A Gamecock by Nature

It's my Junior year and it is finally starting to settle in that I really only have a three semester left in college which consists of 15 more classes.  It's so hard to believe that I'm past the half way point since I still remember Freshmen year so vividly in my mind. 

The number one thing on most juniors' minds is "internship."  All of us want one that will give us experience that will essentially be beneficial when we are applying for jobs throughout our Senior year.   Well luckily for us, the Career Center on campus offers a program free of charge called JobMate.  This program has a search engine that allows students in all majors to look for internships available, companies that are visiting the campus, and on and off campus job opportunities.  Another component of this program is a personal profile.  You can upload your resume, cover letters and save jobs that interest you.  There is also a way to RSVP to events and sign-up for interviews.  Thank goodness for technology!  You can be in your room, the library or back at home in your respective state and still access this program online. 

By Junior year it is expected that we are all logged into this program and have had our resumes approved by the CareerCenter so we can upload them.  I have completed this stage and now I'm busy researching the opportunities available.  I do not want to miss any deadlines or events. 

I highly recommend that all of you come to college with a resume or list of activities.  You will edit it as you gain college experience and get involved at Carolina, but it is always beneficial to have a starting point.  I hope you're applications are going well.  Let me know if I can do anything to help. 

Posted by Lydia at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

5 full days without school work and time with my family was exactly the energy I needed to get me through the last three weeks remaining of school.  I hadn't seen my parents since move-in day in August!  On Tuesday, my parents picked up my freshmen brother and I from campus and we drove to Myrtle Beach.  During the week we went shopping for clothes for Christmas at the nearby malls and to Wal-Mart to restock on some school supplies and necessities.  You'd be impressed by the amount of toilet paper college kids go through each week. 

On Friday, we didn't do the expected Black Friday shopping but instead we drove to Charleston and spent half of the day on King Street.  The area is extremely nice and the shops are gorgeous, but the prices are definitely on the high end.  The best part was eating at the Japanese restaurant and randomly running into one of my fraternity brothers while crossing the street. 

On Saturday my parents dropped us off at campus and made their good-byes short since they knew they'd see both of us in three short weeks.  After they left, I was so productive since I had my entire apartment to myself.  I vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom and organized my entire room.  I mean everything!  I rearranged the chests under my bed, I organized my school binders, I straightened out each of my desk drawers and I neatened out my closet.  This is definitely a pet peeve of mine right before big exams.  I have to have everything in order to I have no obvious distractions.  At 7 o'clock I turned on the USC v. Clemson football game.  Our team, especially the defense put up a good fight, but in the end we fell short by 2 points.  I enjoyed watching it on tv since I could hear all of the commentary and I didn't risk getting sick from sitting and standing outside all day. 

I also started my new work out plan to finish the semester.  I lifted weights on Saturday and Sunday along with playing basketball.  My goal is to not put on the holiday pounds, especially since I tend to drink a lot of Starbucks during exam week and while I'm home with my family. 

That's all for now!  Let me know if you have any questions, especially as the holidays approach.   

Posted by Lydia at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are a lot of dorms on campus that require you to share a room with another person.  This year I live in Bates West, which is an apartment style dorm.  That means I live with three other people and we have a bathroom, kitchen and living room.  The difference between Bates West and other apartment style dorms is I share my room with another girl and my two housemates also share a room. 

This year I decided to go for the luck of the draw.  I got so lucky with my roommate and with my two housemates.  My roommate is a junior transfer from New York and we get along wonderfully.  She likes to keep her stuff organized which is great because I also like to keep my stuff together and on my side of the room.  Over the last few months we have shared memories and swapped stories.  I've already asked her to live with me next school year since we're friends but not close friends.  This is a very important piece of advice.  Live with someone you get along with, but not your best friend or someone you spend significant amounts of time with because it's bound to hurt your friendship in the long run. 

As for my other two housemates, they are both seniors graduating in December.  They are both student teaching this semester, so I rarely see them in the apartment.  So to my roommate and I, it feels like we have the whole place to ourselves.  It's going to be so weird when we get new housemates in the spring, but I'm hoping for the best. 

So when you begin to apply for on-campus housing, I encourage you to meet someone new.  You are guaranteed to have stories to tell, may they be good or bad.  The nice part is I've heard of more friendships stemming from random roommates than the opposite. 

If you're looking into picking out a dorm for youself, make sure to check out the housing webpage and take a virtual tour!  Have a great day!

Posted by Lydia at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday began course registration.  After two years, I have yet to figure out exactly how the school determines who registers first and at what time.  The best I can come up with is honors college students, athletes and seniors register the earliest.  After that I think it has to do with credit hours, GPA or last name to some extent.  A lot of my friends are in the honors college and registered for class yesterday so before I went to bed last night I was able to check the seat availability for each course I wanted on VIP.  All of the courses still had plenty of seats, so I knew I would be able to get all of my courses without a problem.

I woke up at 8:45 am this morning in order to log onto VIP at 8:50 am which was my registration time.  The registration time is posted at least a month in advance, so I've had it marked on my calendar for quite some time.  Since I already had my ideal schedule and the course codes ready, I was able to log in and out in under 2 minutes time.

I looked at my graphical schedule and I am pretty satisfied.  One perk of being a business student is no Friday classes.  I also have only one Thursday class since my International Business - Exporting and Importing course meets on Tuesdays for three hours.  I also have an 8 weeks Finance course that meets every Monday and Wednesday for three hours.  This means that after the first 8 weeks of school I will be completed with a finance course and will only have four classes to concentrate on for the remainder of the semester. 

A lot of my friends are studying abroad in the spring, so it was a challenge to figure out who was staying at USC for the semester and who to plan my classes with.  Fortunately, I have fraternity brothers and other friends I have made that will have a similar course load as myself.

Have a great evening! I'm off to my Delta Sigma Pi meeting!  There's free pizza tonight!

Posted by Lydia at 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night the Men's USC basketball team played the Citadel.  I was really sad I had missed our first two winning games, that I went to the Colonial Center almost 45 minutes early to sit and breathe in the arena atmosphere.  My friends and I sat in the third row from the court.  The four of us listened to the good music that was played as the two teams did their first rounds of shooting and passing drills. 

It was really exciting for me personally since I have played basketball at the Strom or Blatt with most of the players.  It was really loud in the arena as our team's starting players were announced!  Most of the student section even stood up for the entire game!

Devan Downey was a great point guard in the game last night!  He kept the game fast paced and was definitely not a ball hog.  He made great plays, scored a good number of points and even got some rebounds of his own.  Zam Frederick and Evka also made some awesome 3-pointers.  Our new centers also got some great dunks that got the crowd pumped.   

The best part about the evening was watching our players play defense and offense.  The final score was 103-42.  This was largest winning margin in about 60 years and this was the first time our team had broken 100 points in eleven years!  The neat part was Branden Conrad, who was red-shirted last year hit a 3-pointer to put our team over 100!  It was cool to watch his teammates congratulate him and be so proud of his performance.  Especially since he also got a few steals during his limited play time on the court. 

I am looking forward to Saturday's game.  Our team is hosting the University of Southern California.  We beat them last year in Cali, so hopefully we will have a repeat performance.  I know our team has a great chance of making it to the NCAA ("real") tournament this year!  Get ready for an incredible season! 

Go Cocks!

Posted by Lydia at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past weekend I had the pleasure of driving four hours with four of my Delta Sigma Pi fraternity brothers to Atlanta, Georgia for LEAD (Leadership and Excellence Academies) Conference.  On the drive down, the five of us bonded over music, our fraternity, school issues, and a variety of other topics.  I was really happy I brought my i-Pod because that meant I got to be the car DJ.  We listened to the song "Crank That" by Souljah Boy about 3 times since it was the car ride's #1 request!

Once we arrived in Atlanta we checked in at the Marriot and headed to Cheesecake Factory for some dinner.  After the delicious meal, we went to the hotel where we met up with 14 of our other fraternity brothers and pledges.  In case you are wondering why I keep saying fraternity and I am a female, it is because I am a member of the co-ed Professional (business) fraternity called Delta Sigma Pi.  On Friday evening we all had an opportunity to create a stronger bond between our pledges and brothers by playing card games, listening to music, and watching tv.  

Saturday morning was the conference.  We all started our morning off with a cup of coffee since we probably stayed up later than we should have.  During the opening session, when our chapter was called on the attendance roll we responded with "Beta Gamma BYAH" which got the other 300 brothers from other chapters to laugh.  It was a reference from a comedian's skit.  Everyone went to four sessions at LEAD of their choosing.  I learned information about proper ways to send emails in a professional setting, I learned about better ways to interview, more in-depth components of our risk management policy and about better ways to recruit new members.  In between the sessions, we all attended an etiquette lunch that was informative and filled us up! 

In the evening, our entire chapter, along with two brothers we met from UNC-Chapel Hill joined us at P.F. Chang's for the most amazing meal of my life!  We all ordered appetizers, dinner and dessert that was shared among all.  I was in heaven! 

Saturday night we all mingled with the brothers from the other chapters in attendance.  There was chapters from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia to name a few.  I made a lot of new friends and I met up with people I had met in prior semesters!  I have so many new friends on Facebook (an online social network) now!!

I am so glad we had a good chapter turn out!  Now we are all excited to share our knowledge with the rest of our chapter and start planning for LEAD Provincial in Birmingham, Alabama in February. 

Enjoy the change in weather!

Posted by Lydia at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everyone that lives on campus is fortunate enough to have a campus mailing address.  I probably check my mail about once every two weeks so that I have a 99% chance of having something to open or read.  About two weeks ago I received a postcard in my mailbox about advisement in the Moore School of Business.  Every student must be advised in their college before they can sign up for classes on VIP. 

In the Moore School of Business, advisement days are based on the first letter of your last name.  I went on Monday as the card indicated, and since I'm an International Business (IB) major I have to see Leslie Wingard to discuss my schedule.  Luckily for me, there were no other IB majors ahead of me, so I only had to wait about 5 minutes to be seen. 

Leslie told me I can graduate on time (May 2009) with a double major in International Business and Finance along with a double minor in French and International Relations.  I can't believe I only have 15 required courses left in college!  We discussed the finance courses available for my major, my IB thematic class, a political science class for my minor and another required business course called Survey of Commercial Law. 

I always get so excited after being advised because then I can log onto VIP and check out the master list of courses.  I wrote down all of the sections and times offered for each course and began to create an ideal schedule.  I have come up with the classes I want to take at the times available, so now I just have to wait until November 13th to sign up for them. 

It's a similar experience during Orientation as an incoming Freshmen.  You'll have someone discuss class requiements with a group of students of a certain college.  The nice part is you will be advised and sign up for classes all in the same day.  

Well I'm going back to the library to study!  Have a terrific Thursday! 

Posted by Lydia at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)