Month: November 2018

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How Homecoming Helped Me Get an Internship

Imagine this:

You are a junior looking for an internship and Homecoming weekend is quickly approaching. You have just gone through one of the most stressful months of your life, where you had a multitude of tests, had to update and re-write your resume and cover letter, and spent hours on end networking and interviewing both at your college’s career fair and in on and off-campus interviews. After going through a month of this, only one thing could make everything feel worth it. No, this one thing is not a fine dinner at Hicks dining hall, it is an internship offer!

In approaching the weeks following the stressful month before, I wondered what else I could do, or where else I could apply for internships. It was during these following weeks that Grove City College held its annual Homecoming, which was a time for students to relax and alumni to come back and visit the college. It was during this time of relaxation for me that I, by chance, ran into a past member of the Crons (the housing group, which I am part of on campus). Upon discussing with him the current state of the group, I later found that he worked in the field of accounting, and not only did he work in the field of accounting, but he was a shareholder for a firm and they were looking for interns for the summer. Throughout our discussion we exchanged information, which later allowed me to not just contact him, but set up an interview at his firm’s office, which later led to an offer from the firm for a summer internship position.

Who would have thought, that after one of the most stressful months of my life that I would, in my “relaxing week” of Homecoming, randomly run into someone and that our discussions would turn into a later job offer? Is it not funny how God works? As you find yourself in a similar situation as I in the upcoming years, I urge you to remember my story and to have faith in God, because he is always doing works in your life, even when you think it is time to relax.

23 The Lord makes firm the steps
of the one who delights in him;
24 though he may stumble, he will not fall,
for the Lord upholds him with his hand.

Psalms 37-23-24 (NIV)

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I Spent a Week Without a Phone (and I Survived)

No calls. No texts. No alarms or reminders from an app. That was my life this past week here on campus.

Now, I am not the type of guy who needs to have my phone on me at all times, but as a student in business, I certainly use my phone for everyday things. For example, I always schedule out my day on my calendar app and I have reminders that tell me when I need to leave for class. Snapchat was even a productive tool for me because my friends and I would make our dinner plans through the chat function. So, when my phone broke and became unusable, my day-to-day processes were altered.

I could have just bought a new phone that day, but I decided I would take a week and try to do things the “old-fashioned” way. This includes (but is not limited to), writing down meetings in a planner, whistling to pass the time while waiting for a friend, and showing up at dinner with the hopes that I know someone in the cafeteria. I was worried that after a week like this I would feel out of the loop, but what I realized was that I actually started to feel more connected to people.

I found that when I spent time with others, I was more involved in our exchanges and I cared more about what was going on in their life. I appreciated hearing stories more. I felt less self-conscious about little things and was able to be more confident throughout the day. Also, I became more productive when I sat down to study – there was not a screen across the desk to distract me.

My phone-fast is coming to an end soon, I am planning on getting a new one within the next couple of days. I am not saying that going offline is the right option for everyone, but it may be worth a try if you are having a hard time focusing while studying or if you find yourself feeling blue after browsing through your Instagram feed. This past week taught me to place less value on my phone, and to invest more into my work and my friends here on campus.

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Internship Opportunities: Engineer Edition

Are you a Mechanical Engineering major? Electrical Engineering major? Looking for a summer internship? There is hope for you, just talk to Shannon Stovar!

Shannon Stovar is a senior Mechanical Engineering major at Grove City College. She is from Butler, Pa. and the first person in her family to attend Grove City College.

Shannon was one of my three ‘random’ freshmen roommates and has stayed a close friend of mine throughout college. During our sophomore year, Shannon was looking for an engineering summer internship, and I knew just the person she should talk to. I immediately called my dad, Rich Bartek, who at the time was the vice president and COO of the manufacturing company, Oberg Industries. He worked there for about 14 years and loved to hire Grove City College students as interns and employees. Oberg is headquartered in Freeport, Pa., which is only about a 25-minute commute from Shannon’s hometown of Butler. My dad and I both knew Shannon was a hard worker and fast learner and he was more than happy to help her. Shortly after, Shannon applied for Oberg Industries’ mechanical engineering internship and got an offer for the summer!

Shannon excelled that summer at Oberg Industries and outshined the other interns. Oberg ended up offering her another internship for the following summer, after her junior year. She gladly accepted.

“I assisted the design engineers in a variety of tasks along with helping in other areas of the company like die maintenance and quality control. I developed 3D models and drawings for customer parts and tooling. I worked on quite a few independent projects where I was given a problem such as a component in a machine that had broken and had to come up with a solution to fix the issue,” Shannon explained to me when I asked about what she did both summers.

I followed up by asking Shannon if she liked her time with Oberg, “I really enjoyed the experience! I think one of the most important parts about a company is the people that you work with, and everyone I worked with was extremely helpful and kind. I formed close friendships with workers from all different areas of the company. I was able to work with some of the brightest engineers in the company and was really challenged by this. Oberg gave me a wide variety of tasks so that I wouldn’t get bored and they really trusted me to work independently on big projects.”

Shannon received a full-time job offer from the company this past August. Oberg was gracious and gave her roughly six months to decide if she would like to take the offer. She had obviously proven herself very worthy over the course of her two summers there. Shannon is giving herself some time to decide and taking other options into consideration as the halfway mark of her senior year quickly approaches.

Many Mechanical Engineer majors assume internships are only for business majors. “Companies like Oberg Industries are overjoyed when they receive a resume from a student coming from Grove City College,” my dad stated. “When Shannon applied we could not wait to work with her.”

This is just another example of how connections within the Grove City College community can give you great opportunities. Students need to continue to persevere and form relationships during their four years because you never know where they will land you.

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Homecoming is Not Just for Alumni

As a first-generation Grover, Homecoming weekend seems somewhat unappealing. As the weekend approached, I imagined a campus full of students and their parents and grandparents celebrating and having fun while I was alone. Now, I am not the type of person to get lonely, but seeing other students with their parents would have been a depressing sight. These were my thoughts about Homecoming freshman year prior to receiving a phone call from my mom, which changed Homecoming for me as I had thought I knew it. During this phone call, my mother informed me that she had signed up herself, my father, and my sisters to come visit me for the Saturday of Homecoming weekend. In hearing this from my mom I was ecstatic, as not only would I not have to fear being alone on Homecoming weekend, but I also was going to get to spend time with my family on campus surrounded by a community of past, present and future Grovers.

This joyful phone conversation I shared with my mother led to not just a visit from my parents, but a joy-filled day in which I could catch up with my family, watch sports, and show them around the campus I was growing to love. This phone call also led to the start of a family tradition, because not only did my parents visit me on Homecoming weekend my freshman year, but also my sophomore, junior and senior years. Thus, all of this proving to me that my original thoughts of what Homecoming at Grove City College looked like developed into a family tradition built from the investigation of a non-alumni mother (If I’m being honest I would not even have known that my family could come to Homecoming if it was not for my mom looking into it) and the love and excitement of a first year Grover’s family to see their son/brother and to want to be involved with him on campus. This tradition, although not significant to most, became a highlight of my fall semesters as the College came together and provided my family and I an opportunity to step back, relax, and get together. Feel free to steal my family’s tradition as a first-generation Grover.

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Finding a Church Home Away from Home Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlycklqOb8I

Grove City College students come from a variety of denominational backgrounds. Looking for a church for the first time away from home and family can pose interesting challenges and opportunities. Many students find it interesting to explore denominations and churches that differ from those they grew up in. Other students find comfort in finding churches similar to those they grew up in. Student Andrew McDevitt attends the Beloved Disciple Catholic Church. He grew up with the Catholic tradition, attending a Catholic high school. While he explored other denominations in the first few weeks, he felt the need to stay true to the traditionalist values he grew up with. McDevitt reflects on the Beloved Disciple in saying, “I found a strong sense of community that was lacking at some of the other Catholic churches I’ve been to.”

Sophomore Elsie Becker regularly attends Wayside Community Church. A member of the church picks her up every Sunday for service, and she is the only Grove City student that attends. The church has a very elderly population. She comments that this aspect of the church appealed to her because as a college student she does not often get the chance to interact with an elderly generation. Becker comments that she likes to see “how God worked in their lives for a very extended period of time. They are much older so they really have a unique perspective on their faith.” She reflects on hearing a story from a member that donated the money for the pews when the church was being built. He did not have the money at the time but felt called to donate. Soon after, his boss gave him a bonus check for the exact amount without knowing about his donation. Elsie thinks that these stories help her have a better understanding and perspective on God.

Like Elsie and Andrew, many Grove City students find the churches around the College as great places to strengthen their faith and get involved in the community.

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Event Review: Freedom Readers

Tuesday, Sept. 25 marked the first “Freedom Readers” event of the year sponsored by The Center for Vision and Values, Grove City College’s own conservative think tank. This month, Professor Richard Kocur (business department) spoke on the healthcare industry, specifically tackling the “Medicare for All” movement popularized most notably by Bernie Sanders.

Professor Kocur is not only personally interested in this subject matter, but he also focuses much of his independent research on this topic. Kocur started his lecture by reviewing the history of healthcare in the United States, then broke down the popular movement seen today and spoke on the implications of such a system in the United States. Kocur discussed how this would not work here due to myriad factors, and explained how those implications would affect the three major players in these scenarios: payers, providers, and patients. While some countries do have single payer systems, Kocur noted that the tax rates are significantly higher there to compensate for the costs, and as a result, certain parts of these nations’ economies and even their own healthcare systems suffer from such a large influx of participants that take part in the system.

Finally, Kocur went on to talk about market-based ideas that the United States could possibly explore to remedy the situation, citing direct patient contracts, health savings account expansion, and the ability to purchase healthcare across state lines as potential viable options.

The Center for Vision and Values is an organization on Grove City College’s campus that employs student fellows in the fields of research and marketing to help promote their events and to aid in producing scholarly content for the organization and their partners. If you would like to learn more about the Center, head over to http://www.visionandvalues.org/, or check out the student-run news site “Checkpoint” at https://www.checkpointnews.org/.

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Inside Grove City College: A Transfer Student’s Perspective

 

The process of selecting a college is stressful, with its seemingly endless applications and interviews and paperwork. For transfer students, the excitement of going to college for the first time has worn off, and going through this process twice can seem overwhelming. It can be intimidating to think about leaving a school, a friend group, and familiar studies to start fresh somewhere else. However, seeking advice and learning as much as possible about potential schools is crucial.

Hannah, Larisa, Gab, Julia, and Tara have stepped in to make your transfer process as easy as possible. These ladies, all first-year Grovers, have offered to give you a peek into what it was like for them to join the Grove City College community as a transfer student. Their advice is an insider’s perspective on things like how to make friends as a transfer, how they chose their roommates, and how to get involved on campus.

Larisa Steiner, a sophomore, transferred from Indiana Wesleyan University and enjoys studying Management with an HR concentration. Finding a school with this specific field of study and a reputable business program was key in her transfer search. Also a sophomore, Hannah Kaufmann, an English major, was interested in Grove City because it aligned with her Christian values. Tara Pierce, as a junior, finds herself in the rare position of being an upperclass transfer student. She previously studied at a local community college, and enjoys the new Social Work major at Grove City. Julia Helmich will graduate in 2021 as an Elementary/Special Education major. She enjoys the on-campus preschool, where Education students are able to get hands-on work experience. Gab Capaldo, a sophomore, studies Communication and edits for The Collegian, the campus newspaper, in her free time.

Though none of these ladies would say that being a transfer student anywhere is easy, they are adjusting to life as a Grover and getting involved on campus. Intramural sports, Greek life, and Orientation Board events are just some of what they mention as ways to find friends and make connections at Grove City College.

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Favorite Aspects of Grove City College – The Professors

It is normal to have professors you might not connect as well with, but when you find ones that you can really relate to, it can be extremely meaningful. I was lucky to know a few before starting college, since my parents are alumni, and create new relationships that developed further over the past four years.

Specifically, my advisor, Dr. Miller, has been a wonderful mentor, teacher, and friend to me. I do not allow myself to go to her office when I have homework to do because well, we end up talking about anything and everything for hours. I am thankful to have someone to relate to in terms of my major courses along with career aspirations; Dr. Miller knows specifically how to help me relate college classes into the real world. Her knowledge of professional and personal communication makes her the experienced, relatable professor she is to her students.  When I finished scheduling for my senior year, she said to me, “Taylor, you know that you already completed your major and do not have to take those two Communication classes in the spring with me, right?” I know that I did not “need” the classes, but I was more than happy to take them as electives since she would be my professor. She is that great.

I have appreciated professors that go out of their way to help me with classes, projects, personal issues, or future opportunities while considering my individual passions and hobbies. Professor Sweet is another example of someone that is always connecting students to different possibilities, like post-college careers or campus opportunities. His love for helping small businesses and others shows in his teaching, along with one-on-one relationships with students. Professor Sweet has helped me dive into new projects that I would have been uncomfortable with otherwise and increase my internet knowledge to advance my personal career path. I have also enjoyed having back-to-back classes with him, entertaining the class with embarrassing and funny jokes or stories that he somehow relates back to our specific class discussion.

Besides professors of classes I have, I love the overall kindness from any employee of the College. Women’s basketball coach Chelle Fuss was introduced to me from my mom’s years of involvement with the basketball team. Since then, Fuss has opened her life to me to be someone I can turn to in times of difficulty, need for advice, or to simply enjoy her company. Going to her office several times a week to talk and catch-up on each other’s activities has been such a positive addition to my time at school. Fuss also has helped me build my photography portfolio by incorporating me with the basketball team and photographing their weekly games.

With these being only a few of the awesome relationships I have formed at Grove City College, I could not be more thankful for the amazing people to educate, guide, and grow with me in my four years.

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Event Review: SGA September Coffee House

Tuesday, Oct. 9 featured the kickoff Coffee House concert hosted by the Student Government Association (SGA). The group took over the Student Union by setting up the stage for the six musical acts that performed. Each band was given a 30-minute time-slot to perform their favorite songs in front of their peers.

SGA provides coffee and food for these events, which take place monthly through the entire year on the first Tuesday of the month. This month, members of SGA’s social affairs committee baked homemade sweets for students to enjoy. Things like pumpkin rice krispie treats, cake pops, and more were enjoyed by students. They were such a hit that students cleaned out the entire supply about half way through the event. This event was also so well attended that coffee also ran out at about the same time as the food, which has never happened at one of SGA’s coffee houses before. The group is already prepared to make the appropriate adjustments for the next iteration of their event in November.

Also at this event, SGA ran a social media competition on Instagram where if students posted with the hashtag #gccyeti on Instagram they were entered into a drawing to win one of five mini travel size Yeti cups. The drawings took place after the event and students were awarded their Yetis.

Coffee houses have been one of SGA’s events where they continue to strive in improving. Last year, bands had to audition for the first time to make sure students attending the event would experience the best musical performances they could see. This small change improved the event by a significant amount, which continued into this year. While plans are still in the works for November’s coffee house, be sure to check back here for another event review, and go ahead and follow SGA on Instagram at @gccsga.

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The Beauty of Sleeping

First to go and last to catch up. This could describe how I feel in any running race ever, but I mean it here as a description of sleep while in college.

College kids — we party, stay up late, sleep in till noon and skip class all the time, right? Well, maybe not at Grove City. However, instead of filling late nights with crazy adventures (which does happen sometimes) Grovers get stuck in a groove of constantly putting school work first. It is easy to do with myriad assignments, tests and projects. Grove City is known for our rigorous academics, after all. Though we are at college to receive an education, we are still humans with daily needs.

On top of school work, it is easy to be overcome with opportunities on campus. Personally, I love playing intramural sports, I work for the Collegian, I am a member of Women of Faith, and I am an active member of Covenant Church in town. Though school work is a priority at college, this formative time incorporates many other learning experiences. Time escapes into writing articles, reading, talking for hours with a friend and necessary coffee breaks.

I value my morning routine greatly. Workout, shower, fix coffee, read my Bible, get dressed and ready and eat breakfast — then rush out the door to my first class. When I suffer a lack of sleep, my morning is off and I end up in a funk. My usual sleeping need is seven-and-a-half hours, but not everyone needs the same. Listen to your body and find the amount you need to function. When our bodies are tired, we are hungrier, more irritable, and way less productive.

As a senior, I have finally learned the necessity of getting enough sleep. Though the reality that handling sleep, work, and social life is quite the balancing act, it is possible to do. Dr. Joshua Mayo in his prayer before class today asked the Lord, “Give us the balance between caring and not caring about the grades of our work.” His point is that yes, we are to work with all our hearts for the glory of God, but we are not to idolize that work and the grades we get in school. Instead, we need to learn and enjoy the material before us, because that is how we can glorify God.

In the college setting, where mind and body and soul must be alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic, sleep cannot be lacking. Though it may seem like pulling an all-nighter to study for your mid-term is the best use of your time, it detriments your brain power when you get to the class. As an old high school teacher of mine recommends, put the books away and get a good night’s sleep. Your brain, body, and grade will thank you for it.