Life as a Smithie

I graduated Smith this May, and I'll be working in my hometown Tokyo, Japan for the next few years! I will work in an US based company where my job as a Clinical Research Associate will be to coordinate clinical research trials in Japanese hospitals. I plan on continuing to work on women's education in various volunteer opportunities as well. After some work experience and getting to know Japan, I hope to go to graduate school for a Masters in Public Health.

I just thought I should write it here to let anybody who may still be around know about my life after Smith. Although I will not be continuing to blog here, my life is forever changed because of my experiences at Smith, and I will always be a Smithie.

My "Life as a Smithie" will continue outside of Tumblr. Feel free to message me if you're interested. And definitely check out the younger Smithies who are continuing to blog!

Me during Fall Break:*Watches YouTube, sleeps late, wakes up late, cooks curry, forgets about the list*

Last night, I took an exam for Animal Physiology (wasn’t so happy with my performance), and stayed up until 1:30am finishing up a reading for my Education class and planning to stay up later to finish the problem set due at 11:00am the next day. In between chapters, I decided to take a nap to recharge myself, but ended up falling asleep in my bed with the laptop on my lap and the lights still on. It only felt like a blink, but when I opened my eyes it was 7:00am. And I thought to myself, wow if today isn’t Mountain Day I’m going to be in real trouble. Crossing my fingers I wait, and... the bells rang! 

Thank. Goodness.

When I’m overwhelmed that I CAN’T fit all of my relevant experiences in my resume... Applying to my first internship three years ago, I couldn’t find ENOUGH experiences to put in a resume.

I always thought that the older Smith friends who had so many high quality experiences on their resume were some sort of semi-goddess beings. Turns out they were normal people, just very outgoing and ambitious. And now maybe I am one of them?

So glad I made it through another week of classes, busy meetings, and sleep deprivation. It’s all bearable if I remember that there is always warm soup noodles at the end of the week.  

At last, my last Fall semester at Smith (I hope...)! I cannot begin to explain how busy I was this week... Mostly, it was very hectic because I was trying to figure out all the credits I needed for this year for me to graduate in May. I also had to fill out a form to declare my Education minor and a Special Studies with the Biology lab I am a part of. All of this just means that I had to run around campus trying to catch professor’s signatures while weaving in all the other meetings-- ASA EBoard meetings, HANABI meetings, lab meetings and others-- and keeping up with all the class assignments.

This semester will be the time where my organizational skills, physical and mental limits will be challenged. I am overloaded with credits, way beyond the average 16 credits. 

Classes I’m taking Fall 2016 1. Medical Anthropology 2. Animal Physiology 3. Developmental Biology 4. Special Studies for Zebrafish Outreach  5. Individual Differences Amongst Learners  6. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhist Debate 

Individually, all of these classes are very interesting and I want to take them. Only time will tell how practical it is in reality. I will probably be changing one (or two) of these classes to a pass-fail grading!

Aside from classes, I’m still a core member of the Asian Students’ Association (ASA), I’ll be continuing my work on Leadership and Action for Determined Youth (LADY), singing in cultural events through HANABI, and organising get-togethers for Japanese Smith students as always. Some new things I am doing this year is that I am the House Social Event Coordinator (HSEC) for Parsons House, which means that I will plan events for the house. And I am also a Campus Ambassador for CET Academic Programs, which I studied abroad through in Vietnam. So I will also be coordinating events on Smith campus to promote CET and study abroad in general.

Hi!

Thank you for asking :) 

As an international student, it was difficult for me to make friends with students from the US at first because I didn’t always understand the context of conversation topics and jokes/sarcasm between the US students. But the very first friends and the closest friends I made were international students I met at the International Students’ Pre-Orientation (ISP). Some of them shared similar struggles with connecting with US students and we bonded over being international students.

After several years of being a part of the Asian Students’ Association and taking classes in various departments, I gradually accumulated a handful of friends outside of my initial circle of friends. At one point, I was worried that I wasn’t making enough American friends and thus not getting the most out of my experience at Smith. But I think that friendship will naturally grow out of common interests and experiences, so I stopped worrying and started focusing on searching for meaningful friendships, whether they be American or International.

As for housing, you’ll get room draw information via email just like everybody else while you are abroad. You can select to stay in your same house or move out. That’s what happened while I was abroad. So as long as you check your Smith email often and you are mindful of the time difference (unlike me…), everything should work out!

I hope this is helpful!