So where do I go from here?

Lucky for me everything seems to be falling into place: I found a job, I found roommates and an apartment, and when things go as planned, I'm graduating on May 16th. So now what do I do?

It's really weird that I will be staying around Worcester once I graduate. I've loved being here the past 4 years and I have made some great memories but it's really not going to be the same since most of the people I've made those memories with are going to be gone. It will be quite an experience to figure out what to do with my time once I start working.

It has been a long 4 years here but the last couple months have gone by so fast. Each year has brought up a new challenge for me and has made this experience great. Freshman year was the challenge of finally being away from home and needing to make new friends. Lucky for me I had a great group of women on the field hockey team to learn the ropes of WPI from and I had a great group of women on my floor freshman year. By November I was a part of a Greek organization and things just kept getting better. I learned so much about myself and even though adjusting to school was hard in the beginning, by the end of the year I didn't want to go home.

Sophomore year was when I started to take on a lot more responsibilities in my organizations. I held a few positions in my sorority, I was helping out with Relay for Life, and I still had a lot of work to do for my classes. I was living with 20 women which was quite the learning experience (always fun but difficult at times) and I became a pro at time management.

Junior year was quite the ride. This was the time where everyone leaves...if you are a sophomore now you don't quite get it (I thought I did but once junior year rolled around it was much different). My classes were harder, people kept leaving the country to go on IQP, and since I went away D term there were people I didn't see from December until the middle of the summer.

As bad as I just made junior year sound, it was by far the most fun I had. I really was getting involved in my chapter and meeting a lot of great people in Greek Life and then I got to spend a term in Puerto Rico which was amazing! Going away really gave me the chance to live on my own. At the start of the trip I really only knew 1 person going. In those 2 month I made a lot of great friends, went on some really cool trips, and just had an all around great time. As tough as junior year was, I wouldn't change it for anything and sometimes wish I could go back and continue having that much fun...

And well, now its senior year and almost time to pack it up and move. This year has really been a great way to wrap up my WPI experience. MQP finished up well and gave me some good work experience, my organization responsibilities slowly went away as the year came to an end, and I have really enjoyed the time I've spent with friends during the last couple of months. I am still adjusting to the fact that I have 3 more days of classes left and I am trying really hard to not be too scared : )

So where do I go from here? I am still mapping that one out but hopefully I am able to take what WPI has given me, apply it to my job, and eventually give back to the school. This 4 year journey has been quite the ride and I didn't realize it was going by so fast until I finally reached the end. Enjoy your time here and know that there are always people around to give you a hand: whether its someone to talk to if you feel like everyone has a job but you (yes, i was there at one point too), or if you need help figuring out what to do.

Thanks to everyone who has been a part of my WPI experience...it has been a fun one and it's all because of you guys :) Good luck next year and enjoy the last couple of weeks here!

Finding an Apartment and Project Presentation Day

Now that I know where I will be staying, it is time to find somewhere to live. This is turning out to be a lot more difficult that I thought...

First step was to see if there was anyone staying around Worcester that I could live with. Good news, I found someone. My IQP partner from last year is staying to get her masters at WPI and when we found out that we were both staying in the area it made sense to go on the apt hunt together.

Next step was to begin searching...and this step seems to be never ending. We looked at 3 apartments so far and two of them have been pretty good, one of them was not good at all. I personally have never had to look for an apartment which is making this whole thing even more new to me. I have lived in my sororities house for the past 3 years so this is a big learning process for me as well. Now I know things to ask...like what is included in the rent/will the utilities be covered, if they aren't covered how much do they usually run, etc. It is all actually a really huge headache.

I am really hoping we find something within the next week or so because as much as we love emailing and calling landlords, it would be so much nicer to know we have some place to live next year.

Besides my never ending search for an apartment we are in the homestretch for project presentation day. My group is submitting our poster tomorrow to be printed. We have yet to receive the schedule for the day so hopefully the department sends that out soon so my group can mentally prepare for next Thursday. I have actually never gone to see the posters on project presentation day and I am wishing that I had now so I had an idea of what was going to happen.

If you are presenting your MQP next week good luck and if not I suggest you stop by and see the projects that people have completed. Some of my friends covered some pretty interesting topics this year so go have a look :)

Here comes Project Presentation Day...

As you probably read a while back at the end of C term, my MQP group finished up our MQP on time, handed it in and did our final presentation on site. That was awesome and we have had a nice little MQP vacation for about 3 or 4 weeks. Now its that wonderful time to get ready for Project Presentation Day...

We have just over 2 weeks until project presentation day (it is April 23rd...what an awesome birthday gift) and our group is meeting this week to finalize our poster we created for poster presentation and work on the logistics for the day. Everyone in the management department (IE, ME, MGE, and MIS) is required to create a poster for poster presentations in the morning and is also required to create a powerpoint presentation in case they are one of the top 3 projects picked to present in the afternoon. The top three are picked after the poster presentation in the morning and those 3 compete for the Provost's MQP Award. Should be a fun filled day of presenting and talking about my project.

Once that is done my group will be completely done with MQP!!! We already have our grade since our project work was completed last week but we are still going to try to put together a good poster/presentation and go for the Provost's MQP Award...we will see how that goes.

All and all my MQP went well. There were a lot of up's and down's (and I mean A LOT!) and my group started out not completely knowing each other too well which made the first week or 2 interesting. In the end I really enjoyed working with my group and having our weekly Wednesday trips to Boston at 6:30am to go to our site. There were a lot of meetings and a lot of sitting around wondering what we were doing but my group worked well and I enjoyed it! :)

Officially Hired!

After going through the packet that the company sent me (it took a long time, it was huge!), I called on Monday and officially accepted my offer! The whole year of searching, interviewing, and all the ups and downs has finally paid off. I confirmed my start date over the phone and I'm pretty excited for the events that they are holding for the new hires in the next month or so.

It hasn't quite set in that I have a job and that graduation is quickly approaching. We just had our 50 days til graduation celebration at Mohegan Sun (and yes I came out a winner) and I am excited for the events in the future for the senior class! I checked the other day to make sure all my cdr's (completion of degree requirement form that you turn in for your projects) were all set and good news they were :)

Nice weather is here and well, senioritis is starting to set in for some people. Just got to finish up the term and we are all set!

Good News!!!

Great news this week, I got a job offer!!!! I completed my second interview the middle of last week and heard back early this week and I was very excited! I received all my information in the mail yesterday and started to look through it. This weekend I will spend more time going through it and talking about it with a couple of people. My start day is in the middle of June which gives me some time off after graduation (which is very exciting!).

Next step is to figure out where I am going to live! I know some people that will either be working/going to school around the area next year so I already connected with them and will continue to in the upcoming weeks. I am really excited that I will still be relatively close to my family and a few people that I know.

This is a huge weight off my shoulders and was great news to hear this week. Now I get to focus on finishing up my classes and enjoying my last couple weeks with my friends on campus : )

My Relaxing Spring Break!

This was the first year I went away for spring break and it was so nice to get out of the cold and into the sun! I spent most of the week down in Puerto Rico and it was just as beautiful as I remember it. It was really great to get to go back there after living there for two months last year!

The best part of spring break was relaxing after such a long and cold C term in Worcester. It was really nice to wake up and spend the day in the sun not having to worry about much else besides putting sunscreen on.

I went back home for a few days at the end of the week and it was great to see my family and do some more relaxing. It was really weird going through the commencement packet that WPI sent home and having a serious conversation with my family about plans for the week and then for after I graduate. Only a couple more weeks until I get to walk across the stage and get my diploma!

Last Term at WPI

The reality of my last term at WPI is finally here! It is a little scary but still really exciting. The end of C term was the busiest I have been in a long time. I had my last task to do for my sorority, finish up a term long project for one of my classes, and most importantly finish up MQP! Good news, everything was finished (including MQP!!!).

My final presentation for MQP was at our project sponsors site and we had a great crowd at the presentation and got great feedback. Hearing all of the managers give us praise for our work and tell us their plans for our work was great, it really made all the hard work worth while. After the presentation, the printing of our very large document, and the signing of the CDRs my group was officially done with MQP and so excited!

This term I have two MIS classes that I am taking that should be pretty interesting. All the other time I will be spending working on my chair position on Senior Board and enjoying the activities for seniors this term :)