For our community service project we decided to help the people who were less fortunate by working with Interfaith Human Services. Interfaith is a registered non-profit organization in Centre County, Pennsylvania, is a long-standing collaborative effort of faith communities whose purpose is to address many unmet social and economic needs for low-income residents. Through their programs they have helped many families balance their budgets so they can use the little income they have available in the most efficient manner. Also they provide financial assistance to residents who have had their homes foreclosed or those who have been victims of unfortunate events that have happened to their homes.

It was difficult to find a way to help the homeless directly because there only a couple of homeless shelters throughout State College, PA. So we decided to help an organization that works with low income residents of State College, PA, Interfaith Human Services, in any way possible for our community service project. As a result we ended up raking leaves and hanging up flyers and answering phones. We hope these small contributions have a big impact on the community by raising funds and awareness for IHS to further their cause. When all was said and done, we all came away feeling happy for the help we gave and believe this to correlate to the core value of social responsibility, taking our time to help those in need.

Will Smart:

At first I thought our efforts were completely useless. However, when I put it in retrospect our contribution to Interfaith wasn’t useless. By cleaning their front yard we made their office look attractive. In doing this people will be more willing to donate and carry out other transactions because people are more attracted to places that look clean and well kept. Also we will be saving them money because they will not have to spend their money hiring professionals to do a job that we did for free. By saving them money they have extra money to supply people with funds they need to survive and get back on their feet. Hanging the flyers increases the awareness of their fundraising events, which will increase the likelihood of people contributing to their fund raising event. In doing this we will increase the funds they use to help poorer people. These contributions make me feel good because I like what HIS is doing for poor people because the struggle is real. I know because I came from it…

Matt Johnson:

From the volunteering experience at Interfaith Human Services, I was able to learn numerous valuable lessons. The first of many lessons that I learned is that it’s important to always give back if you have the ability to because there are so many more people in the world that are less fortunate than us. I realize that I have been blessed to be in a very special position because someone saw the value in me and as a result of this, I want to give back by showing people that they are also valuable regardless of their circumstances. The second lesson that I learned is that kindness is imperative to a functioning society. As I spoke with one of the women at IHS, she let me know that our kindness inspired her to pass it on to someone else. If kindness can just be conveyed by every person one act at a time, the world would surely be a better place. The final lesson I learned from my experience at IHS, is that kindness not only makes the person receiving the act feel good, but it makes the person doing the act of kindness feel nice as well. After leaving IHS, I continuously felt the smiles and friendliness of the people that I met there throughout the remainder of the week. That one experience gave me the energy to push through the week. My volunteer work was much more of a learning experience than I could have expected.

Paola Barrios:

I have always been a person who loves giving back to the community. So when I got the chance to work with an organization that helps people keep their houses and gives away free furniture I thought it was interesting. I was able to meet the people in charge of that organization and it really changed me. I have never met anyone that was actually passionate of their careers, but I met people who love doing what they do just to make other smiles. I really did enjoy my community service even if it was just a small part in helping them keep their company going.

Justin Hurley:

Doing my best to help others has always been a big part of who I am and while I haven’t always expressed in the form of community service. However, I have shied away from the opportunity to help, and when it came to helping Interfaith Human Services it was great, and like I know some of my teammates have mentioned it’s amazing how much the little things can help. This has been a great experience, and I have every intention of continuing to work with interfaith (as long as my class schedule does not get in the way.

These are our reactions to having the amazing chance to help out Interfaith Human Services through answering phones, hanging flyers, and yard work.

So for my second Core Value Assignment, I got the chance to interview the lovely Bukola Toyobo. Unlike me (being born and growing up in America) Bukola is from Nigeria and spent time in England. The following are the questions and responses from my interview with Ms. Bukola.

What is your major?

My major is Biology vertebrate physiology option.

What made you want to come to Penn State, where else do you get accepted?

I came to Penn State because I have a lot of family in Pennsylvania and they also go to Penn State, and my cousin goes here. Where else did I get accepted, well I applied to a number of schools, like 5 or 6, and I cant’ really remember all of them but I know Drexel was definitely one of them that’s the only one I remember.

What do you do as a P.A. (Program Assistant) and what made you want to do it?

As a Program assistant, I am meant to act as a mentor, a resource person in the building sort of making first hand with the residence since I’m like a door or floor away from people. I’m meant to encourage them academically and not to just have a great social life at Penn State. I’m meant to plan programs over the semester, professional or academic programs to help develop the residents. Well as a freshman I found my PA’s really helpful, I was closer to my PA’s than my RA. I liked what they did and I wanted to do something similar especially as I have an interest in teaching in the future with motivational speaking.

What were your future goals as a freshman, what are they now?

Well my goals haven’t changed much up to now, med school. As a freshman I wanted a super high G.P.A., that was like my main goal now I’m just good with Dean’s list. And getting involved on campus, I wasn’t that involved my freshman year and it wasn’t part of my big list of goals and just doing things that will help me become a better person.

What do you do to help manage your time?

I write lists of everything I have to do and I plan my week, I have a schedule on my wall, and I make sure I have time like I have slots for friends for lunch things like that. I also prioritize.

How much do you study, how do u study to survive intellectually, do you do anything besides studying?

Well, Penn State says you are to study for every hour of class 2-3 hours. When if i can I like to read the notes, like the class notes. For physics we have the readings for class, read them before class to be prepared for class so I know what they are trying to teach me. Go to class and sometime before the next class go over what we did in class and do the homework to get more of an idea and give me time to interpret the material and over the weekend review with like a flow chart or some flash cards. I go to like review classes, there’s the resource center if I need help, Office hours my professor or office hours with the TA. Maybe study with some friends.

How do you maintain physical, spiritual, and emotional health?

Go to the gym. Bible Study at least once a week, then church on Sunday. Taking a break every once and a while read for fun. Emotional, just talking to friends just being social or talking to family.

How did u adjust to being on your own?

Talk to my family a lot, Face Time, I guess for this isn’t the first time I’ve been away from home I was in boarding school for my last two years of high school, but I was closer to home but it was like a gradual process like weeding me away. I mean I was in boarding school from Monday to Friday, now its just a little longer but I mean I Face Time with my family all the time.

If you could change one thing what would it be?

Have more fun, don’t be just academic. Join more fun organization. Go out with friends more.

What recommendations do you have for myself or any other freshman?

Take it step by step, enjoy your college experience, it’s a time for you to find yourself and find out who you are. Don’t take classes because they are required for your major, take classes that will make you a better person and you will enjoy. Don’t just choose your major and take classes for the major you think you want but explore some, in sophomore year you can specialize. Join fun organizations.

Of all the classes we have had so far, Wednesday’s class had the greatest impact on me. With Dr. Blanco talking about the surviving in a diverse community, I thought it would be another class going over things I knew, but I was wrong.

Going into class I only really saw diversity as people of different races, cultures, and experiences but never delved into how far these three key parts went into. I completely overlooked the fact that something as living in a certain area or listening to a certain type of music went into diversity. This is best shown from the game that we played with Dr. Blanco, where we had to match different landmarks like Five Points and the Space Needle with their city (much more difficult than the state). I only knew about 2 or 3, and no one in the class got over 8 by themselves but since we all came from different areas there were things some of knew that others did not. This is when I started to realize that how deep diversity goes into. After that we got to use this newfound form of diversity when we were split into groups to find a way to affect billions of people. Here all our experience, interests, and knowledge of different things allowed for each group to come up with interesting developments that could help billions. My group came up with the idea of a more affordable, better distributed form of penicillin. It was a very interesting short project and Dr. Blanco did a great job.

Ultimately, like I said this class allowed me to see a little more into the vast number of factors that go into diversity. And from the exercises we did, it proved the long time saying that two heads (or in this case as many heads as you have) is better than one.

Two weekends ago I got the chance to go do the ropes course with the Sapphire Leadership Program. Now, for those unaware the Sapphire program is specific to the Smeal College of Business and is the best of the best in Smeal, similar to an honors program. Now Sapphire is very much like the Penn State community and at the first meeting for the freshman class I came to realize that I am the only person of color in this year’s incoming group. Of the forty plus students in this year’s program at least 97% of my fellow students are white and outside of me a few other ethnicities are present. This goes along with the core value of being a colored/ minority student in a predominantly white school, something I was aware of but was not expecting as much. I mean, I did not think that half of the Sapphire’s would be people of color but I did not expect to be the only one. Now back to my main point the ropes course.

The ropes course was the first real thing we all did outside the classroom that was not a meeting, so I had to make sure I maintained being me and still able to adjust and interact with my white class mates on the rainy day. Overall it was a great day and got to meet some new people and even though all of them were white there was no awkwardness. I was able to talk about different things to different people finding different points of interests but I never acted out of character. All in all I was able to interact with the dominant race and be fine. So I guess I can call that a success as well as this post (hopefully).

When faculty from the Office of Student Affairs visited last week, we got a chance to learn and talk more about the Code of Conduct here at Penn State. A lot of the things that they went over were obvious stuff mature young adults like myself and my fellow classmates should have learned while in high school, all of these relating to the core value of being socially responsible. However, there were a few new interesting things I learned and some things that had me thinking about how things really work.

First off, I learned that apparently you could plagiarize yourself, something that was also new to a lot of people. I mean, I understand that using something you have written before is pretty lazy, but at the end of the day it is your words and they are not the words of another person. If I express my ideas in the same manner at different points it seems weird that it would be considered plagiarism. I mean, for all the college and scholarship applications I know my college counselors told me to use the same essay if it was applicable because it saves time, so that all threw me for a loop. Like I said, I understand and from a standpoint of being socially responsible it is not responsible to be lazy and just take something you’ve written before and use it word for word, but I just don’t believe that to be plagiarism.

            The other thing I found interesting was our very extensive, interactive discussion about consent. I know a lot of fellow scholars will touch on this because it was a very interesting conversation based on how things are perceived these days and how we interpret things. Now I clearly understand what consent is, but like everyone else it is hard to find the exact definition realistic. To just directly ask someone “Can I have sex with you?” is unrealistic, a mood killer, and results in you not having sex. As many of my classmates pointed out a lot of things today are implied, and most people know what you mean if you ask if they want to go somewhere else. However, like I said I understand that you should clarify that consent is being given; you just need to find a good way of doing so. Or in simple words follow the core value of being socially responsible and do the things that you know you have to do to avoid getting in trouble, which I will do by just using my common sense.

As we got further out towards Shavers Creek, the cell reception became weaker and weaker, until it was barely there. However, while the cell reception was almost nonexistent the opportunities to meet new people and to get a feel for how college would be were very prevalent.

When we arrived at Shavers Creek, all the thoughts about classes about to start vanished and it was all pretty relaxing. The bus chants were not exactly my type of thing but we made it work and bus two go the W, so that’s all that mattered. All the icebreakers were pretty cool, that is except for the lining up in order by birthday, but that mostly came from my knee not being as good as I though when we had to do Burpees. But as the afternoon continued it was nice to meet even more people. I mean when you are out there in that relaxed state it is easy to meet new people, especially when you have different things in common.

As our time at the retreat started to come to a close it was cool and a little frustrating to play the run around game. It was especially frustrating when you would get to the front of the line and then the line might “close for lunch” or you would have to go to the back of the line. But all in all it was pretty fun and a nice way to get a feel for the hectic life that is college. Then, when we started going over the core values it really helped give me an idea of some of the things I would need to do in and out that I had never thought of before to be successful. I mean, I knew I had to have good time management skills to study for all my different class and still have fun, but I had not though of things like keeping my culture while mixing with the dominate culture.   And as I look back a lot of the core values have come up in this first week alone but knowing I have access to so many resources reassures me I will be fine, and the best part is all this was learned in a few short hours at the Shavers Creek Retreat.

College. It is a completely different beast than high school; this is the best of the best together, and no one is walking you through anything. You are responsible to find help, no note saying come during lunch to get extra help. College can be extremely intimidating, yet it will still be the best time of your life and there is a lot to look forward to as you begin.

College is a new chapter in life that brings lots of new experiences that I will have to deal with and I am excited to start and I am looking forward to lots of things. I am looking forward to more challenging classes, after all nothing fun was easy and classes in high school were slow paced and few were truly challenging. I am also looking forward to being independent, responsible to take care of myself, and meeting new people. I am also really looking forward to getting involved with things like intermural sports, like football, club sports, like fencing, and the different volunteer work I will do within the Sapphire Leadership Program.

With all that said, I am a bit anxious as I am still trying to work some things out so I can fix some of my habits from high school that will not fly. Most of these things all revolve around time management as I know I need to actually study unlike in high school and I am a little nervous that I will not know how. I am also nervous about making sure I have enough time to study, workout, work, and have fun within the week. I mean besides studying I am going to actually have to read the textbooks before and after class to make sure I can keep up. Lastly, I am worried about also making sure I get enough sleep, especially since I am no stranger to pulling an all night session to finish work.

I am quiet sure my first year at Penn State is set to filled with a lot of fun and exciting moments but at the end of the day its still school and to insure I succeed, I have prepared some goals for myself beyond being on the Dean’s List. For starters I want to end the year off with at least a solid 3.9 G.P.A., something I know I am quiet capable of. I also want to avoid that dreaded freshman fifteen if not turn into the freshman negative ten where I would lose fifteen pounds of fat and gain five pounds of muscle, as well as really learn how to study as it is something I have never done before. With these goals in place I plan on dedicating myself to studying, arrive to each class at least 10 min early, and start studying for exams at least three weeks before an exam. Hopefully doing these will help me to accomplish the ultimate goal of making the Dean List.

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