As I write this sentence there are 15 days, 10 hours, and 33 minutes until graduation. Not that anyone is counting. Yesterday one of the first-year bloggers wrote about the experiences that she’s had over her first year and today I’ll reflect on my last four years at Juniata.

When I was gearing up to graduate from high school I was nostalgic, scared to leave the place that I had called home for four years, unsure of what was ahead of me. That same nostalgic feeling is absent now. I know what I am doing with my future, at least the next six years of it and I feel academically and socially prepared for the world. Juniata did a good job.

Me and a friend when we were freshmen

Of course, I’ll miss the quad and seeing the volleyball players frolic in the sun on their portable court. I’ll long for the lazy days where my friends and I would hammock in the trees outside of Founders, talking, and laughing, and dreaming about the future.

I’ll miss my classes and the professors that taught them. I began to enjoy learning for learning’s sake because the professors here don’t just teach you the material, they challenge you to think about what you’re learning and understand not only how it applies to your field of study, but also about how it might help you to better understand the rest of the world. That’s the joy of a liberal arts education, it helps you develop a larger world view that allows you to better understand your place in it and how you can make it a better place.

And me and two other friends as old seniors.

I’ve received some of the best grades of my life that have led me to four semesters on the dean’s list. And I’ve received some of the worst grades of my life that have given me the worst GPAs I’ve ever had. One of the reasons I feel so prepared for graduate school and the rest of life is that Juniata and the courses I have taken here have taught me how to fail, and how to do it with grace. If I can offer one piece of advice to take with you into your first year it is: learn how to learn from your mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get an A on your first test in biology, or if College Writing Seminar (CWS) has revealed to you that you might not be the author of the next great American novel. That doesn’t mean you’re going to fail in biology or that you’ll never be a good writer. Take the advice that is given to you and follow through on it. Over time you’ll see that your bio grade will go up and your essays will begin to receive glowing insightful comments from your CWS professor.

You are all coming to Juniata next year for a myriad of reasons, but you all have one thing in common: a glowing work ethic and perseverance in the face of adversity. There are too many memories, both good and bad, to share with you in one blog post. That’s OK, because you’re going to be making plenty of amazing memories on your own.

I have eight days left of my freshman year at Juniata. It’s the perfect time to start reflecting on my first two semesters of college. My Google Photos app has been trying to convince me to look through the slideshow of my freshman year for like a month and there isn’t a better time than the present.

It was definitely a year of firsts.

There was my first college paper. It took four trips to the Writing Center and lots of caffeine but I managed a solid A-. Now, I can write a paper on my own with minimal caffeine intake and still earn myself an A.

I was dragged on my first trip to Sheetz and was pleasantly surprised. I was convinced that it wouldn’t live up to my beloved Wawa but I was proved wrong. An estimated 300 Mac & Cheese bites later and I still don’t regret it.

I skipped class for the first time and got caught skipping class for the first time. Completely unrelated, but still good advice: don’t tweet about skipping class to go see Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day and use your class hashtag.

Me and Phil

I ate my first microwave cup of ramen noodles. It’s an interesting taste, definitely a meal to save for after you’ve eaten all your other food and you’re desperate to eat something because it’s 2am on a Saturday and you have a paper to work on.

I fell asleep on a public bench for the first time. It was just such a nice day and I was going to read my book for class out on the quad but the grass was still wet from the rain the day before. I dozed off and was awoken by the feeling of a stray volleyball hitting the back of the bench.

I went electrofishing for the first time. I never pictured myself wearing waders and a large yellow backpack while trying not to slip on the rocky bottom of the river while sending tiny electric shocks through the water to stun fish. It was a new experience that I didn’t think I would ever want to do – much less get the chance to do. Turns out fish are pretty cool.

My first year at college has been quite the roller coaster. I have learned many things that will be helpful in the future. Career services helped me create a resume to send out when I’m applying for internships this summer. I took a history class about Australia and New Zealand on a whim and now I’m applying to study abroad in New Zealand.  I also learned how to Photoshop photos of my dog so she’s wearing rain boots in my Intro to Information Technology class.

Advice that I wish I was given before starting my freshman year at Juniata? Participate in Campus Events –  Res Life has events all the time. I met one of my best friends at a cookie baking and coloring book night in the dorm lounge. Take Calculated Risks – explore your interests. Go rock climbing, join a research team, study abroad, or participate in an outreach project. Have an Open Mind – you might find out that Sheetz is better than Wawa or that Ramen noodles are the new instant mac & cheese. Get a Sheetz Rewards Card – you will earn tons of points which equals free food. TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY! I can now say that I’ve been electrofishing, learned to salsa, read an extensive amount of Ernest Hemingway’s writing and attended a live reading done by the award-winning author, Jennifer Steil.

I would like to think that my first year at Juniata was a success. I will be heading into next semester more academically and mentally prepared and ready for whatever the world throws at me next.

Choosing a college was not easy for me. I visited at least twenty colleges, applied to eleven, got scholarships to seven, interviewed at three, and found my place at one. I’ve been on dozens of college tours. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in a college until I found it. I applied everywhere from Vermont to Florida. Each school had something different to offer.

I made a spreadsheet of quantitative and qualitative data from each of my college visits. I thought that a bunch of graphs were going to help me make my college decision. I had all of the statistics from each college: student population, professor to student ratio, four-year graduation percentage, transfer rate and tuition. I also had all the words that I would use to describe the college and I rated each of the campus services like dining, janitorial services and employee interactions.

After analyzing my extensive collection of data, I realized that the school that had the highest scores was the school that I least wanted to go to. I realized that just because the schools had great scores didn’t mean they were the greatest schools for me. I couldn’t base my college decision off of numbers; I had to base it on how I felt.

After my epiphany, I started narrowing down my potential colleges. I knocked out the ones that were obviously not the place for me. Then I looked at the student population. I didn’t feel like I was the big school kind of person. I don’t like getting lost in the crowd. Then I looked at location. All of the choices I had left were in a five-hour radius of my house so that didn’t help. I ended up thinking of the college tours and my experiences with admission counselors. Which one left me with the best impression?

This gave me my final two schools: Washington College and Juniata College. Washington was only an hour away from my house and they offered me a great scholarship, an amazing apprenticeship, and great opportunities. Juniata was a four-hour drive from my house, offered me a pretty good scholarship, the ability to individualize my P.O.E. and explore countless topics, as well as an incredible community with people who were focused on helping me achieve the most for my future. As cheesy as it sounds, Washington had the money but Juniata had my heart.

Juniata was the college where I felt most comfortable during my visit to campus. The students were welcoming and friendly. The professors that I met made me feel like they actually wanted me to be successful. The concept of the P.O.E. rather than a normal major was extremely appealing because I had big dreams and I’m not sure I could have graduated from normal college without a quadruple major.

When I arrived at my orientation I knew I had made the right choice. I felt at home instantly. The people I met were wonderful, my orientation leaders showed me the ropes, my fellow incoming freshmen made me feel comfortable about my transition into college. When I came to Juniata, I knew I found my place.

Everyone at Juniata sells living abroad, and I have to warn you, I’m going to sell it as well.

Ireland seemed picturesque before I came here. It is rolling green hills, friendly people, good music, good beer. It is all of those things, but it also has its low points. I’ve gotten splashed by a car driving through a puddle (yep, it actually happens), I’ve gotten soaked inside and out by rain, I’ve gotten sick, and I’ve spent too much money on that good beer they have. But all in all, it has been an incredible, real experience.

Living abroad is an opportunity to truly experience life in whatever country you go to. That includes the good and the bad. It’s not always as picturesque as one might imagine, but it teaches you more than a semester of classes at home ever could.

I spent this semester in Cork, Ireland doing an internship at their Environmental Research Institute with UN Environment GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre. What that really meant was that I wasn’t really a student. I’m using my Environmental Fellows scholarship from Juniata to cover my cost of living and now that I’m done, I’m using my savings to explore a bit of Europe. It was odd working every day and not going to class, but I got to experience Ireland all the same.

Cork has become my home in the past 3 months. This small little city has definitely taken a piece of my heart. The River Lee is always flowing past me. I can see farm fields on my walk home from work (and sometimes smell them). I have housemates who are kind enough to drive me to town when I need it. And the best part? All of the pubs have fireplaces. Now, I’m still 20, so I can’t drink in the states, but if anyone finds a bar with a fireplace there, let me know. Nothing is better than drinking a good beer and sitting in front of a peat fire.

Overall, studying abroad has been an amazing experience. I’ve gotten to live with people from Ireland, and one of my best friends from Juniata. I’ve gotten to travel around the country to Kinsale, Killarney, Dingle, Dublin, Cobh, Waterford, and more. I’ve experiencing living outside of dorm life, buying groceries, making dinner every night, and working every day. I’ve gotten to live a different life.

I love Juniata with all of my heart, but I am also so thankful for the opportunity Juniata provided me to live abroad. It’s no vacation when you’re studying abroad, that’s for sure. It’s definitely life with work, bills, bad days and good days… But it is also creating a whole new life for yourself in a whole new place. It’s not just limited to Ireland, either. Wherever you go, be it France, Australia, New Zealand, Spain­ – it’s an experience of discovering yourself and growing as a person.

Wherever you go, if you ever go abroad, jump into growth. See what part of yourself traveling will reveal. And if you’re lucky, have a good beer by a peat fire.

Long before I applied for colleges, I yearned to travel. While I was drawn to Juniata College by its community feel, beautiful campus, and flexible POE program, an important factor in my decision to attend the school was the excellent study abroad opportunities it offers. With the help of my academic advisor, I chose from the many countries and schools with which Juniata is connected. Now, as a junior I am studying at the University of Leeds in England and fulfilling my dream to travel.

Studying abroad is a life-changing experience. While the pre-study abroad meetings that occurred during the semester before I departed were essential and extremely helpful, there was nothing that could prepare me for the reality of studying abroad. Coping with culture shock, missing my family and friends, and acclimating myself to city life and a university with a student population nearly twenty times larger than Juniata’s were all issues that I could not previously understand. Amidst the struggle to cope though, I found new people, new places, and a new sense of self that could only be gained through study abroad.

An adventure in the English countryside.

Once I adjusted to living in England and attending class for only six hours a week, I began to travel with my roommates. The public transportation in England makes its beauty and history easily accessible. My roommates and I have spent weekends in Scotland and Germany and have taken day trips to many places including Bath, Oxford, and London. Less than two months ago, I stood before Stonehenge marveling at a man-made miracle I thought I would only ever see on a screen. In Berlin I touched history when I visited a site where part of the Berlin Wall still stands. As a Museum Studies and Art History major, I have spent countless hours strolling through museum exhibits and gazing upon masterpieces by artists such as Manet, Rothko, Ernst, Dali, Rodin, and others.

Despite the importance of these experiences, the life lessons I have learned while abroad are the greatest benefit of this program. I have set my own budget, carried groceries for miles, and dealt with the consequences of my professors striking for nearly a month. I have learned to plan ahead, manage bus and train schedules, ask strangers for directions, and laugh at myself for foolish mistakes. I have opened up to the once strangers who also live in my flat from Chicago, Holland, and Australia, and they have become some of the closest friends I will ever make. I have figured out the importance of family and community in my life and in the process learned that I have a strong support system at Juniata and at home even though I am an ocean away.

Studying abroad is as much a way to discover yourself as it is an opportunity to discover a new part of the world. It is an educational experience that cannot be measured in credits or dollars. I know it will be one of the greatest lessons I carry with me after graduation from Juniata College.

“Are you coming home for this spring break?” My parents ask. “Not this year, sorry mom and dad.” I respond. As someone who lives 500 miles from home, distance is usually the reason why I might not return home for breaks or long weekends. It’s an unavoidable day spent doing nothing but driving, and tends to get old quickly. But this year, I had the chance to go farther… 1000 miles further.

Nobody ever expects a small, rural, inland college to have a SCUBA club. Most people expect it to be a novelty, a space for misplaced sea-folk to commiserate about the trials of being landlocked. But at Juniata, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Along with events that introduce people to the joys of diving and yearly dive trips over spring break, SCUBA club also certifies divers with classes and pool dives. With more than 10 divers certified this year, SCUBA club had to go big.

Photo Credit Greta Hayden-Pless ’18

Our travels took us to midland Florida, where we dove and explored for a week. Most of our dives were in limestone caves and caverns which allow for beautiful, if somewhat harrowing diving. The dives are perfectly safe so long as you stay out of the more dangerous cave systems which are easy to get lost in; fortunately, all of these are well-marked and mapped. While bad weather forced us to cancel our ocean reef dives, we spent that time cavorting with manatees and paddling the beautiful Ichetucknee River in northern Florida before the long drive back.

The opportunities you’ll find at a niche place like Juniata are surprising, from research presentations in Oklahoma (where I’ll be headed the week after next) to diving in Florida. The mark of a true Juniatian, however, is how they face these opportunities. After a week with a dozen of my peers camping in hammocks, I’m happy to say that all of them deal cheerfully with the dreams that come with following one’s dreams—like in this case, the endless mosquitos and cold weather for camping.

–Written by Zach Hesse ‘18

March is Women’s History Month in the United States. All over campus we are having events such as “Boobie Bingo” and “Java, Poetry and Monologues” to celebrate great women in history and to bring attention to the women’s rights movement.

This past Saturday night I was in Baker Refractory for Boobie Bingo and they had placed pieces of paper on each table that had lists of notable women in history who were trailblazers. Women such as Pearl S. Buck who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature and Sandra Day O’Connor who was the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Reading about all these amazing women in history got me all motivated to do something great with my future. Maybe I’ll write a novel like 2014 Juniata graduate Natasha Lane or run for a political office like Carol Eichelberger Van Horn a ’79 graduate of Juniata who was the first woman elected to the Court of Common Pleas of the 39th Judicial District of PA.

After failing to win a single bingo game, I returned to my cozy dorm room and opened up my laptop to do some research. I scrolled through Juniata’s distinguished alumni page and read names and accomplishments such as Heidi M. Cullen, Ph.D. ’92  the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Communications, Climate Central, Princeton University; Former Host, “Forecast Earth with Dr. Heidi Cullen,” The Weather Channel and Former Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research and the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction or Miriam Smith Wetzel, Ph.D. ’52 a Faculty Member at Harvard Medical School; Member of the team that developed the new medical school curriculum and Winner of Miss Pennsylvania, 1952.

After reading about the forty or so women listed on the distinguished alumni list, I wanted to find out more about what women alumni of Juniata have achieved. I opened up my LinkedIn and found the Juniata Alumni page and started scrolling. There were hundreds of alumni and countless accomplishments for all of them. I can’t list them all here but some notable ones that I saw were women such as Clarissa P Diniz, a 2014 graduate of Juniata College who is currently studying at Johns Hopkins Medical Center; Kelsey Kohrs, an associate dolphin trainer and water science operator at Discovery Cove; and Heather Fisher a 2007 graduate who is now a facilitator on the Multi-Disciplinary Investigational Team for the District Attorney/Government.

Juniata provides you with the education and the opportunities to achieve great things. They offer chances for students to collaborate with professors on research projects and incorporate real life objectives into the classroom to help build your portfolio and your resume. All I can say is that in ten or twenty years, I plan to be one of the women on Juniata’s distinguished alumni list.

Link to the Distinguished Alumni Page: http://www.juniata.edu/about/distinguished-alumni.php

At one of my recent lacrosse practices we did a team building activity where we all listed a hero of ours, a hardship we’ve faced, and a highlight of our life. It took all of us a pretty long time to brainstorm up a response to each of those categories, but during my thought process I tried to narrow things down and think about it in just the context of my Juniata career thus far (which isn’t that long considering that I’m only a sophomore) and I found that the answers to all three of those questions could be rooted back to one thing, one person.

Dr. Barlow on a panel discussing the U.S. Constitution.

I came into Juniata on a pre-medicine track set on becoming a doctor, it was what I had wanted since I was five years old. However, I also knew that I had other passions so despite being pre-med my POE was still in politics. But, the more politics courses I took the less sure I felt about going to medical school; I was enjoying Intro to American Government far more than my chemistry classes. It wasn’t until my first semester of sophomore year that I met the professor who really helped me sort all of that out, Dr. Jack Barlow. I was in his American Political Thought class and something about his teaching style and quiet but witty and sarcastic humor really appealed to me. I eventually asked him to be my adviser and I don’t think I’ve made a better decision yet at Juniata.

Dr. Barlow has helped me through one of the largest conflicts in my life. He helped me to realize that giving up the dream I’d held for fourteen years of my life wasn’t really a loss, but an opportunity to explore something that didn’t just fascinate me but that also made me happy. He’s the perfect blend of supportive and challenging as an adviser and as a teacher. I know for a fact that I couldn’t count on one hand, and maybe not even on two hands, the number of times I’ve gone into his office in crisis mode and left feeling completely relaxed. Something about his calming demeanor and his odd knack of always magically appearing when you’re stressed out beyond belief seems to be able to resolve any problem. Dr. Barlow is basically everything your high school teachers always said you won’t find in a professor- he’s understanding, approachable, supportive, and impressively interested in his students’ lives. He’s the kind of person who asks how you’re doing and actually wants an honest answer (he’ll even call you out if he thinks you’re lying). He’s pushed me not only academically or in class, but also on a personal level to help me realize and actualize future goals. Dr. Barlow has been one of the best parts of my Juniata career thus far, and I feel pretty lucky to go to a college where professors of his quality aren’t an anomaly, but rather are the majority.

Writing a thesis is hard. It is the culmination of all the hard work and late nights that you put into your research project to make it the shining testament to your will power, work ethic and ability to muscle your way through writer’s block and procrastination. It’s a long and arduous task and at the end of each day your head is spinning from all the scientific papers you’ve come through just to provide evidence for on paragraph. Yes, it’s difficult and at times all I want to do is crawl into my cozy bed and watch the snow fall outside of my window, dreaming of my childhood where my greatest worry was if I was going to have enough snow to build an igloo. Having the opportunity to write a paper that brings together the project you have been working on for months or years is rather unique, at least from my perspective.

Hard at work making figures for my thesis.

You see, once I complete my thesis and defend it at Thesis Night in late April, I’ll be submitting it for publication to a bonafide science journal. That isn’t something that most undergraduates can do, especially if they attend a larger institution where most of the research projects are carried out by graduate students. Thankfully, Juniata doesn’t have any graduate students, barring those accountants, so young aspiring researchers or doctors, or even literary scholars and future orators all can conduct graduate level research at the undergraduate level. If you continue your project long enough, or compile enough evidence to draw a conclusion from your data you can compile it into a thesis and maybe can submit your manuscript to a journal within your field. Graduate and medical school admittance committees look very highly on that. It shows you are highly motivated and exceptional work ethic.

An additional benefit for the aspiring researcher that is considering Juniata is our annual Liberal Arts Symposium (LAS) which we will be hosting on April 19^th this year. Students doing research in every department have an opportunity to present on the progress they have made on their projects either through a poster or through a presentation. When you wade through the masses that crowd around the posters and you sit in on presentations throughout the day, you really begin to understand the scope of research that is offered here at Juniata. One of the most beautiful aspects of Juniata, to me at least, is the ability for anyone in any department to conduct research on a subject that is near and dear to their heart. And they can present their findings to the school, and sometimes the rest of the world. At Juniata we are all about writing our own story and part of that, for many students, is the ability to write the story of their research.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another stack of papers to read through.