Hey, I want to Teach For America.

Ok beautiful blogging world, I promised it to you and now you're going to get it! This blog will be dedicated to my application to Teach For America. TFA's mission is this: to eliminate education inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort. What is education inequity you ask? According to their site, educational inequity is the reality that where a child is born determines the quality of his or her education and life prospects. One of the reasons I'm really passionate about getting involved with this organization is that I witnessed, first hand how this occurs as I grew up in a school district where nearly half of all high school students drop out by their senior year. I also have worked with at-risk, middle school girls in my time at Transy and I know that I'd like to continue working with youth in an educational capacity.

The TFA application process is a long and arduous journey. It all started back this summer when I meet with Michael Cronk in the Career Development Center to change my computer science resume to a teaching resume, highlighting the experiences I've had that would be pertinent to teaching . After a massive resume overhaul, I started working on the first part of the online application. This included a letter of intent, my resume, personal information, academic and professional information, interview information, and some other supplemental information. The hardest part of this section was the letter of intent because it was all about me and how I would really rock out in their organization, it's comparable to a personal statement for grad schools.

I found out in September that I made it through to the next step in the process, which was a thirty minute phone interview and an online written activity. The online written activity wasn't too long but involved responding to a series of questions over the reading and responding to a hypothetical situation that could arise in a school, it asks you to look at the situation from a couple of different view points; nothing to really stress about.

 I found out in early October that I had moved on to the final leg of the application process, a final, in-person interview. The final interview stage also included a bunch more information that they wanted online, including transcript information and two recommendations.

I had my final interview on Tuesday in my hometown of Indianapolis at IUPUI campus. The interview was a most of the day kind of thing, it started at 9 AM and ended whenever you had your one-on-one interview in the afternoon. It was a busy day that started with group activities in the the morning: everyone (there were 13 people at the session) taught a five-minute lesson, then we discussed issues in education in smaller groups of 6 or 7 people, learned more about our program, and complete a written problem solving activity. During the morning session, we split up into our two groups all signed up for times for our one-on-one interviews with one of the two interviewers. Seeing as I was driving the farthest, all the way back to Lexington, that afternoon the other people in my group let me sign up for the first slot and I was done with everything by 1:30 PM. I really enjoyed getting to talk with my interviewer and it was nice knowing that I wasn't competing against the other people in my interview because as the two interviewers said, they wanted us all to be invited to join the corps.

So now I wait. I find out on November 9th (my 22nd birthday) whether or not I was selected. :) Send positive thoughts my way!

Me? Busy? No...

Hello dearly beloved blogging world! I hope all is going well for all of you, especially you high school seniors that are starting the last daunting year of your high school careers. I hope that if you're coming to visit this here blog you're interested in Transy as a possible choice for the next four years of your life. If you have questions about pretty much anything, I'd be more than happy to answer anything that I can and if I can't answer it for you, I'll find the answer out or find someone that can! Feel absolutely free to email at adadams11@transy.edu or leave a comment on one of my posts and I'll try to get back to you as fast as I can!

As I'm sure all of you are keeping busy in the various things you go about doing every day, I have been impossibly busy. Between recruitment, class, clubs, RA stuff, and future plans for next year I haven't had very much time to do much of anything very leisurely. I'll do the rundown of events that have transpired since I last updated. Take a deep breath, there's a lot to cover!

Recruitment

My fellow blogger, Emily, recently had a really good update of what the process of recruitment is like for a Potential New Member (PNM) going through the process. My part this year was different from that and different from what I experienced last year as an active member (my thoughts on Greek Life last year can be found here.) As a Recruitment Counselor I got the chance to bond with a group of PNM's and with the group of women that were unaffiliated with me. It really brought to light what I think the best part of Greek Life is, the chance for women of all backgrounds, beliefs, and groups to come together to work towards bettering life for both the collegiate woman and her world at large.

Some of my Rho Gamma group and me after they got their bids

Transy Night Out at GattiTown and Other RA stuff

As a member of the Residence Life staff, I'm expected to participate on a committee and this year I was asked to chair the committee for the fall all-campus activity. I gladly accepted this role and we easily decided to plan a "night out" for Transy students. The way it works is we contact someone, like GattiTown (think a little bit more mature Chucky Cheese,) and set up a sign-in sheet so that the first 100 or so students to get to the event get to get in free. There was a great turn out and everything went really smoothly. Plus I got to hang out with my friends and have free pizza, does it get much better than that?

Besides my committee, I've already been on duty eight times this semester, six of those days were in the first two weeks of class. How much is that you ask? Well I'm on staff in the building with the most RA's so I'm not on duty nearly as much as someone in another area, but I only have three more duty days this semester. Now, I did that to myself because I know that at the end of the semester I'll have important things like senior seminar papers to work on. But still, a girl can get tired.

Another RA responsibility I have is to conduct interviews with each of my residents, which I have completed all but three! They're due on Friday so here's hoping I can catch the slippery ones that keep wriggling away.

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

One of the coolest things I've gotten to experience in my time at Transy, was getting to go with three other senior women in the computer science department and our fabulous division chair, Dr. Tylene Garrett, to Atlanta, GA to get to participate in this conference for women. I'm not a strictly CS kind of girl, I have a lot of diverse interests but the women at this conference open my eyes to the opportunities I have to make a difference for women in this field. There was Girl Power, Nerd Power, and just a lot of all around awesomeness. I sat in on sessions on everything from using Twitter in a classroom to how to ace a technical interview. I left this conference feeling confident in my abilities as a computer scientist and the impact that women have in a field that is so highly masculine. If you're interested in knowing more, e-mail me and I'll gush for ages.

Me, Amanda J., Dr. Garrett, Nadia, and Amanda F. at the Museum of High Art in Atlanta

Teach For America

I don't think that I've talked about my commitment to domestic service, especially urban schools in the United States, but it's kind of ridiculous. I'm going to commit a whole post to this later, but I'll let you know, I've made my way all the way to the final interview!

The World Equestrian Games and Keeneland

I don't know if you've heard this before, but people in Kentucky are kind of crazy about horses and people in Central Kentucky are super crazy about them. Lexington had the honor to hold the World Equestrian Games this fall, there's been people from all of the world shuffling around town and a lot of really cool horse stuff going on everywhere. There's been a concert or some kind of event everyday downtown and Transy hasn't been left out. There were two free college days at the games, I didn't get a chance to go but a lot of my friends did they said it was pretty darn cool.

The paddock at Keeneland

Another Central Kentucky tradition is Keeneland Fall Racing and everyone who is anyone at Transy, UK, and pretty much all of Lexington goes to watch. Until Friday, I had never been. This warranted many gasps of surprise from my classmates, but it had never been something that had interested me but two of my girlfriends decided to go and asked me to join, I went more to spend time with my friends but ended up pleased with the decision. After my foray into horse racing at the Kentucky Derby last spring, I wasn't sure what to expect but Keeneland far exceeded any expectations I had. The grounds are lovely and clean and you can see the races even with general admission passes.

Veronica, Callie, and me in front of the track at Keeneland

That's all I have for now, look for an update about my Teach For America adventure coming soon!