Walking through water, getting through life - ENVT 350

 

    This semester I'm taking ENVT 350: Environmental Methods of Investigation, and I'm not gonna lie, it's one of the most interesting classes I've had at PLU. 

    The class is all about the Chamber-Clover Creek Watershed, which is basically the local watershed around campus. But it's not just one subject, we look at it from different  angles like biology, chemistry, geoscience, history, and even religion. At first I didn't expect that mix, but it actually makes everything make more sense because you start to see how everything connects. 

    

What makes this class really different hough is that we don't just sit in a classroom. We actually go outside for our labs. Like, we visit real sites in the watershed, collect data, measure water quality indicators, and just observe what's going on the environment. it lowkey feels more real than any lab I've been before because you're literally in it, not just learning about it. 

    Also, this class has been around for a long time. Students have been collecting data on this watershed for over 25 years. And in 2022, all that work turned into a digital exhibit with the tacoma Public Library, where students shared their research with the community. 

  Not gonna lie, this class also helped me a lot during a time when I was going through some stuff. Getting outside, being in nature, and just spending time with my classmates made a big differences for me. it reminded me of my high school days when we used to go on week-long field trips, and those were the times that brought everyone so close together. That's actually where I met some of my lifelong best friends, and those memories are still some of the most meaningful to me. 

Photo courtesy of the PLU Archives

        This class kind of gave me that same feeling again. Even though it's technically a lab, it doesn't feel like a typical bio or chem lab where you'd stuck in one place for hours. Instead, we're walking around, going into the water, measuring things, looking at a different plants and species, and just enjoying the moment together. It feels like real quality time with people outside of a normal classroom setting. 

  I think this class is something I'll remember and miss after I graduate. As an Environmental Studies student, this experience felt really wholesome to me, one of those small but meaningful moments that stays with you. 

~Nobi Altanzul. 

5 Tips for PLU School of Nursing Application

Hey guys,

This is Bryan. And I am back with another blog post!

This time I want to share some nursing program application tips. These are the tips that I used or I found it important when applying to School of Nursing 3 years ago. And now, I am a senior nursing student who is graduating soon. 

The information I offer below are based on my personal experience. I can't guarantee it to be 100% accurate nor it hasn't been change since I've applied. However, I think it can give you a general sense of what to focus on and offer you a starting point if you are struggling on the application. 

General Information

PLU Clinical Learning and Simulation Center

Nursing is one of the most popular majors at PLU. The School of Nursing offers Bachelor nursing program that features high NCLEX passing rate and large amount of clinical practice opportunities with a high post-graduate employment rate.

Starting Fall 2021, The School of Nursing is also changing its three-years nursing program into a two-years program, which saves time for students and have a more reasonable course arrangements. Link Here. 

The Nursing Center that was recently opened was also offers great opportunity for nursing students to  practice. 

1. Application

Student can apply on this website (Undergraduate). 

Note that International students are required to submit a language testing score, and the requirement for that is higher than PLU application. (link)

In general, both Spring-starting and Fall-starting applications are submitted in the same period (Sept. 1st ~ Aug). For incoming students, students who complete their application before the priority deadline (Feb 1st) are given priority considerations. For current PLU students, 4 decision dates are set, and student who complete the application before one decision dates will be notified about the result at the next date. 

I recommend to complete the application before the priority date, or as early as possible, to increase the chance of acceptance. 

Be aware that you have to submit all the documents by the priority date to be considered completing your application. Having only the application form completed and not submitting the documents will not be considered completing the application and will not give you the advantage of priority deadline. 

2. Complete Prerequisite Classes with Good Grades

(Study hard "always" works)

To apply to the School of Nursing, students are required to complete each of the prerequisite classes with a grade higher than 2.5 and a overall GPA of the prerequisites of at least 3.0. 

I think this is the most important factor that the School of Nursing look at when making a decision. Of course you'll need to meet the requirements for application first. However, to increase your chance of getting in, you should have good grades in the the two Human A&P classes at least. This is because many of the nursing classes are based on the knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. 

When I transferred from Pierce College to PLU, I have completed all the nursing prerequisites. I didn't have the best grade for all of the classes. Most of them I only got 3.0 ~ 3.5, which is not very competitive. However, I got 4.0s for both and the Human A&P classes, and I think that really helped me a lot.

If you have already completed the classes, and the grades are not ideal, you still have the chance to retake the class. The school (of Nursing) is allowing one retake for each prerequisites. so if you have a grade between 2.5~3.0 for the Human A&P classes, I recommend you to retake it for a better grade. 

3. Get healthcare working/volunteer experience

Having a working experience is not required, but it will boost your opportunity for getting in by showing that you are determined to the field of nursing. 

By working experience, I don't mean that you need to have a CNA working experience in a big hospital. You can be a transport personnel in a hospital or you can simply volunteer in assisted-living facility or a children-caring center. 

For me, I volunteered in a hospital... gift shop... for 100 hours. I am not sure if it really helped with my resumes, but the most important thing is that you are showing your willingness to advocate for somebody else and you are really interested in getting into the field of nursing. 

4. Have a good letter of recommendation

2 letters of recommendation is needed to complete the application. This is the other piece of information that you can use to accelerate your acceptance rate. 

Personally, I recommend to have one letter of recommendation from your work place or volunteer place. For example, ask for one from your supervisor in volunteer job. Your supervisor can demonstrate your good work attitude, show that you are truly interested in the field of nursing, and prove that you have advocated for someone else. 

The second recommendation should come from a different source to show your different side. I recommend having one from the professor in one of your prerequisite classes (Human A&P class professor is ideal). This letter will demonstrate your ability to learn new information and your study attitude. 

If you can't find a letter of recommendation from your professors, ask your advisor for one. Advisors also know you well and are more willing to help you. 

5. Write Good Personal Essay

(Stress management is huge
in nursing school)

If your classes have already finished and you still want to improve your application, you should definitely spend more time in writing a good personal essay. 

Usually the School will give topics for the applicants to write about. The topics change every year, but there is one tip that you can use to start writing. That is to write your essay based on how you fit the essential qualifications. 

If you haven't read it, Essential Qualifications are basically talking about the good qualities that a nursing student should have. It include motor skills, sensory/observation, communication, cognitive, and behavioral/emotion. You can read on this website for more detailed information. 

I think it's best to focus on communication skills and cognitive (critical thinking) skills. Talk about how you have or practiced those skills based on a volunteer/working experience. 

Or, if you have limited working experience, talk about how you managed stress in busy class time. Also, you can talk about how you advocate for someone else and express your interest in getting into the field of nursing. 

The key is to show that you are interested in the field and express your personalities to show them that you can bring something different to the field. 

For the very least, have your essays prove-read by couple other people to avoid grammar errors. 

So here are the 5 tips that you can use when applying for the School of Nursing. I hope you can find it helpful and use it to submit a perfect application to the School of Nursing! 

Stay Healthy and Stay Safe~

Best,

Bryan Yuan

10/8/2020

Computer Science Capstone 👩‍🎓📚💻

Hello everyone~👋

I hope dead week is not too much (yet🙊). Capstone presentation week for most majors started last week so all I had been up to was to finish my part for the big presentation. So yes, today blog post will be about capstone because #I’vedonenothingbutthhatforawhile 😂.

First, some of you might ask, what is capstone? Capstone is “a senior thesis or senior seminar serves as the culminating and usually integrative experience of an educational program” (Wikipedia - because I actually don’t know how to explain it🤦‍♀️). To sum up, we all need to do capstone(s) to be able to graduate with our degree(s) at PLU. What makes capstone more fun (and stress 👀🧠) is that you get to choose what you want to do! Since I’m a computer science major, my capstone was about building a cross-platform application for textbook exchange with my group. You can either work individually or in group. In computer science department, it is recommended to work as a group because that’s mostly how it is in the tech industry and we should be more familiar with this concept before going to the real world.

You might notice the part when it’s said you can choose your own capstone project, but what if you don’t know what you wanna do (yet🧐)? Don’t worry, your professors, advisors and classmates are there to help. Or just anyone that can give you an idea of what you might find interesting to work on! I know I didn’t know what I wanted to work on, I spent a whole three days in the summer to think about what I wanted to do, and nothing came up to me at all (you might wonder why). Then the very first day of capstone class, we were asked about our ideas, right then, my brain tried to work really hard because I didn’t want to just sit there at the front being silent (not that I don’t do it most of the time when I’m in class, didn’t know why I felt more encouraged on that day… 😶, but really, don’t worry, there were many of my classmates who did not talk about their ideas and that did not make them less than anyone else).

Our application logo 😆

I ended up speaking about it in class just to be in a different group in the next minutes of the discussion… 😅 So yeah, I found a group to work with, our capstone project idea is from one of the teammate, but we for sure all enjoyed working on it together. Our capstone lasted for a full academic year, but I know some majors only have it for one semester.

Sorry if I scare anyone while reading this post 😂. It it true that there was a lot of work and sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, but that is why it’s our last project! I have learned so much while working on it and I actually feel more prepare for my future job (disclaimer: interview only, i hope😹). It gave me an opportunity to at least know what field I want to work for now, something that I have always been unsure about. Most importantly, it can definitely be something my group really proud of because we tried to put in all the skills and knowledge that we learned all these years along with months of research to create this “product” that is ours. To a certain extent, it shows what we know in the most creative way. And we’re all feel so rewarded and happy (mostly relieved) that it’s done at the end 🤗🤗🤗.

A n Y w A y, this is probably my last post as an undergraduate student because I’m graduating in 2 weeks🥳🥳! Thank you to everyone who spent time reading my posts! Since this is dead week, please don’t forget to take care of yourself while studying hard 💪💪! Good luck 🍀🍀🍀~

~Cloud ☁️~

Getting Introduced to the Real World of Finance!

Dear friends, 

2015 Global and Americas Regional Champions from Canisius College (Photo: CFA Institute Webpage)

 I am super excited for this new adventure that I am about to share with you.

As a finance major, I have joined PLU’s 2015-16 CFA Research Challenge team!

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. Through this competition, my teammates and I will be working closely to research and analyze a publicly traded company called Esterline. Our assignment would be to produce a report about our assigned company with a buy, sell, or hold recommendation. Then, we will present and defend our analysis to a panel of industry professionals.

Thus far, our team has made it for the two meetings in Seattle, where we got introduced to the competition, our industry mentor, but also we got the chance to meet face-to-face with company management of Esterline to ask them questions about the company. Moreover, we've been meeting up weekly as a team to discuss the materials and start on our paper. Though, in the coming weeks, I am sure we will all feel the loads! J

By mid- January, our team will be competing against local school teams in the Washington region such as Seattle University, UW-Seattle, UPS, to just name a few. Then, the winner from the local competition would advance to the Regional and Global competition which will be held in Chicago during the week of April 11th. We hope and believe that we will represent PLU well in this competition! Please wish us luck J

We also hope that it will be one of the most rewarding experiences that we have had the chance to have in College due to the real-world experiences that we will be exposed to, as we assume the role of research analysts and are judged in our ability to value a stock, write an initiation of coverage report and present our recommendations.

By the way, our last year’s team won the local competition and advance to the Regionals, it was the first PLU team to advance to this level. Hopefully, we will follow their path or do better. 

Team From left: Kirk Swanson, Tobias Kornberg, Raji Kaur, Kristoffer Dahle, Evan Turner. (Photo: CFA Seattle.)

From left: Tobias Kornberg,  Kristoffer Dahle, Evan Turner. (Photo: PLU Webpage.)

 Here is a short wrap-up video about the CFA Institute Research Challenge, enjoy!

And, Good luck all on your mid-terms!

Your friend, 

Pape M. Samba