Peer Educators: We Save Lives!

As a sophomore, I became involved with a club on campus called Peer Educators, which has been an extremely rewarding experience. Peer Educators is a club that strives to improve the quality of student life at Fordham by encouraging positive behaviors on and off campus. Our goal is to decrease the harmful effects associated with the misuse and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Fordham's Peer Educators are advised and trained by the Office of Substance Abuse Prevention and Student Support (OSAPSS). As a club, we provide accurate information to the student body so that students make informed and safe decisions. 

Peer Educators is split into three main committees: Substance and Alcohol Education (SAE), Marketing, and Passport. Each of these three committees plays a vital role in reaching out to the student body to provide accurate information and promote safe behaviors. 

We distributed water to Seniors for their first Senior Night

This year, I am a Co-Chairperson for the Substance and Alcohol Education Committee (SAE). As a committee, we have many important responsibilities. One of our biggest responsibilities is providing information on drugs and alcohol to freshmen for Core Programming, which is mandatory for all freshmen. We also have Student Awareness Days throughout the year to gauge student knowledge and usage of various substances, as well as to provide all students with information on the substance that we are focusing on for the particular Awareness Day. Additionally, we distribute water to students to encourage them to drink responsibly, which includes staying hydrated. This past Thursday, we handed out water to the Seniors who attended this semester's first Senior Night. We put labels with fun little phrases that encouraged safe drinking practices on every bottle of water.

The September poster this year

The Marketing Committee, like SAE, strives to spread knowledge to the student body about how to make safe and informed decisions. Each month, the Marketing Committee creates a poster that is posted in every building and all around campus. These posters give advice or facts to the students about a particular topic. We are usually able to determine the success of a particular poster campaign by seeing how many of the posters are taken by students. By the end of the month, there are usually very few posters still where they were posted because students take them and hang them in their dorm rooms. 

The Passport

Staten Island Ferry Excursion

Our third committee, the Passport Committee, plans free excursions for students. In September, I led an excursion to the Staten Island Ferry, which was a ton of fun. It was a beautiful day, and we had a great view of the Statue of Liberty from the Ferry. The Passport Committee is also responsible for creating the Passport, which is a great resource for students. The Passport is a small booklet that easily fits in a purse or a pocket that is filled with restaurants, entertainment, sightseeing locations, museums, sporting events, and anything else that students should know about in the city. Even as a junior, I still refer to my Passport whenever I want to do something in the city. 

I really love being a Peer Educator. We are a student-run organization that is focused on helping our fellow students. We are all Fordham students who want to encourage our peers to make safe and informed decisions both on and off campus. At one of our induction ceremonies, a Fordham Dean told us that we save lives. I am not sure if we have actually saved any lives with our work as Peer Educators, but I certainly feel like we are making a difference on campus. By simply distributing accurate information to students, we are making sure that students are not ignorant about the consequences of their actions. We cannot force anyone to make safe decisions, but we are making sure that they are informed decisions, which I consider to be invaluable.

Weekend Update

My friend and me enjoying the game 

Heather Richards

This weekend I attended my very first professional football game, and it was incredible! I got to see the New York Jets play and sat in the front row with my friend Eric and his family!










Megan McLaughlin
My weekend was spent taking the LSAT and then decompressing from taking the test. Unfortunately, that meant Sunday was all about catching up on my work. At least my friends and I camped out in our favorite library conference room complete with a stellar view of Fordham Road winding its way up the hill.

Great view from Walsh Library

The Statue of Liberty from the ferry 

Erica Restaino

This weekend I took a trip down to the Staten Island Ferry. I grabbed a slice of pizza and enjoyed a relaxing ride to Staten Island and back. The ferry was free, and it offered an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan. It may have been a touristy trip, but you can't go to school in NYC without seeing the Statue of Liberty!

Summer in the City

I am originally from outside of Cleveland, Ohio, but I enjoy being at Fordham so much that I spend at least part of every month on campus, which adds up to about 10 months out of the year!  Attending Fordham has provided me with so many opportunities to further my education beyond the traditional classroom setting.  My first semester as a freshman I began attending meetings for the Wireless Sensor Data Mining (WISDM) Lab, a part of the computer science department, and now I am a paid research assistant for WISDM.  Dr. Weiss, the professor in charge of the lab, has mentored me and guided me through the process of conducting my own research and applying for research grants.  Fordham College at Rose Hill offers undergraduate research grants for the academic year as well for the summer.  I have spent my past two summers working in the WISDM lab and living at the Rose Hill campus due to the generous financial support from Fordham and the Clare Boothe Luce Foundation, which is a program that promotes the involvement of women in science.

Undergraduate as well as graduate students contribute to the endeavors of the WISDM lab.  This summer we focused on improving our activity recognition application, Actitracker, that is a free fitness app for Android (we are in the process of creating an iOS version) smartphones that monitors your level of activity throughout the day.  We also began integrating smartwatches into the Actitracker system.  My work focused on building and testing models for the computer algorithms to identify the activities users perform based on readings from the devices’ accelerometers and gyroscopes.  I also began a separate project with my professor on cost ratios and their effect on data mining algorithms, but I don’t want to bore you with all of the technical details.  Here are links to our websites if you are interested in learning more about the WISDM lab and Actitracker.    

Although I was working full-time in the WISDM lab, I still found some time to take advantage of Fordham’s location in New York City.  Just to name a few of my adventures: I went to Coney Island, Central Park, SoHo, Shake Shack, Magnolia Bakery, and I even took a cruise on the Hudson and around lower Manhattan.

  

Central Park when my friend and I had a picnic with Shake Shack

The beach at Coney Island

         

Views from the cruise around Manhattan

I was not the only one taking advantage of Fordham's proximity to the city.  While I was working on campus two television series, Madam Secretary and Forever, were filming scenes on the beautiful Rose Hill campus.  I'm excited to watch these series to see how they incorporate my home into their plots.

    

Production crews setting up to film around Eddie's 

One of the many reason that I love attending Fordham is that I have the opportunity to participate in undergraduate research, something that not all of my friends from home can boast about, and I can enjoy a break from my academics by exploring the great city that is New York.