Getting Around Baltimore

Part of the Johns Hopkins experience is the chance to really explore Baltimore and branch out from the small Charles Village community. There are many ways to get around the city and today I'll talk about some of the most important ones that you can utilize.

JHMI/Peabody/Homewood Shuttle
The JHMI Shuttle is a big white bus (the one that says Johns Hopkins) that transports students between the East Baltimore Medical Campus, Peabody Institute, and the Homewood campus for free with Homewood's J-Card or the JHMI Badge. The full route takes 25 minutes from Homewood to East Baltimore and there's also express service at certain times.
Going Southbound, the JHMI Shuttle originates at the Interfaith Center, Barnes and Noble, and makes a few local stops before reaching Penn Station Baltimore. You can get off at Penn Station for other connecting services or stay on to get to Peabody/Mt. Vernon or the Medical Campus.
Going Northbound, the shuttle departs from the Med Campus at the same place as the drop off point and stops at Penn Station on the other side of Penn Station on Charles St. The closests stops to the Homewood campus are at Union Memorial Hospital (1 block from Barnes and Noble) and across the street from the Interfaith Center.

Find more info at http://parking.jhu.edu/
www.nextbus.com for estimated arrival times

It's pretty hard to miss, shuttles come close to every 5 or 10 minutes during rush hour.

Charm City Circulator
This is a free bus service provided for everyone in Baltimore. The circulator is how most Hopkins students get to the Inner Harbor. When you get off the JHMI shuttle at Penn Station, you can transfer onto the Circulator's Purple Route which brings you through Mt. Vernon and then Downtown/Inner Harbor. There are many routes that can bring you all over Baltimore. Circulator stops are located at the JHMI Campus, Little Italy, Harbor East, Fell's Point, Camden Yards, and many other places.

For complete info about services and destinations: http://www.charmcitycirculator.com/

The CCC has routes all over Downtown Baltimore and is sure to get you where you need to go! There's even a mobile app equipped with NextBus for time predictions.

MTA Buses
MTA operates the public bus service in the Baltimore region and is really inexpensive at $1.60 per ride. MTA buses take exact change payments, or you can just tap the MTA Charm Card or your WMATA Smartrip Card from DC. Both cards work in both cities which is really convenient for travelling between here and DC. One of the most common destinations that Hopkins students use MTA buses for is the Towson Town Center. This is a really large shopping mall in Baltimore County, about 4 stories tall. It's also close to other stores and restaurant in the Towson area. The closest stop to the Homewood Campus is at Union Memorial Hospital.

For more info: http://mta.maryland.gov/local-bus

Having a CharmCard is really great because it works alongside the Smartrip Card in Washington, DC as well.

Happy exploring and always remember to be safe when going off campus!

A Day In The [Summer] Life of Austin K

8:00 AM: Time to wake up for class! This summer is the first time since being at Hopkins that I've had a class at 9:00 AM. My high school used to start at 7:40 AM, and took 30 minutes to get to. There's just somthing about being in college that makes waking up so much harder... 

Maybe one of these days I won't need to set 4+ alarms and then hide it on the other side of the room.

8:30 AM: Just enough time to grab a bowl of cereal for breakfast! Then it's off to class.

9:00 AM: Made it to class right on time, before the instructor too! We're going over practice problems to prep for our midterm on Wednesday.

10:15 AM: Time for a 15-minute break. I decided to take notes by hand instead of on my laptop like I usually do. Helps to stay awake and not get distracted by the internet.

Hopefully I can decipher this later...

11:10 AM: Now that we've gone over the practive problem set, I'm feeling pretty good about the midterm. I'll just need to go over my notes one more time to make sure I've covered everything.

11:20 AM: Having lunch in the Brody cafe, The Daily Grind. Taking the time to check e-mails, Facebook, and catch up on school news. www.hub.jhu.edu is a great website for news covering the entire University. In just the last month, two major changes have taken place. JHU has updated its visual identity to give all its school a sense of cohesiveness and the new designs definintely have my seal of approval. http://identity.jhu.edu/
Also, after being independent for over 100 years, the Men's Lacrosse Team at Hopkins has announced that it will join the Big Ten Conference as a Lacrosse Affiiliate in 2015. Hopefully this announcement will cause a renewal in school spirit. Go Hop!

Q Level entrance to the Brody Learning Commons, where The Daily Grind is located. The frozen drinks are really good for cooling off from the summer heat.

12:15 PM: Time to get to work at Summer Programs. I start off by replying to e-mails and processing any new forms that you all have sent in. I've already answered a few phone calls too!

Ready to take your calls and any other questions you might have!

3:00 PM: After talking to many of our excited Pre-College students and their parents, I just want to point everyone to the enrolled students section on our website. The information there is up to date and being updated as more details are finalized. Click on "For Enrolled Students" under the program you are attending, either Discover Hopkins or Summer University (http://jhu.edu/summer/precollege/index.html). You can check out information about Move-In Day, and find out more about your RAs for the summer!

5:00 PM: Time to head home. I'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning!

6:00 PM: After getting settled down, I made myself some dinner and it tasted pretty good if I do say so myself.

Spaghetti with Vodka Sauce! I decided to play around with Photoshop Express on my phone for the first time. Haha maybe I'll go back to Instagram.

8:23 PM: Sitting in front of the TV and surfing the channels. Moving into my apartment this summer was the first time I got to watch TV since my parents cancelled our family's cable service back in my sophomore year of high school. There's so many shows I used to watch, now in reruns, it's making me a little bit nostalgic.

9:57 PM: I'm finally getting around to reading all those random articles on the internet that I didn't have time for before. BuzzFeed and Thought Catalog are a student's worst nightmare, every click brings new distractions.

11:30 PM: Time to go to bed, I don't have class tomorrow so I'll be heading into the office first thing in the morning. Good night!

Living at Hopkins

This summer, our Pre-College residents will be staying in Wolman Hall and the Hopkins Inn, two of the many residence hall options available to undergraduate students here at Hopkins. Both are great places to live, socialize, relax, and study with your friends.

Each floor gets 1 or 2 RAs, Resident Advisor's, there to make sure you're enjoying your new living environment, helping to resolve and conflicts, and planning activities to make sure you're having an overall good time this summer outside of your classes.

Your RAs are sure to be planning activities throughout the summer including anything from a picture scavenger hunt, water balloon fights, tie-dye, or even trips to the mall! There's also Saturday trips for the whole program to places like Washington, DC.

Found posted in the Wolman 3 East elevator lobby, Summer 2011
What is this even? I don't even know. Why didn't I go? Wondering if there was a choice of backseat or frontseat...

Wolman Hall
Wolman Hall features suite style living. Each suite includes two bedrooms (singles, doubles or triples), a bathroom, and a kitchenette with sink, stovetop, and mini-fridge. On each floor, there is also a common lounge equipped with couches, tables and stools, as well as a TV for optimal floor bonding space, as well as a place to do light homework with a group.

Another cool feature of Wolman Hall is that the common spaces for the building received a major renovation in 2012, increasing the amount of usable space for students. Now, Wolman Hall's first floor and terrace levels include a full common kitchen, a multi-purpose room, a movie theater, a full-sevice mailroom, fitness room, study spaces, a computer cluster, laundry room, as well as a video game lounge.
Read more about the renovated spaces here: http://gazette.jhu.edu/2012/03/12/the-big-reveal-homewood-style/

My mom and I during DH Session 1 Check-In in 2011, Right in front of Wolman Hall

Hopkins Inn
As a result of the expanding student body at Hopkins, the Hopkins Inn, (located just around the corner from Wolman Hall) was added to the one of the many housing options for students. Hopkins Inn features suite style living, with adjoined double and single rooms sharing a private bathroom. This is another great place to live and learn, with common spaces including a TV room, study lounge, common kitchen, exercise room, and laundry.

Hopkins Inn Entrance

Some of the other residence halls on campus include AMRs (Alumni Memorial Residences), Buildings A & B, McCoy Hall, Charles Commons, Rogers House, Bradford Apartments, and the Homewood Apartments.
All of these buildings feature different living arrangements, from traditional hallway style to full apartments.
You can read more about them at the Johns Hopkins Housing and Dining Services website.



Wolman 3 East - Summer 2011, SU and DH 1
There's me in the upper right!

What We Do Here at OSIP

A lot of people, even Hopkins students, aren't quite sure who we are. We even get the occasional call asking if our office is CTY (Center for Talented Youth).

Our office is located at 3505 North Charles Street, just a short walk from the dorms where Pre-College students will be staying! The building is just a block away from Wolman Hall and across North Charles Street from the AMR Tennis Courts, the same building as the Undergraduate Public Health Studies Program.

Stop by if you have any questions, or just to say hi!

The Office of Summer and Intersession Programs (OSIP) coordinates the undergraduate courses for both Intersession (a one month term between Winter Break and Spring Semester) as well as the Summer terms. During the Summer, there are so many programs being held on the Johns Hopkins campus, but OSIP is responsible for coordinating the summer courses, visiting undergraduates from other universities, as of course the Pre-College Programs, Discover Hopkins and Summer University. From academics to student life, we're the ones who are making sure that you all have a fun and worthwhile Summer.
For Summer University students, the staff in our office will function as academic advisors, making this the place to come if you're facing any problems academically.

For those of you hoping to one day be Hopkins undergrads, our office also coordinates Intersession, which is a three-week term which begins after Winter Break and ends before Spring Semester. The term is optional so some people choose to take an extended Winter Break, but many students come back to live in the dorms and take 1 or 2 credit courses on a Satisfactory/Unsatifactory grading scale. A lot of these classes are very different from what's offered regularly in the Fall and Spring, including many unique lab courses, Humanities, and Science courses. We even have a special 1-week program at the end of the term, called B'More where Freshmen can take courses discussing topics like Urban Planning or Sustainability. B'More courses even go on field trips to explore Baltimore in depth. (It's kind of like Discover Hopkins in the Winter!)

Make sure to stop by office while you're here. We'd love to meet you, get to know you, and make sure that you're having a successful summer at Hopkins!

Taking a Summer Class at Hopkins

Summers between school years are a great time to do anything from chilling out, a part-time job, a cool internship, taking a summer class, learning to cook something new, or just trying something fun that you wouldn't normally have time to do.

This Summer, I've been taking Elements of Macroeconomics. Because it's a summer class, the class size isn't as big and we cover a whole semester's worth of material in just five weeks.

My class is in Gilman Hall, technically the oldest and one of the newest buildings on campus. Gilman Hall was the first building on the Homewood Campus. Originally built in 1915, Gilman Hall underwent a three-year renovation that was completed in 2010, completely modernizing the building, yet keeping its character intact.
Check out 95 Scenes of Gilman Hall



The lecture room where Macro takes place this term, located right under the Hutzler Reading Room.

Gilman Hall is home to so many resources for Hopkins students, like the Hutzler Reading Room (aka The Hut) where you can study, go to the writing center for help on a paper, or to the Learning Den for group tutoring.

The Gilman Atrium, my favorite part of the building. There's space to study, and a coffee shop to get a drink and some snacks.

My Discover Hopkins class back in 2011 was in Room 400, the classroom that provides access to the clock tower.


Couldn't quite get up to the top of the tower, but it's still a good view



 While some people might not want to come right back to school after finals, there are definitely a lot of pros (and some cons) to taking Summer courses.

Pros:

• Small Class Size: Instead of having a big lecture, then TA sections to ask questions later, you can just ask the instructor during class
• Taking Fewer Classes at a Time: You can really focus on 1 or 2 classes instead of the usual 4-6 during the Fall or Spring. It's the perfect time to take a harder required class (i.e. Organic Chemisty) or something just for fun (there's a ton of courses to choose from in the Humanities, Film and Media Studies, Psychology, and many other departments)
• Cost: For undergrads, based on the tuition we pay during the school year, taking summer classes is less expensive. There's even the potential to get financial aid for the summer based upon the previous year's application.
• Free Time: Although I'm taking a class and studying, I still have time for my job at Summer Programs, explore Baltimore, experiment with cooking new foods, and chilling out with friends.

Con:

• A Summer Term is Only 5 Weeks Long: Because we need to cover 15 weeks of material in 5 weeks, each lecture is packed with information and you really need to pay attention and study to stay caught up.