Hello Accepted Students!!!

This week is Preview Days and the senior fellows are anxiously awaiting your arrival. We’ve been working hard to ensure that you have the best time of your life over the next few days. We even ordered top notch Vermont weather for your enjoyment (forecast is sunny and 65 F with 0% chance of rain).  Be prepared to toss a frisbee on Battell Beach and chat with new friends on Proctor Terrace while watching the sun set. If you’re looking for some more structured activities, you can find a whole slew of them posted here:

http://www.middlebury.edu/system/files/2015previewdays_webv5.pdf

I highly recommend the Student Panel and Brooker Fireside on Wednesday. Likewise, the Iron Eyes Cody concert and Middlebury MothUP will be awesome on Thursday. But really, everything will be fun.

Wednesday through Friday your days will be packed. My advice to you – especially if you’re still trying to narrow down your decision [to Midd] – is to talk to as many students and professors as you can. Ask questions that matter to you. Determine if this is a place that will challenge you and support your search for knowledge. See if you find Middlebury fun.

Please note: College today is not only about the books you read and the concepts you study. You will learn the same history, math, philosophy, chemistry, or sociology wherever you decide to spend your next four years. What matters at the end of the day are the people who shape your experience. I hope Midd’s Preview Days will alleviate the burden of your college decision-making.

Wishing you all the best,

Staci

As a south-Floridian, I don’t really define myself as a “winter person.” I really like the heat, the sunshine, the rain, and the comfort of sandals. Being raised in a place of constant summer meant major adjustments were to be made during the long winters at Middlebury. I had to buy socks that covered my ankles and were as thick as my pinky finger; I had to learn to walk on icy sidewalks; and I had to find the joys and comforts of that once foreign season that would define about half of each academic year. I had to find that “invincible summer” within the cold, beautiful winter in the mountains.

Last year I thought the best way to do this was to simply get outside. My friend Emma and I ran to a local mountain (Snake Mountain), did a 2mile sunrise hike, and ran/hitch-hiked back.* It was quite the adventure and oodles of fun. But for some reason, I didn’t go for another hike until Spring. With that in mind and my relatively indoor-driven J-term, I decided to revive my winter adventuress within me: I signed up for a Middlebury Mountain Club (MMC) sunrise hike.

MMC hosts tons of different outdoor opportunities throughout the semesters. You can go kayaking, rock-climbing ice-climbing, camping, winter-camping, sunrise-hiking, hiking, etc. Most trips are free and entirely funded by the club. Because of that, students sign up for trips on an individual basis. So you never know who could be on your next trip! It’s a great way to get outdoors and meet some new friends.

I signed up for a winter-sunrise-hike of Mount Philo this past week. at 5:00am I showed up to Adirondack Circle to meet eight bright-eyed and bushy tailed students who were as crazy as me to go hiking in 15 degree weather. Kent and Parker were the trip leaders, trained Mountain Club guides who ensured that I would be taken care of if I froze from hypothermia. Kent also provided micro-spikes for all of us newbies who didn’t own our own pair. (If you are now thinking you are a newbie based on your lack of knowledge of micro-spikes, micro-spikes go over your shoes so that you have better traction and grip while hiking in the snow. They are great.)

After a twenty minute drive and a mild hike to the top, we saw an awesome view of the awakening neighboring towns:

…but no sun. Turns out Mt. Philo faces West and the clouds were too thick for any westward reflection. Regardless, it was a great way to kick of the first Thursday of Spring semester!  And the group of us wants to go back for a sunset hike this spring.

*A great story of friendship between Middlebury students and two local high-schoolers. 

It’s that magical time of year here at Middlebury – it is J-Term! It is time to adventure (and stay inside), it is a time to dive into a topic (and then go for a ski break), and this year it is a time to eat cheese!

Okay. Let me back up. J-Term is this magical time of year because Middlebury ensures you will not only survive but also enjoy a Vermont winter. As a Floridian, you have my word that, although it feels like -17 ^oF tonight, I have a smile on my face and I am having fun. This J-Term I am working on my senior thesis in the chemistry department and auditing Prof. Murray Dry’s class Love and Friendship. So I get to read Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy (and more) in addition to the Journal of American Chemical Society. A very well-rounded semester, I like to think.

But J-Term is also magical because of the few extra moments everyone (typically) has in his day. As Middlebury students, we usually try to fill up those 24-hours with as much as possible, even if just for a month long commitment. So naturally I – on top of my thesis and auditing a class – signed up for a J-Term workshop (go.middlebury.edu/wtw). Workshops are non-credit bearing mini-classes that are run by students, faculty, or staff who want to share their passion. They can range from learning how to whistle to….eating cheese! Well more specifically this J-Term I am signed up for an “artisanal cheese tasting” workshop. It is taught by Linnea Burnham, a senior at Middlebury who loves cheese. Way more than me. She could not stop smiling the entire hour tonight while me and 8 other Middlebury students tasted “hard alpine cheeses” and learned how to talk about them and how to go about smelling and tasting them. And then once we tasted the 6 cheeses she brought in, we kept eating good cheese.

Linnea I must say was very qualified for the job. I had never met her before, but learned that she is a French/History double major writing both of her theses on cheese in 19^th Century France! She also spent this past summer making cheese in France (she brought some of that cheese with her tonight), and her childhood is somehow affiliated with dairy farming (I missed the actual story). I was very impressed and look forward to two more Wednesdays with Linnea and her fabulous cheeses.

‘Twas the week before finals

along the wings of BiHall,

every student was studying

…well…not really all….

‘Tis the season to be sledding!

As a native Floridian, it’s only appropriate that I still gasp at the sight of snow. When I first announced I would attend Middlebury, my Floridian family members shrieked: “Won’t it be cold?!” Yes, it is cold. The weather definitely doesn’t hover over the same 70-75 degree range that sunny South Florida does during winter’s entirety. Thus, we’re stuck with the beauty that is a snowy winter.

My first year at Middlebury, I had a horrifying vision of what winter would look like. I expected hurricanes with snow every single day. I imagined winter as a turbulent freeze. With wind, if that wasn’t clear. It turns out winter is more low key. For me, winter usually marks a time to drink hot chocolate, sit next to a fire, and look out the window. Each winter I do get a bit more adventurous, easing myself outside for a few more hours each day. I now know how to get down the bunny slope without falling on my face or crashing into my professor’s five-year-old child; I have accomplished one winter hike without snow shoes; and I have conquered my fear of running with snow on the ground. This year I’m hoping to take up a more seasonally appropriate endurance sport: cross country skiing. Last year I tried it once. I fell. Bill McKibben passed by and asked me whether or not I was trying “to go up or down.” I’m still not sure what he actually meant because I was trying to go down the hill, but stay up on my skis. Overall, it was a great time because I was outside, embracing winter, and was acknowledged by Bill McKibben.

But since it is finals week and I am trying to be the responsible senior tackling a thesis and a job search, I’ll hold off on cross country skiing until J-term. For now, I will gladly settle for a slide (or two) down Battel Beach before heading off to bed.

It’s the end of October. This means a lot of things are happening in my life at Middlebury. It means the last savory days of 60 ^oF weather are here in Vermont; Fall Family Weekend is around the corner; as is Halloween, Day Light Savings, my birthday, and – special to this end of October of 2014 – the removal of all 4 of my wisdom teeth! I know, all very fun things you wish you could enjoy within just one week of each other.

About two months ago, I still proudly proclaimed that I would never need to part with my wisdom teeth. Then a little less than two months ago, I had to retract that statement. It seems as though my wisdom teeth were a problem, a problem I needed to take care of now. “Now” was early September, also known as the first weeks of my senior year at Middlebury. Long story short, the date was set for October 27 – the Monday after Fall Family weekend – at which point I would part with the teeth that are deemed the wisest.

It is now October 29. So you can calculate that it is two days after the date of removal, and you may guess that my face may be reminiscent of Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. I honestly expected the worst for this end of October of 2014, but I soldiered through the 32 minute surgery and came out on top:

The doctor assured me I’d be back to eating Champlain Valley chocolates and bagels in no time. Until then, I have been ordered to press two adorably pink ice packs to my face for 20-minute intervals throughout the day. Without any clever mechanism by which to hold them in place, I’ve taken these 20-minute spurts as a time to reflect (and listen to podcasts). So on a warm and fuzzy note, Middlebury has yet again proven itself to be a wonderful place to spend not only my College years but also the weeks during which to recover from wisdom teeth extraction: my professors have encouraged me to take care of myself, friends have made me delicious smoothies, and Senior Fellow Zoe took over my shifts at Admissions so I wouldn’t have to lisp and blubber my way through an hour long information session. All in all, my road to recovery has been made easy and full of smiles, thanks to things that are Middlebury.

Like most Middlebury students, I’ve been developing an ongoing bucket-list in my head since my first day at Middlebury. And like most seniors, I am now hyper-aware of the time restrictions with which I need to complete my bucket-list. I haven’t been procrastinating too much; throughout my time at Middlebury I’ve been checking off these items one by one. Maple Run – check. Spend a summer in Middlebury – check. Sunrise hike – eh, close enough. Tell a story at the Moth – this Thursday! MiddCORE – umm…

For those of you who don’t know, “MiddCORE is a mentorship-driven, experiential-learning program that builds skills, creates opportunities, and expands networks for tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.” More simply: MiddCORE is a class you can take during January term (J-term). From my limited understanding of what MiddCORE actually is, I would describe it as an intensive training in real-world problem solving using a liberal-arts mindset. I realize that is equally as vague, so this is where I direct you to the link at the bottom of my post to learn more.

I have never taken MiddCORE (hence my umm…) and I know I won’t have the opportunity my final J-term. But it’s on my bucket-list for a reason. It’s intense, interactive, collaborative, goal-oriented, and all those other buzz words that make my (somewhat) career-driven-self salivate. I want to do MiddCORE, but I can’t.

Or so I thought.

Turns out MiddCORE hosts workshops throughout the Fall and Spring semesters. As the eager-beaver trying to plow through my bucket-list, I signed up for almost every MiddCORE workshop available this Fall, obviously thinking that by the end of the semester I could be a self-proclaimed MiddCOREr.

So first week of senior year I walk into the MiddCORE house (their headquarters) for Persuasive Speaking with Mike Kiernan. His biography online says he is an expert in “all areas related to communication” – how persuasive. If you read past the first sentence of his biography you will also learn that he has worked as a communication consultant with political candidates, physicians, and business executives. He is also a doctor. Really, there is nothing on the website that communicates how wonderful of a workshop he would host. He is a communication guru.

There were six other students in attendance for the two-hour workshop. We did all things in a circle formation, which included activities like:

• State the energy in the circle
• Overcome your subconscious consciousness
• Give a pitch (these ranged from why you should eat at Proctor if you are looking for Vegan deliciousness to how to invest sustainably)
• Listen to Mike Kiernan’s wealth of wisdom

It was a great way to kick-off the semester. Meet new people – check. Get a fix of the out-of-the-classroom learning (that happens all the time at Middlebury) – check. Practice speaking in front of strangers – check. Become a self-proclaimed MiddCOREr – almost!