It has been a quite stressful couple of weeks as I wrap up midterms, exams, papers, and my first semester of Sophomore year. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I try to find something that I look forward to; it makes the wait worthwhile and makes me want to work twice as hard to get through the weeks. Something I have been looking forward to since last year is the LUC Muslim Students’ Association Sisters’ Retreat 2016. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to attend last year, so I made a promise to myself to go this year and thought I would share a bit information of what it is about.
The MSA Sisters’ Retreat is an opportunity for members to not only get closer to the Creator, but to also strengthen the ties of sisterhood on campus. The retreat is a weekend long combination of activities and spiritual talks and this will help serve to meet this purpose of strengthening the bonds amongst the sisters at Loyola.
The weekend retreat takes place from Friday, November 18, 2016 at 5:15 PM to Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 4:00 PM. It takes place at the LUREC – Retreat and Ecology Campus and is restricted to women only.
I will also be sharing my experience via Loyola University Chicago’s Undergraduate Admissions’ Office Instagram story – Please follow @luc.admission on Instagram and join us as we venture out to strengthen our bonds with Allah as well as each other!
As a sophomore here at Loyola, I’ve seen a lot of potential students being walked through our Lake Shore campus, as have many students within there time here. Now that I’m a tour guide myself, I feel like I’ve become a more crucial part of this major step in the potential students’ lives.
Having done my first actual tour guide today with a group of high school students, I’ve been able to personally witness not only how eager the students seemed to be, but also how passionate I’ve become about this school. On the tour I was able to highlight a lot of great features about the school, including how eco-friendly we are, the plethora of our student groups and activities, as well as how we try to make a home for all faiths and backgrounds, and that’s something that I personally connect with. The fact that Loyola can offer a huge amount of resources as a university and can make every student make this campus their own home, is astounding and very admirable.
The more I talk about Loyola, the more I feel welcome here. From fraternities and sororities, to worship spaces for all faiths, to various Division-1 and intramural sports, to choir and theater, and everything in between, I have yet to meet an individual who hasn’t been able to find a group of like-minded people that share similar interests and undoubtedly welcome them into their social circle.
Even those who are afraid of figuring out how to get involved in various groups or clubs, incoming freshmen can be a part of a Learning Community, ranging from various topics such as a STEM majors, Leadership, Faith, as well as an International Learning Community where students can live with students from around the country as well as around the globe, and visit and view various festivals and neighborhoods around Chicago such as the Turkish Festival, the International Film Festival, or just visiting places such as Ukrainian Village or Chinatown, and experiencing the global cultures that Chicago has to offer.
Lu Wolf, LUC’s loveable mascot.
I’m very proud to say that I’ve been able to call Loyola home, and I know all of my friends feel the same exact way. I can proudly say I’m a Rambler, and I’m very much excited to see more incoming students faces, as well as profess how proud I am to say that I go to LUC.
Double Business Degree. The program that opens the door between two continents: America and Europe. Many of you may not know what this is about, so I am here to tell you.
The partnership between Loyola University Chicago and Universidad Loyola Andalucía, my home university, offers amazing possibilities. The greatest is the Double Business Program, which I am part of. It allows students to spend a semester in the John Felice Rome Center (Rome, Italy) and a whole year in Seville, Spain (or in the case of Spanish students like me, in Chicago). Sounds awesome, right?
The plan does not only have academic advantages. It is obvious that it differentiates you and doubles your internship and job opportunities, widening the range of places and positions you can access (students become fully employable in both continents). However, I can tell from my personal experience that it does much more than that. It broadens your horizons. It takes you out of your comfort zone to a more global and original thinking. It opens your mind. It makes you appreciate your culture from another perspective. It lets you take the best of each educational system. It helps you improve your communicative and social skills by living with people who speak a different language and have different customs.
Participating in the Double Business Degree Program has been the best decision in my life. So far it has allowed me to travel, meet amazing people and develop new talents (never had I thought that I would learn how to sing “operetta italiana”). And I cannot wait to see how it is going to shape my future. One major, two continents, three countries, three languages, lots of friends and… the best of all: two degrees without having to add any more years of studies! Business students: what are you waiting for?
Something quite unique at Loyola is the J-term. What is the J-term? January term is an condensed, intensive, two-week session. Courses are available online, on campus, and abroad to give you a variety of options to make the most out of your winter break. Get ahead and graduate early as J-term is one of the best ways to do so!
J-term 2017 begins on Tuesday January 3, 2017 and ends on Friday January 13, 2017. Classes will be held Tuesday January 3 through Saturday, January 7 and Monday, January 9 through Friday, January 13, 2017.
Registration opens on Monday, October 17, 2016 and closes Saturday, December 31, 2016. Students can register for a J-term class via LOCUS by selecting J-term 2017 from the term selector menu.
**REMEMBER: J-term is not part of the Spring term — Students can ONLY register for a maximum of 3 credit hours for J-term.
This is the best way for someone to fit in a tier 1 or tier 2 class! It will definitely pay off in the end and winter can get pretty boring sometimes too, so definitely take this into consideration! Similarly, you can enroll in the summer term and fit in any other additional courses as well.
This time last year I was scared and truthfully pretty unsure about whether I had made the right decision in coming to Loyola. A year later I’m sitting here writing to you and loving my life. It’s crazy how different things are already as a sophomore, I couldn’t wait to come back this year and I wasn’t stressed about if my dorm would look like it came off Pinterest. A whole year away from home gave me a confidence that I never dreamed I would have, and a group of friends and sisters I wouldn’t trade for the world. Over the past year I changed my major, made new friends, lost new friends, lost a roommate, and joined a sorority. Freshman year your life is put on fast forward, and even though there were moments last year that tested my character and my ambition, I am so glad that it all happened.
This year I’m excited to be an initiated member of Chi Omega and have a better idea of what I want to do with my life. Last year, I decided that the business school wasn’t what I wanted to to be, so here I am switching to the School of Communication!
My advice for freshman would be to take a deep breath and chill out. Stop stressing about making friends and sitting alone in the dining hall. It’ll happen, you’ll find your people with time, and sitting alone in the dining hall means you can watch Netflix. Half way through first semester last year, I thought I would transfer out for sure. It only took one good friend to convince me otherwise. I remember the moment when I realized that there were people here who wanted me around, and that was the best feeling in the world. Even if it was only a handful of people, it was a handful of people who were my friends. So if you’re a freshman don’t stress out, and don’t think that if you don’t have a best friend by week two that it’s the end of the world. You will find your place and when you do it will be awesome!
I’ve hit the ground running this year and I’m so glad that I stuck with my gut and stayed at Loyola. I can’t wait to see what sophomore year has in store for me! Stay tuned, I’ll be back and blogging every week!
As we wrap up the projects and exams and say goodbye to our freshman year, It’s interesting to look back and see just how much we’ve changed over the last nine months. In August I was eighteen and anxious. I started this year without any friends, I started this year with a roommate, I started this year on the dance team, and I started this year with no idea how much I would love Loyola.
Now I’m nineteen, which isn’t really a big difference, but at the same time it kind of is. This time next year I’ll be twenty and I know now that that day is coming much sooner than I ever imagined. I still feel like I moved in a week ago sometimes. I’m a much different person now than I was a week after move in though. I’ve made a lot of good decisions, and a lot of bad decisions, but most of all I’ve made a lot of memories.
Ending freshman year is kind of surreal. I don’t really know if i’m ready to not be the new kid anymore. I mean once you’re a sophomore you know what college is about, you’re still learning, but you’ve been around the block a few times already. That’s going to be weird.
Next year people start going to study abroad. They start specializing and looking for internships. The real world is gonna be coming at us even faster. I’m glad that this year I’ve found what I think I want to do with my life, and next year I want to do even more to make my future a reality.
Freshman year is fun, it’s a lot of learning both in and out of the classroom, and a lot of finding yourself. You find out a lot about yourself freshman year, and you start to understand who the people you went to high school with really are. People change after high school, and some people really don’t.
If you’re an incoming freshman, get excited, and don’t worry, because yeah it will be hard but it will also be totally worth it!
One of the biggest aspect of colleges is class. Unexpected, right? Not nearly so much as you would think. There are also other essential components to the college experience, but class is pretty high up there on the list, definitely a tie for first with whatever you love. After all, it’s kind of the reason you’re at college – or the reason you get to complete it.
In the movies, there’s barely any representation of classes that you go to, or if there is, they take way less precedence that the drama between characters. Admittedly, a movie about an ordinary college class would not be very exciting. But classes are! Since you have freedom to choose which class you want, you can take anything that you need, love, or want to pursue.
There’s just one catch: you might not get into it on your first try. (It’s not as scary as it seems, I promise you.)
I just want to share with you all about the class registration process, because it can get pretty crazy. I know it always causes me panic, as a very schedule-oriented person, so I fix that by making alternate schedules upon alternate schedules, calculating what to do if I don’t get into this class or that. We have something called the Four-Year Plan, a layout on Excel that provides an easy layout for planning all of your classes, if you’re like me and want to check that out.
The way our registration works can seem weird, but it makes sense. Depending on your credit hours, you get to have registration priority, or if you are in a program that requires you to take classes in a specific order or amount, such as Honors.
Registration takes place entirely online, unless you need to talk to an advisor about something specifically – they can override things and pretty much have magical schedule powers. Before registration even opens, however, you can put classes into your ‘shopping cart’ after picking out the time, teacher, and class that is offered that best works with you. That way, when you do get to register, you don’t have to waste precious time scanning through the inventory – you can just click ‘enroll’ and you’re set!
Unless, of course, your class is filled by people with an earlier registration time than you. For freshman classes, that’s very unlikely, but it gets more common the longer you’re here. It’s all dependent on credits – so, credit Seniors get first pick, then Juniors, Sophomores, and so on. It’s pretty neat because many people come into college with transfer credits from AP classes so they could be a credit Sophomore while still being a freshman, allowing for earlier registration. Very cool.
Really, as an incoming freshman, you shouldn’t worry about getting into classes too much. You might hear this piece of advice a lot, but I’ll tell it again: don’t take 8 am classes. Later in your college career the professor becomes more important than the time, but I have seen so many freshmen regret their decision to take an early class. Just trust me.
In looking at colleges, you might have considered a public school what with reciprocal or in-state tuition, compared to a private school like Loyola. That was definitely the pull for me away from Loyola, but all the other things brought me back!
I’m from Minnesota. But here at Loyola, I have friends from California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and all the states in-between. We came here not because it was cheapest but because it’s where we belong, and where we’re happy. (Also, going to private school is interesting when you’ve been a public-school kid all your life.)
Of course, I do have friends from the Chicago area, or from nearer states like Wisconsin and Michigan. And though I’m not as far away as, say, New Jersey, the distance does present some obstacles- and some opportunities. If you’re hesitant about a school because of its distance, let me tell you: it will be okay.
First off, your experience is what you make of it. I call my parents once a week (and/or if something really exciting happens), but I have friends that call twice a week, three times a week, or only once in a while when they remember. Some take the train back home for breaks, or don’t go back at all. Me, I take the plane – it might not seem so, but you can definitely find cheap flights at my distance. And the school provides a U-PASS allowing for unrestricted transport on the L, so I don’t have to be shelling out for an uber each time. And there’s plenty of opportunity to go home or have people come here, whatever suits you – from Parent’s Weekend to Easter Break, it’s pretty nice.
Second, they’re well aware of travel costs. If you’re a really far-away student, over the summer you can ask to be assigned to the very last Orientation with the Honors and International students that takes place right before the rest of the school moves-in, so you don’t have to make two trips. You might not know this, but you can also request extended stay (though not infinite) in the dorms over summer break, or stay here over winter break should you please as well.
Third, being from a distance makes Chicago all the more fun to explore! Going into this year, I knew very few things about this fair city. Navy Pier, yeah, and Chinatown, the Mag Mile, and like, there are some cool towers and cool zoos. Not that I didn’t absolutely adore it regardless, but now I feel really accomplished when I can picture where the neighborhoods are on the Red Line or estimate how far away something is, or even be walking downtown and actually know where to go instead of just consulting the skies.
Of course I’ll advise taking everything into account when you’re picking a college, but this is just to say that distance, at Loyola, is not the biggest or most important factor. The deadline to decide is May 1, so think carefully!
Wow, a hefty topic. Crazy how big the decision is, too.
I don’t mean to scare you. But I do want to remind you that decisions are due May 1, and if you haven’t started thinking about what you want to do, well… Now is the time.
So that’s where I come in! As a student who made her own choice less than a year ago, I can tell you the tips and tricks I used, saw, and have learned about deciding where to go to start the Next Big Adventure!
Let’s get things straight from the get-go: whatever you do, it doesn’t have to be permanent. You can always transfer, or (though I don’t encourage it) drop out. You are not locked into a path that will define you for your whole life after this month ends. I know people who have transferred in their junior year of college, or transferred twice, or even chosen to leave Ivy League schools. Whatever you do, whatever you tell a college, you still have options.
And who knows? The person you are now might fit in perfectly at the school of your choice, but the person you might be in two years might say: this is no longer who I am, nor what I want. And that’s okay.
Now onto the key stuff: choosing a college.
A lot of people will tell you they just ‘clicked’ with a campus when they stepped onto it, and if that’s you, congratulations! Follow your heart.
A lot of people will get excellent scholarships and decide to attend a school solely based on that. Congratulations if that’s you! Very practical.
But sometimes people are strongly torn between two, three, or even four schools where all the factors seem the same.
Consider your life when you’re looking at colleges. Where is the college? How far is it away from home? Will you be okay being so far or so close to places you’re comfortable with? Do you like to explore and see new things in a city atmosphere, or will you just stay on campus or do outdoorsy things on a campus that is farther away from the urban jungle? Will you be able to be smart for the weather?
Would you be better at a large school, a medium, or a small? Are you undecided, or do you know what you want to pursue? I’d advise that either way, you attend a school that offers other things you’re interested in, just in case. Just trust me. Even the most stubborn people I know have gone on to change their major.
Now, if you’re sure you’ve considered everything, from financial aid to campus aesthetic, but you’re still torn, I’ve got ideas to help you.
Grab your most no-nonsense friend, a friend that’ll tell you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it. Give them a coin. This one’s for if you’re torn between an even number of schools, because, well, coins have two sides. Have your friend assign one school to one side, another to the other. Have them flip it, and tell you the answer. Now, I’m not saying this to have chance decide for you. When they tell you the answer, listen to your heart. Are you sad? Glad? Disappointed? Whatever your initial reaction was, take note of that. Add that in to your considerations. (Any other arbitrary decision-making process can be substituted in, like picking petals or eenie-meenie-miney-mo.)
Tour them like crazy. Even if you’ve been on the same tour five, six, seven times, do it again. Are you bored of the tour? Do you tire of seeing the campus, or would you rather break off and enjoy it on your own time, in your own path? Interact with the school as much as you can – after all, you might end up there for the next four years.
Talk, talk, talk. Contact your admissions adviser. Contact whomever would be your First Year adviser. Leave a comment here and talk to me. Go on Facebook and talk to other potential students from the school. Talk to current students that you meet on your tours. Even if it’s about the weather, interacting with people can tip the scale.
Write it out. Physically grab a piece of paper and divide it in half, or however many sections you need. Then use a pen and write out the pros of the school – and then the cons. If you find it’s very easy or too hard to write them, take note of that. Pay attention to what you’re thinking.
I chose Loyola because of a combination of good factors, from scholarship to location, even though I didn’t love it immediately. But now that I’m here, I can’t help but think that I could have avoided a lot of mental agony and decision-making stress by looking into myself and realizing why I kept it on my list of ‘to-consider’ was because it was really great, I was just being stubborn. I may be one of those people who make the most out of everything, but even still, I love Loyola and I’m glad I came here. I hope that, no matter where you end up going, you’ll love yours the same.
(And if you don’t, see above paragraph about how nothing is permanent, everything is permitted.)
I decided to be an overnight host again for a Multicultural Overnight event. This was a little different from a previous overnight event I did. This Multicultural Overnight event focused on having high school students who identify themselves as people of color come together and meet other Loyola students who are students of color in order to feel comfortable and interact with one other. My overnight guest and I got along great and shared the same interests and had a lot in common.
Once she arrived on campus, I showed her around the Loyola campus and took a walk towards the lake to take pictures. Afterwards, we did several activities that the event provided, including performances from our fellow peers such as a sorority perform their salute and a Loyola student reading his poems. Also, we were able to learn dance moves from the Afro Descent team and performed it to the other groups. We even learned how to salsa from the Salsa club. This experience was so much fun because we got to meet other Loyola students we haven’t encounter yet and meet other incoming freshman as well. We even did some crazy poses to capture the moments of happiness and laughter. Some groups did a pyramid and others did funny poses, our group decided to spell out LOYOLA and it was lots of fun meeting new people. After this was over, we were pretty tired and wanted to go to bed to relax and reflect on the day.
The following day, I took her to a mock class that showed her how classes are taught and the experience of being a student at Loyola. Next, she really wanted to go the bookstore to get some Loyola gear to show that she had officially made the decision to attend Loyola next fall. I am excited that I will be seeing her next year and we agreed to keep in touch in case she needs any advice or just wants to hang out.
