Sarah

Hey Hawkeyes!

Time has been flying for the past two weeks. My last post left off on Wednesday and everything has been a whirlwind since then. I’ll try to give a summary!

Thursday
I helped with Move-in crew, which was a lot of fun again. The same group that helped Wednesday helped on Thursday so it was nice getting to know more people. I also helped with Target Takeover this year. There are shuttles that hauled all the students out to the Target in Coralville. There’s a ton of activities with chances to win free stuff. They also had a live DJ to help get the energy up. It was a lot of fun and there was so much energy.

Friday
We had our final On Iowa! squad meeting before we met our small groups. I was kinda nervous about meeting them but after our squad meeting and laughing with them, I realized that my small group was probably nervous about meeting me and each other. My small group was pretty cool and even participated in the ice breakers with some enthusiasm. After a lecture about how to succeed in college and then dinner, we headed to Kinnick Stadium. At Kinnick, the first years learn cheers, songs, and chants. They also get to form the big block ‘I’ on the field.

When we got to Kinnick, it was mass chaos as far as finding anyone. Half of my small group got lost in the sea of students walking up to Kinnick. I was a little disappointed but was trying to ignore it, but then I got to the gates where students were entering and I saw my group standing there waiting for me. When we got onto the field, I managed to find a group of Teal squad leaders and we had to take a picture. These are some of the best people I’ve ever met.

After the Kinnick activities, students could leave to go to some other events or they could stay on Kinnick and take part in races, tug-of-war, or field goal kicking. Teal squad also had a hang out session in the middle of Kinnick field.

Hanging out after such a long day made for some pretty interesting moments and quotes, but that’s why I love them!

Saturday
This was the big day for On Iowa! leaders. And students I guess. As leaders, today was the day we presented the Iowa Challenge. The challenge is Excel, Stretch, Engage, Choose, Serve. These five things are what past graduates feel are necessary to have a fulfilling and successful college experience. This year, we focused on the Choose part of the Challenge. We talked about Hawks helping Hawks and keeping fellow Hawkeyes safe using bystander intervention if we see something that could put someone in danger. My small group (which ended up really small because half of my small didn’t show up to the second day of class) responded really well and were completely serious about the topic. I would have loved to have had my whole class come back, but the students who did come back were a great bunch. They provided intelligent and meaningful ideas about how to help someone who might be in a bad situation.

We also talked about getting Engaged on campus and finding activities that will help you meet people who have similar interests. This discussion ended with going to the Engage Fair that had booths with information about a lot of the organizations students can join.

Sunday

This was our last squad meeting together as Teal team 6. We did an activity where we would throw a ball of yarn around the circle and we had to say 1. our favorite moment, 2. how we grew as a leader, and 3. one thing we would never forget. We all agreed that one of the things we wouldn’t forget was the strong connection with our Teal squad. At the end of the activity we had a star of teal yarn to show how we were all connected.

Being an On Iowa! leader has been one of the best experiences and I met such awesome people, I would highly recommend being involved with it.

Now for the short rundown on the first week of class.
I have quite a few classes this semester that have a lot of homework so I’ll be pretty busy with that. On the better note, I have every class with at least one friend, so it makes it easier to work on homework together. I like my schedule so far (other than the awful power walk from one side of campus to the other) but I get all my lectures out of the way in the mornings. The first-years on my floor are getting used to lecture and will soon be going to their first chemistry lab (hence the title of this post, the TA’s always tell you not to ingest the chemicals). It’s been so great being an upperclassman on the WiSE floor. My friends and I have had so much fun getting to know the first-years. We’ve had multiple floor bonding moments in the middle of the hallway. Now whenever we walk out and see a group standing in the hallway, they’ll yell down, “Hey, hall bonding! Come down!” This is just one of the many hallway bondings.

We’ve also had a nail-painting and hair braiding party in my room which was a lot of fun. We keep adding people so we’re slowly getting to know the whole floor and each individual person.

This year is off to such an awesome start, I’m so excited. Last year seemed so awesome, I didn’t think it could get better. But this year has definitely surpassed those expectations. I can’t wait to see what the year will bring!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 2nd, 2013 at 8:40 am and is filed under Academics, Campus Life, Events, General, Photos, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.