{"id":3053,"date":"2012-03-19T13:52:18","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T17:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2012-03-19T15:15:06","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T19:15:06","slug":"oh-hi-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/2012\/03\/19\/oh-hi-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, hi there!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been WAY too long.\u00a0 Some of you may have been wondering where I\u2019ve been and what I\u2019ve been doing.\u00a0 My answers to these questions are, \u201cI don\u2019t know, and EVERYTHING!\u201d<\/p>\n

So to catch you up from the beginning:<\/p>\n

Last time I posted, I talked about joining the Officer team at the Phillip Brooks House Association \u2013 a student-led 501c3 nonprofit based on Harvard\u2019s campus that supports more than 85 programs, 1,400 student volunteers, and 10,000 low income people in the Boston area.\u00a0 Since then, I have come to know a team of twenty amazing individuals who are devoted to public service and making the world a better place.\u00a0 I have learned from their ideas, their passions, their anxieties, and even after only three months, I feel that I have come to know and trust these people explicitly.\u00a0 The other thing I can honestly say about PBHA \u2013 I have learned more in my three months as an Officer than I have in my entire time at Harvard.\u00a0 Not that classes here aren\u2019t amazing or anything, but if you read on you\u2019ll see what I am saying.<\/p>\n

Over January break, we all came back a week early to go through NPMI (Non-Profit Management Intensive), where we learned about everything from budgeting to meeting facilitation, from student development to strategic management.\u00a0 To say this was a crash course would be an understatement.\u00a0 This week culminated in a final Officers Retreat we took in Maine, where we were greeted with plenty of snow, plenty of hot chocolate, plenty of Apples to Apples, and plenty of meetings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Me in a PBHA van in Maine! photo cred: Alan Silva<\/p><\/div>\n

At the same time we were putting our new found skills to the test by planning Cabinet Retreat \u2013 a meeting off campus with all of the directors of the 85 different programs for an entire day.\u00a0 This is the largest thing I have ever organized.\u00a0 It also involved me writing my first ever training, leading my first ever training on Volunteer Management, speaking perhaps in front of one of largest audiences I have ever spoken in front of, and writing the largest check I have ever written for the rental of the space: Hibernian Hall.<\/p>\n

But the day finally came on January 28th<\/sup> when we bussed everyone over to Dorchester, and it went GREAT!\u00a0 Better than great, in fact.\u00a0 The facility was everything we had hoped and more, our fledgling Officer team put its heart and soul into making sure everything ran smoothly, and the feedback from directors was overwhelmingly positive.\u00a0 This was by far my proudest moment since stepping onto Harvard\u2019s campus a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A picture I snapped on my phone of Cabinet Retreat!<\/p><\/div>\n

But with that accomplishment behind us, we now faced the obstacle of scheduling.\u00a0 As I have said before in one of my blog posts, scheduling at Harvard is a nightmare.\u00a0 Even friends are forced to stop each other on the sidewalk and write in dining hall meet-ups into their phone calendars.\u00a0 So to try to schedule three major meetings a week (two of which I lead with my co-chair Winnie) was soooooo stressful.\u00a0 In the end we got it down, and let me say, leading multiple two-hour meetings a week teaches you a thing or two about flip charts, agendas, and organization.<\/p>\n

Since January, our team has done so much and led so many tough conversations \u2013 we have organized another Cabinet meeting and we have our third one this Thursday night, we have talked the need for Programmatic Quality Standards, and Director Accountability, we have organized Director-Officer Teams (or DOTs) to grab dinner together and create more community among volunteers, and we are in the process of creating a new database and hiring a new Deputy Director.<\/p>\n

In short, PBHA has taken over my life \u2013 but in so many positive ways!\u00a0 I can think of nothing I would rather devote my time to, and I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many great people who are devoted to such a great purpose.<\/p>\n

Other things I have been doing include serving as New Member Director for my sorority on campus \u2013 Kappa Alpha Theta!\u00a0 We run our Recruitment process at the beginning of second semester, and it was so much fun to meet so many awesome girls and bond with the other women in my sorority.\u00a0 Our very own blogger Jeanie is in Theta with me, so we were sure to take a picture for you guys!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jeanie and me during one of our rounds of recruitment!<\/p><\/div>\n

Since Recruitment, I have been leading meetings for the new members to introduce them to Theta!\u00a0 It has been amazing (and yes, I have brought my PBHA meeting facilitation skills, flip charts and all, with me to Theta meetings).<\/p>\n

The final big activity I am doing on campus is serving as a Fundraising Director for Harvard University Women in Business.\u00a0 So far this semester, we have devoted our fundraising efforts toward the New York Trip that we sponsor every year for Harvard women to visit some of NYC\u2019s top companies.\u00a0 Soon, we will be switching gears to the effort I am directing \u2013 Intercollegiate Business Convention fundraising.\u00a0 IBC is a HUGE conference HUWIB hosts every fall for women\u2019s business organizations from colleges across the country.\u00a0 I will be sure to write more about it in the future, when my blog post isn\u2019t so long \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

Finally, I am still volunteering for my original PBHA program, Elderly 1-2-1, and of course, I am still a student at Harvard taking classes (though it sometimes doesn\u2019t feel like it)!\u00a0 This semester, I decided to take only three classes \u2013 History 97<\/strong>, which is my sophomore tutorial, History 1433: American Populism<\/strong>, which traces American history through a Populist lens, and Economics 1010b: Macroeconomics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Oh, and before I forget, other great news this semester \u2013 I moved into a single (pictures to come when my room isn\u2019t quite so messy)!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all folks!\u00a0 And don\u2019t worry, I will be posting regularly from now on, so check back! \u00a0I’ll leave you with a picture from my spring break at home in Pittsburgh!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Me at Fort Duquesne in Point State Park, Pittsburgh<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been WAY too long.\u00a0 Some of you may have been wondering where I\u2019ve been and what I\u2019ve been doing.\u00a0 My answers to these questions are, \u201cI don\u2019t know, and EVERYTHING!\u201d So to catch you up from the beginning: Last time I posted, I talked about joining the Officer team at the Phillip Brooks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29773],"tags":[947,29789,3883,58991,59085,37317,59084,59086,29857,58993,59087,37399],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kates-blog","tag-classes","tag-extracurriculars","tag-fundraising","tag-greek-life","tag-officer","tag-pbha","tag-phillip-brooks-house-association","tag-scheduling","tag-sorority","tag-theta","tag-wib","tag-women-in-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3060,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}