Why I Chose St. Mike's

Hey everyone!

For all of you high school seniors, there are only a few days left to send in your college decisions. If you haven't chosen yet, it's crunch time! Anyone who has gone through this process knows how difficult it is. It's incredibly nerve wracking and stressful to have to make the decision of the place you'll call home for the next four years. For any of you who haven't chosen yet, I thought that I would talk a little bit of why I decided to come to St. Mike's.

When I applied to colleges, I first heard about St. Mike's through some letters and emails that they sent me. I thought it sounded nice enough, and added it to my list of colleges to apply to. I never visited or looked at it too much, as at the time I was preoccupied with some other not-to-be-named liberal arts colleges in New England. I applied to SMC early action I, and was gladly accepted in December.

Fast forward roughly three months, and out of the seven schools I had applied to, I had two acceptance letters: St. Mike's and UVM. Although they are both located in the same area, that is about the full extent of their similarities. One is small, one is big; one is a liberal arts school, one is a state university. Although I was previously convinced that I wanted a liberal arts education, I became unsure with such a big decision in front of me. I was completely torn on what I wanted, so I decided to go to accepted students days at both schools in order to make a decision.

The weather almost prevented me from finally seeing the St. Mike's campus, but my mom and I made it up here despite a blizzard which dumped around 3 feet of snow on campus. Classes were cancelled for the first time in I'm not sure how many years (it was quite a few), and all the students were out playing int he snow and enjoying their day off, yelling "come to St. Mike's!" every time a tour group walked by. Despite the weather conditions which prevented walkways from being clear and minimal visibility of anything at all, I was sold. I know that its said all the time, but the St. Mike's community really can't be beat. Spending that day on campus made me feel like I was home already.

Now, as I sit at the (almost) end of my freshman year, I couldn't be happier with my choice. Last night, while making our P-day shirts, my friends and I looked back on the entire year, thinking about orientation and all that has happened in our first year on campus. I'm so sad to have to leave my second home, and can't believe that I won't be returning to Joyce hall again where so many memories have been made. I chose St. Mike's for the community, and it's delivered more than I could have asked for. I've had wonderful academic experiences, and through this year have grown intellectually more than I could have imagined. I'm about to go to a class with 15 students in it, where everyone knows each other and our learning is built upon discussions in which we share ideas and opinions in order to further develop our own. That's something you're not going to get at a whole lot of other schools.

So, that's my spiel. I hope that this may have helped in your choice if you haven't made a decision. Overall, my best advice is just to go with your gut. Choose a college which will not only be your school, but your second home. Don't get too stressed over the little things, it will all work out. Believe me! Good luck, and hope to see you in the fall as a Purple Knight :)

Thanks for reading!
-McKenzie

Busy Weekend and Earth Week!

Hey there!

This past weekend was full of big events, meaning it was super busy but also really fun! As I mentioned before, I'm part of a mentoring program called DREAM, and for the end of the year we do a culminating trip with all of the kids and mentors. For culminating this year, on Saturday we all went to the indoor water park at Jay Peak, which is about an hour and a half from St. Mike's. The water park was awesome, there were 4 big slides (including one that brings you almost upside down!), a lazy river, a "learn to surf" type activity, as well as some pools and hot tubs. The kids were all SO excited to go to the water park and it was great so see how much fun they had, in addition to being really fun for all of us mentors too. I wish I had some pictures, but unfortunately a water park full of excited kids is not the most camera-friendly environment. However, here is a link to the water park website so you can check it out for yourself. When we got back to school around 5:30, I was absolutely exhausted, but I had to get a lot of rest because the next day was...

EARTH FEST! Earth fest is put on by Green Up, the environmental club on campus, and kicks off earth week. Being part of Green Up, I had to be up and ready pretty early in order to help set up everything for the big event. At Earth Fest, the band Mission South played while we served free local burgers (and veggie burgers, for vegetarians like me), free Ben and Jerry's, smoothies which were powered by a "smoothie bike" blender, as well as free tie-dying and tables advocating and educating about other environmental issues. Here are some pictures I took while we were working on setting everything up:

Tie Dye sheet!

Table about the effects of bottled water

Susannah and Lauren with the giant Earth ball!

Lauren and the smoothie bike

To celebrate Earth week, on Monday there was a screening of the film "Blue Gold," which looks at the global water crisis, focusing on water as a human right and water in the US and around the world. This is a lead up to keynote speaker for Earth week, Maude Barlow, who is coming tomorrow! Maude Barlow is a renowned activist who will be speaking about many of the issues presented in "Blue Gold," which is based on her own book. She has some amazing credentials, and I'm extremely excited that she's coming to campus. This link has some information about her, which I highly recommend reading, as well as looking more into the issue of water as a human right/the water crisis.

One more exciting thing- tonight is local food night in Alliot! Each station will have a local, VT product for dinner which should be delicious!

Thanks for reading, and happy Earth Week!

-McKenzie

Housing, Registration, and Coming to the End of the Year

Its official: less than one month left of my freshman year at St. Mike's. Coming back from Easter break yesterday marked exactly four weeks until my last final exam. Its crazy how fast this year has gone by, and I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that in a month I'll be living back at home.

Of course I'll be back in the fall though! The last couple weeks have included a lot of preparation for coming back for sophomore year. Two weeks ago I got to choose housing, which was a somewhat nerve-wracking but exciting process. Next year, I'll be living in a double with my friend Lauren in Purtill Hall. Purtill is on north campus, which is roughly a mile from main campus and has shuttles which bring students back and forth every half hour. Most of my friends are also living in Purtill next year, and I'm so excited for us to all be on the same floor! Its such a relief to finally know exactly where I'll be living next year, and Lauren and I have already started planning out how we're going to set up our awesome room.

Side view of Purtill (picture from http://smcvt.edu/studentlife/residential/housing/purtil.asp)

Another pretty important event that happened recently was registration. Last Tuesday was my assigned registration day for classes in the fall. There are two registration days for each class, and for each day a certain amount of seats are opened up for students to register at the lovely hour of 7 AM! I was lucky enough to get all of the classes I wanted with no trouble. This is what my schedule looks like next semester:

Both Behavioral Neuroscience and Research Methods are psych classes, and Behavioral Neuroscience also fills my lab science requirement. I'm also taking econ because I want at least some type of background knowledge on economic theory in general (and am contemplating an econ minor), and intro to photography fills my art requirement, and I've really wanted to take a photography class since high school. I'm really excited about my schedule, and its exciting to start to take more classes in my major and other areas that I'm just curious about exploring since this first year I've gotten a lot of my LSC (liberal studies curriculum) requirements out of the way.

Now that I'm nearing the end of my freshman year, I've kind of figured out how I like to set my schedule up. Although some classes are only offered at certain times, etc., its important when trying to set up your schedule to figure out how you like your days and classes to be set up so that your schedule works for you. Personally, as hard as it is going to be to wake up for my 8 AM classes next semester, I know that I rather have classes early in the morning and be done for the rest of the day than start later, because if I sleep in I feel like I've wasted a huge part of my day. Also, I've learned that I much rather have my classes back to back than having breaks in between. If I finish classes and then have a chunk of free time, I've found that I can plan that out and manage that better than having an hour or so between classes where I don't really get anything done. However, that's just me! Some people much rather start classes later and then have them spread out throughout the day, so it all depends on the person. Over time figuring out what works best for YOU is definitely important though so you can reach your full potential.

So that's what's been going on lately! After a nice relaxing long Easter weekend at home with my family, I'm back at school and into the groove of lots and lots of work for this final month.

Feel free to comment/tweet at me with any questions!

Thanks for reading,
McKenzie

Higher Ground

One of the many, many great things about going to school in Burlington is the proximity of the awesome concert venue, Higher Ground. Higher Ground is in South Burlington, less than 15 minutes away from St. Mike's, and has really great and affordable concerts. Since coming to school in August I've seen five shows at Higher Ground already (Trevor Hall twice, State Radio twice, and Barefoot Truth). Yesterday saw Trevor Hall for the second time with my friend Susannah. Here are a couple pictures I took:

Opener Cas Haley

Trevor Hall!

It was an awesome concert and a great way to close out the weekend!

Since Higher Ground is a pretty small venue, the concerts are really intimate and you feel really up close with the performers. Sometimes the performers even come out afterwards to do meet and greets with the fans, which Cas Haley did last night! Even though its small, Higher Ground gets some pretty great bands because a lot of them stop on their way from shows in Montreal to Boston. You can check out the calendar here, as well as buy tickets on the Higher Ground website. A tip though- if you have access to a car, when you buy tickets from the Higher Ground box office instead of online you pay no service fees. Either way, though, most tickets end up around or under $20.

Although last night we got to the concert by car (since first-years are allowed to have their cars second semester I brought mine up), you can also get to Higher Ground by the city bus or taxi. Getting there on the bus requires taking the Essex Junction bus to either UVM or Cherry St. and then switching to the S. Burlington bus from there. If you decide to take this route, you will normally have to take a cab back (since the buses only run so late), but its easy to keep the cost down if you gather enough people and head back to SMC together. Plus, there are normally cabs waiting outside after shows get out which makes it pretty easy. Really, the fact that we can so easily go to awesome concerts all the time is so convenient and something that St. Mike's kids are so lucky to have.


Thanks for reading!

McKenzie

About Me!

Hi everyone!

My name is McKenzie St. Germain and I'm currently a first year student at St. Mike's. I'm from Amherst, NH (shout out to anyone else from the 603!), a little under three hours from SMC. As much as I love Vermont and Burlington, I think I'll always be a NH girl at heart.

I'm a psychology major, although I'm still trying to sort out my many other interests and decide on a minor. On campus, I'm involved in the honors program, founder's society, MOVE, and have recently starting working with Green Up, which is our environmental club on campus. Through MOVE (which stands for Mobilization Of Volunteer Efforts) I am part of a program called DREAM,which pairs kids from affordable housing in Burlington with mentors from St. Mike's. We meet once a week and do lots of fun activities and trips with our kids, and its something I look forward to every Friday afternoon. I also love skiing (especially with the $30 Smuggler's Notch pass available to St. Mike's students), although this season unfortunately ended with me tearing my ACL. There's always next season!

Other fun facts about me: I can't go a day without drinking coffee, I went to nationals for mock trial in high school, and I was part of the world's largest 3-legged race. A tip: come to college armed with fun facts about yourself, because you'll need them for almost every ice-breaker activity out there.

Really, one of the most important things to know about me is that I love St. Mike's and being a student here. Although I haven't even been here a year, it feels like home and the people around me are like a second family. I really don't think you can get that experience many other places.

If you want to know more about me, or have any questions, feel free to follow me on twitter!

Thanks for reading!
-McKenzie