Starting this Wednesday is College Week Live. It is a virtual college fair set up online. There will a ton of schools, organizations, companies, and anything else associated with going to college. You can talk to reps from schools, current students, financial aid advisors, banks, scholarship organizations, and other personnel about anything you may need or want to know about a college or school or program.

The College of Mount St. Joseph will be hosting a booth at this fair and will be manned by yours truly along with a couple of other bloggers and students along with some faculty and staff of the Mount. Come and ask us questions, peruse the information of our college, check out the pictures and grounds of the buildings, and other things.

This whole experience is meant to put you at ease about college and helping you choose the right school for you. You get the opportunity to "visit" schools that you may not otherwise be able to visit, such as those across the country that would not be worth the cost to check out for one day in person. At least you can visit that school online in this virtual college fair and be able to find out almost anything that you would want to know.

It starts on Wednesday, November 4th and ends Saturday, November 7th. This is the web address for the college fair: http://www.collegeweeklive.com/. It is highly recommended that you check us out on the web and ask us questions using the Click Here: Live Chat button on our booth (College of Mount St. Joseph). The Mount offers "Get Acquainted Days" every few Saturdays or so and that can be helpful to be able to visit the campus itself but if none of those dates work into your schedule, at least this week gives you a chance to know us a bit better when you have a bit of free time. Here's the link on the main site of the Mount for ways to visit us: http://www.msj.edu/view/visit.aspx.

I hope we see you- or talk to you actually- at the College Week Live event this Wednesday through Saturday. It should be a fun time to learn more about the Mount and our community. Enjoy!! :)

gasp! i've made it so far! its 12:52pm on march 2nd and i have yet to go on facebook. now some rules have been established since my last post on what no facebook for me means. my account will not be signed in to at all up till Easter Day if not later. I have had a few friends wanting to show me some pictures on facebook - so can i? i have decided that i can simply view the picture as long as it is the only thing visible on the page, therefore - i don't have access to any minifeed/newsfeed/comments/wall posts/etc. I'm sure more rules will come up in the next 33 days. yes, that is how much longer till Easter.

that means 31 days until i see my family again. I haven't been homesince january 12th and won't be until friday of easter weekend. within those 31 days is the Chicago South Side Irish Parade on March 15th. This is my second year in my life to not be in town for the day. If you haven't caught on from my name or any of my previous posts, I have a great pride of being Irish in Chicago. Every year, the sunday before St. Patrick's Day, the South Side of Chicago hosts a parade. Any day of the year, Irish pride is known in chicago, Well on the south side on parade day, everyone is 110% IRISH! this year, I am missing it for the second time because I will be in a car somewhere in Georgia or Alabama driving back to cincinnati from the habitat for humanity (h4h) spring break trip in miami florida. while i will miss seeing my family and friends on this day, I will still be as happy as can be because i will be on my way home from one of the greatest experiences.

I did the h4h trip last year during the spring break trip when 8 select students from the Mount drove out to charleston south carolina. it was definitely something i will never forget. that just makes me this more excited for next weeks trip to florida; a place i have never been! the drive will be long but the trip will definitely be worth while - 19 msj students plus our advisor, all dedicating our spring break to such an amazing service trip! i'm too excited!!! you can expect a LOT of pictures, unfortunately i won't be able to post them on facebook till after easter but it's worth the wait.

plus, with the lack of facebook, i have been able to focus more on paper work, including working on my resume and cover letter. i'm glad i was able to get that done, because i was able to use them for the career fair today. I attend the Kaleidoscope of Careers today in the admin lobby and it was a big success. I got information for two different companies, Cincinnati Recreation Commision and Residential Home Corporation, that both sound like great opportunities. I really am looking forward to the possibilities that are coming with it!

well expect another update soon! and thanks again for reading!

Get Acquainted Day. I have no clue what this is but I was asked to help with it. According to the Mount’s website, it is described as: “During one of the Mount's Get Acquainted Days (GAD) students get to explore the academic programs, learn about financial aid opportunities, and catch a glimpse of college life. Representatives from all academic majors and supports are also on hand to answer your questions. For more information about GAD, call 1-800-654-9314, ext. 4531 from outside the Cincinnati area, or 513-244-4531 within Cincinnati.”    

In light of this, I was asked to be on the Student Panel section of the day. I remember this section of this type of event because it was, I think, my freshman orientation in which they had this kind of thing. So I had a small idea what it was going to be. I’d experienced the prospective student side but I had not been on the side of the panel and I don’t think I was ready for it…   I walk into the room, sit down, and look up. Holy *explicative*. Yeah. That’s what I said- in my head at least. I hadn’t actually connected the fact that I was talking to a group of prospective students and the fact that I had to speak publicly. I don’t like public speaking- AT ALL! I was nervous. So I sat there staring at about 30 people- students and parents- waiting for them to ask questions. I was the only freshman on the panel and I thought they would ask me a lot of questions but not really.   

Some of the questions were: what is one of the best kept secrets at the Mount? I said that the teachers were actually extremely personable and really were willing to get to know you and remember who you are. But I walked out to my car, I realized something else you don’t find out until like the weekend school starts: parking. The parking sticker at school is free- or at least it’s already in your tuition fees so you don’t pay anything extra. And also, freshmen are allowed to have cars. I know UC charges at least $250 a parking sticker PER quarter totaling at least $750 a year to park on their campus- and that’s still a 15 minute walk to the buildings. But I also know UD doesn’t allow freshmen to have cars their first years unless they’re commuters so it really is an advantage for Mount students to have free parking and have cars their first year.   

Another question was what clubs we participate in and what we did our first semester to join in at the school. I said that since my first semester was only four months ago (*insert laughter*) that I hadn’t done much but I did hang out in the lobbies and the dorms and that really helps you make friends. I also did theater so I really was involved in the musical for about 6-8 weeks and that was involvement to the extreme.    

One of the other things I didn’t get to mention for that question, also, was blogging- at least for me. I mean, it’s not a club or anything, but it’s something I’m involved in (obviously if you’re reading this) and it was a great opportunity to mention to those prospective students and their parents about some insight they could gain from reading our blogs. The blogs are actually a great way to learn about the Mount through the eyes of a student from week to week. If I had known about the blogs earlier before I came here I could have been more prepared for college life and the ways of the Mount (I was just watching Star Wars IV so I’m a bit like Obi One Kinobi: “the ways of the force” except its “the Mount” not “the force”… Ya… another tangent sorry).   

But it was an interesting hour of my life but if you have more questions about anything here at the Mount, don’t hesitate to leave a comment on mine or anyone’s blogs and we’ll be more than happy to answer your questions. But I had fun and now it’s time to think about the week ahead… still have a lot of homework to do… Thank God for the weekends… J