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Tag: Colorado State University

  • I’m a College Graduate!

    I’m a College Graduate!

    It’s official now. I am a Colorado State University alumni and a college graduate! Yesterday, I graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelors of science in biological sciences and a double minor in business administration and chemistry. Let’s go class of 2021!!

    On Friday, my family and I went to an honors recognition ceremony for me being a graduate of the university honor’s program. The ceremony was pretty small, which we all enjoyed and I got a medal that I wore for graduation from it! There was also cake, and I joked with my family that the honors program does one thing right for certain- there’s always good food or good cake at every honors event. I was not wrong. While it was stupid cold and windy that day, we still braved the weather to go take a couple of pictures with my medal and some of my regalia around campus. After our chilly little photoshoot we went to lunch at a place I really like in Old Town Fort Collins called Union. If you’re in Fort Collins, first, I recommend going to Old Town. It’s so cute. Second, definitely go to Union. They have great food. I had a Monte Cristo for first time there and it was pretty yummy! Friday night, we picked up my aunt and uncle from the airport. My aunt and uncle came to spend the graduation weekend with us and a few days following! I’m very excited they’re here and I’m thrilled to get to spend some good time with them for a few more days!!

    college graduate

    December 18, 2021 was a really good day. I woke up when I always do and from the moment I got up, I had to start getting ready for graduation. Yes, the ceremony was at 1 pm but I was at home already and line-up started at 11:30 for us, so that meant I had to leave by 10:15 am if I wanted to be there when I did. Around 10:15, we left and were just in time. I met with a couple of friends before the ceremony and just like that it was 1 pm, my feet were still doing ok (yes I did choose to wear open-toed three-and-a-half inch heels to graduation), and it was go time!

    college graduate

    The ceremony was wonderful, despite the fact that I had to wear a mask the entire time. We all did. I’m just thankful that I had the opportunity to actually graduate in person. I worked too hard to not get to celebrate in person!! I saw some of my previous professors from general biology and organic chemistry at the ceremony and that made it a bit more fun too. And after the ceremony, I took more pictures with family and friends and then my family and I went to Ted’s for dinner back home!

    It’s crazy to think that my undergraduate journey has now come to an end and that I’m now a college graduate. I’m incredibly thankful for all of the opportunities I had at Colorado State University and I am even more grateful to have met the people that I did. I complained a lot about the rigor and load I dealt with throughout university, but in the end it was all ok. I finished strong and I couldn’t be more proud of the work that I did. Not only that, but I finished a semester early. Pretty cool stuff. And with that chapter finished, I get to wait to start the next one now! Dental school, here I come!!

    college graduate
    Me and my sister 🙂

    I hope you all have an excellent week and a very Merry Christmas! If you also graduated this weekend or are graduating this semester too, congrats grad! We did it! Stay warm and stay healthy everyone! ❤️

  • Last First Day of School! Last First Day of School!

    last first day of school

    For those of you who don’t know, I’m graduating from Colorado State University this fall! Needless to say, I am VERY excited. So, this past week, I had my last first day of school. Or at least, my last first day of undergrad.

    I’m taking thirteen credits this semester in addition to tutoring anatomy eight hours a week. I’m taking human nutrition, pathology, genetics, and my senior honors seminar on the Cold War. Things were off to a pretty good start this week and I’m very excited to see where things go this semester.

    We are required to wear masks within all university buildings and there was a vaccination requirement in order for us to take classes this semester (unless we wanted to be tested twice a week and fill out exemption paperwork). I’m just hoping that I can have a semi-normal graduation at the end of this semester and walk away with opportunities for dental school.

    While this may be my last first day of undergrad and I’m considered a senior and “big dog” on campus, I’m really not feeling that. In my honors seminar this past week, a couple of the other students were mentioning that the senioritis is kicking in hard and it made me laugh hearing that again. I remember when everyone brought that up in high school and then, I could agree. Now though, I’m ready to kick things into high gear and just get going. I’m looking forward to a good semester and I’ll keep you all updated on how things go. For now, cheers to those of you also celebrating your last first day of school, have a great week, and go Rams!!

  • Back to School Again!

    back to school again
    See, I laugh because I think it’s funny that I have to go back for more school. 🙂

    Back to school again! Don’t you all love another back to school post?! So my classes started this past week but we were fully online. The plan is now for us to transition into our hybrid and in-person classes. Fingers crossed it works, oh boy. I still have a few classes that are fully online for this semester but my university has hopes that with enough testing, we will be able to have a more “normal” semester. I really hope that’s the case!!

    After being hope since Thanksgiving break, it’s going to feel really weird going back to living on my own. I’m used to have my food made for me (thanks Mom!!) and having the ability to do a lot of the things I like to do when I like to do them. I’m used to being able to go for walks with my dog often and not have to wear a mask every time I practically step outside. There will definitely be some adjustments to make as I get back into my school routine and I know I’ll make it work. I just hope I can deal with the loneliness part of things okay again. I’m really glad I have technology to help me there at least!

    To prep for going back to school again, I did the usual- play some tennis and grocery shop. Not that tennis has anything with getting ready to go back to school, but it is a lot of fun! Lately, my mom and I have really good luck getting food from Target. I don’t know about you all but I really think that Target has improved their grocery department IMMENSELY. We can get a lot of the same things that we get from King Soopers (all-natural, no GMOs, etc.) for much cheaper and the quality is still really good if not better than what we find elsewhere. More reasons for me to love Target.

    I hope you all have a good week and if you’re getting back into the swing of things, whether that’s at work or at school, we all got this. Stay safe and stay healthy and I’ll see you all next Sunday! 🙂

  • Switching to Online Classes Soon…

    online classes

    Things have been so crazy lately and it’s crazy to think that it’ll be Thanksgiving soon and before we know it, December! With all of this comes the switch back to online classes. Before this semester started, my university made the decision to fully transition to online classes to hopefully prevent more students from contracting COVID-19. Hopefully that works.

    I’m all for fewer people getting sick, but I’ve really hated having to deal with all these online classes. I teach a class for the honors program at my university and that has basically been the only fully in-person class I’ve had this semester. It’ll be hard for me to transition to being online for that class and I can’t even imagine how difficult that will be for my freshmen. It has been a really weird semester for them already and so I can’t imagine what that’ll be like for them when we’re fully online.

    I’m honestly really excited for this semester to be over. It has been a big odd ball, that’s for sure. I’m practically done with my anatomy class, considering that was a class that I could take at my own pace anyway. I just have my exam on the upper limb tomorrow and then I’m DONE!! My business law class will also be finishing up in the next week once I turn in the last two assignments. My only remaining classes will be my cell biology class and macroeconomics (blehhhh). Having just those two online classes will be kind of nice but I’m worried that I won’t be able to find any motivation to do work. We shall just have to wait and see.

    If anyone else out there is switching to remote learning soon, I feel for you. It’s tough but we will get through it. 🙂 I hope you’re all staying happy and healthy. Have a good week!

  • Review of the First Week!

    first week

    So this week was the first week back at school. That was an interesting time, I must say. This week, I just wanted to share my experiences with my first week back and this weird time navigating a worldwide pandemic and college classes.

    Classes started on Monday, August 24th, and this first day of school was not like past first days. I didn’t try to dress cute or make myself look presentable which was honestly refreshing but also kind of disappointing. It made the day feel really different. Monday was a horribly busy day. I had five classes, cell biology, anatomy, a business class regarding the legal and ethical issues of business, macroeconomics, and my pre-thesis class. I basically sat at my table for five hours straight after I had breakfast and cleaned up and that was the worst decision of my life. After those five hours of classes and exploring the class pages and syllabi, I had lunch, and then it was time for more class work. I ended my extreme first day of classes with a pre-thesis meeting and then after that hour I crashed. My sister and I ordered Noodles and Company for dinner that night as a celebratory dinner and as a way of saying, “Yay we did it! We survived the first day of classes!” It was a good dinner and if you’ve never had caulifloodles, I highly recommend you look them up and then try them. 🙂

    My second day of classes was a breeze. I had my online session for cell bio lab and then online lab for my anatomy class. For my cell bio lab we have an online portion and an in-person portion. I alternate when I meet in person every other week. When I meet in-person, I’m required to wear a face mask in addition to a mask which seems a bit excessive, but I understand the precaution, so I will do what I can to keep myself and others safe! For my anatomy class, we have a virtual dissection software that we use to understand and see all of the structures we need to look at. I was hesitant about an online anatomy course at first but I actually love the professor that does our lectures and the software we use for virtual dissection is actually pretty cool. That was basically all I had Tuesday, so I had a chance to do some reading for my econ class and was done with my work around 2 pm.

    Wednesday, I had my cell bio, anatomy, business, and econ classes. It was a pretty mild day but wowza four classes in one day is a lot of work. I can handle it, but it’s just a lot of information to take in within a few hours. By Wednesday, I discovered that I really liked my business class. It has been very different from any other class I’ve taken so far and I really like how my professors are treating the course as a way of obtaining life skills as opposed to an actual academic course. Yes, I still get graded for the work I do, and there are still assignments and quizzes, but the emphasis is more on building the skills needed to run a business.

    Thursday, the only true class I was the first-year honors seminar recitation that I teach. It was exciting to meet my students in person. It was just a very strange environment though. The tables were all so spread apart and it was odd communicating with people and trying to be enthusiastic and share my excitement for the honors program with a mask on. It was just a bit strange.

    And then the last day of the school week, Friday!! Friday was another big day of many classes, those classes being cell bio, anatomy, my business class, and econ recitation. My econ recitation was an in-person class and that was interesting. For a class that was supposed to have thirty students in it, we were put in a decently sized lecture hall. All of the rows had tape blocking off all seats except one to enforce social distancing. Obviously we were required to wear masks. My TA basically just talked about how the semester is going to run but I found it most interesting that my TA found it strange for us to be meeting in-person. Our lectures for that course are asynchronous so it seems a bit weird for us to have in-person recitations, but I’m just going to go with the flow and see what happens.

    It was a strange first week of classes but it was also good in many ways. It was filled with a lot of mask wearing and hand washing but it was also filled with fun and I was especially happy to see a bunch of my friends again. Hopefully people make good and smart decisions and allow us to stay on campus until Thanksgiving break. Stay healthy, stay safe, and I’ll see you next Sunday!

  • First Apartment!

    first apartment!

    Another school year is right around the corner and today was move-in day to my first ever apartment! Wow! I’m exhausted but I felt that this was important and wanted to share. 🙂

    My mom, sister, and I arrived back in the glorious town of Fort Collins around 9:30 this morning and began unloading the car and brought everything up to my fourth floor apartment . I was honestly worried coming into the whole apartment world because I signed for a studio and typically, studios are quite small. Not this one! It’s the perfect size, in my opinion, and I absolutely love it so far.

    I have a small kitchen with the tiniest dishwasher and stove with oven that has hardwood flooring. I’m a big fan of hardwood flooring. To the right of my kitchen, I have my washer/dryer unit and then to the right of that, I have my small living space and cozy bed cave situation. There’s also a table and two chairs, perfect for studying/eating/procrastinating/etc. I think it’ll be interesting to not have a formal desk like what I’ve had the past two years, but I think it’ll work out just fine. My bathroom is on the right when you first walk into my cute lil’ studio and I have a nice shower in addition to the other things that a bathroom typically has. It’s a pretty good size! As mentioned, I’m also on the fourth floor and also the top floor of my building and I have a wonderful vaulted ceiling. It makes the entire space feel a bit bigger and it also makes my large window look even larger. 🙂 So cozy!

    I’m so thankful the apartment came pre-furnished and that all of my amenities and utilities come included in rent, but the one thing I wish I could change was the color of the comfy “living room” chairs. They’re striped and brown, orange, and a strange greenish-yellow color and I feel that they don’t really fit the theme or color scheme I’ve tried to create but it is what it is.

    The thing I’m most excited for with my apartment is my bed cave. You might be asking yourself, “Why does she call it that?” and to that I say, I call it that now because my bed is in it’s own little space. It’s in the far right portion of my apartment and it’s up against the wall. The foot of the bed is also closed off by a wall. In case you don’t get the picture, you can look up to the picture at the beginning of this post to hopefully get a better idea. 🙂 It looks like it’s going to be a very cozy, very comfy situation.

    Maybe I’ll post a little apartment tour when I get fully settled and all of my stuff is put together! That could be something fun and different. And now with this done, I am going to bed because I’m pooped. Have a wonderful week everyone. See ya next Sunday!

  • The Final Straw with ProctorU

    I have a lot of issues with online testing, especially those run through ProctorU. If you’ve been around a while, you may recall my issues with the proctoring service last summer! How fun…

    I’ve been taking biochemistry online this summer and our exams have been proctored by ProctorU Live, meaning that I’m proctored in real time by a real person. This person has complete control over my laptop when I give them permission and they force everything to be shut down: from my Siri command to my screenshot abilities to my access to settings. They monitor your eye movement, what your room looks like, and even where your phone is, all to prevent more students from cheating. Most of the time, I understand the precautions that the proctors take and are required to take.

    This past time however, my proctor took it a bit TOO far. In my room, I have a tournament draw that shows my regional tournament from junior year of high school when I won the 2 singles varsity tennis regional tournament. There is absolutely NOTHING on that poster that would or could be used to cheat. I have four clear glass trophies from other various tournaments I’ve won on my desk too. In the past, I’ve showed proctors that there is no harm in any of them and they’ve permitted them to stay at my desk. Most proctors have also understood that people get nervous during exams and it’s nice to have a glass of water available to you. As long as it’s a glass and they can see that you haven’t somehow magically taped some notes to the glass, you’re set. This proctor though. Oh. My. Goodness. She forced me to take EVERYTHING from my walls and desk. Even my ID, which as needed to verify who I was, was no longer allowed on my desk. I had to fully show her the process of me attempting to get my tournament draw off of my wall and then show her where I placed all of my belongings. After all of the rearranging and moving, I still had my glass of water at my desk. She told me to move it and I stood up for myself. I mentioned that I had been allowed my glass of water on past exams and she very rudely told me that she would notate my exam and my request to have a glass of water. She also explained that my exam score may be compromised… FOR THE FACT THAT I WANTED A CUP OF WATER AT MY DESK. Goodness gracious did that do “wonders” for my mental state going into that exam.

    Not only was my proctor absolute trash, but I had struggled to get hold of one in the first place. There is supposed to be a proctor prepared for your exam time when you schedule. That’s the point of scheduling before your exam- to ensure that someone is THERE for you at the TIME YOU REQUESTED. My exam was supposed to begin at 9:10 am but it actually didn’t start closer to 9:30 am because of all the crap I dealt with. I was a total mess during my exam mostly because I worried that my score may not even be counted!

    In the end, I actually ended up doing alright on the exam, but still, the score was not was I studied so hard for. Regardless of that, I am thankful that I had the opportunity to test from home. I recognize that this is a stressful time for everyone and maybe my proctor was just having a rough day. I get that. I also know that there are things that I can and cannot control and the crazy, rude actions of other are something I have ZERO control over and that’s okay! I can control how I respond in situations like where someone is unkind, hurtful, and rude, and be the better person. Remember to be kind but also stand up for yourself!

    If you have to use ProctorU through your university, I’m so so sorry. See if there’s anything you can do to test at a university testing center or find another way to be proctored. That’s what I’m doing for my last biochem exam! I’d be curious to know if anyone else has had major issues with ProctorU… Let me know! Anyway, have a good week everyone! See you next Sunday 🙂

  • This Semester is Finally Over!!

    semester
    Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

    I never thought this day would come after all that has happened in the past couple of months. I did it, you did it, we all did it! This horribly long and dreadful disaster of a semester is FINALLY OVER.

    This past finals week I was supposed to have three exams: one for my physiology class, one for my organic chemistry class, and one for my accounting class. The final for my physiology class ended up being optional and I was fortunate enough to have a high enough grade that I didn’t have to take the final. For my organic chemistry and accounting classes, that wasn’t the case, but both of those finals were open note, which was nice. Both finals went well and I’m going to get the grades I’ve worked for which is awesome, but I still feel like my organic chemistry grade could have been even better. With that in mind, I’m still thankful for what I got, even though I struggled quite a bit with the online transition for that course.

    I finished everything on Wednesday which was awesome and around this time last year, I was moving out of my dorm and celebrating my first year of college with my family. I was hoping to get to do that this year, but a little virus named COVID-19 definitely put a damper on those plans. It was a bit odd not getting to celebrate all the hard work my sister and I did this past year at a nice restaurant with my family, but a good dinner at home was still fun. Different, but fun.

    With all of the stress that came with my course load and also the switch to online classes as a result of the pandemic, I’ve never felt so mentally exhausted from a semester and I can imagine that many of you are also feeling that way. When I hit that “Submit” button on my accounting final, I just remember feeling this wave of relief rush over me. It was all over. FINALLY.

    Of course I’m still taking a summer class, but that won’t be starting until June. I still get a bit of a break though and I’m hoping I stay healthy and that my family stays healthy and that humanity starts to gain the upper hand on this troublesome virus so that we get a chance to start our normal lives back up again and enjoy some of our summer. I’m also studying for the Dental Admissions Test (DAT) this summer so that’ll definitely be something you hear about as my test date approaches in August.

    I hope you’re all staying healthy and taking care of yourselves! Take some time to celebrate this weekend, whether you just graduated from high school or college or even if you just finished a semester, like me. 🙂 We deserve it. See you next Sunday!

  • COVID-19 in Colorado: Our Current Situation

    COVID-19 in Colorado
    Credits to the artist. 🙂

    Maybe you’re all sick of hearing about it by now, but we’ve got a global pandemic on our hands. I think it’s important to stay informed and educated during a time like this and more than anything, I think it’s important to stay positive and driven. Here’s how my story on COVID-19 in Colorado.

    As I write this, Colorado is way over 200 cases of COVID-19 and the United States has declared a national emergency. New York, Washington, and New York have been the hardest hit as of right now and I send prayers to all of you reading from those states right now. This whole situation has been unreal.

    Colorado is currently in a place where a lot of businesses and services have shut down until late March or April, but I honestly have a feeling that a lot of things are going to be closed for longer. I come from a place of observation, not pessimism when I see this. Seeing how fast the virus has spread in the United States, I just have a feeling that we’re just seeing the beginning of things in the U.S. From what I know, most, if not all schools have switched to holding some form of online classes or provided families with homeschooling content and it’ll be interesting to see what comes from this as far as education opportunities go, once this clears up.

    There’s a lot of talk about a stay at home order or shelter in place order. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, we need to do what we can to flatten that curve. As a biology major, I have been very interested in this entire situation. Of course I’m saddened by the effects this is having on so many people and honestly scared in some ways by the power something that’s not even as large as skin cell can have on the world. I’ve also been so interested in how this virus can survive on surfaces and how it affects our bodies. I’m also really proud to say that my university, Colorado State, has a research center that is currently conducting research to find a vaccine for this little monster that has sent our world into the state it’s currently in.

    COVID-19 in Colorado has turned grocery stores into an absolute nightmare now. My family has been trying to find rice and flour for the past week now, and we’ve had zero luck because of all of these people stockpiling their food and additional household supplies. I can understand that there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding our current situation but you do not need the large amounts of toilet paper stashed in your bathroom or all of the frozen foods you can fit in your cart. Trust me. There are some people who haven’t even had a CHANCE to grab any of that and the only food they have is what was in their fridge before this whole mess started, and these stockpilers have left those people with zero options. My mom and sister went to the grocery store this past week and there was this dad there with his son. They were throwing a birthday party and couldn’t find chicken ANYWHERE because so many other people had run in, taken as much as they could, and left. As mentioned before, I understand that this situation is scary to many and new to all of us, but we need to be rational with our decisions and consider others, especially when it comes to what’s available for purchase.

    And still on the topic of grocery stores, my mom and I got back from Costco earlier today and dealt with some extremely nasty people. COVID-19 in Colorado has turned some people into monsters, oh my goodness. I understand that this is a tough time and again, it’s scary and new, but no one deserves to be yelled at over barely bumping into someone with a cart. My mom barely caught the heel of this lady when we were getting into Costco and this lady turned around and screamed at my mom, yelling, “WOULD YOU STOP RUNNING INTO ME WITH YOUR CART?!” First of all, that lady rudely asked me before we even entered the store and asked why there was a line. Costco created a 30 person in, 30 person out policy to comply with CDC guidelines. She then proceeded to cut us in the line after we were asked to sanitize the cart and when my mom just barely ran into her, this lady blew up on us. I don’t know what her situation was or what she has been dealing with, but I believe that regardless of whether or not you’re having a good day, you should put your feelings and thoughts aside and be kind to others. No one deserves to be treated with that sort of unkindness EVER and especially in a time like this. Some people were even fighting over the food and stuff available in Costco, which I found ridiculous too. Good Lord, it’s a rotisserie chicken. The sign said that each shopping party could only grab one chicken, so accept it. Those are the rules. And the way that some people treated the employees was absolutely disgusting. The employees are more at risk than anyone because of the amount of people they interact with and you have the audacity to scream at them for there not being any cleaning supplies in stock? That’s just unacceptable.

    From this post, my goal is not to scare you or worry you. It is simply to educate you on what we’ve been dealing with in my state. I hope that you all are staying healthy and smart out there. Please take care of each other and listen to what your local and national governments are saying. Stay informed and most importantly, take care of yourselves and stay positive. And in addition to that, we need to be kind. My life quote is “Have courage and be kind.” In a time like this, that is SO SO SO important. We do not have time to be blaming some poor employee at Costco for not knowing where the Naked Juice is. We don’t have the resources to be hoarding toilet paper and napkins and other supplies. We SHOULD be treating each other with respect and lifting each other in this uncertain time so that we can get through this.

    So have courage and be kind. Stay healthy too. 🙂 See you next week.

  • College Life and COVID-19

    covid-19
    Picture courtesy of the Center for Disease Control

    So this past week has been one HECK of a week, let me say that. College life and COVID-19 are quite the combination. I’m now on spring break (thank goodness) but this past week at school, it was very interesting to see how coronavirus (COVID-19) developed and how it has affected everything.

    It has been incredible to watch the response to this novel virus strain from the local, state, national, and even international levels. A couple of weeks ago, we received emails here at CSU introducing this current nightmare of a coronavirus. We were told that my university was monitoring the situation and would be updated as new information came up. And that new information came QUICK.

    First the virus hit the U.S. and after that, boom. Schools in Washington were deciding to shift to online platforms, and before I knew it, CSU decided to do the same. On Wednesday this past week, our president and executive team made the decision to extend our spring break to March 24th, with classes starting up ONLINE beginning March 25th. We will be in online classes at least until April 10th and as the virus continues to do its thing, my school may or may not continue to use online platforms for learning. We shall see.

    On Wednesday, it was very interesting to see the reactions of my fellow students. Some were thrilled classes were moving online and ideas of slacking off and screwing around clearly filled their heads. Others, myself included were concerned. What’s going to happen to my labs? Are all exams online now? Are my exams still going to happen that were scheduled upon return from spring break prior to the COVID-19 pandemic? There are just so many questions we have. Some have answers, but some are still just up in the air.

    Now. I keep talking about Wednesday, and now I would like to have a little story time. Wednesday, I was supposed to have an in-person exam for my physiology class, which has become my favorite class this semester without a doubt. I was headed to my accounting class at noon when I received an email that my exam, which was supposed to be at 5 on Wednesday night, was moved to be online and I had five hours to schedule an online exam time. It was a mess and I have absolutely hated working with ProctorU to handle online exams. Read my posts about summer classes to learn more about those experiences. Haha.

    And as I now add to this post on Sunday, my university has decided to shut down for the rest of the semester, with all classes finishing online. This will be interesting. Oh boy, will this test the discipline and self-control and focus of students across the country.

    More than anything, I want everyone to stay healthy and smart out there. To those of you reading this, please please please take care of yourselves and your family. Please make smart decisions and educate yourself on the current situation. Now, more than ever we need to make educated and well-thought out decisions to keep each of us safe and healthy to the best of our abilities. CO-VID 19 is a fascinating, but clearly contagious and dangerous virus to many people so we need to work together and get through this. I really recommend checking out the CDC page on the virus. I’ll link it for your convenience: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

    Have a good week and stay healthy out there. See you next Sunday!