I graduate in nine days. It's surreal to think that four classes and three finals are all that stand between me and the end of my undergraduate career. Unlike some of my friends, this is not the end of school for me. I'm really excited to be starting the next phase of my life at HUC. But the Penn State chapter of my life is almost ever. It's hard to believe that four years has gone by so quickly. 

It feels like yesterday when I was complaining about living in an all girls dorm in East, the furthest possible building from anything on campus except the BJC and Beaver Stadium. Freshman year, it took five minutes just to get out of my quad. I remember my first week when I downloaded a map of Penn State onto my phone so it wouldn't look like I was a lost freshman when I was a lost freshman. I didn't want to be one of the newbies carrying around a map as I got lost on my way to class. So I carried my phone and got lost anyways. One day I was wandering around campus and managed to find my way down near the nuclear reactor. After that excursion, I quickly learned how this campus was laid out. 

Sophomore year, I moved into sorority life. No I did not join Greek life, I just lived one floor below and above them. I could hear them clacking in the stairwells as they got ready to go to a party and I could hear them in their common rooms as they practiced initiation rituals. It certainly was an experience. Sophomore year, I was finding my groove. I was a member of the Hillel student board, a teacher at Brit Shalom, a member of the PLA, and on a THON committee. I was getting involved and finding my niche at PSU. 

Junior year was a challenge, I had just changed my major, spent a trying and course-loaded semester without my boyfriend who was studying abroad, and learned that my dad was fighting cancer. I changed during the summer between sophomore and junior year. I had many new challenges thrown in my face and had to learn in a short amount of time how to handle them in my own way. I grew up a lot that summer. And the beginning of junior year I had to again figure out how to handle these struggles in front of my friends. I wasn't the same easy-going girl they had left three months earlier. I was scarred and scared, nervous and emotional, while trying to put on a brave face. 

Senior year was kind of a break. Things were working out with my family. I had a plan for graduate school. I was working on my thesis. My classes were not so hard. This semester is one of the lightest semesters I've taken at Penn State. I have two days off without classes and am only taking four classes MWF, three of which are freshman level courses. Most of my friends are stressed trying to complete end of the semester assignments while I'm sitting here, reflecting on my time at Penn State and trying to make the most of the nine days I have left here. 

It has been an incredible journey and if I could do it again, I wouldn't change anything, because all of my experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly have all made me who I am today. I would not be the person writing to you right now if weren't for Hillel, Brit Shalom, and the PLA. As you can read in my various essays and blog posts, these organizations have shaped my Penn State career into something that I will cherish forever. 

For the Glory

This week, Steven wrote in his blog about the end of the semester blues. And while I have been in his shoes, I am thankful that this semester I am not. He spoke about the influx of school work that really make him question what's the purpose of his work here. He knows what he wants out of school, but has to work that much harder to see the purpose of theory and discovery as he calls it. I admire his comment where he said he just needs a reminder from the people around him of why he's here studying at Penn State. I guess one of the big differences between myself and Steven is that he came to Penn State knowing what he was going to study and what he was going to do after school. I however came thinking one thing and then found my passion during my career here. When I got overwhelmed and lost sight of my purpose, rather than looking for reminders of hope, I found a new direction where my classes and extracurriculars reminded me everyday of what and why I was studying here. When Steven asked, "why am I stressing about an engineering question" he answered it knowing that application of what he was learning was much more important in the long run than the specific details of chemical orientation. On the other hand, when I asked myself the same question two years ago, my answer was "I don't know" and promptly switched my major. I give Steven credit for sticking with his program and I wish him all the best of luck in the next two weeks! I, however, am enjoying the last weeks of senior year from the comforts of my apartment and the various lawns around campus as I relax with some netflix and a good book. :)

Well, it's finished. All 99 pages of it. It's hard to imagine that I could write 99 pages on a single topic in the course of a 16-credit semester and four part-time jobs. While yes this semester was a "light" course load for me, writing 99 pages did not feel as cumbersome as I thought it would. And I'm quite proud of the finished product. 
For my honors thesis, I wrote about the Hebrew school curriculum in two synagogues that I'm connected with. They both use the same curriculum and have interesting similarities and differences that could potentially affect the effectiveness of the curriculum. CHAI was developed by the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) as a way of nationalizing Reform Jewish values in American congregations. There are seven levels, sub divided into strands that are continuous throughout all the levels. The lessons plans are carefully outlined to transfer enduring understandings or big ideas to students focusing on Reform Jewish values. There is a lot of front matter, introductory material that contextualizes the lesson for the teacher before the lesson outline and learning activities. As a teacher and a college student, I can say first hand that the front matter typically gets ignored by my peers and they head straight for the learning activities when planning their lesson for the class. Without that introductory material, the teachers potentially miss learning about the importance of certain questions or activities. 

The purpose of my thesis was to explore the effectiveness of this curriculum in a setting of mostly college-student teaches versus part time professionals (most of the teachers at the other school work full time and teach on the side, they are also older than their students, especially when compared to the age differences between college students and elementary school kids. The different learning philosophies of the education director and the emphasis on education within both synagogues also has affects on the effectiveness of the curriculum, in addition to classroom size and congregation size. 

I surveyed teachers, students, and education directors at both schools with the hope of equalizing the questions in order to effectively compare the differences of the schools. In addition to analyzing my survey in the paper, I provided background information on education in the Reform movement, backward design, which is the educational theory on which CHAI is based, a brief history of the schools I worked with, and examined previous studies similar to the one I was about to conduct. 

This is the largest work I have ever written. And besides its length, I am proud of my thesis because the topic is something I am deeply passionate about. This kind of work is what I will be doing after graduate school. Not on this scale, but analyzing curricula is an important job of the education director at a school to make sure that the lessons that are being taught first are taught well but also that they fit with the philosophy of the school and synagogue. When I went for my interview at grad school, I was able to talk about what I was researching and the interview committee was impressed. Some of the teachers and education directors I worked with were curious to see the finished product to see what I had come up with. I hope that this thesis exemplifies my ability to research and synthesize material as well as present and analyze my findings in a clear and explanatory way. 

Tuesday night marks the end of my last Passover at Penn State. I had the honor of leading the women's Seder for e third year in a row. I compiled this Seder during spring break of my sophomore year and we have been using it at Hillel ever since. The wonderful Elise led with me and it was a very enjoyable experience. This year was a little different at Hillel since we had six Seders occurring simultaneously. Their were two conservative style Seders, a Freedom Seder, an LGBTA Seder, the women's Seder and a Seder on one foot (all the important parts very quickly). This set up was nice for two reasons. The first is that attendees had their choice of which seder they wanted to attend. The different themes allowed Hillel to cosponsor and advertise this event to a larger audience. Finally, cleanup was a breeze this year thanks to two reasons. One, the Seders were all finished at different points; the cleanup crew did not have to break down three hundred table settings in one shot. Additionally, the HRIM catering club helped us out setting up, serving, and cleaning up from Passover. This event would not have gone nearly as smoothly without their generous help. 

The women's Seder was lovely. We had about 15 people attend, the majority of whom had been to the Seder before. We went around the table and everyone participated in reading from the Haggadah (the book with the prayers and story of the exodus from Egypt). I loved this Seder when my mom started leading it at our synagogue at home. For some reason it just felt more comfortable than the large impersonal Seder that the synagogue typically had. I wanted to bring that same experience to Hillel, and I hope I accomplished that through this Seder. 

I hosted 15 people at my house for the second night Seder. I spent most of the day Sunday after Hebrew school cooking and preparing for Tuesday's festive meal. Passover is my favorite of all the Jewish holidays, mostly because I love the Seder meal. I spend a lot of time last week on the phone with my mom getting recipes and trading menus. We did a lot of the cooking for Passover together at home, and now I got to take what she taught me into my own Jewish life. I used a few recipes from our Seders at home, but added a few of my own additions. I wanted to have a vegetarian Seder for two reasons. One, a few of my friends are vegetarian and second, I didn't want to cook a chicken. So we had my aunt Norma's matzah ball soup in vegetable broth for the first course. Spinach salad, sweet potato casserole, roasted asparagus, broccoli and potato gratin, and applesauce were the sides. for the main course, we made shakshuka, an Israeli tomato and egg dish (essentially poached eggs in spicy tomato sauce). It was really delicious (I can say that because my friend made the dish :)) For dessert, I made macaroons (two different versions because the first recipe didn't work well), meringue cupcakes (because the batter would not whip enough to form cookies, and my personal favorite flourless chocolate cake. It was a really yummy meal. But the best part, besides the food, was that the Seder felt like family. Everyone wanted to be there. We were all talking and singing and joking throughout the entire evening. It was a just a really nice night. I'm sorry I waiting until my senior year to host a Seder, but this was the first year that it was feasible for me to do so. 

To round out my Passover festivities, I went to my friends dorm Wednesday night to make chocolate covered matzah. Every year, we have gotten together during Passover to make this delicious treat. He doesn't observe Passover except for this tradition.  Making and eating chocolate covered matzah using the box our synagogues sends us is his way of marking this holiday. Not everyone celebrates Passover in the same way. Many argue about which foods you can and cannot eat, how specific and religious you have to be about food labeled kosher for Passover etc, but I think it's mainly important to consider how you will observe the holiday. As long as you are thinking about how it will be significant or meaningful for you, you are considering how to make the holiday your own, how to start living your own Jewish life, which is so vitally important in college. 

It was a really good week for me, and I hope for you as well. חג פסח שמח!