Semester 1 at the Academy

…and the first semester has come and gone! I honestly don’t even know where to start on a blog that covers four months of a new job/town/life. Don’t let the title make you think I will make a trend of blogging once a semester, but it’s the only thing that this entry could deserve to be called. Anyway, let’s begin with an important warning.

Warning: If you are a regular reader (hi Beth!), you probably already know that I ramble. I have to cover a semester as a rambler, so this blog entry will be LONG. You have been warned. (Also, I may repeat myself since I’m not sure what information has been blogged about before.) Heck, here’s even an outline.

Bring Everyone Up to Speed
Living in Maryville, MO
Low Points of the Semester
High Points of the Semester
Looking Ahead


Bring Everyone Up to Speed

So, when I went home for Thanksgiving break, I had a lot of “oh, now I get it” moments when I was re-explaining what my job is. I live on a college campus, but in a building that’s all high school students. These students come for 11th and 12th grade, are very talented (especially in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and take the same classes as the traditional college students. When the students are done with our program, they get our high school diploma and an Associates of Science (and the vast majority move on to really good colleges, where some finish their degree in just 2 years since a lot of classes can transfer to many other universities).

My job (Residential Counselor, or RC for short) more closely resembles a hall director/senior resident assistant position rather than a professor (it’s surprising how many people thought I’d be a teacher/professor when I told them “I’m working at a math/science school”). I have a wing of 16 boys, although I do share the responsibility of looking after all 162 students. A lot of the job includes spending time with the students, helping the students to achieve socially and academically, working the front desk, and enforcing the rules/policies. Since the students are all minors, there are a couple of policy adjustments compared to a traditional residence hall, like nightly room checks, and having male-only and female-only parts of the building. (Don’t worry, there are common spaces on the 1st and 2nd floor, and we have enough trouble stopping the PDA in those rooms.)

A chunk of my job can be translated as “make sure the students have fun”. Each RC puts on different kinds of programs that range from board game nights to taking the students on various trips to St Joseph, Kansas City, and Omaha. Part of my plan for next semester’s programming is to take students to Omaha to see a UNO hockey game, since I think there are a fair number of students who have never been to a hockey game.

I also help out with the student groups in the Academy, and each RC is the advisor for a group or three. At this point, I am taking charge of the Math Team, advising the Improv Team, and co-leading the Robotics Team. The first two have been a blast, and Robotics doesn’t start going until the spring.

I also do instruct a freshman seminar and a second-year colloquium (a continuation of freshman seminar where the seminar class takes colloquium together the next year), so I guess I can say that I instruct a class at a university, although it really just seems like another way for the Academy students to acclimate themselves to the college experience. The job description includes a number of random sprinkles of other stuff (like using an Academy van to drive students to Wal-Mart and around town), so it definitely keeps me on my toes!


Living in Maryville, MO

Coming from Minneapolis, Maryville is a tiny speck on the map. Compared to Bemidji… it’s still a small town. When I first got the job, I compared Maryville to Bemidji based on population, but now that I’ve lived here, I’ve come to realize that it just doesn’t match up. Don’t get me wrong, Maryville is a really great town, but it is such a college town. (After the students moved out for winter break, the drive through town back to campus was dead at 9pm.) A notable piece of the student body leaves on the weekends as well (there’s a term for that… “suitcase campus”?), and that includes some of the Academy students.

The town is definitely geared towards vehicle travel, so being a pedestrian is a little more exciting. There are perhaps three crosswalk signals along all of Main Street, and in the residential parts of town, there are countless places where the sidewalk is busted and broken or simply not there. Plus, many of the places I would want to walk to (church, Wal-Mart, HyVee, Taco Bell, etc) are just a little too far away. Since I took this paragraph to list some negative stuff, I’ll just say that since it is a small town, the main night attractions (some nights, the only attractions) are the bars. That being said, I haven’t met any people outside the campus workforce and Academy students.

Okay, now I need to list some good things before people think I hate town. Ooh, I’ll talk about immersion. So, when I moved down to Missouri in August, I decided that I should try to fully immerse myself in the culture of the town since I knew things would be different. Of course, that meant that I sought businesses that were different than the Minnesota norm, but this included a number of awesome finds. The night I moved down, I went with Chris & Erik (who drove me down and helped me move in) to Sonic, which was great. Then, the next day, I walked into town and tried out Mr. Goodcent’s, which is a sub shop that has an amazing chipotle southwestern sauce! Now I’ve been accustomed to having a Wal-Mart (the closest Target is ½ hour away), HyVee, and of course, the Hangar is amazing (the movie theater which I think I’ve written about before in my blog).

Of course, if I’m going to talk about Maryville businesses I like, I have to talk about Movie Magic. So, instead of a Blockbuster or other chain movie rental store, we have a locally owned store called Movie Magic. In addition to having a large selection of movies, you can rent video games (including older generation consoles like the N64), buy used movies and video games, buy comics and board games, and play games like Warhammer and Magic: The Gathering. It may seem like the store tries to cover a lot of bases, yet they don’t spread themselves thin. I’m trying to expand my movie collection while keeping my purchases under $10/movie, so their “buy 2 get 1 previously viewed DVD free” deal is right up my alley. I’ve ended up getting movies there multiple times and they were all in great condition. (They even have a machine to clean, repair, and resurface movies & games, so I took one over that I bought from Blockbuster way back.) When I think about it, I think part of the reason that Movie Magic sticks out in my mind is awesome customer service. The people working are willing to answer any questions, and when I brought some discs over to be resurfaced yesterday (which costs $3/disc by the way), the guy looked at one of them, said “This just needs to be cleaned”, grabbed a bottle of cleaning spray, and cleaned the disc for free! So yeah, highly recommended to all.

Growing up in Minnesota instilled the thought of “Minnesota Nice” and while it was never fully explained, the term made it seem like a specific state thing. I don’t mean to bash that method of thinking, but people have been really nice down in Missouri too. It can be from saying nice things like waiting in line at a restaurant and there was a time that a couple gave me a ride back from HyVee because it was a hot August day and I was bogged down with bags (I keep going back to that first day, which is sort of odd). The niceties could simply come about from living in a small community, so I can’t rule that out… even still, it’s nice to have nice people (although a good chunk of Missouri drivers don’t use their turning signals at all).

Another thing that I love about Maryville is the pride in the school. With the rare exceptions of Mizzou or Kansas University, the only school apparel you see around town is for Northwest and Maryville High School. Everything fits together in the Bearcat green, bearcat paws, and business marquees follow the school. A lot of this has to do with the great football teams both schools have, but I think it’s also that Northwest is the only school in town. (There is a university in St Joseph which is ½ hour away, but they are our rivals, partly because we felt that they opened their school to take away from our student population… and it’s a sports rivalry too.) Minneapolis is definitely a hot mess of colleges and universities and even Bemidji has BSU, the tech school, and Oak Hills. Like I said, it’s just really cool to be off-campus and still see loads of bearcat jackets, car decals, and other pieces of Bearcat Pride.


Low Points of the Semester

I wanted to talk about the generals of the job and living in town before I wanted to talk about this semester specifically. It would be difficult to remember everything that happened over the semester, so I figure I should give the highs and lows (and give the lows first so I can get them out of the way).

I would be lying if I said that this semester wasn’t stressful. Since this is the first full-time professional position I’ve held, it was challenging to try to multi-task as much as is required. Plus, my schedule for the past 16 years revolved around classes Monday-Friday. Now that I’m not taking my classes, I’m still used to taking it easy in the evenings, which is when my shifts are scheduled (unless I’m specifically off-duty, I work everyday 4pm-Midnight in one way or another). Over the semester, my time management skills really sunk and there are paperwork things that I still need to catch up on before spring semester starts.

Another low point was that I was so far away from my norm and my family and friends. In high school and college, I had many different interests and each brought about a new set of friends to spend time with. Since I’ve had to put so much time into the job, the only people I know that are my age are co-workers (who are also really busy with job-related matters). Also, I haven’t been able to connect with a music group or at either church in town (there are a lot of churches in Maryville, but I specifically mean the Newman Center and the town’s Catholic church), and it’s actually been a few weeks since I’ve been able to go to church. (Some of it has been travel because of traveling home or taking students on a shuttle, and there are at least two different times that I walked over to the Newman Center to find it pitch black and empty… yeah, not happy about that.) So, there were a number of nights that I just sat in my apartment and didn’t do anything because I didn’t feel like it.

When you’re charged with the academic well-being of 16 students, it hurts when students don’t rise up to the occasion. Compared to last year, the Academy as a whole has been amazing, and we have a really small list of students who have been on the “academic trouble” radar. Unfortunately, my wing was represented more than its equal share on that list and I wasn’t around last year, so this is still a new experience. We did have a few students not make the grades to return in the spring, and some are in the appeals process, and I hope that all the students that are in this situation are able to take away more than just “I didn’t know chemistry as well as I should have”, for example.

As a last piece of my vent about this semester, I didn’t get out to exercise as much as I should have/wanted to. There is a track around the football field that is open all the time, so I would go walking on that with co-workers or just myself, but that didn’t happen all too often since everyone had different night routines. Of course, now that it’s cold, it’s tough to find time to go to the rec or do physical activities in the room. There is a rec center that’s not too far from campus where you can buy a semester-long pass so you can exercise without being surrounded by the football/basketball/other sports teams all the time.

Okay, negatives are out.


High Points of the Semester

So, based on that last section, you may think that this semester was filled with sorrow and woe. Well, it wasn’t. There were a lot of good things too. First of all, I have amazing co-workers who all have different talents and strengths. Each of us is from a different state (and none of us are from Missouri originally), so it’s really cool to learn about each of them and spend time with them. It’s also really cool to see all of us work together to help each other out. There are some RCs that I co-sponsor groups with and there are times that the staff pulls together when a desk shift needs to be filled or a student needs to go to the hospital. Plus, my boss is the best boss I’ve had with any job. He’s very understanding and whenever a problem arises, he’s willing to look at each side logically and examine the big picture (for those of you who know the 4 Colors test, we have 1 or 2 Orange RCs, a few Gold RCs including myself, and the rest are Blue. Our boss is the only Green in our part of the staff).

Also, the kids are awesome. The guys on my wing have really become a family and it’s great to simply spend time with them late at night watching a movie or playing N64 games. It’s really touching to see the students helping each other out when tests come back or students aren’t doing so hot in a class. There are a number of students that I want to see take a leadership role in the building next year. I also get to spend time with other students in the building because of their student groups, their Seminar group or simply that they spend time with my guys. There were a lot of times in the beginning of the year when I watched the students and thought of myself during my first year in the IT Honors floor in Middlebrook. Of course, there are things the students do that can get on my nerve, but it’s all about letting that go.

Another definite high point of the entire semester is having a great football program! Our team had been stuck in a rut since we had advanced to the national game (in Division II) for the last four years, but we hadn’t won nationals since 1999. We did lose the first game of the year, but we came back to play that same team and royally creamed them. We also had a game that ended 70-0 in our favor. Some games were really close and one game was won by us blocking an extra point kick after the opposing team scored a touchdown with virtually no time on the clock. We ended up winning nationals which was amazing to watch (the game was in Alabama), and everyone was so thrilled to finally win, since every Northwest student was used to going to the national game and losing every year they were a student… unless they were pursuing multiple degrees… or getting a music degree! Oh snap!

Ahem, speaking of football tradition, I might as well note that our campus has made a habit of the semi-final game for the past few years. Since we have won that game consistently and since that’s our last home game of the season, the goalposts get ripped down after the game and thrown in the pond on campus. Of course, the students inevitably get involved with that and after seeing the footage on the news (since I didn’t attend the actual game since I had to work the desk), I was shown cell phone footage by one of my guys. Don’t worry, ripping down the goalposts was actually okayed the president of the University, which may seem odd, but if people want to destroy something, I’d rather have it be that than say, the student union or a residence hall.

So, I’m a nerd. It’s still true. When we were in training in August and the subject of advising student groups came up, I was a shoe in for heading up the Math Team. I’m technically co-sponsoring the Math Team with one of the veteran RCs, but I’ve been organizing the monthly tests and going to the events so this semester has been a passing of the torch. Going to the math competitions have been really fun and we definitely swept house at the last one in early December. I’ve also taken the weekly meetings and used them to teach the students geometry and probability and some abstract algebra. There are times where it feels (and looks) like I’ve melted some students’ brains, but there are those moments that it suddenly clicks and I just got a high school-aged student to understand upper-division level math that I know something went right. I also really have fun with the Improv Team, although I don’t get as much face time with them as I do the Math Team. We had a full show last semester which was pretty fun, although a little bit rusty. That’s what next semester is for, though.

As a random side note, there are also little things about the job that I just love. I’ve really gotten to enjoy driving the 11 and 15-passenger vans around town and to Kansas City. I like hosting midnight movies during the weekend. I like sponsoring random trips like ice skating. Plus, I hate to sound selfish or that I’m here for the wrong reasons, but I’m very thankful for the things I don’t have to worry about, like rent, a meal plan and insurance. It’s definitely not the traditional 9-5 job as people would say – it’s more of a lifestyle.


Looking Ahead

Well, I’m taking winter break to find ways to improve myself. The big hurdle will be time management, but I already have some things in the works. I’ll also be getting ideas for programs in the spring and when I get back in early January, I’m going to charge into that paperwork so I can finally say it’s done! I’m not sure what will happen in the spring exactly. I’ll continue to make sure my boys are safe and succeeding academically and socially. The Math Team and Improv Club will continue to rock while the Robotics Team will really gear up. (Heh.) I’m also looking forward to spending more informal time with my coworkers and students. I’m definitely looking forward to next semester, that’s for sure.

Well, I know that was a long entry and it feels like I skimmed over a lot. What’s unfortunate is that there are side stories I would like to write about and remember, but have forgotten about since they happened back in September. I will definitely get back on track with regular blogging.

I left campus this morning and am staying at my sister’s until Tuesday. At that point, I’ll be going home and will be in Bemidji until the 31st. My college friends are having a big New Year’s bash which I’ll be attending. Then I’ll be sticking around the Cities for a few days until a co-worker swings by and picks me up on the way back down to Missouri. If you want to hang out, let me know one way or another. Until next time, cheers!