Skyride and Airport Transportation

Boulder from afar [Diagonal Highway]

So if you're an out-of-state Colorado student, the major dilema when break comes around is how to get from Boulder to Denver International Airport, about an hour's drive away. You can beg a friend, take a ridiculously expensive taxi, or... take Skyride!
The Skyride AB bus is a bus directly from the UMC to DIA- all for FREE when you have a student RTD (Regional Transportation Denver) Pass, which is included in your student fees each year. I brought a car to campus, so previously I had always just driven myself to the airport. That means I paid tolls for E-470 and parking, which for my average trip (I go to Connecticut to visit my mom and sister) probably runs me about 50 bucks. Imagine how dumb I feel right now knowing that I could have taken a bus that drops me off right at the terminal-for free- this entire time. :-(
Skyride was only a little slower than driving- mostly because there were other stops to make before we went directly to DIA. But the driver was efficient and nice, there was plenty of room for all your stuff, and the time estimates for arrival and departure from each stop were totally accurate.
So if you're headed to the airport anytime soon, get some extra sleep and take the bus- it's definitely better than you expect. :-)

Winter Park and Snowboarding!

Boarding in the trees and enjoying the silence. [Winter Park]

The view from the top of the Eagle Wind lift. [Winter Park]

Emily and Me! [Winter Park]

This weekend was a good break after a long week- It's midterm season for the semester, so tests abound and I decided to do the only thing a good CU student can do at a time like this: hit the slopes!

I recruited my friend Emily for a Saturday full of snowboarding adventures (although don't get me wrong, I'm a die-hard skier as well) and we decided to go to Winter Park, which is about 2 hours away from Boulder. The snow was gorgeous, the weather was great, and you can't beat the feeling when you hop in the car at the end of the day exhausted and happy.
CU has some great ski/snowboard opportunities- Boulder Freeride is one of the biggest organizations on campus, and at the beginning of fall semester this year Eldora (a resort about 45 minutes away with bus service from Boulder, free with your student RTD pass) offered student season passes for $100.
The pass I have gotten for the past few years is called the Rocky Mountain Pass, and covers Copper Mountain, Winter Park, and can also include Steamboat if you shell out the extra cash. A more common pass amongst the snow mongers on campus is the 5-mountain pass, which covers A-Basin, Keystone, Breckenridge, and includes 7 days at Vail or Beaver Creek.
Student coupon books abound with free ski waxes, discounted rentals, and even a 2-for-1 midweek lift ticket at Loveland Ski Area. So when at CU, make sure you give skiing or snowboarding a try while you have access to some of the best mountains in the world.

The Wall Street Journal

Image courtesy of Google Images

If you haven't started reading it, now is the time. As a Leeds student, one of the most commonly referred to texts we use is the Journal, especially in the first business class you take (BCOR 1010). Last semester my professor referred to articles almost daily, especially when Fannie May and Freddie Mac (2 key mortgage companies) had to be bailed out.

Lucky for us, the Wall Street Journal is provided- free of charge- to all business students. There are kiosks with the actual paper for easy pickup throughout the Koebel building as well as online access when you are enrolled in certain classes. My microeconomics professor even included a semester-long subscription in his book list!

I actually found that reading the paper most days of the week helped me to understand what was going on in class lectures, and being able to apply what you're learning to real life is so cool! Intro to Business covers most of the terms and concepts that can be confusing to people new to the business world, so if the Wall Street Journal seems dry now this class will help immensely. Check out the Journal now at this link.

CU Gold

At the end of January, I had applied to do CU Gold, a leadership program run by CU that involves once a week meetings and a retreat in Estes Park. My roommate Susanna had completed the program last semester and said it was pretty fun, so I decided to give it a try.

The resulting retreat was an amazing experience- I had so much fun! Nobody had met before we started up to Estes, so on the bus ride up everyone was sort of silent and awkward. We were randomly assigned roommates and spent Friday evening playing name games (the usual stuff) and going over what the program was about. Saturday was spend going over what leadership is, what our "personal styles" were and some other activities. One of the most interesting things we did was a values exercise- we had to write our top ten values and then discuss them with random individuals, which really helped the group to get to know each other. We had to eliminate values until we had our "top" one which turned out to be meaningful for everybody.

In conclusion, even though this may sound like junior high all over again, it's actually extremely fun to just go hang out in the mountains with a bunch of college kids. It was also a really great way to meet more upperclassmen and I feel like I left with 30 new friends. :-) Hooray! I need to get pictures from some of the facilitators and then I will post them asap.

And the Winner is...

Congratulations to Djavan Nascimento on a wonderful piece of artwork and winning the Leeds School of Business Cover Art Contest!

Leeds Student Planner Cover Art Contest

(NOTE: All new blog posts are posted BELOW this one!)

Vote for your favorite entry in the Leeds student planner cover art contest! The winner receives $100.00 and their artwork on the planner provided to all incoming freshmen!


To Vote:
Post a comment on this post by clicking the Comments link below this text. Then leave your opinion- Option A or Option B- and we'll declare a winner at 5:00 p.m. February 13th. Best of luck to both our finalists!

Option A:

Option B:

Big v. Small- The Reality of Class Sizes

Math 100, one of the biggest lecture halls on campus.

When I first came to CU, one of the things I was most curious about was how big my classes were going to be. Registering, I could see that I was in classes of 200, 300 people and definitely wondering how that would feel in comparison the the comfortable 20-30 people of high school. Admittedly, it was shocking the first few times I walked in, but as I developed tactics to make getting in and out of lectures as fast as possible, life in a big lecture hall definitely got much easier!

Some important things to keep in mind coming into larger classes:

Your class is only as big as the number of people sitting in front of you. This helped me more than I could even imagine when I first got to school! Let's put it this way... in the classes where I sat up front, I did well. In classes where I sat in the back... I'll let you guess.

Go to your professor's office hours. Even if you just ask a quick question, you are that much more memorable in a sea of faces. Not to mention office hours help TONS when you don't understand something- an issue that takes hours outside of class can be resolved in 10 minutes of one-on-one time with a professor.

Get a tutor. If you really struggle in a subject, tutors around CU are usually cheap or free and provided by the university. The extra help goes a long way when exams come around and you can have someone there to help you with your homework every week.

Attend recitation. Recitations sometimes don't take attendance, but in many they take attendance and you may have a weekly quiz. Those points add up, so it's extremely important to go. T.A.s also sometimes cover more information that your professor won't in class, so if you don't go you could miss information for the final or midterm.

Form a study group. Having friends in a class make it easy to get notes when you miss a lecture and make studying for finals easier because you can bounce questions off other people.

Leaving the Residence Halls- What now?

February is an interesting month during freshman year- by now, we're all used to the workload, our new professors, and have our friends pretty well figured out. However, it's already time for all returning students to start deciding where to live next year. CU Residence Halls are really hard to get back into as an upperclassman, so rolling over your current room or re-applying is not a very stable option.

One of the easiest ways to get housing for the upcoming year is to apply to Bear Creek Apartments, a couple of large buildings next to Williams Village run by the university. Leases include utilities, TV, Internet, and maintenance if anything breaks. Floor plans vary- you can have a shared living room and 2 shared bedrooms (most room styles contain 4 residents) or 4 individual bedrooms. I decided to live in Bear Creek instead of another location off campus because I'm not sure yet if I'll be doing study abroad in the fall, and because Bear Creek is run by CU, I am allowed to terminate my lease if I go jetting off around the globe.

Apartments in Bear Creek fill up fast- when I took a tour, the guide told us to apply when applications opened at 8 a.m. and that most of the rooms would be full by 4 p.m. that day! If we didn't get a room assignment (I applied with 3 other girls) then I have to go out into the real world of relaters and scary lease signings. There is definitely a lot of stress surrounding finding housing, and my best advice is find a place early and stick with it- your roommate doesn't need to be your best friend and be flexible in what you think you're looking for in a house, otherwise you could miss out on a good deal.