What is Gender Neutral?

I often get this question. Parents look at me suspiciously as I say I live in the only gender neutral building and prospective students are either really excited or don’t know what that means. So here is a simple break down:

Genesee Residence Hall is a super welcoming environment where very little goes on that would be considered “bad”. Why is that? Well it’s because we have pledged ourselves to being open to other cultures, lifestyles, anything that is different from our norm. That includes allowing males and females to either live in the same suite or even the same room. BUT that does not mean you have to. I currently live with 5 other females. We live next to a gender neutral suite and it’s become as normal for us to see them as it is for them to see so many of one sex in a suite.

It’s funny that not that many people actually take this chance. I picked this hall by chance and had I known that it would be this great community I truly think I wouldn’t have wanted to even think about picking a different building. I mean could I honestly pass up on a pot luck where we can bring food that represents either our culture or a culture we’re really interested in a share it with others? Would I want to miss out on all the amazing programs where our Residence Assistants bring in speaker so their residents can explore something new that they might not have thought of before? I don’t think I could.

Wait…where do you live?

Yup, I’m a senior and I live in an all-freshmen residence hall. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, either.

Let me explain. After my freshman year, I decided I wanted to get involved with the Office of Orientation and First-Year Programs and apply to be an Orientation Advisor. I obtained the position, and long story short I had one of the best summers of my life.

I quickly realized how much I loved helping first-year students. After my first semester sophomore year, I wanted to take this newfound passion one step further and apply to be an RA in hopes that I would be an RA in a first-year student building. I guess the stars were aligned that semester because a spot had just opened up in Jones (one of the other first-year student buildings) and to my fortune I obtained that position. Needless to say, I was the happiest guy that day.

A quick synopsis: I finished out that year in Jones, returned to Jones for my junior year, and now I’ve been in Onondaga all my senior year. It’s been quite the journey. There has been some ups and downs along the way. And yes, I have never lived off campus, but I’m not too worried about that. I always tell myself, “I’ll live off campus everyday when I’m not in Geneseo anymore.” Every semester is different, but just as good as the last.

A lot of people ask me why I ‘chose’ to live in Onondaga my last year at Geneseo. I always say that I am happy and lucky right now and I wouldn’t want to change that. Everyday is different than the last when you live in a freshmen building. The excitement never dies down.

As an RA, I am a resource to my residents. Everyday I answer questions or assist in situations to the best of my ability. I feel like I am making a positive difference in my floor’s community. However, I want to say that my residents make a positive difference in me as well. Every resident, every student, every person has a different story to tell. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m an RA, but I’ve just learned so much about all different sorts of things from other students.

Community, diversity, respect, having fun, responsibility, inclusion, helping each other out, open communication, sense of humor, humility, honesty, open doors  …the list goes on but these are some of the community values that my floor came up with at the beginning of this year. Now I guess I’ll ask you all: Who wouldn’t want to be a part of a community that has these values?

Geneseo truly has a niche for everyone. For me, I’m proud to say that one of them is being involved in first-year student programming and residence life.

Geneseo Where?

I remember the first time I drove to Geneseo for a visit with my Dad in the spring of my junior year of high school.  As we drove past the acres and acres of cornfields, farms, and cows, I thought to myself, “What the heck am I doing out here in no-man’s land?  There’s nothing out here!”  But despite Geneseo’s rural location, I quickly found that there is never a lack of things to do, and quaint Main Street provides more than meets the eye.

Main Street is literally a single block in the village of Geneseo, and, well, is the main street.  But I have to tell you—I LOVE Main Street.  First, there are the restaurants.  There is Aunt Cookie’s Sub Shop for awesome sandwiches, Mamma Mia’s Pizzeria for the best pizza, Bank Street Grill for some delicious breakfast sandwiches or burgers, Geneseo Family Restaurant for classic diner food (and my favorite $5 omelets and home fries), Muddy Waters for the best coffee in town and their home-made cream cheese, and the Big Tree Inn for a nice sit down dinner.

Aside from the food there are also other stores of use to Geneseo students.  There are not one, but two hair salons with excellent student rates and great people.  Interspersed throughout Main St. are cute shops to rifle around in if you are looking for a gift for a family member or friend.  Sundance Bookstore is also located on Main St.—a wonderful bookstore that caters to Geneseo students—as well as Key Bank  and even a computer store.

What if you need more than Main Street can offer?  Right up the road is a Wegman’s grocery store, a Super-Walmart, and even more restaurants, shops and sites that the Geneseo shuttle can take you to for free any day of the week.  And although we do have a bus to Rochester on the weekends (always nice for a day trip), I find that I rarely want to leave my little town of Geneseo.  Geneseo may seem like rural “nowheresville” to outsiders like me (and maybe to you too), but I have found that it provides just about everything I need to make this a wonderful college experience.

Jones or Daga?

Two out of my three years here, I have lived in All-freshman housing, and let me just say that it has been an amazing experience thus far. My freshman year I lived in Jones Hall, one of the two freshman residence halls (the other one being Onondaga). The minute I walked into Jones, I felt right at home. My Resident Assistant, Emily, welcomed me and showed me to my room. Doors were open, and once I had moved in, I quickly started to get to know the other girls on my floor. Community in Jones was built from day one. I don’t necessarily think that’s a “Jones thing” though. I think that’s more of a “Geneseo freshmen thing.”

Now I am in my Junior year and I am still friends with many of those girls that I befriended on my first days on this beautiful campus. As a Junior, I don’t live in your typical upperclassman housing. That’s right, I am back with freshman, as a Resident Assistant  in Onondaga hall. The experience is certainly different than my experience in Jones, not only because I am an RA, but because “Daga” as we lovingly call is, is a little bit different than Jones. Being the largest residence hall on campus, it is like a tiny world in the greater universe of Geneseo. I am still meeting people every single day, and that is such a refreshing and exciting experience.

So you might ask about that sense of community I felt in Jones? I feel it just the same  in Daga. I watch community being built right before my eyes. I watch my residents take the initiative to start their own sports teams and have floor movie nights. It is certainly an interesting experience to watch.

The question of the century remains…Daga or Jones? My answer is this All-Freshman Housing. Starting college can be pretty difficult. It’s a new school, a new geographic area, and new people. All Freshman housing is amazing because all the residents are in the same boat as you are. They are looking to meet new people and make new friends. Having lived in both buildings I can easily say that at the end of the day, neither Jones nor Daga is better, they are both the best.

Going to Conferences!

As a student at Geneseo, I’ve gotten to go to a few conferences that were great experiences and in places that I didn’t get to visit before. The best part? I didn’t have to pay for the entire trip!

I was able to go to Washington, D. C. to the Eastern Communication Association conference to read an academic research paper to an audience of peers and respected people in the Communication field. I even met people that had written articles I had read for my classes!

Just this past weekend, I went to the Paychex Leadership Conference at RIT where we learned about interviewing, resume tips, effective communication, and how you can make a difference. Oh, and don’t forget the included breakfast and lunch. All for free through the GOLD program!

In February, I will be going with 12 other students to New Orleans for a conference for Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society. As a Creative Writing major, I’ll finally get the opportunity to read my creative work at a conference!

What’s the best part about this? Geneseo has travel grants for undergraduate students so that they don’t have to foot the entire bill for these wonderful trips! The conferences themselves are great experiences, resume builders, and just generally fun times and Geneseo helps to send students to these conferences to present academic work, learn leadership skills, and network. Just another reason to love Geneseo!

Looking Into the Valley Village Past

One of the beautiful things about the village of Geneseo is how the historical details of the village are a charming backdrop for contemporary life ever bustling about. For the past year and a half I have been blessed to have found an apartment right on historic Main Street, and my apartment in itself is a cohesive blend of old and new. The deli across the street still bears the word “Normal” in tiles in the doorway from its days as a grocer when SUNY Geneseo was just the Normal school, and of course the bear fountain remains where it once gave water to the horses that transported villagers in their daily travels. Most houses in the village are old Victorians, and even on campus Welles, Sturges, Fraser, and even Blake halls exude a quiet reassurance of stories from Geneseo past.

All of this I had appreciated the whole time I had been at Geneseo. But this semester, I really get to dig into the history of the place I have called my home for the past three and a half years. During registration I saw a notification about a new, experimental course that plans to explore and document the history of the village, and more specifically, Court Street. Our required reading is a book of Geneseo memoirs, and I cannot seem to put it down. Tales of the old tavern on Center Street where stagecoaches stopped for food and lodging, of summer concerts in the park bandstand, and of people who lived and loved and made up a fantastic community right where I am now. I can almost imagine this whole other world when I just go for a walk down Main Street.

When I walk down the hill to class in the historic Sturges building, and I can see across the valley, I imagine students years and years ago making the same commute. Maybe just like me, appreciating the true meaning of the name Geneseo – “beautiful valley.” It pleases me to no end hearing stories from old alumni about what campus used to be like. My first residence hall, Jones hall, I heard was once a boys residence hall – and they were known to be pretty rowdy! An older gentleman once recollected to me that he was just graduating from school when the first buildings of “North campus” were being built. Other more recent alumni tell tales of walking across the “tundra” to South side before the townhouses existed and provided a buffer from the winter valley winds.

Every historic detail, every memoir or small anecdote adds to the wonderful collage that is life here in Geneseo. This class that I have been so fortunate to have been enrolled in is the perfect capstone to my life in this town, and I look forward to falling even more in love with this valley village town as I discover its rich history even further. And someday I know I will look back fondly and feel a greater sense of personal history here, and Geneseo will have its place in memoirs of my own.

Salut!

I made it safe and sound to Montpellier and have been living the good, actually I think I should say GREAT life, for the past four weeks.  The spring semester has only just begun, but I feel like I have been living in Montpellier for my whole life.

The Arc de Triomphe

Everywhere I turn Montpellier has something new to show me.  On my first weekend I saw Louis XIV’s Arc de Triomphe, which was amazing.  I had seen pictures of it in my history books, but to see the Arc in real life, to see history in real life every single day is so exciting!

My French has improved so much already, just the other day I went to the train station to buy a student discount pass and the woman helping me did not switch to English.  She actually could understand me speak and we were able to have an  conversation without broken sentences or missing words.

I’m off to Italy in a week to do some exploring over my winter break, but until then it is back to work and speaking French.  I’ll leave you with one of the most delicious meals I have had as of yet, crepes! À bientôt!

Dinner Crepe

Dessert Crepe

Opportunity

I tell a lot of people that I walked in to Geneseo as a physics major. They ooh and ahh at me, then laugh and say “well why did you switch?” I usually answer by explaining that I couldn’t see myself being a physics teacher, or even starting some sort of research. I have to come clean, though, about a certain detail in this story.

I was never a physics major.

Freshman year I came to Geneseo thinking I wanted to be a physics teacher. I was “undeclared,” and my adviser told me that if I didn’t start taking physics classes right away, it would be hard for me to catch up. Worried that I would ruin my entire future, I enrolled in Analytical Physics I and Calculus. At that point, I was taking all the classes that a first semester freshman would take as a physics major, hence the title I gave myself. Half way through the semester, though, I thought to myself, self, do you really see yourself doing this? The answer, of course, was no.

That same semester, I also enrolled in a Computer Art course, which was something I considered as a hobby at the time. I loved working with Adobe Photoshop and taking pictures, and I figured that taking Computer Art would be an easy way to complete my Fine Arts requirement. As the semester went on, I realized how much I truly enjoyed working with computer graphics, and it became easier and easier to see myself in this field when I graduated.

If we fast forward to the second semester of my Junior year here at Geneseo, I am now a Communication major with minors in Graphics Production and Computer Science. So how exactly did I move from Physics to this crazy mix of departments? It was simple. I took classes in all of these departments and enjoyed them. I spent the rest of my freshman year and the beginning of my sophomore simply trying out different topics, and eventually dedicated myself to those fields.

I still see myself working in computer graphics, but now in more of a “marketing” sense. Had I locked myself in to a Physics degree, I would have never taken courses in these other departments and realized what I truly wanted to do with my life.

You may walk in to college knowing exactly what degree you want out of it, but odds are you’ll find that freshman-year-you is completely wrong about what senior-year-you ends up doing, and that’s ok. Take advantage of the opportunities that Geneseo gives you within the General Education Requirements, because you never know what you’ll enjoy most until you try it.

I love my extra-curricular activities!

If you are considering applying (or have been accepted!) to Geneseo, then chances are that you are a pretty well rounded student. Sports, arts, community service, and of course a grueling academic schedule. Hopefully you partook in all these activities because they were things that you enjoyed. A lot people believe that when you go to college you can’t be part of those activities that you enjoyed so much in high school. They think the college-level may be too hard or that there will be no time to do those things. I’m here to tell you that at Geneseo that is absolutely not the case! I am a double major (Biology and Psychology) with a dance minor and pre-med concentration. Yikes! Why a dance minor you ask? Well, that was my activity in high school. I have been dancing for almost 19 years now and it something that I could never imagine living without. For me, my dance classes here at Geneseo are an escape from my academic workload. They give me a chance to participate in something I thoroughly love and to have a little bit of “me” time. Geneseo is very accommodating to the “well-rounded student.” Many of our students participate in the arts, sports, and various clubs on campus. When you come here, you can take part in anything that you desire. If you played basketball in high school for instance, and you don’t want to go all the way to the varsity level, we have intra-mural and club sports that are definitely for you. If you played the flute in your high school band, we have numerous musical groups and classes. The best part is that you don’t have to be a music major or minor to be part of these groups. I’m often asked on my tours what my favorite part about Geneseo is, and I usually talk about this very aspect. You have numerous opportunities here to do the things that you love. This is such an amazing experience that not all colleges offer. I believe that being able to continue dancing at college has made my college experience a thousand times better than it would have been if I hadn’t been able to. College is a place where you are able to reinvent yourself if you so choose, by trying new activities, but you can also regain those features of high school that you loved so much. Here you can continue your education in the aspects of arts or sports and perhaps even learn more or think about them differently after approaching them from the college level. To me, this is what truly has made Geneseo a special place.

Back on Campus!

Hey Everyone!

Like I promised, we’re back for the Spring Semester up here at Geneseo!

There’s always something really exciting about the start of a new semester. Call me a nerd (I am, it’s no secret), but I always get really excited for new classes. I purposely register for things that look really interesting to me and have rarely been disappointed. This semester, that means 2 math classes, 1 writing workshop, 1 directed study on the history of science, and 1 TA position for a section of Creative Writing.

There’s also a lot of new faces on campus and in my residence hall. I’ve met some of them, and they seem to be acclimating nicely to Geneseo. Another Status Update: It’s cold up here, but that’s to be expected from winter. It’s actually kind of cool, since it didn’t snow downstate all break.

Currently, I’m at Starbucks in the college union after a long day of classes. My first class actually started as late as 11:30 this morning, for the first time in my college career. I definitely expected to become a slob, sleeping in until 11, so I’ve surprised myself by actually waking up as early as 9. It’s nice to have time in the morning to make coffee and get some work done before classes even start for the day. While that productivity was nice, it’s nice to have some downtime. My friends and I are catching up about our first few days of classes, and the weekend starts tomorrow! We’re hoping to catch Geneseo’s Vocal Miscellany’s performance of Spring Awakening and maybe a movie at the theatre (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is coming out, and that was one of my favorite books).

So we’re back at Geneseo and getting back into the swing of things. Every time I get back on campus after a long break, it feels like I never left. There’s a lot going on here this semester: Fusion Market, a brand new cafe, is opening in the union; Many, many student productions are being produced over in the Theatre Department; a whole bunch of experimental courses are being offered, including “Survival Art,” “History of Physical Science,” and “Tropical Marine Ecology”; Humans Vs. Zombies is gearing up for another round in Spring; and we’ll be continuing to blog about all that and more.

In conclusion, here is a picture of winter Geneseo, and we’ll keep you posted as to what else is going on here!

Cheers!
Suraj U.