Author Archives: michael_pueschel@uml.edu
Giving back to the community
Holiday Gifting for Poor College Students!
So it’s nearing that time again, whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice or Boxing Day or ALL OF THE ABOVE. Regardless, you’re going to need to give gifts to some family and friends so they don’t disown you and hate you forever. But, as poor college students, gift giving can be hard! For those of you unaware, I am the craftiest human being on the planet, so I’m here to help you make super simple and super awesome gifts.
FOOD.
Everyone loves food. Unless it’s something dumpy like stale fruitcake, just about everyone will eat and enjoy food as a gift. You know those jars of baking ingredients everyone buys/makes and gives out as gifts? I still have one sitting in my house from when I was a baby. When it comes to your gift receivers actually DOING SOMETHING, it’s generally a flop.
what, I actually have to MAKE these cookies you’re giving me? |
BUT. What about hot chocolate? It’s the easiest thing to make ever, just put hot water in it and bam, instant coziness. You can even get fancy and add MARSHMALLOWS or CHOCOLATE CHIPS or PEPPERMINT. I was inspired by this cute recipe, but if you’re especially lazy, you can forego making your own hot chocolate mix and use Swiss Miss or something. Then you pretty up the jars with ribbons and goodies and fanciness and it looks like you put a ton of effort and thought and love into these gifts.
note to any of my friends reading this: I put a ton of effort and thought and love into your gifts, I swear. |
DELICIOUS |
everyone can jam out on their discmen like the old days |
CHALKBOARD PAINT. It’s the latest craze. Pick some up and go nuts. Found a cheapo dumpy mug for a dollar? PAINT IT. Random tiny picture frame? PAINT IT. Tape dispenser? PAINT IT.
if you happen to have an old TV laying around, PAINT IT. |
Winter can be FUN! Just keep WARM.
Offices to keep in mind: Career Services and Cooperative Education Center
With the fall semester coming to an end in little over a month hopefully you are doing well in your classes and are adequately prepared for your remaining exams and quizzes. If you are a freshmen you might be asking yourself a few questions like “Do I want to continue my major?” or “All of these classes are great! My only concern is that classes don’t give me a competitive edge when I graduate, how do I go about gaining that experience?” Ok, most of you maybe were putting that last question off until later but it is definitely a question that you need to address because having work experience coming out of college is shown to give people a competitive edge in the job market. Luckily for you UMass Lowell has the Career Services & Cooperative Education Center which can help, which is conveniently located in room 328 of Southwick Hall on North Campus.
The office goes about conducting them in a number of different ways that are entirely up to you as the student. You can either have your interview recorded, have a face-to-face interview, by phone to rehearse the commonly used phone screen interview, or if you have a webcam you can use “Interview Stream” which functions 24/7 and can be done from the comfort of your room. The interview practice is very helpful so that you don’t have something like this happen to you…
More than likely you have had to submit a resume at one point in your life whether it was to be a Crew Member at McDonald’s or to that job at Best Buy that you keep telling yourself that the reason you didn’t get hired was because you were overqualified and knew more about electronics than everyone else that worked there combined. You are also not holding a grudge against Best Buy. What is also more than likely is that you will need to submit a resume to a company if you are applying for a job after college or if you are looking at an internship or co-op of some sort. Luckily for you the Career and Co-op Center is here to help, again! The Career and Co-op Center allows for you to either drop-in to have your resume looked over or you can schedule an appointment to see a career counselor for help. These resources are available to you as a student so that you don’t have this happen to you the next time you apply for a job.
Disney Bought Star Wars?!
Ya, Disney acquired Star Wars. That really did happen. Disney recently acquired Lucas Films for 4.05 billion. Yolo.
THEATRE: Part One.
Hello friends! I know it can be a bit overwhelming deciding what to do when there are so many events and goings on around campus. That’s why I’m here to talk to you about the best thing that UMass Lowell does ever, and that is THEATRE.
columbinus (March 2012) |
OBP’s mission in life is to provide entertainment for the community in the form of theatrical productions as well as educate our students through hands-on involvement. UMass Lowell students, faculty, staff, and alumni can be involved in any part of the production process: acting, designing, managing, directing, building, and working backstage or front of house. OBP also works to hire professionals in the field for directing or designing. As a club on campus, OBP is managed by an executive board of five students as well as a faculty advisor. This year’s board consists of…
President: Kate Munoz, junior Philosophy major
Vice President: Trudy Umstead, junior Liberal Arts major
Secretary: Sam Lovewell, sophomore Music major
Treasurer: Steve Whitten, junior Chemical Engineering major
Technical Officer: Steve Rotondi, senior History major
Faculty Advisor: Shelley Barish, Theatrical Design faculty
OBP isn’t just “that club that puts on shows.” They also hold monthly general meetings open to anyone interested in being a general member. You don’t need to be involved in a production to be a member! At these meetings, there’s food (of course), theatre games, announcements regarding theatre in the community, and discussion about upcoming workshops, events, and productions. It’s a student-run club, so they cater to what students want to do!
Club Fair 2011 |
SO WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS YEAR?!
This week OBP’s fall production of Almost, Maine is opening. The performance dates and times are as follows:
Thursday November 15th @ 7:30pm
Friday November 16th @ 7:30pm
Saturday November 17th @ 2:00pm & 7:30pm
Sunday November 18th @ 2:00pm
Tickets can be purchased at the door, at the McGauvran SIC, or reserved by calling the OBP office at 978-934-5024. OBP always has a $1 student ticket special on opening night! Otherwise, student tickets are $5 and adult tickets are $10.
For the spring, OBP is bringing in a guest director from New York (!!!) to host a musical theatre workshop and direct a showcase of new works from Boston and New York playwrights.
If you’re interested in helping out with anything OBP is doing, send them an email at umloffbroadwayplayers@gmail.com to get on their email list!
Hope to see you at the show this weekend!!!
YOU’RE ALL CHAMPIONS.
-Trudy
Procrastination. What a BIG no no!
- False Security: You look at your syllabus, and you see an 8-page paper due in six weeks. You’ve got plenty of time. It won’t hurt to go out with friends and unwind before doing work.
- Laziness: YEY Free time! Oh, I have this assignment I forgot. Fine, let me start this and get it over with. Right after I take my nap and catch up on Revenge episodes =)
- Excuses: “I’ve been busy! I deserve a break from your work. I mean, I had a crazy weekend, and today I have classes all day plus an exam. I really deserve to take a few days off from thinking about any schoolwork whatsoever”.
- Denial: 8-page paper? No big deal, I work best under pressure anyways! I’ve got tons of time. Classes end at 3pm today, and it’s not due until 9am tomorrow. That’s a total of 18 hours. What assignment in the history of college has ever taken 18 hours? I don’t need sleep, that’s what coffee is for! I GOT THIS!
- Crisis: (It’s 7:45 am): OH NO! HOW DID I LET THIS HAPPEN? I HATE MYSELF, I HATE THIS CLASS, AND I HATE MY TEACHER. NEVER AGAIN. I HAVE LEARNED MY LESSON.
- Get up and move
- Setup reminders
- Get a motivation buddy
- Make yourself accountable
- Create something everyday (anything that gets you into a creative mood and gets you working)
- Wake up early
- Go to sleep early
- Clean and clear as you go
- Cut the cable
- Just do it (no excuses)
- Schedule time blocks
- Follow a task list
- Have a system
- Don’t check email (check it after your done working)
- Destroy social networks
- Time yourself
- Track yourself
- Computerize when you can
- Create a playlist
- Identify and face your fear
- Realize it will never be perfect
- Become mindful
- Set “goals” for the day
- Give yourself a break
- Stick with tools
- Entertain yourself
- Work less
- Have some quiet time every day
- Don’t settle
Pay your Respects
iSiS: Wait..What Am I Doing?
Hello everyone! Trudy here, your new Ambassador. For my first blog post I’ll be writing about the super exciting topic of iSiS and registration, YEAH.
Enrollment dates are coming up, and I’m sure all of you have met with or will meet with your advisors real soon! But once you get advised on what classes to take, what do you do next? Come along, and I’ll show you!
STEP ONE. Log on to iSiS. Head on over to isis.uml.edu, click on “Student Self-Service Login” and log on with your student email (ie. Seymour_Butts@student.uml.edu) and your student email password (ie. OMGiloveisis2012). Also make sure you choose “Lowell” as the campus. Don’t be sneaky and try to log on to the President’s Office to find out the secrets of the universe. Doesn’t work. I may have tried.
STEP TWO. You should end up at your Student Center! But..
WELP that’s what I’m here for! Have a picture.
STEP THREE. If you followed the advice of the six-pointed star up there you should be on your way to registering. Choose which term you would like to register for (hint: next semester is Spring 2013, you can also register for Winter classes but they cost extra money! and you can’t register for Fall 2012 classes anymore. Sorry.) THEN CLICK CONTINUE YEAH.
STEP FOUR. Hopefully after meeting with your advisor you have a nice list of all the course numbers for the classes you will be taking. An example would be for College Writing II, the course number is 42.102. If your advisor gave you a random assortment of numbers without any decimal points or anything, they gave you the class number which is different and confuses lots of people. Class numbers are entered on the shopping cart page on the left under “Enter Class Nbr“. Course numbers are entered by checking the “Class Search” bubble and clicking “Search“. HERE HAVE ANOTHER PICTURE
In the above example I put College Writing II for the course number, since everyone needs to take that someday. Some of the additional search criteria can be used whether or not you know the course number. A lot of these things are super useful, but most people overlook them!
STEP FIVE. Once you click search you’ll get a whole bunch of classes and times and professors and fun stuff. Pick the perfect class–or the one that fits into your schedule..ish–and click “select class”. BOOM ROASTED it’s in your shopping cart! Repeat all that fun stuff for all the classes you want to take and then impatiently await your registration date. 7am on that magical morning, you can finally “Proceed To Step 2 Of 3” and “Finish Enrolling” in your classes! You should get a bunch of green happy check marks, but if your page looks like this there might be a problem.
Well..if your page looks exactly like this the only problems would be that you are trying to enroll before your enrollment date and also why are you taking the exact same classes as I am? But if you do get a bunch of WOMP Xes read the error messages! Some common problems include the class being full or closed, not having the pre- or co-requisites, and a time conflict with another class. SO fix those things and you’ll be well on your way to SUCCESS and HAPPINESS and FREEDOM and JUSTICE and all that good stuff.
Hopefully this refresher was helpful to you! If you’re super stuck and still have questions, you can ask your advisor, FYRE, RA, contact the help desk at 978-934-4357, or post on Facebook/Twitter and tag me or the Ambassador page or a random friend who is good with iSiS, or send a carrier pigeon to Trudy Umstead, room 103B Sheehy Hall, 6 Solomont Way, Lowell, MA 01854 and I will get back to you as soon as the pigeon figures out how to sneak into the building without being signed in.
HAVE AN AWESOME DAY FRIENDS, YOU’RE ALL CHAMPIONS.
-Trudy