on each step, each step is long enough so you can have all your friends on the same one. Just like the Damen Student Center you are in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the Quinlan Business School. I would have ranked this higher if the Great Stairs were at the Lakeshore Campus.

3.  Lewis Library (Water Tower Campus)

The Lewis Library located in the Philip H. Corboy Law Center is the only place on the list which is a spot solely dedicated for studying. Not only are you right in the middle of downtown Chicago, the large glass windows which show the vast city skyline are great stress reducers.

2.  Engrained Café

Located in the Institute of Environmental Sustainability Building, this is a student-led restaurant featuring local food is a great spot to meet up with your friends during the evening. While sitting at this location, you will see groups of students having conversations mainly about homework. This place is a great place to get yours done!

1. Ireland’s Pub

I give my top spot to Ireland’s Pub located in the basement of the Damen Student Center. Not only are there giant flat screens, there is a multitude of tables, giant couches, and pool tables. Irelands is a perfect spot to hang with your friends during in time of the day or night.

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another blog on grocery store around Loyola! In this series, you will hear from me about all the grocery shopping locations around our two Loyola campus, includes ADLI, Devon Market, Target, Whole Food market and Trader Joe’s, etc. Each store has their unique strengths in my opinion. Today, I am going to introduce Devon Market, a neighborhood market located on the west side of Loyola Lake Shore campus. 

If you read the first blog on the new/renovated ADLI, you may know ALDI is my go-to grocery shop location. I have never been to Devon Market until ADLI was closed for the past 6 weeks, and I need to find another affordable store to shop.    

Okay, let’s go inside the store! As an international student from Asian, it somehow feels like shopping at home. They sell a lot of international products such as Japanese cookies🍪, European cheese and Kimchi, etc. First, I love kimchi, and I eat a lot of them! From now on, I am so glad I don’t need to travel to an Asian supermarket and shop for kimchi off the Argyle stop or Chinatown every month. Devon Market also offers a large variety of vegetables and fruits more than any other grocery stores around Loyola (as you can see from the picture below). My favorite part is they have Bok Choy! It’s a very popular Chinese vegetable, and the name is actually direct translated from its original Chinese name “bái cài”/白菜. 

From my Retail Marketing class, I learned that many people complain about the big “bundled” bananas they bought always go bad before they even finish them. Just like in Trader Joe’s, you can buy a single banana 🍌 in Devon Market too! If you never heard about the “single banana” story at Trader Joe’s, stay tuned for my incoming blog! Another quick story: I have never seen an avocado as big as my water bottle! If you haven’t heard of Florida Avocado 🥑, please come and check it out at Devon Market! It surprisingly tastes just like the normal avocado!

Important news time! Devon Market offers student discount for all Loyola students! Just bringing your Loyola ID, and you will get 10 percent off at check out! Another benefit Devon Market provide is free Uber/Lyft ride if you spend more than $100 (and distance within 3 miles)! They will help & send both you and your groceries home! 

That’s all about Devon Market! Hope you enjoyed this blog. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions about our page.

Thank you & Stay tuned for the next grocery store blog 🛒!

About 2 minutes read.

Hi everyone! Welcome to a new blog series on grocery stores around Loyola🛒! In this series, you will hear from me about all the grocery shopping locations around our two Loyola campus, includes ADLI, Devon Market, Target, Whole Food and Trader Joe’s, etc. Each store has their unique strengths in my opinion. Our first store is going to be ALDI, which just reopened from renovations last week! 

As a Junior who is living off-campus this year, grocery shopping becomes an essential part of my life. ALDI has always been my first grocery shop choice for snacks and everyday-products since my freshman year (Target was not built yet). I think the two main reasons people shop at ADLI are because of their location and overall low-price items. The store is just one minute away from my Sophomore-year residence hall Spring Hill Hall last year! It’s super convenient for me to stop by and grub something on my way home. For students who live in the northern part of our campus especially during the winter time, taking the CTA red line from Loyola station one stop to Granville station could be another choice. 

Okay, let’s go inside this newly renovated ALDI. Comparing with their old store, the new store offers slightly more items than before. Their frozen food section definitely has gotten larger, with a bigger refrigerator and more frozen meal/food options. One of my favorite items to shop for at ADLI is their frozen chopped broccoli 🥦! It’s only 95¢ per bag, and only takes you 4 minutes to cook in microwave! I usually buy 10 bags in bulk…and people always ask me about the price and if it taste good at the line. It definitely tastes good, and worth the price! I am so happy to see they updated their refrigerators to make people easier to grub the food in the back. Quick tip: They sell two types of frozen broccoli, 95¢ and $1.65, just double checking before you put it into your shopping basket! I think the cheaper one even tastes better! Other than normal grocery items, they also offer vegan, Gluten-free and soy-free items in most categories.

For most fresh vegetables, ADLI is unquestionably low-price, but not the cheapest store around our campus. Devon Market, which located in the west side of our campus offers cheaper and more kinds of fresh vegetables like bok choy, bean sprout, and mint, etc. I will introduce with more details on Devon Market in my next blog! 

That’s all about ADLI! Thank you and hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions about our page.

And, do you know ADLI owns Trader Joe’s? Stay tuned for my future blog on Trader Joe’s, and a special connection with my experience at Loyola! 

” If you are nervous, it’s good because it means you care. If you are anxious, it’s good because it means you are concerned for the quality of your content. If you are scared and stressed, it means you are unprepared.” – Man at MSU

When I was a Freshman, I was quickly submerged in the “harsh” reality of college test taking. This isn’t high school, where I could quickly do the homework during passing periods before class or get good at guessing at Multiple Choice Exams. In college, it is a whole different experience. You get to learn not only how to learn, but how you learn best and what you are interested in learning. Read ahead to hear about my take aways from learning how to study at Loyola!

Why Cramming is the absolute worst:

Yes, like other Loyola Students, we are all guilty of those late nights in the IC, trying to cram 8 weeks of lecture the night before the final. Bad. Bad. Bad. In reality, cramming does very little for you in the long run. Especially if your major is one that counts on applying previously acquired knowledge! While you may do “okay” on the exam, you will most likely forget everything you crammed the day after the exam. And when you have that scary cumulative final, you will have to reteach yourself everything that your forgot due to cramming. Do damage control and save yourself!

How memorizing gets you nowhere:

It is amazing how some of us are like sponges – soaking up every single word that is on a PowerPoint slide (talking to all you fellow Pre-Meds!). But how useful is regurgitating knowledge when you are unable to present and apply it? I find that making things more interactive – watching Youtube videos, asking questions, and researching topics not only enhance my understanding but also enhances memory simultaneously.

Wait, the Instructor isn’t the only one who teaches you?

In my opinion, we learn best by teaching ourselves and others. I view my professors as presenting information critical to my understanding of the class, and it is my job to translate it. For example, in my Abnormal Psychology class freshman year, I quickly discovered this harsh reality when I got a C on an exam I did not study for. Baby Amanda realized that I would need to get my brain into if I didn’t want to keep up this trend. And through trial and error, I found what works for me.

And finally, it is all about your headspace!

Learning doesn’t have to be a chore! As a total self-proclaimed nerd, I try to make it enjoyable and less of a hassle. This for me is:

– Making my notes colorful and accessible
– Using fun apps like Tiny Cards to make memorizing more effective,
– Listening to the best study music! For me it is piano, but for my roommate, it is heavy metal. Whatever works!
– Making study groups with my friends to not socialize but to help each other better understand the content
– Racing myself with a stopwatch to try to get practice problems done as quickly and correctly as possible.

Of course, these may not work for you when you go to college. But ultimately, it all comes down to understanding yourself – arguably the main take away of college. So just sit back, relax, and remember that it will all click for you eventually!

About 2 minutes read.

Hi everyone! Welcome to my food blog! Today, I am going to introduce: La Crêperie, a French restaurant located between the CTA red line 🚇 Belmont and Fullerton stations (about 35min train ride+ walk from Loyola Lake Shore Campus). As you may realize from the restaurant name, Crepes are their signature dishes! I personally do not have much French food experience, but I will share with you my honest opinion and experience on this restaurant! 

When I was researching dinner ideas, La Crêperie’s interior decoration and ambience really caught my eyes! My best friend and I haven’t seen each other for a long time. We both have very busy schedules during the first week of school. So, we decided to have dinner at La Crêperie on a Wednesday night! Because it was a Wednesday night dinner, a farther located restaurant from our campus might help us free the school work in our mind a little bit. 

We arrived around 7:30pm that night. There were a total of four groups of people eating in the restaurant included their patio seating area. It was not a busy night, but the ambience and waiters really made us feel warm and lively. My friend and I accidently ordered the same dish: La Vēgétarienne, a type of savory crêpes. But I switched the roasted tomatoes to mushroom instead. It was my first time having a savory crepe, I would give an honest 7/10 for the taste. You can obviously taste the cheese🧀, broccoli 🥦and mushroom, but the flavor of the whole dish was not very strong for me. I think using other types of cheese would make a different and add a heavier flavor into this dish. I would like to try crêpes from other places for comparison and share more thoughts on it! Also, because we were seating in the patio area, and it was a chill night, the dish went cold quickly. 

Even though their inside dining area is sooooo lovely with all the decorations and warm lighting, I also highly recommended eating at their patio too! Many colorful flowers 💐 🌸and decorations are displayed around the patio area. And, the music playing in the background made a perfect summer night outside! 11/10 for their ambience scores!

Many people also come here for brunch. The restaurant also offers another type of crêpe, the Sweet crêpes. It’s more like a type of very thin pancake for breakfast or a dessert. Most of their Savory and Sweet crêpes cost around $10±2. Sweet crêpe with some French coffee ☕might be your top choice for a lovely brunch meal!The French Onion Soup from La Crêperie is also highly recommended by many people (it looks sooooo good!), and I am planning to try it the next time! So, stay tuned for the next soup blog! 

Landmark’s Century, a movie theater 🎥 which is located right cross street from La Crêperie. The restaurant offers “After Movie Special”, you can bring in a ticket 🎟 from the cinema dated today for a complimentary Chocolate Crepe with the purchase of any beverage! Perfect spot for a date night or just a sweet treatment!

Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart Neighborhood Market, T.J. Maxx, and Urban Outfitters are also located around the restaurant (all less than 3min walk). If you are looking for a one stop shopping 🛍️ and dining 🍽 experience, La Crêperie should be on your top list!

That’s all about La Crêperie! Hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions about our page.

What’s your favorite French restaurant 🇫🇷 in Chicago? Let us know!

Thank you & Stay tuned for the next food blog soon!

About 3 minutes read.

Hi everyone! Welcome to my very first food blog! Today, I am going to introduce my favorite PIZZA restaurant in Chicago: Pete’s Pizza and Bakehouse, which is located near our Loyola Lake Shore Campus. I am a huge pizza fan and their pizzas are truly the number one in my heart! FYI my personal favorite is sausage pizza! (And no, there is no sponsorship in this blog.)

I still remember the first meal I had at Pete’s. It was a very special experience to me. During my freshman year when I was coming back from China after our winter break, my flight ✈️ got delayed until very late that night. I was very hungry and tired…and Pete’s was one of the couple restaurants open until 1am! Not because any food tastes good in that kind of situation, but their pizzas do taste very very good… 

Fun fact, Pete’s was literally across the street from my second-year residence hall Spring Hill Hall last year! And, I like to workout at very late night, so Pete’s became my go to post-workout meal last year! I am not sure how many times I have ate there around midnight. But I am sure their very friendly workers already know the guy who always come in late and order the same sausage pizza every time. 

Not only pizzas, but they also have a huge menu you can choose from; like burgers, sandwiches, soups, salad and dessert, etc. I have heard their ice cream and cakes are very good, too!🍨🍰 I personally haven’t tried any other food from them yet. Because their pizzas are sooooo good…and I looooove pizza. The price for one slice of pizza is around $4+, include taxes. BTW, you can also use your Rambler Bucks in this restaurant! Also, as you can see from the picture, their slices are pretty big… 

One more fun fact, Pete’s opens in the morning too! I didn’t know that until I wanted to have their pizza for breakfast one time! Okay, that’s a joke, but I do want to have pizza for breakfast sometime. Metropolis Coffee is a very popular coffee shop very close (about 1 minute walk) to Pete’s and our main campus. (📍All locations pined in the Campus Map below.) Many of my friends and students hang out and study in the coffee shop. I am a very quiet person when it comes to studying outside of my room or library. Quick tip before I finish this blog, I found not many people go to Pete’s in the morning, but they do offer coffee, tea and other drinks too. It’s a perfect spot for studying if you are looking for a quieter place with the same smell of coffee! ☕️～

That’s all about Pete’s! Hope you enjoyed reading this food blog. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, thoughts or suggestions about our page.

And, what is your favorite pizza topping? Deep dish or thin crust? Let us know!

Thank you & Stay tuned for the next food blog!

July 10, 2019

Welcome back to the Part 2 of my Retail Marketing summer class blog!

As I mentioned in the Part 1 blog, this online summer class has two in-person class meetings at a local coffee shop called Helix near our Lake Shore Campus. And yesterday, we had our first “coffee shop class” together!

The coffee shop just opened in May 2019, and many things are still in developing like store layout and menu, etc. I really like all the design and small detail in the shop, but have not tried their coffee yet (but will try soon ha-ha). I am personally not a huge fan of studying in a coffee shop because of background noise. And, I am happy our class came in after their business hours so that there was only the smell of coffee around the shop! We sat down with the two founders of Helix, and learned about their mission and purpose of opening this coffee shop. Their vision is to create a network of social enterprises that employ youth and reinvest in the communities. I have never seen a mission driven coffee shop built for helping youth on their career path and skill sets before. Also, both of the founders are Loyola Alumni, and one of them is also the co-founders of Loyola Limits!

I am not sure if it was the coffee shop environment or the excitement of meeting each other in person, but three hours of the in-person class went by much faster than our online version in my opinion. I think it is great to meet with my classmates in person and know more about each other, because we will have group projects working together in the next few weeks.

There are so much more interesting and new ideas in this class. For example, this is a writing intensive class, but we are not writing anything like a research paper or any normal college paper. We are writing podcast scripts for our final marketing audits project! To be honest, I did not even know there are scripts for podcasts at first. I though people just free-talk and chat on their podcasts. By the way, are you a Trader Joe’s fan? Do you know there is a podcast talking about everything about Trader Joe’s called Inside Trader Joe’s? Dr. Stacy is a huge fan of Trader Joe’s, and this podcast is actually one of the “textbooks” we will learn from. (If you have not read the Part 1 blog yet, we don’t have any paper/online textbook for this class. Instead, we listen to podcasts!)

Please make a comment if you want to know more about summer class experience at Loyola or anything else! I am happy to answer and write about! Stay tuned!

July 3, 2019

After waiting for two months, I finally started my Retail Marketing summer class yesterday!! This class just becomes my all-time favorite class, even though it is a three hours and fifteen minutes long class per class section! There are many reasons why I joined in this class. Dr. Stacy Neier is my favorite marketing professor at Loyola! I have taken her class in the past. It was the most interesting class I have ever taken. I love the energy during our class discussions and all the creative knowledge about Marketing. Also, she is the faculty advisor of my fraternity! @DeltaSigmaPiLUC

When I first saw the class title, I was very confused by the name “MARK 360W Blend”. I think most people understand the “W” which means this is a writing intensive class. This course incorporates a variety of assessments that are specifically designed to help students become a better writer. This is another reason why I joined this class, to improve my writing skills.

The word “Blend” was where I got lost. But before I explain the meaning of the word. I want to share a fun fact about this class: most of our class meetings are online, but there are couple meetings we have to meet in person. Guess where do we meet for the in-person classes — a coffee shop!!! Yep! At first, I thought maybe because it is a small class, so we don’t even need a normal classroom to meet up. But the truth is we are working together with a local coffee shop name Helix Café near the Lake Shore Campus! The coffee shop is also owned by our Loyola Alumni!! (And FYI, there are about 15 students in this class.) We will work on the retail strategy about this coffee shop and write audits as a Retail Analyst. I really cannot wait to have a class at a coffee shop! Okay, back to the “blend”. I guess the word starts making sense because this course has both online and in-person class meetings. Yesterday during class, Dr. Stacy explained to us the word “blend” means a class only meet up in person under three times. Since we are only going to meet twice at the coffee shop during this six-week summer class, we get this special title!!

After yesterday’s class, I learned there are so much more interesting and new stuffs about this class. I will share them in my next blog! Quick hint: Do you know there are actually scripts for podcasts?

Stay tuned!

And happy 4^thof July everyone!

News about Helix Café: https://abc7chicago.com/business/edgewater-cafe-provides-jobs-for-unemployed-chicago-youth/5404082/