Category Archives: Student Life

Running the Housing Lottery

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It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. This semester kept me extremely busy…glad that it’s officially come to an end! (I’m still waiting on my last two grades, but hopefully I’ll have those soon.)

One of the projects that kept me busy this semester was working with the rest of the Student Admission Council Executive Board and the Admission Office to plan Owl Days and Admit Days. This year, we expanded the Owl Days overnight program to two nights, providing even more opportunities for prospective students to interact with current students. We hope those of you that attended enjoyed your time on campus.

Outside of the Admission Office, I’ve stayed very busy in my residential college. In early February, I was elected as Internal Vice President of McMurtry College. As Internal Vice President, I was responsible for one of the largest spring functions of our college government: room draw. This included the housing lottery for my college (determining which upperclassmen would receive housing). Every college has their own policies – McMurtry gives priority to seniors and sophomores and sends rising juniors through the lottery for available spots. At Rice, many jobs normally handled by adult staff members at universities of our size are actually handled by students. This provides us with a unique opportunity to make an impact on our community. Having the housing process handled by students in each college makes the entire college transparent and allows us to write policies that will best serve the students.

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The Last Dance

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The last week of classes is nearly always characterized by high stress levels, way too many presentations, and (with any luck) a review session or two before finals. This semester, however, I was enrolled in LPAP 144 (Lifetime Physical Activity Program: Introduction to Country Western). Luckily, this class didn’t have a final… but I wasn’t exactly off the hook. If you’re familiar with Rice’s graduation requirements, you may know that every student must graduate with 1 LPAP credit hour…. which explains why someone as bad at dancing as me would be in this class. It was super fun, though, and during our last day (a Thursday night, to be exact) each student paired up to present their final dance. I had a friend in the class, so selecting a partner was easy. Choreographing a full dance routine…. not so much. Our teacher filmed each performance, so enjoy mine! Be nice :)

Colin & Allison– Final Dance

UNIV 110: First Year Foundations

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Wrapping up my freshman year at Rice, I can honestly say that one of the most influential classes I took was UNIV 110: First Year Foundations. As the name suggests, this class is geared towards helping new students navigate their first year (and beyond) at Rice. It exposes them to the many resources and opportunities available on campus. The instructor and the two upperclassmen Peer Guides give helpful advice on everything ranging from classes to off campus living.

Signing up for UNIV 110 was not only one of the best decisions of my Rice career, but one of the best decisions of my life. Through this class, I gained more than information about navigating Rice, on campus resources and opportunities, and helpful advice. I also gained another layer of community, strengthening existing friendships and forming new ones with people all across campus. The discussion-based format helped everyone understand each other’s perspectives, and helped everyone get to know each other. We have a strong group bond – for example, the Saturday before the first week of finals, we all reunited and went out to eat in Rice Village.

Additionally, I learned a lot about myself through this class. The reflective papers and projects allowed me to take a look at myself and the ways I’ve changed since first setting foot on this beautiful campus. Knowing yourself is the first step towards doing anything in life, and this class helped me accomplish that.

I highly, highly recommend this course to incoming students. It is a relatively stress free environment that allows for tons of identity and community building. If you have room in your schedule for UNIV 110, sign up for it. You won’t regret it.

Winding Down

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It’s insane to think that my first year at Rice is nearly over – Orientation Week seemed like just yesterday! As I reflect on my freshman year here, I think about the multitude of opportunities and experiences I have gotten to take part in, and I am amazed at the wonderful year I have had. I was involved in my college’s government as a new student representative, I joined the African Student Association and the Black Student Association and performed in two cultural shows, and joined the Student Admission Council (that’s how I’m writing here now!), just to highlight a few.

Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure book series? Well, in the series, the book read as if you were the main character, and at the end of every chapter, you were in some sort of crisis. You could choose one of the two or three solutions, and this decision impacted all of the future decisions you made. Rice is a lot like the Choose Your Own Adventure books: Your Rice experience is what you make of it. Rice offers you a vast array of opportunities, and it’s up to you to forge your own path. Whether you find your passion through involvement in your residential college government, joining cultural groups, or pouring yourself into major-related research, the ‘adventure’ you choose is sure to leave a lasting, positive impact on your life.

Beer Bike 2013

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Twas the night before Beer Bike, when all through the colleges

Every creature was stirring, every team waiting. 

The banners were hung in the commons with care, 

In the hopes that a victory would soon be theirs. 

 

On May 5, 1957, Rice University began what grew to be one of its most famous traditions  Beer Bike. Back then, students had a “chugger” who chugged a can of beer and “bikers” who lapped around the inner loop. Baker college finished first, followed by Will Rice and Weiss. Hanszen was disqualified for taking a “shortcut” (read: cheating). Every year after that, Rice sponsored Beer Bike, a friendly competition between the colleges. Despite past changes and changes to come, Beer Bike will always remain what is was first intended to be: a friendly competition between the colleges; in short, uniquely Rice.

Alex Schmidt, biking for Will Rice

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Owls, Owls Everywhere! ASB San Francisco

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Being a Rice Owl can take you to some exciting places. This Spring Break, instead of staying at home in Houston, I traveled to San Francisco, California on an Alternative Spring Break Trip to focus on the education gap in our nation.

What is an Alternative Spring Break trip? It’s exactly what the name suggests. No misnomer here! It is a service trip sponsored by Rice’s Community Involvement Center that you have to apply to. If chosen, you and the other members of your group go volunteer with the specified organization. There are several ASB trips each year, with various destinations and organizations. You can view a list of the 2012 trips at this link, under “2013 Trip Destinations”: http://cic.rice.edu/asb/#Student Information Sessions.

In San Francisco, I was paired with a teacher at a middle school. During the school day, I observed and helped out in the classroom, and afterwards, I volunteered at the built-in after school program. Not only did I get to help the kids, but I also got to learn about them, play games with them, and talk to them. I now understand the current state of our public education system better, and I learned that educational inequality involves many complex features. There isn’t an easy solution for educational inequality, but little things, such as telling a kid about your experiences in college, can potentially make a difference.

In addition to volunteering, my ASB group and I also got to tour around San Francisco. Some of the places we went to included Ghirardelli Square (I had the BEST ice cream cone in my LIFE), Fisherman’s Wharf, Coit Tower, and Baker Beach.

I mentioned how being a Rice Owl can take you to some exciting places. My group and I stayed in San Francisco for only a week. But, one night, as we were headed back on the bus to the place we were staying at, we met a Rice alumnus! One of my friends had been wearing a Rice hoodie, and the alumnus noticed it and started talking to our group. He had graduated a few years ago, and told us he now works in San Francisco. Owls, Owls, everywhere!

In short, my ASB experience was amazing, and I would not trade it for anything in the world.

Here we are at Baker Beach. Some of us made an ASB SF light show with our phones! Photo Credit: Soorya Avali.

 

The Beauty of Campus

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As I strolled to class on this beautifully warm, sunny day I took a moment to appreciate how truly gorgeous Rice’s campus is. One of my favorite things about Rice is the accessibility of art, both natural and man-made. On my short daily walk from my residential college (Will Rice) to the Shepherd School of Music I encounter so many of these beautiful things. These range from spring flowers, trees and butterflies to the Turrell Skyspace. I thought I’d show you some sights from my typical morning walk.

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There’s An Acronym for That

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Hey y’all! Long time no see.

Over Winter Break, I got the chance to hang out with some of my dear friends from high school who have also gone off to college. As we were catching up, one of my friends remarked that he had switched from majoring in Biochemistry to Chemical Engineering, and I replied, “Oh, yeah, I’m torn between being a ChBE (pronounced ‘chubby’) and a BIOE.” I continued to blab about my classes until I saw the look on his face that read, “Chubby?” in bewilderment.

All silly anecdotes aside, that conversation made me realize what I truly loved about being at Rice: our culture as a university. Besides the residential college system and the university’s other traditions, one of the quirky things that stands out to others when they interact with Rice students is our language, or as the my residential college’s Orientation Week book calls it, ‘Rice Speak’. In the course guide, each academic department is distinguished by a four-letter acronym or partial word (i.e. general Humanities courses are listed under the “HUMA” category). Instead of calling the department by it’s full name, students pronounce them acronym as if it were an actual word. This is where we get terms like Musi (pronounced myoo-zee), which is what we call music majors, and archi (‘ark-ee’), which is how Rice students refer to architecture students. Rice also has acronyms for nearly all of its student organizations. (There are so many that a few of them overlap!)

On any given day, a student’s conversation will be so littered with acronyms that it sounds like a foreign language to an outsider. Although it may seem trivial, to me, Rice Speak is one of the defining characteristics of Rice University. Rice Speak brings the multidimensional, incredibly diverse students of Rice together.