Reasons I Love My Job

As my last ever semester of college is rapidly approaching, I am having many realizations. My most recent occurred on Saturday morning during the Admission Office's huge scholarship weekend:

I love my job.

 

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I have the best work study on campus..

Here is why:

1) I get paid to do one of my favorite things ever: Talk about how much I love Coe.
2) Everyday, I meet awesome prospective students and their families. Every family has an interesting story to share and I am so lucky to be able to hear them all.
3) Through touring and coordinating visits, I have met an abundance of Coe faculty and staff who work in areas I am not routinely involved in. They are always so friendly and helpful - it has been wonderful getting to know such a variety of professors and coaches.
4) Everyday I come into work I get to practice and develop communication skills that will help me in future professional settings.
5) The people I get to work with in the Office are absolutely wonderful. Everyone is so fun and energetic, intelligent and dedicated, and, most importantly, share my deep love for Coe College.
6) Food is never hard to find when you work in the Admissions Office. Twice a semester all the work study students are surprised with a huge food day. The entire office brings in homemade dishes, desserts and snacks to share with us and make sure we get unnecessary amounts of sugar to fuel us for the rest of the semester.
7) Working with so many great people has provided me with endless connections. Whether I'm looking for future jobs, internships or simply need restaurant recommendations, someone in the Admissions Office is ready, willing and excited to help me out.
8) And finally, working in Admissions means spending two hours every Monday and Wednesday with the one and only Cinnamon Moore... what more could I want?



Spending quality time with Cinnamon during our work
 shift is one of my favorite parts of every week.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

Lots of love,
Hannah

The Best Day of the Year

This Saturday was my absolute, number one, 100% complete favorite holiday of the entire year.

The fun and anticipation of Homecoming 2015 started on Thursday with a hilarious night of dances, rapping, singing and skits. Kohawk Rock is an annual talent show put on by the homecoming committee to introduce the Homecoming Court nominees to the rest of campus. Each member of court and any other brave Kohawk with an impressive talent has six minutes on stage to showcase their special talents while the entire school watches and votes upon the best performance. One of my best friends and fellow homecoming court nominee, Alexis Lichty and I decided to hold a lip sync battle between us and some of our friends for our skits. We dressed up as members of a girl band, convinced our best guy friends to wear wigs and (attempted to) memorize the lyrics to a few popular girl band songs. As embarrassing as it was to make the entire school aware of my terrible dancing and singing skills, we had an absolute blast making fools of ourselves and watching our friends do the same.

Dressed and ready for our Kohawk Rock lipsync battle!

Friday morning, I woke up early and ready to start the weekend off right with a big win. My team and I traveled to Indianola, Iowa to take on the Simpson Storm in one of our biggest games of the season. After a well fought game and an important 2-1 win, we earned a bid to the Iowa Conference tournament and checked one of our season goals off the list. I was so unbelievably proud of my team and so thrilled to start my senior homecoming weekend off with a huge victory!

I rushed home from Simpson to make it back to Coe just in time for one of the biggest productions Coe has ever put on: the Eby-Hickok Renovation Campaign. Two buildings on campus are about to undergo substantial renovations that will greatly improve the experience of students and athletes at Coe for many years to come and the college was very eager to showcase all the upcoming changes to students and alums. We brought in some impressive Coe alums, heard from our President, watched awesome videos and enjoyed a great environment and tasty refreshments. As soon as the excitement of the #MakeYourMove campaign was over, it was time to crown the 2015 Homecoming King and Queen!


Queen Molly Boland, King Tre Cotton and their Royal Court

Saturday morning came very quickly and before I knew it, I was up and running the Homecoming 5k with my beautiful teammates. The theme of our homecoming weekend was "Sustainable Coe" so we all dressed in as many layers of blue clothes as possible and taped big recycling arrows on our backs to signify our support of recycling across campus. We ran through the residential streets of Cedar Rapids and finished our run on our brand new track to drink hot chocolate, win prizes and celebrate Coe with tons of alumni and current students.



Coe College Women's Soccer showing support for recycling during the Homecoming 5k!

Tailgating with some of my favorite Coe Alumni at the Homecoming football game.

Ready to take on the homecoming dance with my beautiful teammate, Jordan Holmes.

After such an awesome week of fun, going back to classes today is certainly going to be hard, but I am happy to have so many fond memories of Homecoming 2015. Although next year will be a much different experience, it is great to know that Once A Kohawk, Always A Kohawk :)

XOXO,
Hannah 

After a quick shower we were all ready to head off to the big football game! Coe football took on the Simpson Storm in front of a stadium jam packed with Kohawks both past and present. We tailgated all morning and had a blast reconnecting with all our friends and alumni visiting for the weekend and hanging out with our current Kohawk family. After the game, we put on some fancy dresses and took Coe busses downtown to the DoubleTree Hotel for the big homecoming dance. We had an awesome DJ, tons of free food and plenty of dancing and laughing for all of Coe College.

Beat Cornell

The best time of the year is finally here! After an exciting summer of jobs, internships, vacations and sunshine, Kohawks near and far were ready to come home and finally be reunited with all their best friends, professors and classmates. After spending the summer here at Coe, I was more than excited for all my friends to make their way back campus and join me in kicking off senior year with a bang. My semester started a little earlier than most other students' when all my teammates stepped on campus to begin a record-breaking season.

Traditional first day of class roommate picture! So excited to take on senior year with these wonderful girls.

We started our journey with a team camping trip to Backbone State Park in Dundee, Iowa. We arrived at our campsite early Friday morning and spent the next 48 hours pitching our tents, cooking questionable meals over the fire, hiking, making s'mores, and laughing. A lot of laughing. After a few inches of rain and many memories made, we headed back to Coe for some fitness tests, meetings and two exhausting weeks of preseason practices.

Team selfie outside Backbone State Park during our preseason camping trip.

All the hustle and bustle of preseason has proven to be well worth it as we've kicked off the season with a great start. We are undefeated so far with a record of 8-0-1 going into conference play next Saturday. One of the highlights of our season so far was beating Cornell on our home field during Beat Cornell Week.

Coe Women's Soccer team ringing the Victory Bell after a big W!

The Coe and Cornell rivalry is the longest living rivalry west of the Mississippi and has been the reason for excitement all over Coe's campus since 1891. Every Kohawk athletic team battles Cornell once a season for a chance to gain a point for our school in the Bremner Cup. The Bremner Cup is an all-sport traveling trophy created in order to ensure the tradition of intense athletic competition continued despite Cornell officially leaving our conference in 2012. On Saturday, our football team creamed Cornell 50-3 just in time for us to play them on Wednesday. We played under the lights at our stadium in front of hundreds of fans and beat them 7-1. Volleyball and women's tennis have also already beat Cornell this season so Kohawks everywhere are thrilled to be winning the Bremner Cup 4-0 and looking forward to continuing the success!

Women's soccer cheering on the volleyball team to another Bremner Cup point

Just another reason Coe College is the best.

Go Kohawks!
- Hannah

The end is near...

 

Spring semester finals are officially here. Today is our last official day of classes, tomorrow is Reading Day and finals start on Friday.

Call me crazy, but I love finals week.

Since today is our last day of classes, today was Food Day in the Office of Admissions! That means everyone who works in the Nassif House brings some sort of food into work to share. The office is full of hot dogs, apple pie, cookies, buffalo chicken dip, walking tacos and smiling faces... what more could a stressed out college student trying to study for finals want?!

Some admissions staff enjoying food day!

Tomorrow is Reading Day - a day where all your classes are cancelled, work is optional and all you have to do is lay out in the beautiful sunshine and study, study, study. The library offers free coffee, extra snacks and even chair massages by appointment! Upper Gage brings in adorable therapy puppies for stress relieving petting sessions and also provides free snacks. Your parents are given the chance to send you HUGE care packages sponsored by Alumni Association full of snacks and positive encouragement. And then, as if we haven't already gotten our fill of free food and good luck wishes.. Residence Life sponsors a Midnight Breakfast for all students. From 10pm-midnight faculty and staff hang out in the cafeteria serving tired students pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausage and much, much more! It is the perfect late night snack and social hour study break since the caf is bustling with students, professors and lots of yummy food!

So, I'm not entirely sure if it's just because of all the free food laying around (I love food, so simply can't say no to free food) or if it's all the friendly faces wishing me good luck (and truly, truly meaning it) but I love finals week. Although, I certainly wouldn't mind finals week without the actual finals...

To add the stresses of finals week, Kohawks spend a majority of their last couple weeks at school in a state of bittersweet confusion. After an entire semester of hard classes, students are definitely ready to be done with homework and tests and enjoy a summer spent playing in the sun; however, classes ending and summer beginning also means leaving Coe for most students. Leaving behind your best friends and second family for an entire summer is not something any of us want to do and it makes the end of the school year goodbyes that much harder!

Taking full advantage of the warmer weather, my roomies and I celebrated another great year as Kohawks with dinner in downtown CR.

Lucky for me, I get to spend my summer at Coe as well! So look forward to a blog full of happy summer posts about traveling Italy, interning in the Alumni Advancement Office and doing summer research with my advisors!

Until next time! Enjoy the sun :)
- Hannah

SPRING IS HERE

 

Hello and Happy Spring!

Thank goodness warm weather is finally here... I wasn't sure how much longer I could handle the freezing cold walks to class and practice! Spring is my second favorite season simply because of all the awesome events that occur on Coe's campus in the spring... After being cooped up in the library and in our residence halls all winter, as soon as the weather gets warm again the Kohawks are ready for fun!
My friends and I kicked off the spring fun by being absolutely spoiled with beautiful weather on our Spring Break trip to Florida. There were about 50 of us who spent the entire week running around in 80-degree weather and basking in the sunshine - loving every second we all got to spend together. We went to Luke Bryan's free concert on the beach, went out to dinner and ate fried alligator and laughed until our stomachs hurt. It was one of the best weeks of my life and I can't wait to do it again next year!


Loving the warm Florida beach!

Luckily, we were greeted by warm weather back in Cedar Rapids - just in time for soccer practices to start up again! Each NCAA athletic team with a regular fall season is allotted a certain amount of spring practices and scrimmages in which they can meet with their coach and start getting prepared for fall season again. I was so excited to finally be back on the field with all my teammates, laughing and joking around and playing our favorite sport.

Early spring also means Pres Ball time! Each year Coe's president throws a Presidential Ball for all Coe students and faculty.  Everyone really looks forward to getting super dressed up, taking busses downtown, eating the delicious free food and dancing the night away with all our fellow Kohawks :) I always loved school dances in high school and was so happy to find a college that still celebrates in such a fun way.

Logan and I ready for the Presidential Ball!

As you can tell, the spring semester has been packed full of wonderful campus events - and it's only halfway over! As much as I'm wishing for warmer weather, I'm hoping time will start slowing down. I can't believe I only have one more year of college!

Thanks for reading! Talk to you next week!
- Hannah
 

Spring Break!

Although you'd never guess with the mountains of snow on the ground right now, warm weather is coming! But because my friends and I are all just a little impatient... we're taking the week of Spring Break to head somewhere just a little warmer, sunnier and sandier! A big group of us Kohawks are driving down to Panama City, Florida to spend a week in the sunshine and without responsibilities. We are all way too excited and have been trying our hardest to get through this last week of midterms so we can do nothing but relax for a week!

Along with all the individual groups leaving Cedar Rapids for warmer destinations, there are many campus organizations with awesome Spring Break plans! For example, there is a group of students planning to spend their time volunteering with local and national organizations related to environmental protection and preservation, hunger, homelessness, and supporting under-served children in Nashville, Tennessee. The softball and baseball teams are going to Florida to spend their week playing the sport they love, soaking up the lovely weather and enjoying some free time bonding with their teammates! The men's and women's tennis teams are also headed to Florida to play some tennis in warmer weather.

There is also, obviously, a large portion of campus getting ready to head home to their families in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa and so many other states for break. Since our student body population consists of 50% out of state students and 50% in state students, there is a high chance your best friend or roommate will be from somewhere far different than you... meaning lots of opportunities to get out and see many different parts of the United States (or even the world!).

Well.. I'm off to finish studying for midterms, packing for Spring Break and trying to make some last minute arrangements! I look forward to telling you all about my wonderful experience in Florida with my lifelong friends!

- Hannah

Just wanted to leave you all with some adorable snapchats of my puppy, Penny :)

Thank goodness for technology and my goofy sisters always trying to make me jealous with cute dog pictures!

Scholarship Weekend



These past two weekends were Scholarship Weekend at Coe - two of my forever favorite weekends!

We had approximately 400 prospective students, plus their families, visiting Coe on Friday and Saturday of last weekend and another 400 this past Sunday. People went on tours, interviewed for scholarships, met current students and lived the life of a Coe student for a weekend! I love all the positive energy and awesome people roaming around campus and sharing the love of Coe College with all of us - not to mention the large amount of free candy and cookies ;)

I had a blast spending my weekend talking to prospective students with Coe College president, David McInally.

It feels like just yesterday I was a senior in high school visiting Coe for scholarship weekend, hobbling around on a broken foot and trying to take in all the excitement of this new environment. I remember spending the day picturing myself as a Kohawk and being so pleasantly surprised by the amount of smiles and nice gestures I was already receiving.

Three years later and I am still amazed by all the passion and happiness that Coe students, staff, faculty and alum carry with them everywhere they go... and not just on busy campus visit days! Everyday here at Coe is an exciting new day to learn and grow, even when it's -20 degrees outside.

I hope you're all enjoying the cold weather and looking forward to next fall when the trees are prettier, the weather is warmer and we have 400+ new Kohawks to welcome to campus :)

 

Love from CR,

Hannah Torry 

Welcome home!

Hello!

The past couple months have absolutely flown by and I'm sitting here wondering how in the world it is already the middle of January...

Finals week was full of high stress, no sleep, lots of chocolate and a little bit too much procrastination, but wound up being simply rewarding when I finally got home to do nothing but cuddle with my puppy for an entire month :) Winter break was gone in the blink of an eye after wonderful Christmas and New Years celebrations and tons of time spent with family (Penny) and high school friends.

Happy to spend Christmas with my baby sister!

Wouldn't be Christmas Eve without footie pajamas!

It is always great to be back in Urbandale, but Coe and all my friends here were definitely missed throughout the month! Now that we're back it's like we never even left... soccer practices, homework, meetings and lots of laughs started right back up where I left them and I am excited to be starting my last semester as a junior in college (terrified might actually be a better adjective, but anyway...).

With the new semester comes new classes, including my Honors Seminar entitled "Transformation of Style and Culture through Barcelona", which is, indeed, as wonderful as it sounds. We basically spend a semester learning from our professor, a native from Barcelona, while she works to convince us to travel to the beautiful country of Spain. If I didn't have the travel bug before, I definitely will after this class!

I've spent a lot of time these first few weeks back at school catching up with my friends (and the Bachelor), and enjoying free time while I have it before classes and homework get crazy again. I'm certainly happy to be home again <3

A cute picture of the cutest dog.

Peace, blessings & wishes of warm weather,

Hannah

ITALIA

Although it's only November, I am already thinking waaay too much about MAY TERM 2015.

Studying abroad is something I have wanted to do ever since I was old enough to know what it meant and I have been waiting patiently ever since then. This summer, I decided the wait was over. I read through all the May Term abroad options and made list after list of all the awesome choices I had, weighing the pros and cons of each destination like my life depended on it.

Today, I got an e-mail from my two favorite professors: "Congratulations! You are officially enrolled in the 2015 Business May Term trip to Italy!" So happy I could cry. My family has very strong Italian ties and I have spent far too long researching some of this history, which only makes me more excited to actually travel overseas and witness the beautiful Italian culture first hand.There are about 16 Coe students and two Coe business professors currently preparing for this wonderful experience where we will learn about some of the benefits to small, family-owned business enterprises from a country that does it best.



So excited to take on Europe with my roommate, Sarah!

Our journey begins in early May, right after Coe's graduation ceremony, when we head to Chicago to spend a night in the city before jetting off to Europe. We fly straight into Rome where we will spend four days touring the Vatican Museum, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and so, so much more! After a quick day trip to Florence, our group of Coe students will head to Siena and spend a few days on a wine tour through Tuscany before we're off to the gorgeous cities of Cinque Terre. Here, we spend four days swimming, hiking, going to the beach, and, of course, eating pizza and pasta :) On our way to Venice from Cinque Terre, we are planning to stop in Pisa to see the famous "leaning tower" before spending our last four days of heaven in Venice doing some more sight-seeing.

 

I am legitimately so excited for this opportunity I have already started packing.. I can't wait to be able to come back in May and blog about all my crazy adventures overseas and share them with all you future Kohawks who will maybe someday be able to do the same.

A group of Coe students in Rome (2012)

 

Enjoy the snow and freezing temperatures!

<3,

Hannah

Oh, so fancy.

This past week was definitely one for the books. Early in the week, my soccer coach surprised us by telling practice on Wednesday night was cancelled because he had more important plans for us, (immediately I think we're running or doing something else miserable and hard) but then, he surprises us again and informs all 29 of us that we were formally invited to President McInally's house for team dinner. We spent the next couple days practicing extra hard and chattering nonstop about how excited we were. Wednesday finally arrived and I experienced one of the coolest memories of my college career.

President McInally and his lovely wife and son were waiting outside as our caravan of hungry (always hungry) soccer girls pulled into their long driveway. We were greeted with handshakes and name tags and quickly welcomed inside to one of the most beautiful houses I have ever been in. Sizzling pasta and chicken, salad, bread, veggies and cupcakes were waiting for us as we all found seats throughout their house and simultaneously looked around in awe. We ate delicious food until we were stuffed, talked, told stories and laughed until our tummies hurt.

After dinner, we all met in the President's living room and spent a while individually introducing ourselves and telling him our plans for the future. It was then President McInally's turn to discuss the future as he chatted about the Eby Fieldhouse renovation plans, ideas for expansion and other ways to continue to better Coe College. As we said our thanks and filed out of the President's house, we personally invited him and his family to our home game that upcoming Saturday.

We all headed back to our busy lives on campus feeling extremely grateful for the opportunity we just experienced and began focusing on Saturday's game against Simpson College. As our team got wrapped up in the process of taking on the Simpson Storm, we almost forgot about our invitation to President McInally. But he did not. As I looked up in the stands before kickoff, I saw Mr. and Mrs. President McInally walking into the stadium and finding a seat in the dead center of the bleachers. They both sported their Kohawk Soccer scarves for the whole 90 minutes they were there cheering us on to a 2-1 victory.

As if all this love and support wasn't enough, we walked to our locker room after the game to hear our coach's post-game speech to find President McInally standing in the center of the room clapping and congratulating us all on an important conference win. He thanked us for working so hard and wished us luck in the rest of the season before yelling congratulations one more time and heading home.

President McInally left our whole team standing with huge smiles on our faces, pride swelling from our hearts and an even deeper love for our school - After all, it's not every day the President of your college serves you dinner and gives your post-game speech. How lucky are we?

Kohawk Women's Soccer team at President McInally's house for team dinner!

Happy Friday and much love,

Hannah

Time Flies

Hi everyone!!

As I sit in the Admissions Office writing this today, I can think about nothing but how shocked I am that is already Fall Break! Fall Break signifies we are approximately halfway through first semester, meaning there are only 11 more Fridays until Christmas...WHAT?! Holy cow does time fly when you're having fun ;)

I have an exciting Fall Break ahead of me as my soccer team will be traveling to Waverly, Iowa on Saturday to participate in Beat Wartburg week. Our Kohawk volleyball team started the week out right with an important victory, our football team is planning on keeping the excitement going Saturday morning with a W on our home field, and then the men's and women's soccer teams travel to Wartburg to finish Beat Wartburg week with another big rivarly win!

Because we don't have classes on Monday or Tuesday, after my soccer game I get to head home for a day or two to visit my dog (and parents and sisters I guess), catch up on some sleep and stock up on groceries and warm clothes. Fall Break always seems to come at just the right time in the semester - with midterms and paper deadlines quickly approaching, naps are definitely needed!

Penny is ready for me to come home for Fall Break!

With the weather getting colder and colder, I've been taking some time to reminisince on how much has already happened during my junior year - Homecoming, beating a nationally ranked team, and decorating my new, cute apartment with my awesome roommates being some of favorites. This first quarter of the school year is already packed full of hilarious, happy, stressful memories and I am excited to be able to share them all with you!

Happy fall!

<3,

Hannah

My Journey to Coe

I will be the first to admit I was not the greatest at the whole "choose a college" thing in high school. I wasn't super thrilled about the idea of leaving home where my laundry was always done for me, I always had food available and classes were pretty easy.

I knew I wanted a smaller-sized college and wanted to stay somewhat close to home (I have to be able to see my dog at least four times a semester), but that is honestly all I knew. I didn't know what I wanted to major in, if I wanted to continue my career as a soccer player, or if I wanted to live in a big city or small town. I had convinced myself I would be happy no matter where I ended up and therefore did an absolutely terrible job looking at colleges. When I went on college visits I paid attention to two things and two things only: the food in the cafeteria and the quality of the showers in the bathrooms.

However, all that changed the moment I stepped onto Coe's campus. All of the sudden I was excited about college and all the experiences that would come my way. I felt so comfortable with everyone I met and was thrilled about the ideas my admissions counselor had for my future. Coe's food and showers easily passed my tests, quickly making Coe one of my top choices going into the second semester of my senior year of high school.

Beginning to feel panicky about not yet knowing where I was going to college, I came back to Coe for Scholarship Weekend in February. Within seconds, I texted my mom and had her cancel any other college visits I had scheduled. Everyone I had met on my first visit to Coe remembered my name, what I wanted to major in, who my parents were and even that my dog was the cutest thing on the planet. I knew right away that I was wanted at Coe for who I was, not for any test scores or high school GPA. Coe wanted my personality and desire to learn, they wanted me to come to Coe to better myself. I knew I was not going to simply be a number here; I was going to be cared for, cared about and, most importantly, pushed to become better.

Turns out, my high school self was pretty smart and everything I thought about Coe that weekend was completely true. I am not a number here at Coe; my professors, coaches, and peers truly care about my successes and my happiness.

Although I may not have done everything right in my college search process, I definitely made the right decision.

But really… How cute is she? 

See you all next week for another update on the life of a Kohawk! 

XOXO,

Hannah

Hello! My name is Hannah Torry and I am a current junior at Coe College. I'm from Urbandale, Iowa (right outside Des Moines) and am majoring in Public Relations, Communications Studies and Business Administration. I am so blessed to be part of the Kohawk Women's Soccer team, Student Athletic Advisory Committee, Student Ambassadors, the Honor's program and to work here in the Office of Admissions.

When I'm not running around campus or studying in the library, I love spending time with all my friends and teammates, eating ice cream in the Pub and attending as many Coe events as possible. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how honored I am to be involved in a place as wonderful as Coe and I am so happy I made the best decision of my life and chose to become a Kohawk!

Tune in next week for the story of how I became a Kohawk!