It's a Small World After All

You know those incidents in which you meet someone and it turns out they know someone who knows someone that you know? And then you go oh my, this is such a small world we are living in... everyone knows what I am talking about, it happens all the time. Well, I thought that going to a school for college that was the exact opposite of my high school (130 girls in each grade), would allow these occurrences to happen less, yet they continue to happen to me here.
My second day in psych 100 I sit next to a guy. I ask him a question about something and we start talking. He introduces himself and then I introduce myself. It turnouts out, this guy, Lucas, is my best friend's boyfriend.
The weirdest incident though happened also in the beginning of the semester. I did not take a tour of UMBC, instead, I allowed my brother, Amir and his friend, Cyrus, to give me a tour of the school in their perspective. In order to show me the dorms, they called their friend Mike and Mike showed me his room in Erickson. I was thoroughly impressed with the room, but all three guys told me that this was the best dorm and there was no way I would get into Erickson. Here I am though, typing away in my room in Erickson, but not just any room... the same exact room Mike was living in last year. And who is the "Mike"? Well it happens to be the person that created the blog, Steelwolf.
There has been plenty of other crazy incidents here at UMBC. It is just sort of weird who the world works...whether it is the people we meet and the ways we know them or the way things turnout when you least expect them to.

Student Course Evaluations

It's that time of the semester again, where all of the professors hand out the white-and-brown quizzes and the blue sheets for you to rate their performance and provide suggestions and feedback for the future. Interestingly, even the music department is required to hand these out, which means there are a lot of "not applicable" bubbles to fill in on the first sheet.

At any rate, the results from these evaluations actually do end up somewhere, meaning that you can actually supplement your ratemyprofessor search by looking up past data for various courses and who was teaching them. The blue sheets, while they take more time to fill out, are probably a little more directly helpful to the professor. Many of them have made changes in the course in subsequent semesters based on this feedback.

Although it seems like an annoyance, I encourage you to take the the time to fill these sheets out. By providing this feedback you help many classes and professors improve.

UMBC Basketball vs. Morgan State TV Game

Hey Everyone!

This is just another reminder to go out and support the UMBC Men's Basketball team this Thursday, November 29th from 7:30 to 9:00pm at the RAC arena. The team is currently 4 and 1 and doing extremely well! Also, this is going to be a televised event that could get our school some publicity and recognition that we deserve.

Check it out!:
UMBC underground posted an article on their website about this event: http://umbcunderground.com/2007/11/26/the-dog-pound/

Basically, the goal is to start a new UMBC athletic tradition. They suggested that everyone meet early at 6pm so that we can get the seats behind Morgan State’s Bench and all sit together cheering loudly with a lot of spirit and intensity!

RSA's Town Hall Meeting

Yesterday was the RSA Town Hall meeting where representatives from ResLife, Food Services, Parking Services, OIT and police department were present. Students were able to ask their burning questions and get insight into how various departments at UMBC plan to address our concerns. Here are a couple topics that were brought up and discussed...

Parking:

-There are no future plans to relocate the satellite lot to give freshman a chance to park on campus.

- Someone proposed adding more levels to the parking garages but that would cost near $20,000-$22,000 per parking space.

- A way of making monthly payments for parking tickets if you have a lot to pay off, because unpaid tickets might may halt registering for classes.

Food Service:

- Looking into healthier food options

-Dietician available to make trips to campus

-Looking into starting new meal plan options next year. Such as...

- Unlimited dining options (you can swipe your card once and visit the dining hall as many times during the day)

- Block plan options

- Many students complained about not being able to use their meals if they knew they would have extra meals left over due to the time restrictions. However, the miss meal factor is taken into consideration when pricing the meal plans. Which means we aren't exactly expected to use every meal so they don't exactly charge us for EVERY meal.

-Planning on having a different food venue open on the weekends at the Commons every other Saturday. Next Saturday will be Sandella's.

ResLife:

- The master plan is being worked on this year and will hopefully be revealed next year.

OIT:

- Looking into getting wireless every where in residential halls.

Police:

-Try to get more blue light phones around campus

Unfortunately I had to leave early and wasn't there for the very last bit but this is what I got from it and hope it answers some of your questions.

Bicycles and School Spirit

There's been some buzz lately about the little reminder that went out about UMBC's Bicycle Policy. Apparently just a few too many students have been riding bikes around lately, prompting this memo that bicycles are to be parked only in designated pods or racks rather than chained willy-nilly to immovable objects around campus.

I'd like to echo some of the recent sentiments on UMBC Underground and ask the question - how does a memo like this affect our campus life experience? Steve and I had an interesting discussion with David Hoffman (Co-Create UMBC) this afternoon about this, so I'm sure at some point this will appear on his blog as well.

At any rate, there are really two conflicting priorities at work on our campus that can be described by thinking about grandmothers. The first grandmother's house is welcoming and inviting - there are the interesting artifacts and family pictures prominently displayed that you are careful to respect, but overall they add to the enjoyable experience you have when you visit. The second grandmother covers her sofas with plastic to ensure that they always remain pristine, but in doing so loses the comfort offered by the furniture. Her precious items are kept far from reach where they cannot be appreciated or enjoyed.

Personally, my priority is the first option - I would like to see UMBC take the plastic off the couch and allow students to feel comfortable and welcomed at their university. It's okay for the university to look and feel like students actually use it, even if that means everything isn't 100% "good as new" all the time. This objective was furthered recently with the posting of a very large banner on the side of the Commons. The game this Thursday will be an interesting experiment. I would like to see the students there excited about the game and their school's team regardless of fears about being "too rowdy." Let's show Morgan State that we are proud to be UMBC students and aren't afraid to enjoy ourselves at an athletic event. If somebody tells our students to sit down and be quiet, I want to see students stand up for themselves, if not at the game itself then in the week afterward. This is our campus, and we have the right to use it.

Welcome Back

I hope everybody had an excellent time and some delicious food over Thanksgiving break. I'm sure this means you're ready to throw yourself back into the work of the semester, right? Ha. At least we can take comfort in the fact that there are now only about two full weeks left in the semester (if you don't count finals). I keep telling myself I can make it that long, but I'm not sure if my Flex dollars will...