First Day of Classes!

St. Mike's is back in full swing!

It's an absolutely beautiful day on campus and students are all back in action. It's so great to see everyone so excited to see friends and start their new classes.

Wondering what classes are like at SMC? Feel free to ask this or any other question that you have in my formspring over there on the right. I'd love to hear from you!

Welcome back SMCVT!

In my new office! :-)

So Many Ways to Contact Me!

Hi Friends!

I just met with Mallory Wood to talk more about my role as the Admissions Counselor blogger and other fun Social Media things that I will be partaking in. As of now, here are the ways that you can contact me...

E-mail - I'm on it all day at work and would be more than happy to respond to your questions - cpratt@smcvt.edu.

Formspring - Ask me anything on my formspring! Type your question in the purple box to the right, or find me, CarrieSMC09.

Twitter - Follow me, @CarrieSMC09.

I'll keep you updated with more ways to get in touch. Until then, hope all is well!

First Days...

I officially started my position as an Admission Counselor on Monday - and I couldn't be happier! I've been spending time meeting with a variety of people on campus so that I can be updated on what is going on in a variety of different departments.

Yesterday I met with Moise St. Louis, the Director of Multicultural Student Affairs. The meeting that I had with him was such a great representation of life at Saint Michael's. I had always known who Mo was, but I had never really officially met him - so, of course, we introduced ourselves to one another and shook hands at the beginning of our meeting. However, after our 30 minute conversation, we parted ways with a hug. This is such a St. Mike's thing - treating everyone like family. There is just something extra special about the community here at St. Mike's and I am thrilled to be back here full time!

Maine Trip!

As I mentioned, I spent time in Maine with my family last week. We had a great time in Old Orchard Beach and also made a trip up to Portland to walk around and see a Portland SeaDogs baseball game. We had lovely weather and a great time!

The fam on the beach
me and Emily on the beach during a great sunset!

Epitome of Summer

I just finished the busiest week of my summer, but by far the best one yet! I went to Maine with my family from Thursday - Sunday (more on that in my next post...) and then immediately went and met my two best friends, Amy and Emily, from camp last year for three days of togetherness and fun!

Last summer I served as the Sub-Senior Line Division Head at Lochearn Camp for Girls, where I met Amy (Junior Line Division Head) and Emily (Senior Line Division Head). We immediately bonded because of our similar jobs, and then became extremely close friends in the process. We had been trying to hatch a plan to see one another again, but our schedules and distance from each other was challenging! However, Amy, who is from Utah, decided to fly into Boston and Emily, who is from Nova Scotia, Canada drove down and we all met in Hanover, NH, which is close to Lochearn.

Me and Emily while enjoying ice cream at Kimball Farm Ice Cream in Carlisle, MA (SO delicious)

Me and Amy

(l-r) Emily, Sarah, me, Marilyn, Becky, Emily, Amy at dinner at Molly's in Hanover, NH. Emily, Sarah, Becky and Marilyn went back to camp this year and had the evening off, so we all met up and had a fantastic time together!

We had infinite laughs, a ton of mishaps, very little sleep and just had fun being together! We spent the first night in a tent that was really comfortably made for two people, but we cuddled up and fit all three... We went and visited camp and saw lots of staff members and campers who we hadn't seen in for a year which was really nice. We met up for dinner with more camp friends, and then had to get a hotel for the second night because of torrential rains, lightning, thunder and an absolutely soaked tent. We then traveled to MA where we shopped and went sightseeing in Boston, met up with more camp people and enjoyed some time off from work/school.

I was so sad to say goodbye to both of them, but we had an amazing time and will work hard to get us all back together again soon. Emily's 30th birthday is next year and she and a few friends are flying to Las Vegas, which is conveniently close to Arizona State University where Amy is getting her masters degree and I could fly for relatively cheap...hey, a girl can dream, right??

NEACAC Summer Institute

Last week I attended the NEACAC (New England Association of College Admission Counseling) Summer Institute, which was held at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH. Summer Institute was formerly (they often stressed "formerly!") known as "Rookie Camp" for new college admission counselors, so that kind of gives you an idea of what I was expecting!

I attended the conference with my new co-workers Mike and Jeremy. When we arrived on the first day, we met our mentor groups (a smaller group of conference participants with two mentors, or conference faculty) and started on a whirlwind week of professional development, workshops, opportunities for networking and lots of fun! We had speakers introduce us to many concepts and ideas that we will will be coming in contact with during our time in admissions, including financial aid, current trends in higher education, FERPA and public speaking. In addition, we split up into three smaller groups to have more specific training in the area that suited us. I went to the workshops for people who had been in the profession for 0 - 6 months where we talked a lot about the basics of working in admissions. We talked about reading applications, traveling, doing interviews, giving presentations and got tons of questions answered!

In addition, we spent time in our mentor groups participating in a mock admission committee meeting, discussing policy to practice and even giving a 5 minute presentation to get a sense of how we do in front of a group. I spoke about social justice as St. Mike's and got some very helpful feedback about how I can improve my presence in front of a group. Having an opportunity to interact with so many great people in this profession made me even more excited for my new position!

We also got to have some fun during the week - we attended a New Hampshire Fisher Cats baseball game and had free time to socialize with our new colleagues. I was also able to have some time to meet up with our close family friends who live in Hampstead, NH, which was an added bonus.

I had a great week and absolutely cannot wait to start full time on August 16th!