I wouldn’t change a thing

Thousands of dollars. Four years of your time. I thought it sounded awful, too, just a short three and a half years ago when I was getting ready to leave for college.

I didn’t have the best time in high school, and I thought college was going to be an exact repeat of that. But I was so wrong. I’d be lying if I said college is easy. College is tough and at times, it will test your limits. But college is more than just being young dumb and broke. College is about learning about who you are.

What I've learned

• Get Involved — While your GPA is important, it's not the only thing employers are looking for. While joining extracurriculars are certainty a good resume boost, they also allow you to meet new people. Some of the best friends I’ve made in college are because of the activities I’m involved in. #ThanksDPhiE
• Go to class — Read the first sentence of this post and come back to this line. Yes, you’re paying THOUSANDS of dollars to be in school. Show up to class and participate.
• Ask for help — As I previously mentioned, college is not always going to be easy. There will be times where it gets both academically and emotionally hard. Whether or not it seems like it, the faculty and staff at Bloomsburg University are here to help you and want to see you succeed. If you’re struggling in a class, visit that professor during your office hours. If you’re struggling with life, go to the counseling center. At the end of the day, it’s okay not to be okay and it’s okay to ask for help. But people can’t help you if you don’t ask for it!
  
• Utilize Campus’ Resources — As much as you don’t want to admit it, the time will come where you will have to be a grown up and get a job or go to grad school. But what is going to separate you from the thousands of other people you are competing with? Experience. ProfessionalU offers so many resources for FREE that I encourage you to take advantage of. Give up a Saturday every now and then and attend these professional development opportunities — your future self will thank you for it.
• Enjoy it. Every second of it! — You get out of college what you put into it, and I really encourage you to make the most of it while you can. Four years is really over in the blink of an eye, and someday you’ll wish you had these moments back.

The only thing you’ll regret are the chances you didn’t take. College is your time to take as many chances as you want — to make mistakes and to learn from them. You never know what could happen if you never try. If taking a chance causes you to fall flat on your face, at least you learned how to get back up. It’s hard to believe that I only have one semester left, and if I could do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.

— Kim Oaster, senior mass communications and marketing dual major #HuskyLife

Empowerment through philanthropy

On Jan. 9, 2015, while my college peers were enjoying their winter breaks and time off from school, I sat anxiously in a waiting room at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Over the course of the previous 24-hours, my family received a life-changing phone call: they had found a heart for my dad, after nine months and nine days on the organ donation “waiting list.” For over 10 years, my dad was suffering with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart condition and eventually went into congestive heart failure.

On top of the heart problems, my dad also has primary progressive multiple sclerosis, the rarest form of this disease. My dad receiving a heart transplant was a blessing. However, my family endured many setbacks because of my dad’s heart transplant.

A few weeks later, I headed back to Bloomsburg for my second semester of college. The guilt of leaving my family, especially my dad, during such a hard time was eating away at my conscious.

I needed to find something to distract myself from the guilt and the stress, so I decided to go through the sorority recruitment process with my roommate. When I first decided to rush, I did not expect to end up anywhere; however, my whole perspective of Greek Life changed when I met the sisters of Delta Phi Epsilon.

It’s hard to explain that instant connection you feel when you find where you’re supposed to be, but as I mingled with several of the DPhiE sisters, I had never felt more comfortable. It felt like I knew all of these young women my whole life and not just several minutes. As the rounds of recruitment continued, I got to know more sisters and about the sisterhood of Delta Phi Epsilon sorority. While the bond I felt within the sisterhood was certainly part of the reason I joined, what drew me in to this sorority was one of the philanthropies: the National Association for Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.

Anorexia is a disorder that has affected several members of my family, most recently including myself. I was drawn in to the idea that I could be a part of a sisterhood where empowering women were empowering other women on the importance of body positivity. When I learned that DPhiE was an organization that did this, I felt compelled to not only be a part of that empowerment, but also spearhead it.

Shortly after joining Delta Phi Epsilon in March 2015, I ran and was voted as the coordinator of community service position for the following academic year. As the community service coordinator, I worked directly under the vice president of programming (VPP) where I supported the fundraising, philanthropic, and community service efforts for our chapter. Because of my experience and passion for all three of our philanthropies, I decided to run for VPP the following year.

Empowering other women was one of the many goals I set to accomplish as VPP. I got the idea to create an awareness video for the National Association for Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders from a sister from another chapter. My vision for this video was to show that every woman has things they are insecure about, but there are so many positive things about each of us that we should focus on instead. In addition, I teamed up with the Women’s Resource Center for National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Through our partnership, we had several successful educational events throughout the week.

Members of Greek Life are often stereotyped for partying all the time and having low GPAs. However, those assumptions are not always the case. Being involved in Greek Life is so much more than that — it offers you a support system and a home away from home. But more importantly, being involved in Greek Life allows you to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Members of the Greek community collectively completed over 22,400 hours of community service last year.

How many other organizations can say they did that?

— Kim Oaster, senior mass communications and marketing dual major #HuskyLife

Getting out of your comfort zone

Growing up, I attended thirteen years of small, Catholic schools in Delaware County. While I received a quality education while attending these schools, once I began attending Cardinal O’Hara High School, I quickly learned that if you weren’t on one of the sports teams, in the band, or a part of the theatre productions, you slid through the cracks. While despite not being very involved in high school, I still managed to form a tight niche of friends; but I still yearned to belong to a group that made me feel bigger than myself.

Unfortunately, I consider myself virtually talentless — I can’t sing, I have two left feet, and I am pretty much the most uncoordinated person you will ever meet. So if I wasn’t in school, I was found working part time at Rite Aid. Once I graduated, I made a promise to myself that college was going to be different — I would do more than just work, go to class, hang out with my friends, and watch Netflix.

During my freshman orientation, they mentioned that the Center for Leadership and Engagement would be hosting an Activities and Involvement Fair where student clubs and organizations would be highlighting what they were about and what they would be doing that year. I was so excited! This was the perfect opportunity for me to keep my promise to myself — and a few days later, that’s exactly what I did.

I was a little overwhelmed at first because I had no idea what kind of things I wanted to be involved with; but the best part about attending a public school for the first time in my life was that if there was something I was remotely interested in, there seemed to be a club for it. I ended up signing up for six clubs at the Activities and Involvement Fair ranging from academics to fitness to community service. At first, I seemed to be able to balance 15 credits and seven extracurricular activities; but as soon as midterms hit, I realized it was going to be impossible to be involved in everything.

During Week 6 of my first semester in college, I called my mom in a panic. That week I had three exams and a ton of meetings for all of the clubs I was involved with. I have always had really bad test anxiety, so my mom suggested I take a step back from some of the organizations I was involved with and focus on just a few. I realized she was right and after that phone call, I created a pro-con list for each activity I was involved in.

I decided to try to stay involved in the American Marketing Association because marketing is one of my majors and I had already paid the dues for that year. But I still wanted to be involved in something that wasn’t necessarily academic. Because I attended Catholic school, I was required to do a certain amount of community service hours every year; but usually I went beyond the minimum amount. I realized in that moment that I needed to be involved in some sort of community-service club.

During my junior year of high school, I attended a leadership camp for the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and quickly grew passionate about finding a cure for childhood cancer. When I saw that Bloomsburg had a Colleges Against Cancer chapter, I knew that this club would be perfect for me. During the summer before I started at BU, my grandma was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer so I thought that this was the perfect club for me.

I was pretty active in CAC my first two semesters of college, however, decided not to be involved any more during my sophomore year. I had joined Delta Phi Epsilon in my second semester and became the community service chair for them, so I wanted to put all of my passion into that.

While I believe that being involved on campus and in the community is an important part of being a student, I think it’s more important to find a few activities you really enjoy and are able to put your time, energy and passion into. As college students, we are often running around like chickens with no heads; but the friendships, soft skills, and resume boost you gain from being involved on campus is truly worth the stress.

Bloomsburg University has so many opportunities for you to get involved and leave your mark; and I really encourage you to get involved as early on as possible. The earlier you get involved — the more positive experiences you’ll get out of it.

Don’t be afraid to try something new and get out of your comfort zone. Even if you don’t think a club or organization is right for you, try it out and see how you feel. You never know the amazing things that could come out of it.

— Kim Oaster, senior mass communications and marketing dual major #HuskyLife