Hi!

My name is Miranda, and I’m from Culver City, CA, which is part of Los Angeles County. As of Spring 2011, I'm officially majoring in Political Science (although that decision was a long time coming) and minoring in Africana Studies (a newer development that I wasn't expecting but I'm happy about). I like reading cheesy novels, running through sprinklers, and making/eating delicious food. When I grow up/graduate I want to 1) Be happy; 2) Be a teacher; and 3) Help reform and improve our education system.

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Why Hopkins?

I love the fact that Hopkins doesn’t have a core curriculum – I knew I wanted to take classes in different areas (so I’m fine with distribution requirements), but I wanted to choose the classes myself. I also love the community here – I’ve met so many great people and have a wonderful circle of friends. Lastly, not to sound shallow, but Homewood is a beautiful campus! 

You can also read more about why I chose Hopkins here and here.

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Classes

AP Credits
AP Chemistry (General Chemistry I/II and Lab I/II)
AP Statistics (Statistical Analysis I, waived Spring 2013)
AP Macroeconomics (Macroeconomics)
AP Calculus AB (Calculus I)

Fall 2009
Discrete Math
Medieval World
Contemporary International Politics
High Intermediate French I
Expository Writing: Education and the American Dream

Spring 2010
Elements of Microeconomics
High Intermediate French II
Comparative Politics
Human Rights and Anthropology
Guided Tour of the Planets

Summer 2010
Applied Forensic Psychology

Fall 2010
Advanced Writing and Speaking in French I
World Prehistory
American Constitutional Law
Introduction to Urban Policy
Urban Policy Internship

Intersession 2011
Inventing Language
Science of Baking

Spring 2011
Advanced Writing and Speaking in French II
Courts, Politics, and Public Policy
Constitutional Law
Education Politics in Urban America
Law and Psychology

Fall 2011
La France Contemporaine I
Introduction to History of Africa Since 1880
Policy Disasters
Urban Politics and Policy
The Constitution and the Criminal Justice System

Intersession 2012
Mind the Gap

Spring 2012
La France Contemporaine II
Spanish Elements I
Social Organization and Social Control in Schools
Images and Reality: Native Americans in History
Advanced Seminar in Constitutional Law: Comparative Constitutional Law

Fall 2012
Developmental Psychology
Spanish Elements II
Introduction to Race and Ethnicity
Comparative Political Philosophy
Independent Study (Senior Thesis)

Spring 2013
Statistical Analysis I
Men and Women in Society
Lectures in Public Health and Wellbeing in Baltimore
Senior Thesis: Political Science


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My Activities

Mock Trial - I wasn't actually sure if I wanted to do Mock Trial in college, but I'm so glad I decided to go to that first information session. I started out as a confused freshman, and for the past two years, I've served as Vice President. This year, I'm the Curriculum Chair and captaining one of the development teams, which I'm really excited for. I love practically everything about Mock Trial - tackling a new case, trying to figure out how to work in new evidence, travelling to other schools for tournaments, and most importantly, the wonderful circle of friends I've made through it. Mock Trial's been one of the biggest parts of my life at school, and I'm sosososo glad that I'm part of it.

Tutorial Project - For Tutorial, we work one-on-one with a Baltimore City elementary/middle school student. Freshman year, I tutored a fourth grade girl - the two of us worked really well together, and I could see major improvements in her work throughout the year. Last year, I had a wonderful, sweet, friendly second grade girl, who unfortunately had to leave the program partway through the year. Now, I'm working with a second grade boy who teaches me how to be a spy and how not to lose at basketball (and I work with him on math and reading and writing too). We also get playtime, which is a great break from being a college student!

Admissions! - I do a lot of work with Admissions - I'm part of SAAB (the wonderful group that brings you Hopkins Interactive!), Blue Key (we give tours - check out when you can go on a tour here), and Admissions Representatives (the people who conduct on-campus interviews). I also have a job in Mason Hall working for Admissions_Laurin (along with my awesome coworkers/SAABuddies). I like working with prospective students, and giving them a chance to see all that Hopkins can offer.

Summer Jobs at Hopkins
I've spent the last three summers here on campus, and I've found jobs through Hopkins all three years. For my first two years, I was working for the JHU Pre-College program as a Resident Advisor, as well as working in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Working in Admissions has shown me the other side of what often appears to be a very mysterious process, and has let me connect with a lot of prospective and incoming students. I loved practically everything about Pre-College--it's like working at a summer camp for almost-college-students. During both years, the staff really connected, and helped create an amazing summer. This summer, I have an internship through the Center for Social Concern's Community Impact Internship Program, working at a start-up education non-profit in Baltimore. It's taught me a lot about the non-profit world, as well as other skills like grant writing and promotion.  Staying in Baltimore for the summer has also had other benefits--I've had much more time to explore the city, and take advantage of all the events that occur over the summer here!

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Dorm Life

Last year as a freshman, I lived in AMR I in Sylvester House (you can check out my cribs blog here. AMR I is the oldest dorm on campus, hall-style, non-air conditioned, and multiple people visiting me have told me it reminds them of Hogwarts. I loved living there - it was a great way to meet people, and many of my closest friends are from Sylvester. Last year I lived in McCoy, on 4 East, as part of Group Housing (which basically means I was living with some of my best friends). Although McCoy isn't a lot of people's first choice, I really liked living in McCoy, and had a great experience there. As a junior, I lived off campus with one of my best friends in a wonderful apartment with a great kitchen and view. Initially, I thought I'd want to stay on campus for all four years, but I'm really glad I made the switch to off campus for part of my time as an undergraduate. This past year showed me that I could live in a "grown up apartment" and go grocery shopping and remember to pay rent, all in the controlled setting of still being at school! This year brings another change: being an RA in Charles Commons (my move-in in August marked my eighth move since moving in to AMR I freshman year!). During junior year, I realized how much I missed Pre-College and residential life, and I'm really excited for this experience.

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Follow Me!
Read my blog, Miranda Writes to learn more about my life at Hopkins (and probably find some more awkward puns).
Check out my profile.
And ask me a question here!

Yay vegetarians! You'll find a good group at Hopkins...don't you worry!

Haha, awesome! (About being able to find a group AND about the blog post). :)
I look forward to reading it.

what?? What's Vegan?? Vegan = Vegetarian???

I never heard that word befo O_o

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: vegans eschew all foods that are animal products, not just meat and seafood. For instance, traditional vegetarians still eat eggs and dairy products, but vegans don't. (One of the three roommates whom I had for both sophomore and junior years was a vegetarian who considered going vegan at one point.)

Pescatarians eat fish, dairy, and eggs.
Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat dairy and eggs.
Vegans don't eat any animal products (even if the animal didn't die).

Greco - I think the word vegan was shortened from vegetarian!

That is interesting!
Did the word vegetable come from vegetus? It would make sense that those words were all descended from that root!

Well, it's second semester now, so here's a brief listing of my classes and activities!

Microeconomics (Bruce Hamilton) - JHU_Daniel, JHU_Keith, and JHU_Mandy are all in this class, which would be more of a coincidence if there weren't about 500 people in this class! Yes, it is a big lecture class, but we do have 20 person sections weekly (Keith is in my section, which is more of a coincidence!). So far, it's been a lot more abstract than I was used to in macro in high school, but it's been manageable, albeit with a lot of studying.

High Intermediate French II (Christian Kittery) - This is a continuation of last semester's French class. It's taught be someone else this semester, and although it's a different teaching style it's still interesting. We start off every day with a French tongue twister, so that's one way of seeing if everyone's awake!

Comparative Politics (Juan Wang) - This is an introductory level look at various governments and political structures around the world. It's also got a lot of their basic history, which has been really interesting to learn (and I'm sure will be really useful). Section for this class has also been really thought provoking and interesting!

Freshman Seminar: Human Rights and Anthropology (Isaias Rojas-Perez) - When I signed up for this class, I wasn't entirely sure what it would be about - I just saw the words "law" and "court cases," and figured I'd probably enjoy it. I was right, although we haven't even gotten to that section of the class yet. For the first few weeks, we were discussing more abstract anthropological concepts, and how anthropologists view human rights, but we've started looking at specific cases. It's been very enlightening - I'm learning about events we don't really cover in most curriculums!

Guided Tour of the Planets (Bruce Marsh and Darrell Strobel) - This is a basic astronomy class for non-science majors. Although most people are in this class to get their N/Q requirements, the professors really care about the subject, and have in turn caused a group of humanities and social science majors to care about something that they thought they wouldn't!

As for my other activities, those have stayed the same this semester! In Tutorial, I'm still working with my same student, which is great, because we've already connected, and so we can just pick up where we left off (or, actually a little ahead!). Mock Trial (as any of you who've read my blogs recently can tell you), has been crazier than ever, but for the most part just as fun. We've all been putting more time in this semester, and it's definitely shown! In fact, we just got a mention in the News-Letter! Obviously, I'm still in SAAB, but it's gotten busier too, as we plan things for this spring - check out Hopkins Interactive and stay tuned!

Hi,

Here's a brief overview of the classes - let me know if you have more questions about them!

Contemporary International Politics - Stephen David
This is a great introductory political science class. It covers basic theories like realism, and then sees how they apply/don't apply when looking at various political events. We started with the Peloponnesian War, but most of the time was spent on post-Napoleon onwards. The class has lecture twice a week - the lectures are AMAZING. They're podcasted, but they're definitely entertaining to listen to in person! Lots of notes to take here - I ended up with 4-6 handwritten pages per 50 minute lecture. There's also a once a week discussion section. There's a midterm, a final, and a 10ish page final paper.

Medieval World - Gabrielle Spiegel
This is the first segment of the Occidental Civilization sequence (however, you can still take the classes in any order). It covers from the Fall of Rome until the beginning of the Renaissance. It focuses a lot on how religion affected politics and social life. There's a lot of really interesting material, and it's definitely useful to have some knowledge on what happened during that thousand or so years! The class has two lectures a week and a discussion section. I didn't have as many notes for this class - the way lectures are done it's told as more of a story than a bunch of facts all thrown out there, if that makes sense. There's a midterm, a final, and weekly 2-3 page response papers on the reading (writing intensive class).

High Intermediate French
There are two intermediate French classes - Intermediate and High Intermediate. The class you take depends on your placement test score, which you'll take online at some point before class registration. The class covers a lot of grammar throughout the year (some review, some new, depending on your high school experience). The class meets three times a week, and you spend most of the time working on speaking and listening. There is homework (for working on reading comprehension/grammar/writing), papers every other week (which you re-do and get some points back) and about 6 quizzes, but NO final.

I found it was definitely manageable to handle these three courses in addition to the others I was taking (including another writing intensive class!). They're all great classes, so sit in the first week and see what you like! Hope this helped, and if you have any other questions, please ask!

I just wanted to say thanks for sharing your blog. I was looking at your activities and I thought they were really interesting. If I get the opportunity to attend Hopkins I think I will be more than willing to work at admissions. Does everyone get the opportunity to work there? Could you please explain exactly what Mock Trial is? Thanks.

I know there was a lot of discussion earlier about being vegetarian. I finally got around to writing about vegetarian food options at Hopkins...read about them here!

Hi Rachel,

I'm a current freshman on Mock Trial with Miranda and fellow freshman JHU_Kevin (http://www.hopkins-interactive.com/forums/meet-the-class-of-2015/meet-jhu_kevin-southport-ct/).

 As far as who can do Mock Trial, it's open to anyone.  Tryouts are typically in the first few weeks of school.  If you want to be a witness they had one of the upperclassmen attorneys (like Miranda) cross-examine you, and if you wanted to be an attorney you had to prepare a cross-examination of a witness played by an upperclassman.  Some kids come in with no Mock Trial experience, while others, like Kevin, Miranda, and I, come having done it in high school (I was a double attorney on my high school team, went to state, nats, etc.)  This year the highest ranked freshmen at tournaments were evenly split between those who had mock trial experience and those who didn't, so this is really an activity that anyone can excel in if they want to put the time and effort in. 

As far as freshman roles, it really depends on what your strengths are.  Since the case changes every year, different witnesses are needed and the person who's really good at playing a nerdy expert witness one year might be better at being an attorney for the defendant next year.  I was a double attorney this year with a closing, and Kevin actually played THREE witnesses one weekend (in college you have more witnesses to choose from and you don't know what witnesses the other team will pick until a half hour before the trial begins.)  There was never any talk along the lines of, "Oh you're only a freshman so you can't be an attorney/be an expert witness/have an opening/have a closing."

As far as tournaments, the freshman this year went to at least three tournaments (Penn State, University of Pennsylvania, and regional competition either at Drexel University or University of Maryland).  Some of our upperclassmen went to about five or six tournaments this year because they advanced past regional competition.)  Some freshman went to a tournament at Fordham University during the month of January, and that tournament was a boatload of fun.  I wrote a few blogs about the first two tournaments if you want to know some of the hijinks:
http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/2015/2011/11/a-weekend-as-the-law-microblogging-a-mock-trial-tournament/
http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/2015/2011/10/we-are-the-law/

If you're looking to do mock trial to gain relevant experience in preparation for law school or something of that nature I can safely say that the team is pretty good at that as well.  I know a freshman on the team who started interning at the Baltimore City Attorney's Office by the start of her second semester, one of our seniors just got his dream job as a paralegal in NYC while he gains work experience before applying to law school, and I was offered an internship at the District Attorney's Office in Brooklyn this summer.  The team and its individual members also place well in tournaments, (Miranda and I both were named Outstanding Advocates at the Fordham Tournament).  If you're interested in law, JHU also has a pre-law advising system to check out, (http://web.jhu.edu/prepro/law/index.html) although you might be surprised to find a lot of people on the Hopkins Mock Trial team aren't necessarily interested in going to law school but just really like mock trial (one of my freshman friends on the team was a computer science major pre-med). 

Overall, mock trial has been a blast as a freshman.  I've been able to continue doing something I loved in high school, I've met a lot of cool people, and I've traveled up and down the East Coast.  Sorry if this was a little long.