Posts Tagged ‘Academics’

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Navigating the New APU Libraries Web Site

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

If you’re a veteran library user, you may have noticed a few changes to the University Libraries site this fall, thanks to the fabulous web developers in the Office of University Relations. Here in the APU Libraries, our mission is to help you find the resources you need to be successful in your research. We think our re-designed web site is a huge step forward in that mission.

With the re-design, we’ve streamlined the look and feel of the site, made it easier to get important information, offered you more ways to connect with the University Libraries, and introduced several new research tools. Our overall goal was to make it faster and easier for you to get the books, articles, media, and library information you need.

Screen shot of the newly redesigned University Libraries web site

Screen shot of the newly redesigned University Libraries web site

Here’s a quick tour of some of the features of our new site:

Fun and useful information

  • Current hours are posted daily for all three libraries.
  • Instant access to your library account is provided right on the home page, so you can renew items electronically.
  • Newly-added library items are featured each day (you can also subscribe to the new items feed).

More ways to get help

  • Get instant, 24/7 research help from librarians via live chat through the “Ask a Librarian” widget. APU librarians monitor this service on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons; at other times you will be sent into a nation-wide research help center, where you can chat with a non-APU librarian.
  • Learn about the best resources for your assignment by checking out our new LibGuides system. These guides are tailor-made by APU librarians with resources and research tips specifically for your class or major.
  • We also have LibGuides devoted to helping you start your research project and cite your sources in MLA or APA style. There are shortcuts to the guides right on the home page.

New ways to connect with the Libraries

And, best of all, faster access to the books and articles you need!

  • If you need books that are located in different campus libraries, or if you just don’t want to take the time to fin your books on the shelf, you’ll love our new requests system. When you find a book or video you want to borrow in our catalog, just hit the “Request” button and let us know where you’d like to pick up the items (make sure they’re listed as “Available” in the catalog before you request it). You can even add multiple items to your book cart and request them all at once to save even more time. In about 24 hours, you’ll get an email notifying you that your items are ready to pick up. Regional Center and online students can use the requests system, too–just choose “By Mail” as the pickup location, and we’ll mail the items free of charge, with return postage included!
  • You can now search many of our research tools right from the home page, including our library catalog, LINK+, the Periodical Finder (a list of every journal, magazine, and newspaper in the Libraries’ collection), and two new tools called Quick Search and Multi-Database Search.
  • Using the Quick Search box on our home page, you can find books and videos from our library catalog, plus articles from 5 of our article databases, all with just one search. For example, look at the Quick Search results for a search on the Dead Sea Scrolls–you’ve got books and videos on the first page, plus you can click the “Articles” link to see articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls from 5 of our online databases.
  • Finally, Multi-Database Search allows you to search multiple article databases simultaneously. You can use the Multi-Database Search by typing your search terms into the box on our home page and choosing “Multiple Databases” from the drop-down menu, or you can click on “More Search Options >> Multi-Database Search” if you’d like to choose a custom set of databases for your search.

We hope you’re enjoying the new site, and that it helps you get access to the research you need. Remember, if you need help with your research, or with using any of these tools, we’re available. Oh, and we’re always looking for ideas and suggestions, so let us know if there’s anything you’d like to see on the site!

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halloween and homework.

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

So today is Halloween, and I’m writing a paper. I’ve never been super into Halloween after about age 10, but it’s been great to see carved pumpkins and some ridiculous antics around campus. Last night a few of my friends dressed up like old people and there were trick-or-treaters in the Mods (a sophomore living area), so I thought that was funny.

Right now, I’m trying to gear back up for another challenging week ahead. Sometimes it is hard staying focused with all these events around, but it has taught me a lot about self-control. Though, right now, I’m really distracted by quite a few things, including my plans to study abroad next year, starting at High Sierra, and then possibly on to Australia. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to go to Israel this summer, but I’m so excited about studying in High Sierra… it’s ridiculous. Hah. I’m also distracted, in a good way, by thinking about the things I learned this week.

This past week was Global Vision week, and basically it is a week where there all these events around campus that are Mission-minded, and are designed to make APU students think about the world as a whole, when sometimes we can get trapped in the bubble of southern california or america. All the chapels are internationally minded, and on wednesday, we had a chapel speaker who brought me to tears and created a standing ovation (which I’ve never seen) for at least 3 minutes after he finished. He was an exile from Libya, and was the most amazing christian I’ve ever met. I can’t honestly describe what he said, or why it affected the whole audience the way it did, but it was life-altering. I actually got the opportunity to talk to him for a few hours after chapel, being a part of the student organization here called MESO (Middle Eastern Student Organization), which is a group that strives to have open conversation about profiles and prejudices of the Middle Eastern nations, and delight in the different cultures that are predominately Muslim.

Anyway, I’ve got to get working on this paper, but I’ll post later on how halloween went. Hopefully I can get pictures of wacky costumes tonight. One of my friends is dressing up as a Scot, complete with a real kilt from Scotland. I’m a little scared. But he and I are going to go to HOLLAH-WEEN, an event in my living area that is designed to keep students on campus for Halloween, and thus keep them safe.

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pumpkins and papers.

Monday, October 26th, 2009

My favorite season is fall, or at least it was in NorCal (where I’m from). I love when the leaves turn red and flutter down to the ground, and I love the crisp rain that speaks of hot cocoa and fireplaces and good books, but most of all, I love pumpkins: pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin ice cream, and most of all: pumpkin pie. This morning I woke up missing that fall feeling from home, and decided to make pumpkin bread with real pumpkin and a special blend of spices that my family uses. Now my apartment is filled with the smell of baking bread, and I’m feeling pretty homesick.

It is a weird thing to feel homesick as a sophomore in college, but I’m sure I’m not the only one, especially of those here at APU where there home isn’t close. I only can go home on the bigger breaks: thanksgiving, christmas, and easter break, whereas my roommates live under an hour away from campus. I love being away from home, college is a time to get away and learn about new people and new places, but there are days when I miss my northern california roots and my northern california seasons (if you are wondering what the weather is like here, Azusa has one perpetual season: warm, though, don’t worry, you can still get snow like half an hour away [don't ask me how that works, it just does]).

Last weekend, I got the chance to return to my beloved northern california and visit a place I’ve never been before: APU’s High Sierra Campus. Tucked away in the mountains, in the middle of the Ansel Adams Wilderness, seconds away from Bass Lake is this sprawling campus that is a Christian kids’ camp during the summer and one of the satellite campuses APU has during the year. I honestly felt like I had been transported to Narnia (the kid’s camp has a Narnia themed disc golf course), and I was just waiting for Aslan to come out of the forest. It was beautiful.

The reason I went up there was to check out the campus for a preview weekend (like potential students do at main campus), and make sure it was where I should be next year. It is. My plan now is to spend my entire junior year up at High Sierra. Another one of the bloggers, JP, is a student up there right now, and it was pretty rad to get to meet him in person, after reading his blogs. He’s a great guy, and I see God working on him through being up at High Sierra, and that is a beautiful thing to see. It was good for me to be up there, to hike and shoot archery and read Karl Barth sitting on the porch overlooking the forest.

Here is a little movie I put together about my time at High Sierra, it’s silly and not well filmed, but oh well. And I also am including two other videos about High Sierra, one where our University’s President Jon Wallace (or J-Dub) talks about it, and also another one that the Study Abroad office put together. Have fun watching!

YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image

Alright, well, I have papers to write, so I’ll try to keep you updated as the semester continues to provide quite the challenge in the academic front!

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God’s got this…

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Many of the other bloggers have been talking about just how busy they are, and I 100% agree. As someone who love being academically challenged, I thrive in the demanding pace of my honors classes and my upper divisions. However… there is definitely a point reached (that probably has something to do with learning an extremely difficult language, not sleeping, and drowning in theology along with other life stuff) that you just want to say: I give up, Enough is enough.

I reached this point earlier this week but a blessed blessed thing occured: Study Day, which is a essentially a day off from classes to… well.. study. A lot of students used their ‘Study’ day to pontificate upon and studiously participate in the magical world of Disney (haha…) and some use it for… SHOCKER: Studying. I however used my study day as a much needed sabbath, a time to breathe and reflect and realize that I’m not surrendering the stress of school over to the God who holds All things in His hand. Right now, I’ve been personally going through Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and the coupled book of Spiritual Classics as well as daily devos with Buechner (my favorite theologian), so I spent time in those as well on Study Day. I say all this not in a spirit of flaunting or anything, but more as a reminder that despite the business of life there is first and foremost the priority to God and the priority of honoring Him with rejoicing in the day He has given. And sometimes that means taking a day off (weekends or study day), or if you really can’t manage a whole day, then at least a few hours of intentionally relishing in His goodness and His Word and surrendering over stress.

So life can get (and most likely already is) extremely busy and overwhelming. It is important to remember that, as my youth pastor used to say to me, “God’s got this, you can let go now…”

Peace be with you!

I’ll post a more spunky post soon (I’m going up to High Sierra campus this weekend to check it out as I’m planning on going up there in the Fall of 2010), so I’ll post pictures and stuff from that when I get home!

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Lack of Color, Gain of Knowledge

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

I’m having an issue with videos uploading on every site except for Facebook. Which seems really strange because around here its usually Facebook that isn’t working. (Facebook + College students all on one network = Refreshing 20 times before loading the homepage) I tried the last few days but I didn’t want to keep on waiting for the videos to post this blog.

I think I possibly figured out the problem… so be excited for some cool videos in the next blog! :)

I got back from Kaleo not too long ago and it was amazing as usual! I know I’ve talked about this before but Kaleo (the Wednesday night chapel) really is one of my favorite things here at APU. Woody, one of the campus pastors) talked about Daniel chapter 5 and I won’t try to explain it all but overall the message was how things became idols for us, especially as college students with all this new freedom of choice. I think the part I loved the most is that I’ve heard the ‘you shouldn’t have idols’ sermon so many times but every time Kaleo comes around I learn something new and relevant to my life.

The same concept is true in my Exodus/Deuteronomy class. I heard that Exo/Deut was a really interesting course but then I realized it was studying Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This might sound really interesting to you, but for me, I’ve always kind of prefered the New Testament. I didn’t randomly pick up my Bible and decide I was just going to read Exodus and Leviticus. (Awesome if you do though!) I’ve always heard “there is something new you can get out a Bible story each time you read it” and I really thought I understood that. But now I’m reading things in Genesis that I’ve never really read enough to understand before, even though I’ve read the entire book of Genesis. I think I’ve relied too much on felt-board versions of Bible stories than really reading the text for what it says.

I’m sorry that I don’t have any colorful pictures or videos this blog but be ready for my next one!

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Week In The Life Of A Freshman

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

So this blog is a few days late, but the bonus of it being late is that you get it with pictures and an example of a normal week in my life. My week has been pretty random, so here are my awesome APU highlights! :)

Sunday: We went to a beach bonfire with our brother hall.  We celebrated their RA’s (see note below) birthday with hotdogs and cake. It was fun, but I was definitely tired. Note to self: Get more sleep before going somewhere. Actually, getting more sleep in general would be a pretty good idea.

The mix of wind and fire made it hard to heat our hotdogs!

The mix of wind and fire made it hard to heat our hotdogs!

Huntingtons Beach at night with Meredith, Libby, and Susie :)

Huntington's Beach at night with Meredith, Libby, and Susie :)

Monday: My Mondays feel generally pretty crazy. I have three classes on Mondays, which isn’t too bad, but one of them is 3 hours long and chapel starts at 9:30.  Something interesting probably happened, but I apparently can’t think back a week :) I’m sure there was homework involved. Oh, and this is the day I locked myself out of my room so I studied in our Study Room until Rachel (my roommate) got home.  (By the way, RA’s can unlock the doors for you, but it costs $5) I love the Study Room.

Tuesday: The Freshman had a “Street Meets” which was called a Lumberjack Dance. I don’t really know what the point of the whole thing was, but it was similar to a hoedown with plaid/checkered flannel. The highlight for me was when the RA’s from each dorm performed group dances. I wish I had would have been able to video it! Engstrom was the most amusing, but the Trinity RA’s had the most skill.  I wasn’t able to stay at the dance long though because I had a test the next morning as well as an Alpha meeting. We had our Alpha meeting at 10:30pm after getting coffee at the Cornerstone Cafe because it is the only time that fits our whole group’s schedule. Alphas group are a required once a week meeting with a random group of people from the Beginnings class, lead by an sophomore who volunteered to be an Alpha leader.  It was a very informal meeting and we just had a lot of fun sharing stories and eating delicious Pizookie (an ice cream and cookie dessert) that our Alpha leader Jen made for us.

TIffanys view from the dance

TIffany's view from the dance

Wednesday: Wednesday morning I thought I was going to have my first APU test. My teacher told us to study two chapters in our book. After staying up until 3:00am, studying the two chapters and one wrong one, I felt pretty prepared. Unfortunately, I was a bit over prepared.  My professor’s version of a ‘test on the chapters’ ended up being essentially a 15-question quiz worth 5 points. Needless to say, I realized I should ask for more information on ‘tests’ before studying in that class.

My hall had Family Dinner together! Family dinner consisted of as many 3N Girls going to the Caf together and fitting into one long table. The Caf was reasonable full when we got there at 6:30 and finding a table for 20+ girls was difficult.  The only tables available near each other were in a huge corner that made it hard for anyone to move around. A few of the girls resorted to climbing under the table so they could get more food. It was pretty funny and possibly a bit gross, but we were all able to eat as a ‘family’ (and that’s what counts :)  Every Wednesday Night we have Kaleo, which is my favorite chapel service.

Almost all of the 3N Girls

Almost all of the 3N Girls

I love Kaleo with all of my heart.  The services have been getting so crowed that people have started to line up as early as 8:15 to be sure they get in for the service at 9:00. We are going over the book of Daniel in a way that it is applied to our lives directly connecting to scripture.  Instead of going story by story, we are taking a chapter or two at a time and digging into it while making it personal. I’m sure I’m doing a terrible job at explaining it, but I promise, Kaleo really is awesome.

Thursday: I’m pretty sure something exciting in our hall on Thursday but again, the days seem to blur a bit.

Friday: Friday was a really exciting day for me! I had my normal classes that were great, but the highlight of the day was seeing my friend Lainey. I haven’t really been able to see anyone I know closely for a month and I was so happy to see her face! She goes to a different school about 45 minutes away, but neither of us have cars which makes it difficult to hang out.  Lainey and I have been best friends since 4th grade but she moved to Illinois in 8th grade. Seeing her was definitely a blessing.

My mom made me promise wed take pictures but my camera is broken. My used Photobooth instead :)

Promised my mom we'd take pictures but my camera is broken. My used Photobooth in my dorm instead :)

Saturday: I went to the football game vs. the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. It was fun to cheer them on and even more fun when they won 23-7. There were some awesome fumble returns and an amazing field goal!

Libbys view of the APU football game

Libby's view of the APU football game

Wearing our Blackout at the football game :)

Wearing our Blackout at the football game :)

Sunday: On Sunday I pretty much slept all day. I’ve never been able to go to bed early and college definitely didn’t change that habit. I use my weekends to make up for the 5/6 hours of sleep I get during the week. I basically spent all day in bed but I attempted to do homework too. I wrote my speech for Public Communications and almost started this blog :). I took a break of doing nothing to go celebrate my hall-neighbor’s birthday at Tutti Fruity, a local frozen yogurt place that is not only delicious but also gives APU students 15% off!

Wishing Meredith a Happy Birthday at Tutti Fruiti!

Wishing Meredith a Happy Birthday at Tutti Fruiti!

Monday: My Monday was a crazy day again which is why this blog didn’t get posted this morning.  I love my Exodus/Deuteronomy class but it sometimes causes a brain overload. The hardest part of the day was Public Comm because I was second to give my ‘Story Speech.’

My speech was a fairytale story I made up for the girls I nannied for this summer. I’m not a huge fan of public speaking even though I talk too much. The formality too it is a bit daunting for me and I was definitely nervous.

After Speech I saw a friend from my Into to Communications class and had a fun time hanging out in her hall. Unfortunately when I got back to 3rd North after 10pm I realized I had a quiz in my Health and Wellness class. A neighbor of mine has that class too so we attempted to study in the hall kitchen but we were very easily distracted by pretty much everything and anything. During our ‘study breaks’, which there were more of then actual studying, I started this blog. By the time I got to bed I realized like I hadn’t learned very much, my blog wasn’t finished or proof-read, and I had to be up at 7:45 for my Walk/Jog/Run class.

Tue: When I woke up, the day wasn’t looking too promising. I was tired and was worried about my quizzes. Thankfully, my Health and Wellness test was very easy for me and since we could leave as soon as we were done, I had time to eat and study a little bit more for my Into to Lit quiz. Now I plan on either watching something on Hulu or taking a nap before starting homework. Good day :)

Feel free to add comments or ask any questions!

-Kelsey

*Resident Assistant- An upperclassman who is in our hall all year to support, counsel, and love on us

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