Last Semester of My College Career

by Keenan L., Panther Blogger

It feels like time has flown by!  I can't believe that we are halfway through the spring semester. Over the past six weeks, I have had a chance to attend many men's and women's basketball games and helped coordinate many fun Resident Assistant programs.

For the month of February, we put on a Valentine's Day program. The program was called "Just Give Me a Kiss."  At the program, residents were able to send an anonymous card with a nice message to a friend with candy attached. The program was such a great success, and we had over 50 residents send cards to friends. It really put everyone on campus in a good mood!

My friend Quinton and me before a
basketball game!

I have had a lot of fun going to the basketball games!  Both teams are amazing to watch and it's great to see all the spirit from the students on campus!

Two weeks ago, I was able to be a panelist on the Student Panel at an Admissions Open House event.  I had an amazing time, and it was a great experience!  I loved talking to many of the perspective students and being able to share my experiences from Ferrum with them!

My best friend Melissa & me
before a Residence Life program

Currently, I am on spring break with my best friends!  We are all spending spring break at Massanutten Ski Resort!  I love spending time with my friends and it will be something that I will miss once I graduate in May.  While on spring break, we went to a frozen yogurt shop and showed our Ferrum love by writing on their white board and taking a picture with it!

The note we left at Sweet Bee in Harrisonburg, VA

Celebrating the Chinese New Year!

by Chang S., Panther Blogger

February 9th is the Spring Festival - the Chinese New Year. Since both China and Korea have the tradition of lunar New Year, we international students decided to celebrate the Asian New Year together.  To make it more fun, I, as an RA, decided to hold a residence life program using this as a main theme. We invited folks around the campus to come and celebrate this great event. (Apart from the students, we also invited Ms. Sasha Saari, Dr. Basu, and Dr. David Johnson and his wife.)

In order to get a more vivid sense of what the Chinese New Year is like, we specifically demonstrated how to make dumplings -- one of the most traditional types of food served on New Year's Eve. The full process of making dumplings includes several steps. First, we made the noodles needed to cover the dumplings. The noodles were made out of flour and albumen. Secondly, we made the meat stuffing using chopped pork and beef. So as to get better-tasting dumplings, we mixed the meat with ginger and green onion scraps. (The aim of this is to avoid the potential raw smell of the meat.) These first steps were mainly a presentation of us (the Chinese students). For the next step, we "wrapped" the dumplings together, which is the most interesting step because it allowed us to make whatever shapes to design the dumplings. Finally, we cooked the dumplings and served them, enjoying various types of seasonings, such as soy sauce, vinegar and oyster sauce.

I think everyone enjoyed that day. For the Chinese and Korean students, it has been a unique experience to celebrate the New Year overseas. Also, for the rest of the participants, I would say it was a great opportunity to get to know about eastern culture, as well as to share the enjoyable time together.

In Beijing time, February 9th is New Year's Eve. There is always a half-day difference between Beijing time and U.S. eastern time. Apparently, such time differences do not affect people's enthusiasm for the New Year across the globe.

Although the program was a residence area program instead of a campus-wide program, we did actually have people around campus coming. Special thanks to Botao Wu, who proudly served as the chef and brought us such delicious food!

Returning "Home" to Ferrum

by Cari A., Panther Blogger

While on Thanksgiving break a couple of weeks ago, I had fun with my family and enjoyed being home with other friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Despite being home surrounded by my family and friends, I sincerely missed my home here at Ferrum -- a life that I created for myself, a place that I call home, and a family I am luck to have around me.

I have come to realize just how blessed I am to be in a dorm building surrounded by a great group of girls. Though I only know a select group of them, it's great to know that just outside my little corner room of Bassett, I have someone to hang out with or go grab dinner with. I don't want to brag, but I have the best RAs on campus I could have ever asked for!  For all of those who know how I am and know how much I love to have fun, it may come as a big surprise that I have not been written up yet despite all the bets against me in the beginning of the year.

Even though my home in Salem is my physical address and a place I will always return to in the end, God has graced me for the past 100 days to call this place my home and safe haven. Just to know that people are constantly around campus that I haven't met yet inspires me to continue to branch out and meet more of my Ferrum community.

In the Life of a Resident Assistant

by Keenan L., Panther Blogger

This past week has been very busy but productive. I have been preparing for VAUCHO, which is the annual Virginia RA conference. I am really excited because I did not get to go to the conference last year, so it is my first time ever! This year, the conference will be held at Virginia Tech, and it will be my first time on that campus.

At VAUCHO, all schools from around Virginia send people from Residence Life and Housing to the conference to represent their school, and we will compete in numerous spirit competitions. I bet this will be one of the best experiences I have been able to take since being in Residence Life.

This month as a Resident Assistant in Bassett Hall, we had a program about health awareness. One of the main health topics that we covered was breast cancer. To the residents who stopped at our tables in the lobby, we passed out cupcakes and bags filled with information about health; residents wrote notes of encouragement to patients or survivors. We had a great turnout. As RA staff in Bassett, we took the time to decorate bras for Breast Cancer Awareness. We took the bras and decorated the tables with them. We will donate the bras to Roanoke Oncology for office decorations.

Hope everyone is having a GREAT week and staying safe during Hurricane Sandy!

Living with a New Roommate

by Victoria B., Panther Blogger

For my first two years at Ferrum, I had the same roommate, who was a girl that I was really good friends with in high school. We got along great and always had a great time. This year, she did not return to Ferrum and I am living with a new roommate. Since I’m experiencing living with a new roommate and I know that many other students are doing the same, I figured that I would give some advice about the experience.

Rooming with a person can either harm your friendship or make it greater. When you live with someone, you learn things about them you would never expect, and you must learn to accept who they are. You have to learn to balance your life with your other friends while also trying to incorporate your roommate into your social life.

You also have to establish some basic rules of how to live in the same room. For example, if you have something personal that you don’t want anyone to touch, just tell your roommate; they should understand. If you have a problem with your roommate, you need to be straight forward with them about it and tell them you are having an issue. If you don’t, the problem will usually not resolve itself and could get worse. It is better to have a small argument earlier than a huge argument later on in the year.

Making shirts with paint is a great bonding activity for roommates

Everyone has their own style of living and dorms are a small space. You must both learn to share equally the space you are given while also being able to be yourselves. If you are uncomfortable being yourself around someone you’re living with, it will make for a very miserable year; get to know your roommate and find things that you have in common. It could also help to plan things to do together like movie or game nights in the room. Living with someone new can be a very difficult challenge, but it could lead to a great friendship!