Mount Hood

Students give advice on preparing for midterms

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

Armed with caffeine and study guides, students of Western are starting to take on their first midterms of 2019. If anyone made new year’s resolutions to study more, they will be tested starting this week.

In order to help everyone breeze through their midterms, or maybe just survive them with minimal panic involved, some of Western’s students offered their advice.

Grad student group Tanya Stanley, Mackenzie Gallo, Sara Chavez and Jonathan West-Gray had an abundance of tips from years of experience.

Chavez: “Don’t panic. Get organized, set up a schedule.”

Stanley: “It may seem obvious, but sleep. And eat. It’s important.”

Gallo: “Use the rentable study rooms in the library.”

West-Gray: “Use a planner; space out your studying.”

Keith Macadangdang, a business major: “Persevere! Power through, even when all you want to do is watch Netflix.” Macadangdang, who is minoring in dance, has five finals this term.

Rebecca Chadd, a Western alumna: “Actually write out the practice essay questions on the study guide. Don’t just read over the questions and assume you know it all. Writing it out will help you find gaps in what you know and make you more confident.” Chadd graduated with a double major in dance and Spanish, and is still active in Western’s community.

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Meyers

An interview with one of Western’s YouTubers

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

Western on Instagram is full of posts of school spirit, friendships and everyday life in Monmouth. It’s also where to find first-year Melinda Ortega, who goes by Mel on social media.

On @makeupbyymel_ and @hennasbymel, Ortega showcases her makeup and henna skills in short tutorial clips and photos. Ortega also has a YouTube channel where she vlogs. In a time where social media is so saturated with people making content, I was curious to hear about the process from a Western student.

Talking with Ortega, I learned that she is from a small town in California.

“Most people don’t know where it is,” she explained with a laugh, saying she usually had to explain its relativity to Los Angeles. She got to Western through her sport, soccer, and is deciding between being an education or a communications major.

Her content, however, is something she’s more sure about.

“I’m less comfortable talking at a camera,” she explained in relation to the style and presentation of her content. This is largely why her makeup tutorials are shorter and posted on Instagram rather than YouTube.

For Ortega, her activity on social media began just for fun during her senior year of high school. She drew inspiration from famous YouTubers like James Charles and PatrickStarr. However, as she developed her filming and editing skills, she said she began to think, “maybe this can go somewhere.”

For now, her following is small.

“(The comments) are mostly my friends and family encouraging me right now,” she told me. However, she’s preparing for the opportunity to grow her brand and her presence on social media. So far, one success she’s had is that some lash brands have asked her to promote them. She’s also slowly developing her filming and editing skills.

“At first it took me three hours to edit a one minute video,” she revealed.

However, if she does gain more of a following, she knows the internet trolls will inevitably come as well. That doesn’t mean she intends to slow down, though: “I’m curious and nervous to see what the mean comments say.”

To any others who are considering starting their own channel, Ortega advised, “Just do it! They always say to just do you, so that’s what I try to do and what my advice is.”

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Melinda Ortega

How to start a new club

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

Western is home to a wide variety of clubs and organizations, from Unidos to the Communication club to the Triangle Alliance. There’s something for just about everyone. However, there’s always room for growth, especially when there are so many topics and interests to cover. For those considering adding to Western’s collection, here’s the basic steps needed to create a new student organization.


Step One: One of the first things a club needs, aside from its founder, is an adviser. Advisers aren’t students but are often professors in topics related to the club. Before moving onto the next step, the club will also have to recruit a minimum of five student members.

Step Two: The founder(s) can start the registration process on OrgSync through Portal, where other students can join the club. The application requires a name for the organization and a categorization of the club — Greek, academic, student government, etc. It also has a place for the founders to give a brief description, a website, and keywords to help other students find the club based on their interests. The organization will also need some way for others to contact, such as their own email address and someone to be in charge of said address.
Step Three: All the organization will then need before becoming official is a meeting time and place, as well as a president and any other positions needed by the club.

Step Four: The organization will also require someone to write a constitution outlining the guidelines and a mission statement to inform potential members of the organization’s purpose.

 

The process may be long and difficult, but worth it in the long run to help more students find a group they find interest and belonging in.

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton

Clubs from Western’s history

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

Today, Western has grown to around 5,000 students, and with the population the number of clubs has grown. We have a number of clubs that are more recent additions, but some, like some of the fraternities and the Black Student Union, have been around for a few decades. Others have come and gone.  In the 1940’s, Western had many clubs that have since died on campus.

International Relations Club: Before Model United Nations — and not too long after the real United Nations was formed — there was the International Relations club. At first it may not seem so long ago, until reading the yearbooks that stated a “tour of Hawaii” speech was given 1948, before Hawaii even joined the United States.

Archery Club: An all girls club, the archery organization advertised in a yearbook from the 1940s as the embodiment of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest. The team practiced in an indoor shooting range in the basement of Campbell Hall, or in an open field near campus. They also competed in the National Archery Tournament.

The Campfire Girls: Another all girls organization from 1940, the Campfire Girls sponsored a number of school events and guest speakers — including a monthly Charm School. In one case, the guest speaker was a Native American woman from another school who talked about the meaning behind certain Native crafts and traditions.

Wolf Knights: A men’s service organization that lasted from the 1930s through the 1970’s, the Wolf Knights volunteered as the “official welcoming” and student advisors to Western’s campus.

La Danza Club: Meeting twice weekly in the 1950s, La Danza was a club that encouraged enthusiasm for creative dance.

Forensics: Created in the 1960s and lasting through the 1970s, the co-ed Forensics club went to annual competitions to test their public speaking skills and brought home a number of trophies and awards.

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu

Jubilee’s just desserts

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

There’s a new place in town — specifically, in downtown Independence. The previously empty corner store on Monmouth Street is now Jubilee, a dessert bar that also serves coffee, wine, mimosas and beers. The shop, under the same owner as Salem’s Sugar Sugar, is noticeable by its simple lit window sign.

In my opinion, Jubilee has a lot of pros. For one, it’s very open inside and a lot of effort clearly went into the appearance and feel of the shop. It’s a cute place with a laid-back atmosphere, which perfectly fit the lazy afternoon when I went.

The menu is clearly laid out and categorized by sparkling drinks, coffee and tea and desserts. The desserts, consisting mostly of baked goods such as cupcakes and tartlets, are the main attraction so far. While not all of their options are gluten free, they still have a number of them on their display, such as the chocolate cake. I tried one of my favorite combinations with their dark chocolate caramel filled tartlet, which was rich but very enjoyable. I also sampled their butterscotch crumble cupcake, which was a little sweeter but had a good balance between the sweetness and the more bitter chocolate crumble; I almost wished I’d gotten that instead.

The making of Jubilee is still in progress, however, a detail to consider when visiting. Their hours may be inconsistent, but they are currently open most days from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. They are also still working on honing their recipe for the ice cream jubilee, a kind of homemade ice cream that they plan to have as a main selling point on their dessert menu.

The only main downside to Jubilee is the lack of foods other than dessert. The drinks menu is ideal for a brunch, but as of now the food options are limited to sweets without any breakfast foods. However, the business is still new and it will be interesting to see if they decide to expand the menu. It will also be interesting to see if what they choose to do with the back room, which is currently only used for reservations for private parties.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to Jubilee and will likely return in the future, both for a butterscotch crumble cupcake and to see if there are any changes.

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton

Interview: Auditing classes for personal growth

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle editor

If there’s anything nearly all students can relate to, it’s the stress of class requirements, grades and graduation. This is often related to the further stress of thinking about where graduation will then take us, and our entrance into the real world.

Some students, however, have already been into the real world and have found that it still leads back to Western. In most cases, these nontraditional students are also aiming for a degree of some kind. This is not the case for student Paul McNeil, who is taking classes purely for the purpose of continuing his education. As this is an experience I can’t relate to, I asked for an interview to get a different perspective.

With a backpack full of textbooks, McNeil, despite the age difference to most students, seems to fit in with the college kids lounging in the Werner University Center — maybe because he has been attending college classes for years, and not just at Western. He continued studying long after earning a degree in physics, a major he picked because, according to McNeil, “it challenged me the most.”

“I could drop into any department (at Western) and find something interesting to study,” McNeil said in regards to the contrast in his classes. Though his physics degree took him through careers in technology and engineering, he now takes courses such as Economic Geography and Transnational Migration. He was drawn to these classes by the desire to learn about “how the world is set up financially,” he mentioned, and how this affects global inequality and society.

McNeil audits the classes, meaning he doesn’t have to worry about a grade — although, as he points out, the instructor is still free to call on him and ask for contribution to the discussion, and so the familiar mantra of “make sure you do the reading” is echoed in this situation.

As a senior citizen, McNeil also gets to audit classes for free with permission of the professor. This is a point he emphasized, as it is a little known fact that others might be able to take advantage of. He revealed there are other additional benefits of auditing classes.

“My initial thought…was that getting a student card would allow me access to the university’s library database,” he said, appreciating the extensiveness of Hamersly Library and noting that not every library has such range.

Overall, the conversation, for me, turned out to be a much needed reminder that studying for a degree is important, but continuing education for personal self growth is as well. Before parting, McNeil commented that students these days have a wealth of information at their fingertips, and that it can be beneficial to explore all options: “Students shouldn’t feel so pressured to choose …there is so much information to explore, and finding the right thing can take some time.”

 

Contact the author at howllifestyle@mail.wou.edu

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