On Saturday morning at 10 o’clock, I visited a college, Cal Lutheran, in Thousand Oaks, CA. I was curious about this college because it is opening a new multi-media building in fall, 2017. Also, my grandfather, Herb Brokering, is a famous priest among the Lutheran community. Although I am not Lutheran, I am interested in becoming one because of my grandfather. He wrote plays, books and songs for the Lutheran Church.
The day I visited this college, I was worried that it would be very conservative and strict, since the name of the college is “Lutheran.” However, it was not. It was as nice as other colleges that I visited before, and had a very open-minded community. For example, they were giving out free condoms, and talked about other religions, like Islam. This was very interesting to see at this type of school.
The campus was very natural, surrounded by mountains and a creek, but it is still close to cities like Malibu and Los Angeles. I really enjoyed the tour and am considering attending this school.
After I got accepted to a few colleges, I started to become extremely lazy. I just want to be done with high school and I don’t have the motivation I used to have, due to the fact that senior grades don’t affect the chances of being accepted.
I don’t know if I am simply becoming lazy, or if I have senioritis. Senioritis is a word I hear a lot these days. The definition is: “A crippling disease that strikes high school seniors. Symptoms include: laziness, an over-excessive wearing of track pants, old athletic shirts, sweatpants, athletic shorts, and sweatshirts. The only known cure is a phenomenon known as Graduation (Urban Dictionary).”
After reading the definition, I am pretty sure I have senioritis. Previously, I never knew it existed, and I am surprised I have it. I have 130 more days until graduation and I hope my senioritis does not affect that time. Instead of just thinking about college, I want to appreciate the last days I have at this school, and as a high school student.
So adulting is hard. It’s not what you imagine when you’re a little kid. Yes, you are able to stay up late and you don’t have to listen to mom and dad. Yes, you can eat whatever you want, but with that also comes having to buy your own groceries – because guess what? If you don’t buy those groceries, you won’t have any food to eat. If you don’t do that dirty laundry, you won’t have any clean clothes. If you don’t set your alarm clock the night before, you will most definitely sleep through your 8am class (luckily that hasn’t happened to me yet, just my roommate, every Monday and Friday.)
There are so many things that I used to take for granted when I lived at home – there was always food, cleaning supplies, and cold medicine, and everything was just at my fingertips. Now that I’m living on my own I realize how truly lucky I was. So, thanks mom and dad.
I’m three weeks into college (when this was written) and I’m incredibly sick. And no I don’t mean homesick, which is surprising since I’m living in Massachusetts, across the country from California. But the kind of sick I mean is high fevers, throwing up, stuffy nose, headache, dizziness and cough, also known as a chest virus, also known as the flu. And it sucks. Trying to navigate through two different busses to get to class while making it to work on time and rushing back for soccer practice is enough to handle, and then to add being sick on top it is far from fun.
And to those who are about to go off to college, let me tell you, the first time that you get sick away from home is terrible. It might not seem like a big deal but when all you want to do is lay in your own bed but you can’t because it’s 3,112 miles away, it becomes a big deal.
So today, after not really being able to breathe for about a week, I finally went to the health center. I only got lost in the building about three times before I finally found the student health center. After my appointment, I was prescribed some medications that would help. Of course these were insanely expensive, and as a college student that’s an issue.
I can’t wait until next month when I have to pay my credit card bill.
Never fear though, while it might seem like I’m hating life right now, I’m not. Even though my family is far away and I low-key can’t really breath or taste anything, I have another family taking care of me right here. My teammates and friends are constantly checking on me and bring me tea and saltines, the perfect (cheap) get-well combination.
Currently I’m writing an article about a senior who is taking the path less travelled. Rather than jumping straight from high school to college, she’s taking a year in between. Before I started writing this articles I knew what gap years were, but I associated them with partying and messing around. That is not the case. Students who take gap years get to travel, do charity work, take a break from the competitive atmosphere of high school before going into even more rigorous college academics, work, and discover themselves out in the world on their own. Even Harvard recommends gap years. Just look at Malia Obama. Gap years are finally starting to drift away from the notion that they are filled with parties and are starting to be recognized as beneficial. I’m grateful I was given this article to write, because now I am aware all the benefits gap years can yield, and who knows, maybe I’ll take one now.
It’s here in five weeks, the day we have all been waiting for; graduation.
June third is the end of a beautiful chapter in our lives. I have grown so much in these past four years that I would say I am now, at 18, a completely different person than I was at 14 when I was a freshman.
I was so sure at 14 that I wanted to go to Stanford University and become a lawyer, and nobody could convince me otherwise.
Now at 18, I am going to Chapman University and majoring in either political science or business (still not sure), which I cannot believe because four years ago if you were to ask me to live in Los Angeles I would say absolutely not.
This year, I only wanted to go to schools in LA and did not even consider Stanford.
Regardless, I am beyond excited to be going off to study at Chapman in five months. I cannot explain my gratitude for everyone who has helped me throughout the past four years.
T-9 hours until I receive a decision from my second choice school.
For the past week, I have been constantly contemplating my academic strengths and weaknesses, calculating my chances at these schools… as if I have a chance at predicting the decisions I will receive.
I have never wanted anything more than to be accepted to these institutions.
My top two school choices for the past few years have been the University of Southern California and Occidental College.
I would be happy at either college, however, my chances of getting into either school are slim.
In comparison to other students that applied to Occidental, I am just slightly below average, GPA and SAT wise.
In comparison to other students who applied to USC, I am sub-par, with my GPA and SAT scores falling quite far below their average accepted student.
I keep trying to envision myself at another school, but simply cannot.
I want Oxy and USC so badly it hurts. My stomach has been in knots for days, and until 5:00 pm this evening, I will not feel relief.
I know this feeling is normal, but that does not affect my level of anxiety. I remain eager, waiting impatiently.
Good luck to all of the high school seniors waiting to hear from their favorite schools, you will end up wherever you are supposed to.
It’s that time of year again, college acceptance, and denial, letters are coming our way. After months of working on applications, seniors are finally beginning to hear back from schools.
It feels as though I have been waiting a lifetime to get these letters. My dream school is the University of Southern California, and I want that school more than any other.
I have been accepted into all of my backup schools, two of my three targets, and neither of my two reaches, yet.
Chapman University recently sent me an acceptance letter, and when I got the e-mail I felt this enormous sense of relief, knowing I had been accepted into my third choice school.
The only reason it is my third choice is because I have applied to two more academically rigorous schools; Occidental College, and USC. But those schools are both reaches for me, meaning I have a smaller chance of being accepted.
I am completely happy attending Chapman, but I would be ecstatic to go to Occidental or USC.
Because I will be a pre-law student, meaning I will be going to law school after graduating from whichever undergraduate school I attend.
Because of this, I want to go to the most prestigious school I can in order to give me an edge in the Law School application process.
I am thankful I have options on where I go to college, but I am conflicted as to which school is the perfect fit for me.
Although transferring is always an option, I don’t want to build a life somewhere, make connections with other students, and learn the lay of the land at a school where I am not completely happy.
My best friend just got into Chapman as well, giving the school an enormous edge in my book. However, I have to make sure I make the right decision for me, not anyone else.
At this point, Chapman is it. But if I get an acceptance from Occidental or USC, that may change.
Members of the black student protest group, Concerned Student 1950, raise their arms while addressing a crowd following the announcement University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe would resign Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo. Wolfe resigned Monday with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over his handling of racial tensions at the school. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
I graduated from OVS last year, and I am now a lowly freshman at the University of Missouri. I wrote for this blog frequently during my three years as a writer for On the Hill, and thought it would be a good outlet for me to share my firsthand experience of the recent protests at the University of Missouri. Alvarez — I better get a 10/10 on this!
Before I start, I should give you a little background about me. I’ve grown up in what I guess are fairly liberal communities mostly around California and Colorado, where racism was an idea and never something I actually witnessed. I think a part of me didn’t even believe it existed until I came to school here. I’m white, and have never had any personal experience as a target of racism, and it is unlikely that I ever will. And while I was not at the center of the recent protests here at Mizzou, I have witnessed some of the events leading up to and surrounding the protests. I recognize that there are countless opinions about everything that has transpired, and my opinion is just one of those.
First, let me say that racism does exist at Mizzou. I have friends who have been called the N-word, and who track every pickup truck that drives by them at night. People have driven around campus with the confederate flag proudly displayed in the bed of their truck, and the N-word isn’t a rarity. I think racism is embedded here at the university, it has been since the very beginning – though that it just my personal opinion. Missouri was a slave state, and there are buildings on this campus that were built by slaves. The majority of the buildings are named after white males, with very few exceptions. And though our recently resigned Chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, declared that racism has no place here, I agree with Payton Head that it does, and that it is quite comfortable.
The Mizzou Hunger Strike arose from years of experiencing the divide between students, and from the administration failing to address the issues. Personally, I think it culminated during the homecoming parade in October when the president of the UM System, Tim Wolfe, was in a car where his driver revved the engine and nudged some of the protestors that had blocked the road. Wolfe, rather than issuing an apology for the incident, chose to ignore it and didn’t apologize until earlier this month as the protests really began in earnest. But as they started, Concerned Student 1950 made it clear that the reasons they were going to these lengths and demanding change is because they love Mizzou and want it to be the best place it can be.
To accomplish that, Jonathan Butler, a graduate student here at Mizzou, went on a Hunger Strike about two weeks ago, declaring that he would not eat until Tim Wolfe resigned from his position. What shocked me was that this went on for EIGHT days, and that although Wolfe stated he was concerned for Butler’s health, he did absolutely nothing to ensure the health and safety of one of his students. In fact, it wasn’t until members of the football team declared they wouldn’t play until Wolfe stepped down, which resulted in the entire team following suit, that Wolfe resigned. That was almost a week after the Hunger Strike began. An article by the New York Times summed it up perfectly: “The Missouri athletes showed that the color that matters most is green.” But as an educator, I would have expected Wolfe to be more concerned about the wellbeing of one of his students than his position.
I went to Carnahan Quad a little after Tim Wolfe announced his resignation, and I was blown away by the movement. The emotions that were present that day were overwhelming, and everyone who cared even a little bit about equality on this campus was swept up in it. I was choked up, and I wasn’t even in the middle of it. It was truly a beautiful thing to witness, this first step on a long road to making Mizzou a racism-free campus. The fact that students were able to make such a huge impact and evoke so much change is incredible. And I got to witness that history being made.
That Tuesday night, death threats were made to blacks on campus, and someone posted on Yik Yak the same thing the Oregon shooter posted before the shooting. It was scary, especially as rumors began to take over social media about the KKK being on campus and bricks being thrown through dorm windows. I think a lot of those rumors were born out of a lack of information – for hours, the students got absolutely no information about what was going, whether the threats were being investigated and if they were real or not.The only statements we got from the university were that security had been increased and there were no credible threats. But then the next morning the man who posted the threats was arrested. Pretty much no one went to class on Wednesday – that is if their classes hadn’t been cancelled.
It’s been just over a week since then, and now we’re just about to leave for Thanksgiving break. But the movement hasn’t ended, and Tim Wolfe stepping down was just the first step. The protests have continued, and not just at Mizzou. Over 100 schools have shown their support for the movement, joining in on the chants, stating that “we have nothing to lose but our chains.” And other schools, including Yale, Ithaca, and Chapman University have begun demanding change at their own universities.
Mr. Alvarez asked me that if I had known this was going to happen, or if it had happened a year ago while I was still choosing where to go to school, if I still would have chosen to attend Mizzou. I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. I definitely didn’t realize when I chose this school how prevalent racism was. But in the end, I chose my school because of the journalism program, which is one of the best in the world. I’m glad I did choose to come here though, because I do love this school, and everything that has happened hasn’t taken away from that.
I’m proud to have been a part of something that I believe in and that has sparked a nationwide movement. I had the opportunity to witness something beautiful and empowering; to witness students fighting for what is right. Change needed to happen, and so students took the initiative to make sure that it did. I couldn’t be prouder of my school.
Tuesday morning I woke up, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and prepared myself for another day in the life of a high school senior. However, that morning was slightly different than all of the other ones I’ve had since my senior year started.
As I was stood in front of my closet, trying to decide what I was going to wear for yet another Tuesday, my mom ran into my room holding a big package. She said the words I had been waiting to hear, for what felt like an eternity, “It’s here, it’s here!!” I turned around to see my mom holding a big envelope, with the words, University of Massachusetts, Lowell. For those of you who don’t know, a big envelope means accepted and a small envelope means denial.
My stomach flip-flopped and I was overcome with excitement and nervousness. My heart began to pound as I crossed the small distance from my closet to where my mom was standing. I took the envelope from my mom, preparing my self for the exciting news that would impact my future immensely.
I couldn’t get the envelope open fast enough. I ripped it open, pulling its contents out, looking for the words ” Congratulations!”, saying that I had been accepted.
As I scanned the letter, looking for the words that would make or break my day I realized that this letter was not what I though it was. My stomach dropped as I realized that this was simply just another news letter, outlining the programs that the school has to offer.
And to those who are about to go off to college, let me tell you, the first time that you get sick away from home is terrible. It might not seem like a big deal but when all you want to do is lay in your own bed but you can’t because it’s 3,112 miles away, it becomes a big deal.
OVS Journalism Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.