RIT BC Ambassador blogs

DONE!

Maria Tobias — 2009-11-20T17:16:42+00:00

YAY! I’m all done with finals and I get to start heading home tomorrow. This was a long week. Organic chemistry final was Tuesday, Cell Biology and Beginning American Sign Language were on Thursday. Not to mention wrapping up my research project and work all week. Between the studying and rushing to finals, I am definitely ready to go home for a week.

No Shave November - Halfway There

Josh Kramer — 2009-11-15T22:06:55+00:00

It's November 15th, and the month is halfway through. I still haven't shaved, and the hair is coming in quite nicely. If you didn't see my blog last week about No Shave November, check it out here.

I have a slight case of Sensory Integration Disorder (which means that a lot of things feel uncomfortable to me), so having facial hair is very annoying to me. Constantly I am pulling at the hair, wanting to take it off.

I probably won't go the whole month without shaving. Winter Quarter starts on November 30th, so ideally I wouldn't shave all through Thanksgiving break and go the first day of winter classes with the hair. However, I am going to my grandparents' house for Turkey Day, and my 17 family members would make such a big deal about the hair that I don't really want to deal with that. I will post at least one more picture of me, but I might not end up going the whole month.

Click on the links below the picture to toggle between the photo of me on November 3rd and November 15th.

Does anyone have majestic facial hair by this point? Post in the comments below!

Nov 3rd Nov 15th

finals week...

Maria Sharp — 2009-11-15T19:01:09+00:00

For two weeks I've been pretty stressed out with finals and such. What I've been trying to do is all of the prep work for studying so that I can actually start to study when finals roll around. So on Friday I finally finished doing my Art History flash cards. And on Saturday, my friend, Meghan and I went to the library at 3pm to work on the Photo study guide and M&P study guide. We left to get dinner, but returned shortly after. We didn't leave until 11:30, because they were closing. We finished studying in her lounge. I didn't get to bed until 2:30am. So that was almost 12 hours of studying! That's the most I've done in my whole life, I'm pretty sure. I'm not saying this to freak anyone out about college. But it is a lot of work. I am saying this to say how good it feels to be productive and get stuff done! Now I can just focus on the material instead of gathering it and writing it down.

Side note: For those of you who were at the open house yesterday I hope you enjoyed RIT! I was working check-in and someone from my high school came for the open house. I was very excited! I don't know of anyone from Avon Lake going here. Haha.

Now, back to my history paper...

Google & RIT

Ashley Hennigan — 2009-11-12T04:18:22+00:00

RIT students have been going to Google for years.
Now its time to bring Google to RIT.

Meet the Google Trike

Google has been involved with RIT's cooperative education program for several years now. As a result, students have been able to work in full-time, paid positions with the company from Mountain View to Boston. The work experience on the Google campus has always been given rave reviews.

Read about Kurt Kluever's co-op experience here: My Googley Adventure

In the past few days, a new Google craze has taken over the RIT community both on and off campus. This week, RIT was announced as one of the Top Five University Campuses in their Street View competition. Google Street View allows for 360 degree views of street-level landmarks across the country. The public can now vote on the 5 university finalists to have the famous "Google Trike" on their campus.

Vote for RIT now through November 30th: Google Maps Special Collections

Photo for the Non Photographers

Blenda Luong — 2009-11-11T22:09:02+00:00

Hey guys! This quarter flew by... with exception of this week. Week 10 has been really stressful, but I'm getting by!

So last weekend I went for a long weekend to visit my friend and also completed my final assignment for one of my studio elective class, Photo for the Non-Photo Majors. Which by the way I think everyone should take! It can count as a studio elective for those in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences OR an open elective for all other majors on campus! So ANYONE can take this class, my class was filled with engineers, business, and computer science students. Also, you don't have to have a an SLR camera, you can rent all equiptment you need for class from the cage.

Anyways, for my final concentration, since I love architecture and design so much, I decided to take photographs of buildings and details of building. But I wanted to shoot these photos with a little twist, by showing buildings and details of buildings through the means of reflection. I also wanted to keep the pictures black and white because I believe that composition and form should be the focal point not color or materials. Also, NYC was the perfect place for my concentration. :)

Soo check out my pictures, crits or comments would be awesome, but I'm letting you know I am NOT a photographer...so don't judge me too harshly!

Coast to Coast

Emily Okey — 2009-11-11T04:28:20+00:00

In my typography class this quarter we’ve been working on a pretty unique project for the past couple weeks. To start off with, typography is dealing with fonts and typefaces. A typeface is all of the characters in a specific font in a specific point size (my professor would be proud that I remembered the definition for longer than just the test). Nowthat we’ve got that cleared up, for our most current project we’re working over a server with a school in San Luis Obispo California. The point of the project is to create a poster for a location in California (and they’re creating one for something in Rochester). We were split up into pairs and given a specific place in Rochester to photograph. Some people went to Ontario Beach park, others went to Vineyards around the region or local landmarks. My group was responsible for architecture on campus so we chose to focus on NTID and the performing arts theater. It’s nice because not only do we have our class at RIT for getting feedback on our poster but we have a group that we’re talking back and forth in California which gives us a totally different perspective since we've never even met them. We’re currently in the revision process, which means that we have roughly 20-25 different ideas all sketched out and we have to narrow them down to our final 3-5 best ideas to work up. Seeing as it’s weekten, there is a lot of work to do!

Speaking of week ten, in case no one told you.. this is NOT a good time to get sick. Pretty much everyone I know has come down with something within the past week or two. For me I started feeling sick at the hockey game on Saturday night and it's currently Tuesday. Week 10 + Sick = not a good combination. Luckily all of my professors are relatively forgiving and I'm managing to get all of my work in on time. Just have to push through a few more days and then a couple finals and I can go home! (I haven't been home since August so I'm pretty excited).

In my typography class, we’re also working on a calligraphy project. Calligraphy is a really good way to learn what each letter is made up of it forces you to really slow down and pay attention. The only part I don’t like about it is that you have to reload the ink every 5 strokes which means that writing out an entire page takes forever. RIT offers a Calligraphy class which counts as studio credits for art majors. I'd really like to take it but unfortunately it's so popular that it's near impossible to get in unless you're super lucky-- maybe next year!

Here's an example of one of my final poster revisions. We still have an in class critique tomorrow so it's definitely not finished...

Intramural Soccer

Peter Dunning — 2009-11-10T22:53:24+00:00

Within the first week I came to RIT, I found about 30 people that loved soccer as much as I did. I didn't think that this was going to happen because I am going to a "Technology" school, but I was proven wrong.

So when I found out that I could create an indoor intramural soccer team with my friends I signed up RIGHT AWAY, or so I thought.

We were put in a Division III Recreation team and although it was fun to crush each team 7-2 every game, it got boring. So hopefully next quarter we will be able to get into a more competative league!!

Do Early Decision Students Get More Financial Aid?

Corinne Franklin — 2009-11-10T22:04:46+00:00

This was the heading of an article in smartmoney.com today. I think the article was pretty accurate in describing the early decision financial aid process. RIT does not award more or less grants or scholarships based on applying early decision. Also, federal aid programs such as Federal Loans, Federal Pell Grant, Federal ACG and SMART Grants are available to eligible students, provided an application is processed before their last day of classes.

Students who are interested in applying early decision at RIT should complete an Admissions Application prior to December 1^stand indicate on the application that they are applying early decision. We will mail a letter to these early decision applicants directing them to an on-line Early Decision Financial Aid Application.

Admissions notifications will be sent prior to January 15^th and an early financial aid award estimate will be sent mid-January. The goal is to provide the financial information in time to meet the admissions deposit deadline of February 15^th.

When students and families ask me whether they should apply early decision I’ll advise that if RIT is the only college the student is considering then go ahead. However, if the student is considering more than one college, then I recommend applying regular decision. The regular decision student has the advantage of comparing financial aid awards and costs at several colleges. The amount of financial aid awarded by RIT is not influenced by applying early decision.

NTID�s Psychological Thriller

Maria Tobias — 2009-11-10T04:37:05+00:00

This past weekend, on Saturday, November 7^th, I went to the National Technical Institute’s Panara Theater to watch NTID Performing Arts’ Equus. This psychological thriller is about a young boy, Alan Strang, who blinds six horses and is sent to a juvenile psychiatric hospital where he is evaluated and treated by Dr. Martin Dysart. Dr. Dysart has to discover what lead Alan to attack the horses by exploring Alan’s mind. However, during this, Dr. Dysart is also facing his own problems: a routine life, wondering if his job means anything anymore, and if he is really helping any children. This performance explores the ideas of religion, the price of being “normal,” and assigning “fault” for a tragedy.

This performance was beautifully done by the actors. There was one set used throughout the entire play with few modifications to indicate different locations. The horses were people dressed in brown clothing, a horse head made of wire, and silts as “hooves.” The horse heads were handmade and just truly amazing. Another fascinating aspect of this play was the combination of deaf actors and voice actors. The deaf actors would be performing the play and in the background, their voice actors say the lines in tune with the signing. At first, I was distracted by the voice actors in the background, but as the show went on, I found the deaf actors to be very expressive and their voice actors would be well attune to them to the point where I could believe the voices were coming from the deaf actors themselves. This was the first play I saw at NTID and I cannot believe that I did not go last year. The best part for me was watching the six horses (played by the voice actors) come onto the stage. This was such a coordinated “dance.” They stomped their “hooves” in unison while climbing up and down stairs. Even when they were putting on their masks, it was very well-coordinated and beautiful.

I would recommend if anyone ever gets the chance, to watch an NTID Performing Arts show. Here is a link to the NTID Performing Arts page: http://www.rit.edu/~w-npart/equus.html

This will be a great experience for learning more about RIT!

Equus Poster I saw

Meeting Maroon 5!

Patricia Schiotis — 2009-11-09T02:29:10+00:00

As I mentioned before, I am a huge Maroon 5 fan, and I love the CAB events offered here on campus. On Friday night, the College Activities Board brought Maroon 5 to the RIT campus. It was definitely epic, and a great escape from the stresses of the college life. I went with a big group of friends, and we jammed to the lovely melodies from Adam Levine!

A group of my friends were crazy, and showed up an hour early to stand outside in the freezing cold. But I just showed up when the doors opened and still got to stand right in front of the stage with them. The view of the show was amazing, I felt as if I could almost touch Adam. I knew all of the songs played, and loved grooving to the sounds by the band. But the best part didn’t occur until after the show.

I was walking back from the Gordon Field House over to the residential side of campus (don’t worry, it is only a very short walk). We passed behind the Field House, and noticed all the tour buses outside. Then a brilliant idea came into mind, let’s try to wait for Maroon 5 to come outside. Obviously they have to come out this way, so we might as well try to meet them.

So on a fall night in Rochester, we waited outside. My friends and I almost gave up hope, but then JAMES VALENTINE (a guitarist from Maroon 5) came outside! We got pictures with him, and were all freaking out. We were talking it up with the guitarist, when all of a sudden, we see ADAM LEVINE appear from the side of the bus. No one really noticed, but my friends and I did. So we went over and got pictures with him! I was lucky enough to get my own photo with him, and for him to sign my ticket stub (which is hanging in my room underneath my signed photo from Taylor Swift). After the few brief, yet legendary moments of meeting him, we decided it was time for us to go back and brag about our adventures to all of our friends.

I know we are lucky at RIT to have such a fantastic College Activities Board, and cannot wait to see what other events will occur in the coming quarters!