And Better! Saturday!

Quest Liaison training, Saturday!

Me being the crazy person I am I got others to agree to go out running with me on Saturday morning, as 6:30. My goal was to reach an elusive dish on the other side of Stanford. So Columbia, Northwestern, Haverford and I (Vassar) headed out. It turned out to be a bit further than I though so the others turned back, but I, being bull-headed, and curious, persisted. And I made it! The dish, is a nature preserve on the golden hills (gold grass-gorgeous) with a huge satellite dish on it, unfortunately it was very foggy and I couldn’t see the dish, but there is a picture on Sunday’s blog post. What amazed me, other than the incredible beauty, were the ground squirrels, I have never heard of them before but they are COOL!

So that was my early morning, now to the meat of the day.

I now know more about the Quest Scholars network, which is closed, so not relevant to many of you. It is like a facebook for scholars, you can have a profile! But what is particularly cool is the Travelers map that shows the distribution of scholars across the country, home towns, universities, vacations, and study abroad, its all there, pretty cool!  I definitely plan on using this to plan vacations, I love free housing, and friends! We also learned about Quest blogs, and an internships page which is in the works. It is cool to be one of the earlier scholars in the program, because as it takes off it is going to be amazing, and maybe one day I will give a Questie and job! Who knows?

And we did a session about compelling blog content, which I am violating right now.

• A-    Action- use active voice
• B-    Brevity- people have short attention spans
• C-    Creativity- be imagninative and different.
• Other rule- informal, first person narration, show, don’t tell, focus on experiences.

So, I am sorry for violating those rules right now, but this is also a personal journal of sorts, so I think its ok to have exception- will work on it for the future though, after all, I am a liberal arts student- hopefully I will figure out how to write effectively.

We also discusses the service portion of Quest. Questies tend to be altruistic, it’s one of the reasons they choose us. Basically it can be anything that is an “issue of social concern.” I hope to partner with one of the many volunteer groups I work with on campus to do an activity with questies, and bond!

After that… yes.. after that, we had a discussion with Hawaiian about his experiences as a liaison last year. During the conversation we through around a LOT of ideas. The trick is going to be to connect with the freshmen and other students early on and have activites and tasks to keep them involved. (This year will be a challenge, but everything in the right light, and people never cease to be amazing.) Among some ideas to increase retention is to make door signs with chocolate for people, kind of similar to what VISA, the international students club on campus does. I also don’t want the discussion to be low-income, some people never identify as that, and once you step inside your school, you leave those labels behind, you are yourself. I am still in the process of brainstorming for posters, maybe stuff like, worried about $$$ at Vassar? Or something along the same lines. Oh, and if we are really ambitious, an annual report. Something I want to try that another Scholar suggested was “Speed Friending” it is like speed dating, but cooler.

Out next session was about mentoring, which is something I believe holds a lot of potential on campus. My idea for that is to have a meeting let the mentors meet the mentees, and then go to Baccio’s, the pizza place near campus and let the mentors and mentees get to know each-other. Another thing they could do at this even is the question game- during this people go around in a circle and have to keep asking questions, if you don’t you’re out. I personally like when people say their name and an adjective that describes them, that sticks I think, because I can create a story with it. Another idea, yes another idea, is called sardines, its like hide and go seek, but when you find someone, you join up and the group can  move around, it sounds quite entertaining.

An important conversation, that had been going on all week, but was focused specifically upon this weekend was the question: What is a Quest Scholar? It comes down to three things-

-Socio-economically disadvantaged, commitment to service, and academic commitment.

Later on, toward the end, I promise, we sketched out our plans for the year, here are a few things that I would like to do:

• ·         Build Community
• ·         Do service projects
• ·         Get VSA recognized
• ·         Mentoring, study sessions
• ·         Get some questies on the Habitat for Humanity Spring Break Trip (ok, personal agenda)
• ·         Help people apply for fellowships and summer internships
• ·         Thanksgiving with metro group in New York!

Closing up that day, was one of the first parts of wrapping up the whole experience, we heard from Nancy, the director. She talked about grooving up, going to college, and Quest in the early years. She has such vision for the organization and really believes in us, if I ever get depressed about the world being wrong I will remember her, she is all the inspiration I need.

That night had a chat with Michael McCollough, the founder of Questbridge, I can’t do justice to him with all of these other words floating around, so that will be the next post.

Michael’s speech wrapped up the official quest day, and we headed back to the hotel. I think Saturday was the day I really started bonding with people, that night I just hung out chatting with friends, there was also a meteor shower. It was great to sit and chat, until 4 a.m. Ah the privileges of being young.

--And that my friends, is a full day.