One more time with feeling

Well here I am back at Boston College for one last and final semester. As scary and sad as it is to say that I will be leaving this place in 4 short months, I am super excited for all that is to come this semester.

We're about two weeks into classes, and I'm settling into the new courses I have for this semester. I'm taking two courses for my Human Development major, Personality Theories and Adult Psychology, and then two electives.

One is called Humor in the English department, with famed BC Professor and Poe Expert, Paul Lewis. We spend the first half of the semester looking at what makes humor, and the second half as a writing workshop, where we get to create our own humorous skit, play, parody or video. I love the class already, our first assignment was to collect 5 jokes from our friends, and then spend class telling jokes, AND we get credit for this, totally awesome!

My other class is called Capstone: Decisions for Life. BC has these great courses called Cornerstones (which you take in your freshman year) and Capstones (which you take in your senior year) and they are meant to welcome you to your BC experience and then close it out as you prepare to leave and reflect back on your four years of college. As a freshman I took Courage to Know, which is a Cornerstone, we read a bunch of different books and talked about how the themes in those stories resonated with our experiences in college so far. It was a fantastic class to welcome me into BC, and was a fifteen student seminar style course with a Professor and two Senior Mentors. I actually was a Senior Mentor for the same Professor I had last semester. However, now onto the class I am actually taking, my Capstone. My Professor, John Boylan I have decided is absolutely crazy but so incredibly fantastic, already on the first day he told the whole class how much he loved us! Basically what we are going to be doing this semester is reflecting back on our four years here at BC, and how the lessons we have learned from our various experiences can help us as we go forward and make life decisions.

So those are my academic musings for this post, but I will be back again soon to talk about all those things occupying my time outside of the classroom.

Greetings from Chestnut Hill

Hello Everyone! My name is Katie Kelley and I'm a senior in the Lynch School of Education, where I am a human development and psychology double major. I'm originally from Oregon, but I grew up in the Netherlands.

As a Human Development major, I'm not going into the field of teaching, but I do intend to work in an educational setting. Many Human Development majors go to work in counseling or human resources jobs. I've really enjoyed my two majors here at BC. Psychology is in the College of Arts & Sciences and gives me a look into the more scientific side of people, whereas Human Development offers the practical application of psychology to the field of Education.

This was a very exciting weekend at BC sports-wise: Notre Dame was here for both Hockey and Football. Last year our Hockey team beat Notre Dame in the National Championship, but sadly this weekend we did not relive that glory. We did beat them in Football last night though, for the 7th time in a row! It was a great game! Before coming to BC, I had never seen a football game before in my life, but now I'm on ESPN.com all the time and I actually watched the draft last year. Matt Ryan, our quarterback last year, is kind of a big deal; he got drafted 3rd! He now plays for the Atlanta Falcons, so I'm actually a bit of a Falcons fan now!

Football at BC is amazing though. Freshman year, at Orientation, you get your Superfan Shirt, which is this obnoxious gold colored shirt, with Boston College, Superfan and a little fighting Eagle on the front. Then each class has their own saying on the back; they're a little cheesy, but great anyways! The seniors this year are "Talons of Fury...Get Ready", juniors are "Eagles Take Action", sophomores are "For Here All Are One" and the Freshmen are "On the Hunt for Excellence." Anyways last night's game was phenomenal; we beat Notre Dame 17-0 and at the end of the game the entire student section, which is just a sea of gold, stayed for like 25 minutes after everyone else was gone, singing along with the marching band. They play some great hits, like "Sweet Caroline", "Build me up Buttercup" and of course "Shipping up to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys.

Outside of the classroom I'm involved in several different things on campus, which I will discuss over the next couple months in this blog. Right now I am preparing for a retreat called 48 Hours. 48 Hours is a retreat offered to freshmen at the end of first semester and the beginning of second semester that gives you a chance to step away from BC for the weekend, hear stories from Senior Leaders about their transition into college about several different themes like "The Challenge of Academics" and "Friends and Relationships." I went on the retreat my freshman year and it was a great chance to stop for a weekend and get a break from the fast pace of the college campus and really look at the decisions and the experiences I was having and whether or not they were living up to my expectations of college. So I am leading this along with 9 other Seniors next weekend.

I'm super excited and I'll be sure to report back after the retreat and talk about some other exciting BC happenings!