Today is the second day of classes; its hard to believe that break's already over and everybody's back into their normal rhythms. Yesterday, I began the classes I'm taking towards my environmental studies minor, Environmental Justice and Global Climate Change. Both seem like they are going to be really interesting and the professors seem very charismatic and excited to be teaching what their teaching. I have the two back to back, so I think they will provide a nice counter to one another...the social/economic/political aspects versus the more scientific approach.

I also am looking forward to the first Habitat for Humanity meeting this week. Hopefully, I'll be able to get involved in this organization, which has always interested me. Ideally I'd love to travel somewhere internationally during the summer, so if I cannot find something through the school at this point, I may try to find a group somewhat local to my hometown. I'd like to take advantage of the long summer break we have with something meaningful.

This semester too, I think I would like to start taking a language through NUCalls, (a student taught class meeting about once a week) in either Spanish, which I took throughout high school, or in Italian. This would be ideal to keep practicing with Spanish or to start something new because its free and doesn't require a large time-commitment.

I'm happy to be back, good luck to everyone with the new semester!

I can't believe it has already been two weeks since my last entry, the time has gone by really fast with the three days weekends from the snow day and MLK day. I'm really enjoying my classes so far. I'm taking two freshman honors inquiry classes to fulfill the required honors program credits. Both are on environmental topics, and both professors seem really knowledgeable and passionate about what they are teaching. I've also started my Co-op introduction course as well this semester, which has already really helped me better understand what I have in store for the next couple years.

I also began the search for possible summer internship positions in architectural firms in or around my hometown. I'm hoping that if I get a jump start on the process I'll be able to find something that works for me. Especially because after those couple classes I've had for my Co-op introduction, it seems that prior experience is a big selling point when applying for jobs during my Middler year.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow night too. Kappa Sigma is hosting BJ Novak, a comedian from "The Office" in Blackman Auditorium, should be a lot of laughs; I've heard great things about his performances.
And thanks for your comment Allison!

It's hard to believe that in three days I will be done with my freshman year. There's been so much going on in the past few weeks of the semesters. I've really had to buckle down the past few days on my digital representation project for my presentation on Wednesday. I've probably racked up over fifty or sixty hours on it this week alone, which has been really difficult with the nice weathering luring everybody outside.

Last week I got a little reprieve though; my friends and I went to a Tristan Prettyman concert at the Paradise Rock Club, which is right near BU's campus. So not only did I get to enjoy a great show, but I got to see a little of BU's campus. I hadn't really seen much of their campus before, but I found that it is much different than the Northeastern campus--much more spread out. Seeing this made me appreciate the fact that we have a very centralized campus even more. (I personally didn't like the idea of taking the T to class or having the university spread throughout the city buildings.)

Tomorrow also is the University's Sustainability Forum, which will talk about NU's carbon footprint, sustainable development measures, and future plans for improvement. To me, it is really exciting to see more and more universities around the country making strides to a more environmentally-friendly approach within their infrastructure. After learning so much in my environmental studies classes about how many problems the world's facing in terms of global climate change and how drastic improvements can be made by taking what seem to be such minor steps, it is really encouraging to see such an event taking place.

So I've already been home for break for over a week. It's been really nice to be able to spend time with my family, and couple friends (most aren't home from their schools yet). I've even started my summer job already, so I'll be able to save some for spending money next year. I am already missing school and everyone there though.

I recently got a comment from an accepted student who raised a lot of very good questions that I'm sure are shared by the majority of accepted students, so I thought I'd share them and my answers here.

*"Have you really had to do the famous all nighters for your arch classes?"
I personally have never had to pull an all-nighter, but I'm really disciplined with pacing myself and my workload. I'll sacrifice a lot of my time consistently to successfully finish my projects. I would stay in the studio for manual til 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning some nights (on the weekends too!) cause I had so much to do and it was impossible for me to do a good job and finish it in a night. But, it really is dependent on how long you procrastinate and how quickly you work. The majority of students have been forced to stay up all night to finish some sort of project though, especially before final crits on the final projects.

*"Do you feel like you have really good quality professors?"
Most of them were really really good, and I really enjoyed their classes. My manual representation professor was great looking back, and it's nice in the studios cause you get to spend so a lot of one-on-one time with them that you really build rapport and get really comfortable (you're even on a strictly first-name basis, that's how they introduce and refer to themselves). It makes for a very collaborative environment where you really get a lot out of the courses.
Outside of architecture, I've been talking environmental classes, and I've been impressed with the caliber of the professors. They all have been really active in important research and social movements.

*"I know the arch major is pretty structured - do you have room for electives or a minor?"
Yes, you definitely will have room for electives and a minor, but pick your courses carefully in advance. I'm glad I decided early about my minor cause I've been able to work with my schedule to fit everything I need in. Keep in mind too, the university as a whole has gen. ed. requirements so they have to allow some time in your schedule to fit in those, but if you have a lot of those credits already with transfer credits (from AP or whatever else), then you can pick whichever classes you need for a minor or just what you want to take. You can also pick gen. ed. requirement classes that also fulfill credits towards your minor.

*"I'll be coming in with 30 transfer credits ... did you have/do you know anyone who's had experience with transferring credits? Hard? Easy?"
I actually came in which about 24 transfer credits from AP tests and a college level course I took my senior year. It really wasn't bad, I don't even remember if I had to do anything or if it was done for me. So I guess it couldn't have been too grueling.

*"I'm really interested in sustainability and environmental design.. and I think I read on one of your blog entries that you are too! Is there a class focusing on that? Do you get to sort of do specialized projects to fit your interests?"
As a freshman I haven't really had the opportunity to work on very specialized projects yet, cause I'm still developing my skill sets and learning about the field more generally. But it seems like later, as you progress, you can take more liberty to develop projects in a way that interests you. For now though, we are more focused on general design issues, schemes, and reasoning. I have been learning soo much though in my environmental classes, and have found the links to architecture really common and prominent. As I get farther it seems I will have the opportunities to really take project in directions that I want to go.

*"Could you tell me a little bit about the benefits [of the honors program] and what you really like about it? Also, are there things you don't like about the program?"
Well, housing is the first thing that comes to mind. In the honors programs one of the biggest perks is that honors student get much nicer housing, especially as freshman (also dependent on how much you want to spend). There are also a lot of opportunities in the honors programs to do extra projects, service activities, or cultural activities. This year I have gotten a lot of tickets to a wide range of events through the honors program as a greatly reduced rate.

*"Do kids go into the city a lot, or mostly stay on campus?"
We definitely go into the city all the time. The thing about NU that I love, more than with other city schools, is that we have a very welcoming, comforting campus that we can stay on if we want to escape from the commotion of the city. But we are in such a central location, that really is beautiful...we are walking distance to so many places and just a T ride away from soo many more. You start to realize how small the city is by the end of the year....in the beginning I was so overwhelmed by it all. But our last week here, a couple girlfriends and I went out to dinner in the North End (the Italian part) and bumped into four different groups of friends on the same street corner, definitely a lot smaller than you think at first. But I really love it, cause the cultural and social aspects of the city is really diverse and active. It's nice to just go take a walk and explore a new area, cause there are so many beautiful areas.

*"Being in honors, and doing architecture, do you have time for clubs and just hanging out with friends?"
Time is definitely my biggest hinderance. I'm not involved in nearly as many things as I'd like to be because I devote so much time to my studio work. Some relaxed, stress-free activity is necessary, its just that any free time I do have is usually after 10 or 11 pm, and obviously student groups don't meet that late. Next year I'm definitely going to try to become more involved with at least a couple activities. Also though, I do have work study for 10 hours a week, so if I didn't have that I'd probably have much more time during the day for clubs and stuff.

Hope seeing this can give some student insight to accepted students, or even students thinking about applying in the future. Feel free to ask any other questions, I really enjoy answering them cause I know how the anticipation and uncertainty feels when considering schools...I went through it all just last year.