Exciting Senior Year!

Dear Friends,

Welcome back to this new school year!

I am really excited to share once again my experiences with you. This being my first blog post for this school year, I wanted to welcome all the new students who joined us from different parts of the world. This year, we’ve been privileged to welcome students from Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, and it’s been my great pleasure to meet all of them and share a bit about myself. Hopefully, I will get to know you guys more throughout this semester.

Okay, now, let’s talk about my senior life

As we all know, school just started three weeks ago, I certainly do not know how you guys might be feeling at this point, but to be honest on my side, I am starting to feel the loads of gigantic reading assignments, case studies to write, group projects etc. Of course, I am not complaining because as a student, we should be mentally ready to face these challenges, we are here to enjoy the loads!:) However, aside from these school works, I have been fortunate to be involved in numerous activities on campus which match my interest such as the Mary-Lund Davis Student Investment Fund, which allows Business students to have hands-on experience on how to buy securities and manage a student portfolio of over $160,000, and the PLU School of Business Ambassadors program, which is a group of students who serve as a liaison for all students in the school of Business, to just name a few.

Well, I feel like I have a lot on my plate for this senior year! It is also worth considering that all these activities give me the chance to network with people from different backgrounds and who share the same type of interests. This is also coupled with the fact that I have two part-time jobs on campus that I need to highly consider in my schedule. I am sure that many of you are way busier than I am, but I am also excited to make the best out of all these experiences and build connections that would facilitate later my success in the field of finance. Moreover, I am excited about this semester because I am taking classes that are mainly geared towards accelerating my path into becoming an accomplished business professional.

With an aspiration to start my career in Consulting and to become later an entrepreneur, classes like ‘Entrepreneurial Finance & Privately held firms’, or even ‘Finance Analysis & Strategy’ makes me feel like after graduation, the world of business is mine. Perhaps, I should just start my small company after graduation, but in what? To help people with what? ... Huh, who knows? As a senior, uncertainty is sadly part of my life. I wish I could answer the question “what’s next?” that many of my friends asked me daily. Of course, I do know what I want and will fight to get it, and I am sure with time, I will figure out the answer. But in the meantime, I can say, I am very positive and optimistic about the Next (future)!

Managing college life is not something easy, from meeting the deadlines of numerous activities, assignments, or even projects to adjusting to campus life can be all a bit challenging.  For this reason, regardless of which year you are: senior, junior, sophomore, or even a first year, I recommend building a strong network of support from family and friends, finding time to socialize with people because it always helps!

Similarly to my friend Joel, I've been living in Washington for the past three years and never got the chance to go the fair. As he mentioned "it's the first time that I've been to the State fair! It's a shame, I know, but hey, now I can say that I've done it!." Likewise Bro!
Here are some pictures, we took last time at the fair with some international students, enjoy!

Photo Credit: Patrick Domino, international student from Danemark

Photo Credit: Patrick Domino

Photo Credit: Joel, my co-worker

Photo Credit: Andreas Bech Thøgersen, from Danemark

Photo Credit: Patrick Domino

And of course, the bonus!

Enjoy your semester guys!

Your friend, 
Pape M. Samba

Starting My Last Semester at PLU

I just started my last full semester at PLU a few weeks ago! Fall New Student Orientation was a success! We had a great group of students from countries such as Norway, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, China, France, Japan, South Africa, and a few other countries. Though we had many information heavy sessions that were important, we also had opportunities to have fun and get to know each other. I had a really awesome orientation group, and I'm happy that I got to hangout with these new students for my last orientation!

My orientation group! Photo credit to Frances Steelquist :D

Although I will here for J-term finishing my last P.E. class, I decided to not come back for the Spring semester as I originally planned since I realized that I will be done with my required 128 credit hours a semester early. However, since I am done with all my requirements for my psychology degree including my senior Capstone, I am only taking 13 credits and finishing my last Gen Ed classes. I'm taking Religion 331 (New Testament Studies), Anthropology 101 (Introduction to Human Biodiversity), Sociology 495 (Internship for Sociology), and saxophone quartet.




Since I do not have an academically demanding semester and am not involved in music as I used to be during previous semesters, I decided to give athletics a try and join the Women's Rowing Team. Though I've never rowed before, my high school cross country coach's daughter rowed for Seattle Pacific University, and he encouraged me to join rowing when he heard that I was planning on attending PLU. However, since I knew that I was going to be busy with classes, music, and work, I decided not to participate in athletics my first three years. So when I realized that I was going to have an easier semester, I decided to go for it and try it out. Rowing practice started this week, and I am really happy with the choice I made! Even though I know that it's not going to be easy, I really missed being part of a team and I'm glad I get to do this one last time before I graduate PLU. Though part of me wishes that I decided to join earlier, I'm really excited to see where this semester will take me as I get ready to apply for graduate schools and jobs.

I hope everyone has a good semester!


Loana

Exciting start to Fall!

Hi everyone!

This is Joel. I'm back and I'm so excited to begin blogging again here at PLU! For this week's blog, I will specifically talk about the first day of school, and some fun things that the new international students did on their first day!

The day started off perfectly. Morning classes were canceled for the opening convocation of fall semester. This meant that I had only one class for the day, and it was my Behavior in Organizations class (BUSA 305). I wanted to attend the opening convocation but at the same time, I needed sleep and also needed to prepare for the start of the school year.

The highlight of the day was definitely when some of the new international students decided to play soccer later in the evening! Soccer's my favorite sport, I love watching and playing soccer. But before that, I offered to take a few Danish students shopping for soccer gear!

Us at Dick's Sporting Goods (L to R: Lars, Jesper, Flemming and myself)

After that was done, we headed back to school and prepared for the big event, the soccer match itself. We had a great turnout, 12 people showed up and 9 of them were new international students. The students were mainly from Norway and Denmark, but we also had a Saudi Arabian, myself, from Malaysia and my coworker, Pape, from Senegal.

Us at half-time!

We spent a fun-filled 2 hours playing soccer, making new friends and most importantly, exercising. As a new student in a new environment, it's always great and important to stay fit and healthy. Playing a sport and having fun at the same time is an awesome way to do it. Here are some more pictures of the game! Photo credits go to Vilde Bonsak! This is my blog post for this week and I hope you had fun reading it. See you soon :)

Sincerely,

Joel Goh