Intern Introduction

Posted on September 25, 2020
by Nsikak Ekong

Greetings Laker Family!

My name is Nsikak Ekong and I’m one of the Social Media Interns for the Office of Communications and Marketing. I’m currently a 2nd Semester Junior majoring in Information Science and minoring in Digital Humanities.

This is my second year at SUNY Oswego as a transfer student. I transferred from Nassau Community College with an Associates in Arts. Since arriving at Oswego I started to get in involved in a wide variety of organizations and committees. This year I’m sitting on SA Cabinet as the Director of Marketing/Photography for the Student Association. I’m also the Vice President of the African Student Organization and the Director of Marketing for the Black Student Union.

Photography is one of my favorite pastimes as I get to capture moments, nature and tell stories. During this academic year I will be sharing this photos on this platform to highlight and capture moments from around the SUNY Oswego community.

Looking forward to share this moments with all you!

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

Posted on January 30, 2017
by Sarah Stephens

Hello Oswego Lakers!

My name is Sarah Stephens. I will be one of the interns here in The Communications Department is semester. I am a Mass Communications and Broadcasting major. Coming from Long Island, in a pretty close community I was scared at first to come to Oswego. But, that quickly changed. I have met the most amazing friends here, the Professors are always willing to help, and Greek life definitely had a huge impact on my experience. Being that I am now a senior I wanted to intern for the Communications department to essentially give back. For all this department has done for me, it is only fair that I help aspiring Lakers find their home.

This year has given me a lot of opportunity to get to know the community of Oswego. I was elected the Vice President of The National Panhellenic Conference, otherwise known as Panhell. Panhell consists of the four National sororities that we have here on campus. Those sororities are Alpha Phi Epsilon, Delta Phi Epsilon, Phi Sigma Sigma, and Sigma Delta Tau. Throughout this internship I want to change what some aspiring students think of Greek Life. Please follow my journey as I document the process of Recruitment here at SUNY Oswego.

From 104 degrees, to 3.2 degrees in a day.

Posted on January 30, 2015
by Krissy O'Farrell

G’day!

I am Krissy, the new SUNY Oswego student blogger all the way from Brisbane, Australia. I am spending a semester on exchange here and have been at Oswego for nearly a fortnight now, and loving it! I’ll give you a quick background on my journey and what it entailed for this first blog post.

Background

My favourite spot at QUT

In Australia, I study a bachelors of Information Technology at QUT (seriously an awesome university and friendliest place on earth) and am currently in my third and final year of my degree. I decided at the very beginning of my second year (early 2014), that I wanted to participate in the exchange program with one of QUT’s partners. So the research began. I could waffle on more about this, but essentially I chose SUNY because it has a highly regarded Computer Science Program, and Business School, which is exactly what I am into and subjects I would be taking. And of course because I have been in love with the idea of living in America and in the snow since I was a child. Prior to attending SUNY I had only seen snow on ski fields or on mountains in the far distance.

Trip from Australia to Oswego

soaring from the west to the east

It still feels surreal that I am actually in Oswego, on exchange and 9482.75 miles away from home. During the lead up to going on exchange it always just felt so far away, when I received my acceptance from SUNY in October it was still a good 3-4 months away and I just could not picture myself actually there. As time creeped on, I actually moved to Sydney over summer for an internship and was working full-time at Atlassian. This kept me occupied and as a result I didn’t really have much time to reflect and think about the long, exciting journey ahead of me. I left Sydney on a Friday, spent the Saturday and Sunday in Brisbane with my family and friends, then flew out on Monday morning. When I was on the plane Monday morning, it was the first time I was actually like “Wow this is actually happening”. I think this was a good thing because I was super excited and felt the flights didn’t take too long. In total I travelled about 26.5 hours to finallllllllllly arrive at SUNY Oswego. Before I left Australia we were in the midst of a steaming hot summer. I’m talking like 104 degree days and nights – it was painful, then when I stepped off the plane in Syracuse it was like 19 degrees, then Oswego was 3.2 degree – farrrrr out.

Arriving in Oswego

Hanging out in the cold

Driving from Syracuse to Oswego was incredible! I had never seen that volume of snow on roads, footpaths, grass, trees etc! And seeing so many dead trees was crazy – they are beautiful! I remember I was also very shocked by how warm is actually was inside vehicles and shops – in Australia, in winter, I am constantly freezing my butt off because we don’t have central heating 🙁 so I thought this was fantastic. When I arrived at Oswego I moved into my dorm which is in Hart Hall – this building is very central which is fantastic. I found making friends very easy because SUNY organised heaps of orientation events which gave me a chance to meet new international students like me, as well as new in-state freshman. I am having so much fun and seriously never want this semester to end!

Take it easy

Krissy x

Oz Down Under

Posted on September 2, 2014
by Kelsey Thomas

It’s been such a great month and a half here in Townsville. There are so many fantastic people I have met and made friends with. I was lucky enough to spend my 21st birthday here with all of them and was surprised to find out how fast you can become good friends with people. They all made it such a special day for me, even though I had class for the first time ever on my birthday! We celebrated by going out for gelato, hanging out on the beach and taking a drive to the top of Castle Hill (no drinking seeing as it was a Monday night).

Love these guys!

Other things that have been going on down under:

Townsville’s Cultural Festival: this was filled with food from different countries including, Thai, Greek, Italian, Indian, etc. and several performances by each culture

Drinking Coconut Milk straight from the coconut!

VisitedPallarenda which acted as an old fort base during World War II and walked along the beautiful beach that included the city of Townsville and Magnetic Island in its view

Pallarenda

Had a holiday themed floor party that included St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, Australia Day,Cinco de Mayo, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and New Years.

Floor Party: My quad was St. Patrick’s Day

Attended my first touch rugby game as well as my first netball game

Touch Rugby: Uni Hall vs George Roberts Hall

Completed the ice bucket challenge

Completed and handed in my first assignment! (GIS related)

I made this beautiful masterpiece.

Learned how to identify leaf families and have now started to press leaves

Figured out how to get netflix on my computer (it has not come to this country yet) and have made new friends by sharing the wealth

Fed a polychaete

Took a road trip up to Cairns for a weekend and spent it visiting waterfalls, walking through the rainforest, mountain biking and canoeing

Road trippin’ to Cairns

Stopped at the beach on the way to Cairns

Female Cassowary!

The gals.

Cathedral Fig Tree

Milaa Milaa

Saw 3 wild Cassowaries!

Swam under a waterfall

Learned about culture and life in Singapore

Went for a hike up the mountain behind Uni

Have used the word “keen” to show how excited I was for something

Say “oi” on the daily

Held the world’s largest cockroach

Found out cotton candy is called “fairy floss”

Ate my first mandarin

Ate my first scone

Completed all seasons of Breaking Bad

Planned trips to Sydney and Melbourne

Played a few jokes on some of the wonderful Australians here

Painted faces using ochre

I am truly blessed to have all of these wonderful opportunities and couldn’t ask for anything more. Classes are going really well although I find it difficult to want to go to class and do work while I am here. My next assignment is due this Friday but it’s going pretty well so far. I get to use the concepts and ideas of behavioral ecology in the real world by going out into the field and finding examples. It is a lot of fun and a new way to learn material that will be useful in the future. I have not received any grades yet which makes me a little nervous because a majority is based solely on the final exam. I just need to stay on top of the work and I am sure it will all work out. I am still loving every second here and will continue to keep you updated!

Graduate School Isn’t For Everyone

Posted on November 6, 2013
by Jon Zella

Whether you’re thinking about going on with higher education to pursue a Masters or Doctoral degree, there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before taking the dive. Financing is an obvious issue, as is how you’re going to support yourself in the meantime- you know, eat and stuff.

Beyond those types of things, there are some others which aren’t as apparent; things that don’t happen during undergrad.

Going through the History Masters program here at SUNY Oswego has made one thing painfully obvious to me: There are people who are much, much smarter than me. During undergrad I was a pretty good student. I loved studying history, writing papers, analyzing- all that stuff most of you hate. It made me seem smart because I was invested in the process. However, at the graduate level, I had to step up my game. There aren’t a ton of us in the program, so standing out negatively is easy. Teachers, and frankly your peers, expect more out of you. The days of the kid who doesn’t know what he’s talking about speaking up every class making people look good are over. You’re in the big leagues now. If you didn’t read for that day, stay home. People will eventually figure it out.

This is a good time to bring up my next point: You better love what you’re studying. If you’re pursuing a degree after your Bachelor’s it should be something you don’t mind spending every weekend for a few months…who am I kidding? You’ll probably be spending most days researching, studying, and writing about. You may have to skip out on some nights out with friends or with a significant other, which is never fun. Dedication and perseverance will be key. It’ll get tiring, trust me, but at the end of the day I’m proud of the result and focused on getting my degree. If you feel that maybe it’s not for you, do more research, talk to people already in the program and the professors in the department, and choose your University or College very carefully.

Finally, being in graduate school also brings on this feeling of limbo: Am I a student or a professional? I work 30 hours a week, but I go to class at night. How do I introduce myself in a meeting or to people I meet? I’ve personally had trouble understanding the difference. Many times I’m expected to be professional, going to meetings and creating events, but I need to make sure I’m home in time to finish a paper or study for an exam. It’s a delicate balance that will work itself out. In the mean time, do your best to just concentrate on what you’re doing.

At the end of the day, make sure you take your time with your decision and way all the pros, cons, and everything in between.

– Jon (@jonzella)