Ashtyn Hemendinger

More by Ashtyn Hemendinger

Senior Sendoff #5: Taking Risks and Making the Most of Your College Experience

5/9/2012

It's difficult to believe, but my undergraduate career is just about completed. Soon the CMU seniors will be graduating, moving on to higher education, jobs, and onto other real world experiences. It's a terrifying thought to think how quickly four years have passed. My experiences and life lessons that I have shared with you over this year are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I've learned from being a student at Carnegie Mellon.

I want to end my senior sendoff by sharing two ways I’ve grown over my undergraduate years: being able to take risks and not worry what others think about my opinions and actions. When I impart this knowledge on you I imagine the freshmen version of myself, who never would have thought of doing either of these things.

I was always afraid of failure so I used to keep my risk taking to a minimum. This mindset provided me a false sense of safety from failure and rejection from my peers. Little did I know that even when you play it safe there are still chances for failure. I was also very self-conscious about what others thought of me. Do you ever have that feeling that a group of girls is laughing about you, or someone's stare permeating through your soul? Yeah. I had those feelings a lot. To try to avoid those feelings of self-consciousness I tried to remain as invisible as possible and live within the norm at Carnegie Mellon. I remained under the radar by not making a splash. I would avoid conversations with new people, guys especially, but girls too. "FMR? Keep conversations normal and don't draw attention to yourself," I would say before going into each sorority--Pretty much the exact opposite of what you're suppose to do. "Don't go out for that club, you don't know anyone in it and you'll be by yourself," I would say to myself during the activities fair.

Restaurant Review: Point Brugge

4/27/2012

 Looking for a romantic place to eat for a date? Or do you want to check out a great place to wine and dine with some of your closest girlfriends? Either way, Point Brugge restaurant is a great destination. Tucked away on a side street in Point Breeze, this bistro offers Belgian cuisine combined with a European-esque environment.
 
With dim lighting, limited seating, and a small bar area, Point Brugge provides a casual yet sophisticated ambiance. Groups of diners come from all over Pittsburgh to try the fresh dishes prepared daily. The signature item on the menu that never ceases to have customers rolling in is the Moules Frites. This pound and a half of Prince Edward Island mussels, served with Brugge Frites (special fresh potatoes twice cooked in a special Belgian style), will leave you full but asking for more. If you the bowl is too much for your stomach to handle you can order the Moules Small Bowl, a pound of mussels sans frites. When you order you choose between three sauces: classic white wine, shallots, garlic, and light cream; red curry, coconut milk, lime juice, basil, and cilantro; or tomato provencal, fennel, and roasted eggplant. It’s hard to recommend just one of these sauces: each is just as good as the others.
 

Tommy Vandenberg `15

4/16/2012

 Hometown: Mamaroneck, NY

Major: MechE & BME

Year: 2015

Relationship Status: Single

Senior Sendoff #4: Competiton

4/15/2012

 Let me start out this 4th installment of senior sendoff by saying I love competition. I think competition makes things exciting and helps to establish camaraderie among teammates. However, a fine line divides healthy and unhealthy competition. A point comes when competition overshadows the original goal of an organization or an event.
 
If there's one thing I learned as a music major during my freshmen year, it was that "There's always someone better than you." It was drilled into my head that I was in competition with everyone in my class. Throughout my four years here at CMU, though, I’ve realized this is not just the mindset among music majors. I have witnessed a similar way of thinking in all sectors of Carnegie Mellon. Academic honor societies, student governing organizations, and student service organizations compete over funding. Dance performance and A Cappella groups compete over attendance, late night events, and how they view each other. Greek organizations compete in recruitment, status, Greek Sing, and Booth. At times an environment driven by competition can cause some to lose site of why they initially joined an organization.  On the other hand, it is CMU’s competitive drive that makes us one of the best universities in the nation.
 

Harold and Jake: The Hosts and the Guys Behind the Scenes of Greek Sing

4/2/2012

On March 24th the annual Greek Sing fundraiser and competition was held at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall. The audience was entertained by amazing performances as well as by the hosts seniors Jake Yosafat and Harold Kim. Many may think that Jake and Harold had the easiest job in the world: wear snazzy suits and wow the crowd with witty banter. However, they did much more.  Besides acting as the hosts for the night, Harold and Jake were the Overall Greek Sing chairs: they ran the operational, financial, and organizational aspects of this event. The Greek Community at Carnegie Mellon University raised over $55,000 for the Children's Institute of Pittsburgh at the annual Greek Sing fundraiser—making this a night to remember. I sat down with Harold and Jake during their first week of freedom to talk about this momentous occasion and their roles as chairs. 
 
The role of Overall Greek Sing chair started for Harold and Jake when the Spring 2011 semester ended. Greek Sing is not the thing most members of the Greek Community had on their mind at beginning of summer, Harold and Jake had to start planning early. Working with Ariel Weaver, Coordinator for Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, they started contacting the different Greek organizations, booking Soldiers and Sailors for the event, and setting a timeline. There was no time for awkward introductions for Harold and Jake even if they didn’t know each other previously. They quickly learned that they would need to have strong communications in order for things to run smoothly. "We had a rocky start with dividing up roles at first," explains Jake, "but after a while I took over house financials and Harold took over communications."

Aurelia Henderson: A Passionate and Dedicated Leader

3/10/2012

Aurelia Henderson wears many different hats. Whether she's doing school work for her double major in Creative Writing and Psychology, serving as a Community Advisor for Boss-McGill, or supporting her sorority sisters, Aurelia works hard and is passionate about everything she does.  On top of these activities, Aurelia serves on the Executive Board for the 1000plus Service Event at Carnegie Mellon. I was lucky enough to catch her in between class and meetings to sit down with Aurelia and discuss her role on the board and the event 1000plus.
 
For those who do not know, 1000plus is Carnegie Mellon's day of service. Its mission is to get 1000 or more members of the CMU community to participate in service hours. According to Aurelia, there's also a second mission: "1000plus is also about raising awareness for issues facing the community and issues facing Pittsburgh." Sign ups range from a single student to a whole sorority or fraternity. Students and organizations either stay on campus or go to service sights where they help the community.

What to do for the Summer: The Inside Scoop on Summer Internships and Studying Abroad

3/2/2012

It's almost halfway through the semester and besides Spring Break, most people are thinking about what they'll be doing for the summer. Whether you seek an internship, a summer job or a study abroad experience, you're probably looking for something that will let you earn school credits and/or advance professionally. Whatever you're looking for it's good to have an idea and start looking now. That way, when June comes along you won't be forced to take that job you had last summer—you know, cleaning toilets at the beach.
 
Summer Internships
 
Let's start with summer internships.  The Career Center, located in the basement of the University Center, is a great place to start. There, each student has a career advisor based on his or her major. Once you set up an appointment with them, they can give you information on upcoming interviews and look over your resume.
 
 Besides meeting with your career advisor, TartanTrak is a great place to search for jobs and internships. TartanTrak is an online database of positions we can apply to, including on-campus jobs, work study positions and, you guessed it, tons and tons of summer internships. If it’s your first time using TartanTrak you’ll have to create your TartanTrak profile before you can search for jobs. Make sure you have your resume handy!
 

Edward Wojciechowski `15

2/28/2012 		 Hometown: Pittsburgh Major: Linguistics
Year: Freshman
Relationship Status: Single
Interests: Travel,  music, running
Goals: Move to Europe
Favorite Thing about CMU: You always look better than at least one other person on campus 
Favorite Place to Go on a Date: Razzy Fresh

Senior Sendoff #3: Friends

2/8/2012

 After my last two senior sendoffs about putting your health over your schoolwork and changing majors I thought it was time to shift topics. I want to talk about what helped me survive these past four years: my amazing friends. Through the all-nighters, the laughter, the heartbreak, the drama and the occasional parties, these friends have been there for me.
 
While at college you'll make all kinds of friends. And while they may not all belong to the same group, the most important thing is finding a core group of people you can really talk to.
 
While you're on the search for you're besties, you'll find a variety of friends with different personalities and motives. While you'll definitely want to add some of these friends to your circle, there are a few other types of people you'd be better off keeping as acquaintances. I've encountered each one of these at my time at Carnegie Mellon and, while they can be fun to hang out with, my friendship with them has never gone past a superficial level. 
 
Here is a glimpse of the people I encountered on my way to true friendship:
 
The Gossiper
 
Her name is self-explanatory. I used to spend hours hanging out with this girl. I loved going to her to hear the latest about who's hooking up with who, how *insert name here* gained more than just the freshmen 15. Yes, it was fun to hear the latest dirt and be in "know." And I admit that I have participated in sharing some of the juicy gossip. Soon enough though, I realized that while my friend was telling me all the dirty deets about someone else, she was going around publicizing my life to others, too.
 

Senior Sendoff #2: Changing Majors is OK

12/11/2011


Like many other college students, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Sad to say, even now, with one semester of college to go, I still am not completely sure of what I want to do. However I do know that one of the best decisions I made during my college years was to switch majors.
 
I started out at Carnegie Mellon as a music performance major with a double major in history. I know, it's shocking: I haven't always been a witty and charming staff writer for Her Campus CMU (note: sarcasm).After two semesters of taking a variety of classes ranging from Eurhythmics and Acting to Intro to Global Studies and 20th Century European History, I realized I did not enjoy what I was doing. Music performance, as it turned out, was a long, never-ending road to perfectionism: a road I quickly realized I did not want to travel for the rest of my life. History, while less stressful than music performance, turned out not to be as interesting as I had expected. At this point I had two options: I could avoid being called a quitter and continue to study subjects I did not enjoy or I could find something I loved to do.
 
Well, as it turned out the last thing I wanted was to be considered a quitter, so I decided to remain in these two majors. I returned to Carnegie Mellon for my third semester dreading what was ahead of me. I went into a cycle of merely going through the motions of going to class and practicing trumpet. Andrew Carnegie would have been ashamed to see that my heart was simply not in the work. I had no passion for these subjects; they were just the things I studied.