Albertus Blog

Albertus Blog

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Winter Wonder Week


Sorry I haven't been blogging lately!! I've been so busy this week it's been so hectic for me!  I finished all but one of my finals (woohoo) so I've been able to focus on this busy week.  I'm chairing the Winter Wonder formal dance that we put on every year in the Campus Center BCR.  This is one of the bigger events that we have on campus and it's stressful especially for the chair person!  I'm thankful that I have a co-chair on this event, Sharinna who is also an RA and the advertising chair on SGA.  Every year, we have picked a theme and stuck it with and decorate the whole BCR to this particular theme.  In the past years since I've been here, we've done NYC theme, Disney, and Santa's Workshop theme.  This year we have decided to do a classic black and white christmas with certain touches of NYC in there.  It was going to be too hard to just stick to completely black and white themed, so we added some NYC in there to help us find more decorations and what not.  We have a big Christmas closet that we put all of the decorations in- and there is A LOT.  We have a ton of trees as well as blow up figures, signs, cardboard cut outs, ornaments, wreaths, garland and many other items.  We pulled all of these items out of the Christmas closet Sunday night and have been hard at work all week putting together the room to look the best it can be.  Many of the people that are helping set up are all volunteers on SGA or the SGA volunteer committee.  They have been hard at work making sure that everything gets done right and looks great!  The dance is tomorrow night (Friday) and there is still a lot that needs to get done so tonight is going to be a long night but it will all be worth it.  I have helped setting up in the past and I can truly say that even though it's a stressful week and you feel like it's never going to get done, it always does and it looks totally different when you are done. 

Friday, November 23, 2012

Black Friday Madness is Over With

 
The most hatred time of year came and went in a flash for retail workers:  Black Friday.  I have been working at Abercrombie and Fitch in the Milford Post Mall for a year now and have survived two Black Fridays.  Last year, I had just started working at the store and they put me on fitting rooms from 12 am- 5 am.  It was horrible! Not only was I completely exhausted but people were so rude and left all of their items in the fitting room.  It's crazy to see how much I've changed in a year because now I'm not afraid to tell customers like it is.  I was really quiet last year, but this year I knew I couldn't let customers walk all over me.  I worked 9 am- 6 pm, so I had just missed the crazy mark of 50% off the entire store.  When I arrived, the entire store was 40% off and I was put on the register the whole time.  The store was so busy the whole day, but I survived!  I was happy to have my shift over and done with, and now I have time and a half to look forward to on my pay check :)

I can't deny though, me and my mom went out last night to Walmart in a spur of the moment.  We saw some things in the ad that we wanted and figured we would just stop by and see if they had what we wanted.  They didn't have a few items that we wanted, but it's OK because we got some other things.  I was sad to leave my mom- I was only able to stay home for 2 days because I have to be on duty tonight (Friday 11/23) for the mansions.  The campus is very quiet though- nearly everyone is home except for basketball players. 

If you are looking for a job in the area and you attend Albertus, it's convenient to get one.  Located in New Haven, we are close enough to Hamden, Downtown New Haven, and even Milford where the mall is.  You can hop on the Yale shuttle, or there are bus stops on the corners of school that you can get on and pay $1 to get where you need to go.  I know a lot of people here at Albertus that have local jobs and live out of state.  Some stores that people work at that attend here are my store, AnF, American Eagle, Kohls, Walmart, and Stop and Shop.  Stores are always looking for fresh, young people to work so getting a job locally is fairly easy.  Even if you live out of state, most jobs are flexible when telling them that you need to go back home.  Some jobs even allow you to transfer to stores near your home so you can keep your job.  If you don't want a job off campus, you can always get one on campus!  If you have financial need, you can be a part of the Federal Government funded Work Study Program.  Work Study allows you to have a job on campus and they pay you minimum wage ($8.25) per hour.  When you are put into the program, you receive a sheet that states what you're interested in.  You can work in the admissions office, the Act II Theater, Athletics, Financial Aid, Business office, Common Ground, Academic Dean's office or even the pub on campus.  They give you a certain amount of hours and you can only work up until all of these hours are used.  Being a part of this program is a great opportunity because you can have a job on campus and not have to go far!  If you apply to be in this program but aren't accepted- no worries there are other ways on campus to have a job.  One way is to be a student tour guide.  This is through the admission's office and you can pick and chose what tours you want to do.  Each tour such as a group tour or single family tour is a different amount of money to earn, so if you do a lot of tours you can get a lot of money which is always nice.  Also throughout the year, there are various special events such as Accepted Students Day and Open House that you can work at and you receive a great amount of money!  Another way to have a job on campus is to work in the Writing Center located in Rosary Hall.  In order to work in here, a professor needs to recommend you.  If you excel in your written expression courses, your professor could recommend you to work and you will have to go through training, but you can earn money by doing weekly appointments with students.

Overall, having a job while in college is rewarding.  Coming from someone that has two jobs, if I wasn't working, I don't know what I would be doing (maybe I'd actually have a life! hehe)  I think that being able to save money while in college is so important.  If you have to take out loans, it will always be nice to have a little money to fall back on or at least enough money to buy you necessities like groceries, going out, or other spending money. 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Candy Apple Night!


 
Once again, McAuliffe Hall did another floor function.  This time we had a candy apple making night!  I bought all of the treats that we would need.  The essentials:
  • Apples of course!  I bought green apples because I prefer them
  • Wilton's chocolate melts- dark chocolate and white chocolate
  • Brach's caramel 
  • Reese's peanut butter chips
  • M&M's
  • Walnuts
  • Apple cider to drink while you wait for your apples :)
  • Popsicle sticks
  • Twist ties
  • Seran wrap and wax paper
O.K. sooo who knew that apple making could be so hard right?  My  mom makes them every year and she does it so effortlessly and they always come out looking so good!  Me?  I guess my culinary/ dessert making skills are lacking.  First of all the stove started smoking and I got nervous!! I had to open the windows in the kitchen in fear that the room would smoke up!  Luckily it didn't but melting the caramel was difficult itself.  We had to keep adding water to it or else it would have gotten really thick and not gone on the apple well.  When I melted the chocolate, I put the chocolate in and added 2 teaspoons of water.  After I did that, I realized I probably should have used a double boiler- whoops! About 10 residents came down in total and we made their apples to order.  Some people did just caramel and chocolate or just caramel and Reese's- really whatever they wanted we made for them.  So if you want to make candy apples, don't be like me!  Here are some helpful tips to making your apple making successful :)

  • Twist off the stems from the apples and push the popsicle stick down into the core
  • Put apples in the fridge while preparing the chocolate because they'll coat better if cold
  • Melt the chocolate or caramel in a double boiler over hot water
  • Dunk each apple into the caramel or chocolate
  • Roll dipped apple into a bowl of your toppings (M&M's, walnuts, etc.)
  • Put apples on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper
  • Put in the fridge until chocolate is set
I got this recipe from the Food Network Station.  Check out their other recipes on their website Food Network

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Back from NACA!!

Well I'm back from NACA and I survived! Let me tell you 3 days of essentially no sleep takes a lot out of a girl! NACA was a great time and being able to see what other schools in the area have done was pretty awesome.  In total, 50 schools came from the areas of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and even Maryland!  Because there is so much to discuss about, I just want to highlight some of my favorite moments of the conference :) :


  • School Swap
School swap is a really fun part of NACA but it's totally hectic!  Each year, there is a theme for NACA.  This years theme was "In Pursuit of Knowledge" like the game Trivial Pursuit.  Each school is asked to created a board of any kind- you can highlight your most successful events, use lots of color, really just go in any direction you want with the board.  We tried to stick with the Trivial Pursuit theme and did "Albertus Pursuit."  We put different categories on the board such as Geography, History, Sports, and Entertainment.  Each category had various questions with the answers underneath and pictures to go with it as well.  The best board won a certificate, as well as best use of theme and best dressed (hence the reason why we are all decked out in blue!)  Unfortunately, we didn't win best dressed but it was fun to show school spirit and rock our blue wigs!  Frankie Falcon even made an appearance at NACA and had a blast dancing with students from other schools and challenging other mascots to a dance off;  and no surprise Frankie won every dance battle he was challenged to! Along with school swap, schools are given 45 minutes to literally swap any left over items that they have from events.  You can bring t-shirts, pens, note pads, frisbees, posters, etc.- anything you have left over from the events you have done in the past year and trade with other schools.  Not only does this provide SGA with ideas for events but we also get to keep everything that we receive!

  •  Showcases
As I explained in my previous blog about NACA, we attend showcases of various performers, comedians, spoken word poets, musicians, hypnotists, lecturers, and self proclaimed "love doctors."  Each performer gets 15 minutes to perform part of their skits and this gives the audience a taste of what they can bring to their school.  Due to these showcases, we found 4 performers we are highly interested in to bring to Albertus!  NACA is the best place to find performers that we like and want to bring to AMC.  The picture above is of Amanda Corbett, Vice President, Matt Brancaccio, President, and myself after a showcase rocking some mustaches that we received!


On the last night there was a late night special showcase.  It was a "Party Rock" themed concert with a stage, DJ, laser lights and special glasses.  Once you put the glasses on, the laser lights looked so crazy!  It was dark in the room and the music was so loud but it was a lot of fun.  They played a lot of techno which isn't my favorite type of music, but everyone was into it so I enjoyed myself. 

Some other things I enjoyed were:
  •  The Campus Activities Market Place where various performers and novelty companies gave away cd's and novelties to try to sell themselves to your school
  •  The closing dinner ceremony- Matt Brancaccio won a student leader award! So proud of him.
  • Spending time with my fellow SGA members

and of course last but not least, being able to relax!!




Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Getting the dedication you need at Albertus

At Albertus, we offer a variety of Master's programs that undergraduates of the school as well as other students can apply to.  The Business department here at Albertus recently added a program where you can get your MBA with only one additional year of school.  I have decided to do this program- getting my master's in only one year what can be better than that?!  However, while registering for classes I found out that I was supposed to declare my junior year that I wanted to be a part of the program.  When I found out, I was really upset and disappointed; I didn't want to miss out on this opportunity.  I emailed the professor that is the head of this program and met with him today.  What he told me that I need to do is to apply to the grad school program and he would meet with the head of the Business Department and get my schedule figured out.  We figured it out that I would have to add two more classes to my schedule next semester.  These two classes would be considered "module" classes which means that they are 8 weeks each (an accelerated program.)  I take one class for 8 weeks, then another class for 8 weeks so that would take up 1 whole semester.  This will then catch me up to where I need to be.  This is one of the perks of being an Albertus student- I feel like professors are always going out of their way to help you out.  The professor I met with was willing to do whatever it took to get me into this program.  I know that it may be difficult taking on 5 classes plus an additional class next semester but I know that it will be worth it in the end.  It will help me towards my goal of getting my MBA in marketing. 

Off to NACA I go!


This weekend I'm heading off to Hartford, CT to the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA for short) conference at the Hartford Marriott convention center!  I've been lucky enough to go to NACA for the past 3 years and this will be my final year going.  Being on the Student Government Association (campus activities), you're always looking for new events that students will want to attend, ways to make your events marketable and find performers that you would like to bring to Albertus.  Most schools located in the North East head to NACA in order to show what types of events their school has done.  It's really cool and fun to see what ideas other schools have come up with and we have even brought some of these events back to our school and made them our own.  Some events that we have gotten the idea at NACA and brought them back to Albertus include:  Albertus Got Talent, the whole "Albertus at Night" series, Western Night, and the Cake Challenge we hold annual in the cafeteria.  We have even found shirts that another school did and got the concept to make our own SGA shirts!  The shirts are orange and have a Dunkin Donuts theme to them and they say "Albertus Runs on SGA" with a picture for each word.  Also a part of NACA is finding performers that you would like to bring to your school.  As a group, we sit in these huge show case rooms and various performers such as comedians, magicians, motivational speakers, singers, musicians and many more perform!  If you like the performer enough, you can meet up with them in a place called the "marketplace" and book them to come to your school!  We've gotten many of our performers from NACA such as comedians Anton Shuford, and M.Dickson, and hypnotist Jim Spinnato.  In the market place as well, there are various booths where there are free give-aways such as bamboo, stuff your own teddy bear, and air brush trucker hats.  These booths try and give things away so you can get an idea of some events that you want to come to your school.  Overall NACA is a long weekend (Thursday-Sunday) but it is so much fun!  If you join SGA when you come to Albertus, maybe you will have the opportunity to go to NACA; it's definitely worth it!


Here's some pictures from NACA North East from previous years :)


In order to show school spirit, we all wear the same colored shirt- also to find each other in a crowd because there is a LOT of people there!

At the end of the weekend, there is a formal dinner.  Everyone dresses up nice.  This was taken at NACA 2011.


Last year, @NACAne tweeted a question, and because I was the first one to answer the question on Twitter, we won seating on the couches at the very front of the showcase! It was exciting!
One of the vendors was giving away free mustaches! Being an avid mustache lover (hehe), myself, Brittney, and Jessica took a funny photo with our sweet 'staches!