July 2011 Archives

As I mentioned briefly in my previous post this summer, and covered more extensively in my posts this past fall, I have previous experience in working with Special Collections libraries. This, combined with the total book nerd part of my personality that led me to major in English in the first place gives me quite a fondness for any place that stores, works with, or has a collection of large amounts of rare books. Conveniently enough for my book loving self, such a place  exists right on the Penn State Campus and is accessible for all undergraduate students. I met one of the archivists in the special collections part of the library, Michelle, and she took me on a guided tour of many of the places in the library that special collections encompasses.

We started in the main room of the Paterno library special collections, which generally has displays open for the public to enjoy. Currently, a Civil War display is up and running, with many facts, photos, and interesting memorabilia from the time period. Pictures of the display will soon be on Flickr as well. After browsing the display, Michelle and I headed up to the third floor of Pattee library, where the Fred Waring's America and the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora are housed.

Fred Waring was a bit of a Renaissance man, who made a name for himself in music, television, and radio as well as being a connoisseur of comics. Many of Waring's music and memorabilia are on display, but the most interesting part of his collection that I saw was behind the scenes. In the Waring back room, there were all kinds of recording equipment, everything from records to disc, wire, tape, kinescopes, videotape to a large soundboard, which is used to convert all of the other types of recordings into things that can be listened to and appreciated in the digital age. I was amazed that such a small back room could be full of so many different types of audio recordings (and the gigantic soundboard, of course). The whole Fred Waring collection is worth seeing, but just knowing that our library hosts that kind of technological power is amazing.

After leaving the Fred Waring collection, Michelle took me to see the Charles Blockson collection. This one we only stopped at briefly, because it has more limited hours and therefore was not open when we went to see it. Once inside, I saw a room full of all kinds of memorabilia, from figurines to books to displays all about Africa and the African Diaspora. Though we only stayed a short while, I'd love to go back during open hours and explore the room at my leisure.

It was only after touring these two collections that we got to the really cool stuff. Not to say that the collections weren't cool, and I would highly recommend checking them out, but this is when Michelle took me behind the scenes. We went to the map room, which intuitively houses maps, and apparently those of Central Pennsylvania get a lot of use around here. We went into a room that housed a lot of the records of Penn State itself - records on buildings and the people who shaped Penn State over the years. And this is where we encountered one of my favorite types of book storage: movable bookshelves. At the push of a button and pull of a lever, these shelves collapse on themselves to create more room for storage. Michelle confessed that she thought they were fun too. Though this is quite a digression from the point of this post, I couldn't help but mention the bookshelves.

We traveled down into cold storage, which, trust me, was quite cold, and full of all kinds of good stuff like color photographs (the black and white ones are kept upstairs because they need to be accessed so often) as well as things like VHS tapes and other forms of media. Many of the pictures are logs of the campus and surrounding areas. Central Pennsylvanian history is apparently a very popular and researched subject.

Outside of cold storage was another storage room for books, in which Michelle specifically showed me the collection of older fantasy and sci fi books.  We looked at these books mainly because their covers were so ridiculous. Between that and Michelle's favorite illustrator/author Edward Gorey, we had quite a good time going through the books in this area. As my dream in life pretty much consists of spending as much time as possible being surrounded by books, this was a little slice of heaven for me.

I absolutely loved my tour of the special collections library here at Penn State. Besides the rooms I saw, there are also three warehouses full of material. All of these things are at our disposal as undergraduate students. Though one who wants to work with the special collections materials in the library probably needs to have a clear idea of what materials they want to work with, it is completely worth it to check out special collections materials the next time you research a topic. Thanks again to Michelle for my tour of all things special collections! Check out the special collections website for more information.

For the past six weeks, friends and family have asked me how my internship has been going, what's it like to work for Parliament? I admit, I have continuously given vague, generic answers: 'It's going well, I like it a lot.' I assume they're still waiting for a real answer, and now that this is my final week in Parliament (where has the time gone?), I think I'll try to answer what this internship has really been like for me.
 
First and foremost it must be said that working for Parliament has an aura of importance that never really faded for me. From the tourists snapping pictures of Big Ben and queuing up to visit where I work, to the possibility of running into a quasi-famous politician, I loved coming to Westminster for work.
 
But those are exterior impressions, things that anyone would notice. The impression that will really stick with me is being on the inside, being in the office able to see what is actually done on a day to day basis. To start, Gordon's Westminster office has a staff of two: myself and a full time researcher, Sam. He arranges Gordon's diary, writes letters and press releases, researches and briefs current events and legislation. I have been Sam's shadow, doing whatever he needs me to do--which could be anything. Some days I'm simply typing letters that Gordon scribbles onto yellow sheets of Parliament paper in just barely legible script. There are also the stereotypical intern days when I'm doing the office busy work of photocopying, mail sorting, and typing letters. Other days I am reading through reports, collecting statistics, and reporting back to Sam if the article was interesting or worth passing on to Gordon. Still other times I am looking up names or statistics or dates of events as quickly as I can while Sam puts together power point presentations for Gordon's next meeting or debate. I've searched the Internet countless times for the contact info of someone Gordon wants to speak with. To date, the most challenging person to find personal contact information for has been a writer on German savings banks. Any information on a Stephen Clarke would be greatly appreciated.
 
While these skills are useful--I have certainly become much better at finding credible information on the Internet as quickly as possible--the most rewarding aspect of working for Gordon has been seeing Gordon work for his constituency.

Gordon is a shadow minister for the Business, Innovation, and Skills Committee (BIS), so his issues center on skills education, apprenticeships, and regional growth. (Side note: In British politics, the opposition party forms a shadow cabinet which essentially debates issues with the official cabinet and plays a watchdog role to government legislation. If the Labour party were to come into power, their shadow cabinet would step in as the official cabinet.) Focusing on job creation is essential to his position as the MP for Blackpool. In the 1950s, Blackpool was a thriving seaside resort town but has seen tourism plummet as more of the English vacation in Europe. Blackpool isn't a ghost town, but the economy was severely hit. Therefore, being instrumental in creating more job opportunities, for the youth and the older populations, is in large part why Gordon was elected. I can say from experience that Gordon focuses his energy on policy that will increase apprenticeship opportunities, re-education and re-skilling, and regional economic growth. Coming to work for Gordon, I didn't have a particular interest in skills development (not such as sexy issue), but after spending six weeks reading reports and reviewing statistics I understand why skills are essential for a healthy economy. Vocational training allows for someone to make a decent wage without attending college. It keeps a strong middle class.
 
Apart from pushing for legislation that will help all of Blackpool, I have seen Gordon take on causes for individual constituents. He's written a letter for a man attempting to carry the Olympic torch in 2012. He's written to cabinet members on behalf of constituents having problems with everything from visa issues to business grant issues. If a letter comes to Westminster from his constituency, I know he will read it and do something. I like knowing elected officials (at least some) want to represent those who elected them to office.

I've heard we must accept that politicians will be corrupt, will philander, and I am sure some do. However, working for Gordon and with Sam has reaffirmed my belief that government is capable of working for the common good and not in constant self-interest.

It was during my second semester of Arabic that I started to notice something: I was really picking up the language. I was already beginning to think as well as speak through the language rather than attempting to translate my thoughts in a lapse before delivering them in speech.

Notably, Arabic 001 and 002 were daily classes, allowing far more time to engage myself with the language. Considering the difficulty that learning a second, let alone a third language can be for a nonnative, my own learning curve seemed particularly extraordinary to me. Where I'd been studying French for a number of years and did feel comfortable with it, I was already beginning to feel myself reaching that level of capability with Arabic after just a few classes.

A lecture in French linguistics during that same semester given by Professor Jean-Marc Authier helped to reveal truths regarding my bubbling convictions. He presented something entirely new to me: the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). A theory first proposed by Noam Chomsky, the LAD is a "postulated organ" biologically linked to the learner's age. He even pinpointed the disappearance of the LAD to a stage in every human life: puberty.* Chomsky's theory is tied closely to the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), which holds that the optimal (and virtually only possible) time for language acquisition is during the presence of the LAD.

Naturally, other theories have arisen since Chomsky's developments in the mid-1960s. His theory, to pose a point, came in direct opposition to the language acquisition theories of B.F. Skinner, which of course entails a behavioral psychology approach. Chomsky's hypothesis, however, has carried considerable weight in the principles of linguistics into the modern day.

As many who have entered but never fully pursued a second tongue will know too well, gaining fluency in a foreign language during high school, college, or thereafter does prove itself a challenge with a rather low success rate. But fear not; your hormones aren't holding you back.

If you ask me, in a much more plausible solution, the existence of a LAD is a way of labeling a number of roadblocks that arise with age. For one, you are far more likely to attain fluency in the languages with which you identify culturally. A lack of identification with a particular language may cause enough dissonance to make fluency an overwhelming and overly frustrating task.

This leads me to the next point: motivation. Without incentives like cultural identity, surrounding environment, and other speakers of the language to keep you going, the very idea of learning the language in the first place may creep into the shadows of your mind.

A third and often-underestimated factor: time. Think about how you learned your first language. You'll probably answer that there wasn't an option. You were a child who knew exactly what you wanted but had no idea how to request it, save screaming and crying. When you discovered that this wouldn't work, you spent every waking moment of your life copying your surroundings until you could communicate your thoughts, emotions, and desires in what we recognize as a civilized manner.

The closest one can come to emulating this experience and ultimately gaining fluency in another language is much the same. Go to a place where the language you know best is least understood. Without a doubt, it will be both challenging and frustrating (the motivation factor comes to mind again). Short of hand gestures and primitive head movements, you would have no option but to figure out how to make yourself understood in that tongue. You would have to empathize, adapt, and assimilate with a new culture regardless of former cultural identities. And perhaps most importantly, you would have all day every day to try and get it right. These are the factors that are really involved in gaining fluency. After such an analysis, the LAD seems but a scapegoat for these various hardships.

I recently had an opportunity to correspond with Professor Authier again on this very topic. To emphasize the point, says Authier, "There is at present no evidence of any kind that suggests that anything biological prevents adults from acquiring native proficiency in a second language...Second, a very troublesome fact for the unavailability of the biological LAD past puberty is that a significant number of people who start learning a second language as adults ARE able to reach a proficiency level that is INDISTINGUISHABLE from that of native speakers.**

For those on the fence of whether or not to continue studying that foreign language, defeated by the mounting complexity of the task, bear in mind the same points above that immediately hit home with me. For me, Arabic has been a great way to trace my Syrian roots and grow ever closer to the elders in my family. On the other hand, the only identification I have with French is a mild (okay, severe) obsession with its people. With either of the two, I know that at some point my learning curve will plateau as I outgrow the foreign classroom within an all too customary and routine place. I know (and anticipate) that moving forward with fluency will require rising to a challenge beyond the classroom that has trained me and into the environment I've thus far been mimicking.

No matter the source of your desires, don't allow the passing of time and the drifting of your motivation to be a hindrance. Most importantly, know that no time is too late to begin. Redefine the boundaries that surround you once more.

References:

*   Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT, 1965. Print
**  Moyer, Alene. Ultimate Attainment in L2 Phonology: The Critical Factors of Age, Motivation, and Instruction. Studies in second language acquisition 21.1 01 Jan 1999: 81-108. Indiana University Linguistics Club. 12 Jul 2011.
*** Gärdenfors, Peter. Language and the Evolution of Cognition. Lund: Lund University, 1995. Print.

I wasn't in the office on my first day more than five minutes before my tie came off. As I was introduced to my casually dressed coworkers throughout the workspace, my already moderate anxiety leaped toward a full-on panic attack. My perfectly ironed slacks, spotless white dress shirt and (quite fashionable, I should say) Brooks Brothers tie made me stick out like a sore, and rather embarrassed, thumb. After more than one decidedly good-natured chuckle graced my coworker's lips, my boss pointed to the painstakingly tied Windsor knot around my neck. "Let's drop the tie, Chris. We're pretty laid back about the dress code around here." The slight wardrobe change made a significant difference in my comfort and relaxation, and began the start of a pleasurable, exciting day, but the flak-taking wasn't quite through yet. As my boss sauntered away, a coworker, his face filled with a friendly yet mischievous grin, quipped, "Well, what are you gonna wear tomorrow, a tuxedo?"

I guess a quick introduction is in order. I'm Chris Wright, a (soon-to-be) senior undergrad student at PSU studying History and minoring in English. I pursued my current internship, an editing position at Fly Fisherman Magazine in Harrisburg, PA, with particular zeal because it combined not only two things I enjoy (editing and fly fishing), but also could, I hoped, give me great insight into a possible career field. As I anticipated, the job is definitely affecting how I view my future career and education plans. But more on that later in future blog posts, perhaps.

My memorable first morning at Fly Fisherman Magazine is a perfect example of one of my favorite aspects of the job so far: a relaxed environment, which allows me to expand my skills and learn new things without fear of excessive pressures or burdens. Editing at the magazine presents tens, and often even hundreds of opportunities to misstep in each article I tweak and pore over; however, lacking a fear of failure, I am able to boldly make decisions, gaining confidence when I succeed, and building upon my editing skill set when I go astray. My boss--Ross Purnell--and all of my coworkers are always ready to answer my questions and give kind, insightful advice. In short, I've been dropped into the deep end, but with some pretty big arm-floaties, and maybe even an inner tube, if that helps the metaphor.

On top of my editing work for the magazine's next issue, I've been working on gathering and editing articles from the past ten years of the magazine's "Seasonable Angler" column (short stories and essays) to put into a "best of" anthology book. Having a large amount of control over what goes into the collection is certainly a thrill, and I've been having a lot of fun choosing my favorites and getting in touch with their authors in order to renew contracts.

Speaking of fun, an exceptionally unique part of my internship has been learning the art of fly tying. Later in the summer I'll be editing a second collection--this one the magazine's "Fly Tier's Bench." Because I'll need some specific knowledge, Ross has set out to make me fly-tying literate--a process that's been surprisingly enjoyable, and has provided refreshing periods between some mentally challenging editing work.

I'll keep you updated on how everything turns out, and end today's blog with a somewhat pertinent quote by fly-fishing writer Alfred W. Miller: "If fishing is interfering with your business, give up your business." It is my pleasure to avoid this problem entirely.

By now you have deduced that this series of posts tackles the welfare of the liberal arts from many different perspectives. Rob Turchick introduced the conversation discussing the worthiness of the liberal arts - indeed, all of higher education - in today's society. Sam Loewner followed by broaching the subject of value associated with education. Today, I continue down our tendentious path of discussion, focusing on the great benefit the liberal arts adds to every sector of the professional marketplace. I hope to provoke some thought on how liberal arts advocates can enhance their promotion of the skills graduates acquire in the liberal arts. Ambitious, I know.

Liberal arts graduates are certainly not feckless. Admittedly biased, I genuinely believe the skills liberal arts students acquire in earning their degrees make them some of the sharpest, efficacious employees. As Sam so correctly pointed out, people do understand the value of a liberal arts student - great writer; strong ability to think critically; broad depth of knowledge; all-in-all a very well rounded package - but, they fail to understand how seamlessly said skills (and numerous others) fit into almost every area of the professional marketplace. From geology to banking and engineering to teaching, the skills acquired through liberal arts courses, majors, degrees, etc, are not just pertinent - they are unmistakably necessary.

For example, a banker in Pennsylvania serving on the Pennsylvania Bankers Association needs to have the ability to articulate the pros and cons of potential financial legislation winding its way through the PA Senate to colleagues and shareholders alike. Humanitarian engineers working in Northern Africa need to be able to understand the geo-political ramifications of current freedom movements and how those movements may impact the viability of building a medical clinic, while teaming with entrepreneurs to introduce mobile diagnostic applications on cellular phones. In short, the skills that students master in a liberal arts education are as salient today as they were when farmer and inventor Thomas Jefferson sat down and penned the Declaration of Independence.

I'm unabashedly proud of what the liberal arts can give students; however, I am not naive. The liberal arts as a wide ranging curriculum faces unprecedented challenge in today's world. Obstinately plugging away and sharing the message with folks who already believe in the liberal arts does little to solve our current problem. What mechanisms exist for liberal arts faculty, students, graduates, and believers to promote the utility of the liberal arts? Is there an efficacious way to concertedly promote the skills mastered in the liberal arts? I invite your thoughts on my thoughts and the questions I have posed.

There is really no such thing as a "typical day" at the police department. Each new day is different from the last. One week I can be really busy doing clerical work and the next I could be out riding along with a patrol officer. My internship is very unpredictable, which is also why I enjoy and appreciate it so much. It keeps me looking forward to the weeks ahead of me.

In this blog post, I am going to talk about my two most memorable internship experiences so far this summer. My first memorable moment was being taken to see an autopsy. Yes, an AUTOPSY. It was a couple weeks ago when Sgt. Fulginiti and I drove up to Baltimore so he could get me in the Medical Examiners Office to witness how autopsies are performed. At first during the ride there, I was pretty nervous because I didn't know what to really expect. All I've heard were stories of students and people passing out while observing an autopsy.

When we arrived, we made our way to the 2nd floor and my adrenaline started rushing. We walked off the elevator into a white hallway filled with doors. We walked through two huge white doors and up steps into a viewing area. Through the viewing glass, you looked down into a huge room. The room had eight stations, with all these different tools so that different autopsies could be performed at the same time.

I basically saw how autopsies operate on three different levels. I observed the pre- and post-autopsy procedures, as well as an autopsy in progress. It was just amazing to see the inside of a human body and how carefully the doctors take out the organs and examine each part. I witnessed how they remove specific organs, like the brain, and exam each through a variety of procedures and processes. In the end, seeing an autopsy was one of the best experiences I ever had in my life and as a student. It also kind of gave me the idea of looking into becoming a medical examiner.

The other memorable experience I have had while interning with the police department would have to be when I sat in on a federal trial. In this trial the defendant was being charged federally of a series of crimes, in addition to the murder charges. In fact, the defendant could face up to life in prison just for the federal crimes committed, not including the murders. This courtroom experience was amazing to observe. I think getting this experience was a breath of fresh air because I usually only see the events leading up to a trial, and not what actually goes on after all the investigations have been completed.

I am greatly appreciative for all that I have been able to experience in my internship. I have observed and experienced a lot of things that my peers are not able to. I told myself everyday: push yourself outside the box and do new things. This mindset helped to make my internship experience even more rewarding.

I am intrigued by our new electronic sign and thought I would contribute to its content by welcoming our new Liberal Arts students who joined us this summer and updating the Liberal Arts family on the Moore building project.

What a difference a year makes! At least that's true of our Moore building project, the expansion and renovation of the home of the Department of Psychology. During the past year, workers have demolished all but the steel frame of the north wing of the original Moore building, and constructed an addition on the north side that stretches the entire length of the original building, seamlessly connecting the structure of the original smaller wing to the extensions on both the west and east of that wing.

When completed, the addition will provide 50,000 square feet of new laboratories for psychology faculty and students, offices for faculty and graduate students, new undergraduate advising facilities, spaces for students to study or relax, clinical facilities for the psychological clinic, and a home for the Child Study Center. The building is scheduled to be fully enclosed within the next week or so and the project is still on target for completion at the end of 2011. We anticipate that part of the department will move into these new quarters in time for the spring semester 2012, while other faculty will exodus from the original building and renovation will begin there. It will be 2014 until all psychology faculty and students will be reunited in their long awaited new home.

You can view the slideshow below to see the progression of the Moore Building construction project:

The first time I posted for LAUS@PSU, I wrote about my experiences researching in Special Collections libraries in Philadelphia for a Penn State professor.  This summer, however, I'm staying in State College and I'm looking for resources a little closer to home.  In this respect, the Penn State Libraries deliver.  One of the newest and most innovative features to be rolled out by PSU libraries is LionSearch.  It is a search engine that combines all the other searches in the library-- the CAT and all the journals searches so it is easy to find any material in the libraries on a particular subject. One search, all potential possibilities.

In order to test out this new search engine for hyping and creative purposes alike, I decided to search for a random topic that I find interesting and see where LionSearch takes me. I decided to search "Prometheus" as my keyword. I am currently quite invested in the myth of Prometheus in all its forms, as I am planning to write my senior thesis about adaptations of the Prometheus myth. Unsurprisingly, this keyword search turned up 34,928 results. Both the myth and the name "Prometheus" are quite well known, especially in scholarly circles, so the barrage of results is no shock. Luckily, the LionSearch sidebar provides me with ways to narrow down my search.

Under the "Refine your search" sidebar, I decided to check the "Items in the library catalogue" box and the search was narrowed down to 3,087 results, which is a much more manageable than the nearly 35,000 that bombarded me before. In order to play around a bit more with the search results, I returned to the sidebar.

I started with the "Content Type" selections, which showed me that the materials that showed up for my search of "Prometheus" range from books, the most common (2,875 materials) to kit (whatever that is) which only turned up one item. Interested in this mysterious "kit" I looked for it specifically. Turns out it is a children's book, a collection of illustrated creation myths from all over the world. What earned it the label of "kit" I think is because that the one on the University Park campus is both a book and an audio CD. Also, James Earl Jones is a narrator for the CD, so I think I might need go to listen to this recording.

After going back to my original search of materials in the library catalogue, in order to find out what else may be lurking around the library, I checked out the feature called "Author" and saw that after Aeschylus, the author of "Prometheus Bound," one of the first and longest documentations of the Promethean myth, the next author with the most work incorporated in the search was Ludwig Van Beethoven. Curious, I pursued this next. After including only Beethoven in my search, I found that most of his work held in the library and responsive to the keyword search "Prometheus" is audio recordings of his music for the ballet "The Creatures of Prometheus." Most of these recordings seem to be available in the Arts and Humanities library, but there is at least one online resource. I followed up on this online resource, and I am currently listening to "The Creatures of Prometheus" on my computer as I type this. Oh, and this material is also available as a CD.

With new background music accompanying me, I forayed back to the search page and checked out the languages available for "Prometheus" texts. I didn't follow up on any strange language texts, mostly because I would be unable to understand them even if I did, but plenty of languages were represented. English swept the top prize with 2,993 materials and German came in second with 106 titles (I actually find this fact interesting because I am reading some German works in translation for aforementioned Prometheus thesis, but I digress). The list goes on, with representations of Greek and Latin works and many European languages, until we get to some rather random inclusions, such as Bengali and Church Slavic (?).

I then took a look at the genres represented (did you know that "controversial literature" is a genre?) which quickly showed me that pretty much anything you can imagine is covered here. I was interested that the top genre was biography, as Prometheus is a figure of myth, so I took a look and quickly found my confusing factor-- a publishing company called Prometheus Books. I would like to believe that this speaks to the pervasiveness of Promethean legend in modern culture, and I also note that these could easily be weeded out in a more direct and less ramble-y search than mine.

The last two filters also prove interesting and useful in a search with actual direction: a regional search and a time period search. The time period search alone shows me the way that Prometheus was represented through the ages. All the filters on the site are easy to use and manipulate, and just from this post you can see the interesting directions exploring LionSearch and the Penn State libraries can take you. So use the new technology well, post your feedback, and enjoy your explorations!

مرحبا

Bonjour!

Hello, I should say. My name is Chris Tutolo, and I am a junior at Penn State majoring in International Politics and seeking a minor in both French and Middle East Studies. In the first of my posts, I'd like to emphasize the benefits of studying languages, especially as a student in the Liberal Arts at Penn State.

The College of the Liberal Arts is home to over 10 languages available for study at Penn State. I strongly encourage others within the college to pick up a minor in one of them. Not only is learning a foreign language an awakening, fun, and incredibly rewarding experience, but it also perfectly complements the academic track of a liberal arts degree.

Also, if boredom has plagued the best of your midsummer days, direct your attention toward a great opportunity to both master a language and earn credits next summer with the Language Institute at Penn State. The Language Institute offers intensive language sequences in more than 10 languages and students can earn up to 12 credits in just 8 weeks.  Many of the courses required for a foreign language minor are now offered in the summer and eight weeks of summer language study can help students make great strides towards a language minor. Past and present participants: feel free to comment below on your experience with the Language Institute.

To echo what Rebekka Egger, Academic Director of the Language Institute, wrote in an earlier post, foreign language skills are developing as exceedingly practical tools in the globalized, multicultural marketplace that marks the 21st century. Increasing, too, with this trend is the number of firms, NGOs, humanitarian organizations, and other American companies that operate outside U.S. borders. Intuitively, getting ahead in this form of marketplace frequently includes knowledge of at least one foreign language.

Foreign language proficiency can even help you in the application process, as a number of graduate and law schools, government jobs, nonprofits and even scholarships and grants weigh language skills into their decision. Even in recreational traveling through foreign countries where English is commonly used, a cultured tourist beats an ignorant one. The list of benefits goes on, but one of the most interesting of them is the suspected advantages of the bilingual brain (Go figure.).

Fellow readers, I challenge you to challenge yourselves. In my lifetime, I have found myself enclosed in a bubble of sorts, constricted further by narrow minds and unfaltering outlooks on life. Since engaging in International Politics, French, and Middle East Studies, I find myself reaching toward endless horizons with an open mind, open arms, and open eyes. From within the Penn State community, I now feel connected on a much broader scale.

I hope to complete my French minor requirements while abroad at a Penn State affiliated institution in France. What's more, I may even stay with a Tunisian family, where I would learn more about both French and Arab culture. Granted, not even I could have expected opportunities so picture perfect. But it started with a piqued interest in language. The room for creation, exploration, and discovery that ensued is what led me down a chance-filled path and, to be sure, toward what great things await.

You, too, have the chance to spring into the opportunities available to you through Penn State. Explore them. Exceed your boundaries. You may find yourself fascinated by the prospect of traveling, studying abroad, and meeting international students (field experience, you might say). And if you're anything like me, you'll never turn back.

Look out for more posts from me throughout the next couple of months. Some of the topics include: debunking the Language Acquisition Device and stress-free escapes on and around Penn State's campus just in time for the fall semester.