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Honors Weekend: Brunch and Big Opportunities

9/29/2016

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 By Hannah Derleth
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Evan Chavarria and I get festive at the Fall Fest Photo Booth.
I’ll admit, I was a bit dubious when Student Honors Council first brought up “Honors Weekend,” and told us that we students were going to plan it. However, I will say, I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would.

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Thursday’s Trivia Night was one for the books. We had multiple teams vying for the top, including a team from News & Notes. The front desk staff even got in on the game. Some RAs were even bribing us to do well with DeHo Dough. Our competitiveness was apparent— some screamed out answers, while others scribbled furiously on white boards. We all enjoyed ourselves, and laughed about our competitive streaks and need for speed afterwards.

On Friday night, we occupied the DeHo beach with our Fall Fest. We had a photo booth, a cookie decorating table, popcorn, music, and face painting. I don’t know about many others, but I was able to meet a few faces from DeHority that I hadn’t seen before, and I enjoyed that the most.

We brought out our competitive streaks once more on Saturday. That evening consisted of a friendly game of Capture the Cardinal, which was a spin-off of Capture the Flag. Since the original plan didn’t pan out as we wanted, we ended up bending a few rules and negotiated the point system. But hey, flexibility is an important soft skill to have, and we had blast attempting to chase down our “cardinals” anyways.

We concluded Honors Weekend with Sunday’s brunch, which consisted of burritos and corn hole. Again, I was able to meet more unfamiliar faces from the Honors College, and played corn hole with my wonderful friends.

I didn’t create a summary of every event because I thought News & Notes readers would like to read them, but because each night had something very special behind it: students. Because most of us are freshmen, we were able to hold committee chair positions, help set up, tear down, and manage booths and tables that needed attending to, an opportunity incoming students rarely get. Organizing and leading these events were totally up to us, rather than leaving it up to other older Honors students.

That’s the one of the biggest things that sets Student Honors Council apart from any other organization on campus. Anywhere else, we freshmen and sophomores are usually lumped in with “underclassmen,” and often stuck with a label on our foreheads, reading “young” or “follower.” SHC teaches us how to remove the stereotypical label, and replace it with one that says “leader” and “enough.” I think all of us in SHC were able to take away a very important lesson of leadership and responsibility from this weekend.

Funny how we still manage to learn from doing the “fun things,” hmm?
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Finding a Home in Honors

9/2/2016

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By Hannah Derleth
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My roommate, freshman Emily Mixter, and I enjoying the weather and studying outside.
“Why are there so many people here?”
 
“Does the walking ever end?”
 
“How many callout meetings can I possibly have in one evening?”
 
The answers to those questions, respectively: We have roughly 800 more incoming freshmen than usual, no, and five.
 
I should probably introduce myself: My name is Hannah Derleth, I’m a freshman, and I’m double majoring in journalism and marketing. I held editor positions on Noblesville High School’s newspaper, the Mill Stream, for two years, and spent my senior year interning at one of Noblesville’s local papers, the Times. I absolutely love writing, and I’m excited to grow my talent and share my gift here at Ball State.
 
I’ve been living on campus for exactly 19 days now, and it’s been an absolute rush: a rush of emotions, a rush of adrenaline, and a rush of people. I’ve done more here on campus in the past week than I ever would have planned, and I’ve made countless memories with people that, quite frankly, I don’t even know their names. I have fostered friendships that will last longer than 180 school days, and I have professors that are invested in what they teach and love what they do.
 
As much as the questions at the beginning sound rather negative, I came to realize that those answers are the best. A sea of unfamiliar faces led to me making amazing memories (usually Frisbee or Walleyball related) with people whose names I will never remember, and the endless list of callout meetings just meant that Ball State offers something for every student. And the walking? Well, I have to avoid the “Freshman 15” somehow.
 
19 days in, and I can already tell that saying yes to the Honors College has been one of the best  decisions I’ve made. I’m surrounded by like-minded people who want nothing but the best for their education, and expect nothing but the best from themselves. It’s a wonderful change of pace; now I’m sitting in a classroom full of students who actually read the Bhagavad Gita, rather than sitting with kids that just googled a summary of the discourses ten minutes before class.
 
19 days in, and I know I’ve found my home. Ball State has given me so much already, and has presented me with so many opportunities that will only lead me to success.
 
19 days in, and I’m happy.
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