M.A.id in Waiting: Applying to Graduate School

“Goodbye! We love you! Safe travels! See you at graduation!” This is how my grandparents saw me off after our winter visit together. There’s really not much use denying it any more: I will (hopefully) be graduating from college in 2016. It’s a pretty chilling feeling to watch the ball drop on a new year that matches your “Class of.” As I’ve written somewhat melodramatically ...
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Student Recitals and Other Adventures

The first student recital of the 2015-2016 academic year happened on Wednesday, October 28th. It’s no secret that performance is not particularly my favorite activity and not especially my strong suit (due to stage fright and a propensity for unnecessarily dramatic facial expressions…), so I’m thoroughly pleased to report that not only did I perform in said recital, but also th...
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How to Make Friends?

(I try to balance my blog posts between academics and social life to appropriately represent my experience at Pomona so far. Currently, I’m uncomfortably close to my first thesis deadline and would rather not talk about that, so social life it is!) Something that will happen to you a lot at Pomona is the Friend-Crush™. Arriving my first year, I was astonished at the sheer numb...
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Firsts

Chirps is up and running, and I’m copying my assigned readings for the semester to my master to-do list. In the dorms without air conditioning, we’re running fans and shutting windows. The ensembles are auditioning. People aren’t dropping classes quite yet. Posters for open houses are popping up everywhere. Welcome to the fall semester! The class of 2019 is settling in, ...
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Coming Soon to Theaters: A Paper, a Poster, and My Last Year of College

Here we are in August, and this has probably been one of the fastest summers of my life. I can tell because a lot of things that I’ve been mentally logging as “future” are suddenly up close and personal. August means: the end of SURP, which in turn means: a sizable research paper, clumsily starting to take form a presentation poster, which I know will be rectangul...
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Making Money, Then Spending It on Fruit Juice

Here I am, almost halfway through my summer project already! Time flies here on campus, especially with not as many students around and no homework to do. My research has progressed to its intermediate stages, and summer living is settling into somewhat of a routine. I’m managing to pick up some extra odd jobs here and there on top of my SURP stipend, so my finances are loo...
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Campus Still Got It

Reading the other summer blog posts so far is a bit surreal. Boston? New York? Queensland? Well, that sounds exciting. Meanwhile, this summer I’ll be repping Pomona from… well, Pomona. I’m one of a couple hundred students staying on campus. Some are here as volunteers for PAYS, some are working for various offices and departments, and some (like me!) applied through the Sum...
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Loneliness at Pomona

College gets a lot of marketing. Besides the shiny brochures you’re probably all getting in the mail, there are media stereotypes about college life, reputations of college organizations in the news, and so many more sources portraying "what college life is like." If you have a family member who’s attended college, maybe they’ve talked to you about their college friends ...
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High-Adrenaline Sports at Pomona: Room Draw

Iiiiiiiiit’s MAY on the Pomona campus (well, and everywhere else)! The weather has been getting hotter, and many of us are running low on sleep, motivation, and Flex. I won’t lie; things are pretty stressful for a lot of students right now. Yes, it’s now Finals Season, but before spring finals comes the uncertainty of What’s-Happening-Next-Year Season. We’re gearing up to g...
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The Life-Changing Decision Pants

We see you! ‘Tis the season for prospective students, and sure enough, here you are! You’re walking around campus, going on tours, clutching maps, and carrying or wearing admissions paraphernalia. You are equipped with your nicest business-casual interview outfits and nervous-looking parents, trying to get a read on different schools and whether you might see yourself th...
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