Hi, my name is Jessica Shapiro and I am a freshman honors student in the Lynch School of Education. I am majoring in Elementary Education and Psychology and minoring in History. I live on Upper Campus in the honors dorm (Medeiros) and I am from Santa Monica, California (right outside LA). I want my blog posts to be a more personal view of BC and Lynch so please e-mail me (shapirjk@bc.edu) if there are any topics or issues you think I should address.
There are three majors in the Lynch School of Education: Elementary Education, Secondary Education, and Applied Psychology and Human Development. The First-Year Professional Development Seminar is a required 1-credit course (no homework!) for all Lynch freshmen, regardless of major. Groups of 10-15 students meet once a week for an hour with two upperclassmen Lynch students and a faculty or graduate student advisor. Fall semester this course focused a lot on the transition to college and this small-group format was a great forum in which to ask questions about Lynch, BC, or life. I absolutely love my FYPDS group - we are a fairly close-knit group especially considering that we only see each other for an hour a week. My graduate student advisor is one of the best people I have met on the BC campus. He went to Lynch as an undergrad and now works in the Dean's Office so he knows everything there is to know about Lynch. He has also been an RA for three years so he has a lot of general knowledge about the university as a whole. Plus, the upperclassmen advisors are going through exactly what we will be going through later on in our undergraduate careers. It is great for us freshmen to be able to pick their brains about housing, academics, service, and extracurricular activities.
I also love the other 12 freshmen in my group (11 girls and 1 boy). We have become a sort of family - we trust each other with personal issues and "secrets" conveyed through what are called anonymous "yellow bag" statements. Every week we each write a question/concern/comment on a yellow sheet of paper about BC in general or the topic of that week's session and we start the following week's session by addressing these questions and comments. This is a great way for us to develop trust and also get our questions answered.
This semester the course is worth 2 credits so there has been outside readings and videos to watch before each session but they are actually really interesting and foster great discussions. The peer advisors and group leaders do a great job of connecting the readings and videos to hands-on activities we complete in our weekly meetings. So far we have discussed topics such as the value of service, diversity, respect, and world issues. Each week we come prepared with the thoughts of the authors and filmmakers and build on them with our own opinions. This class almost serves as a continuation of orientation and I think it is another thing that makes the Lynch School such a fantastic place to call "home".
Please e-mail me with any questions you have about anything related to FYPDS, the Lynch School, or Boston College as a whole. I look forward to writing again soon.
~Jessica
shapirjk@bc.edu
