Monthly Archives: February 2021

Sports

Sports at NECC have many purposes

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The biggest purpose of going to college, if anything, is obviously to study and be able to get adegree in a field that you want to pursue in the future.

Students spend most of their time studying to achieve their goals while receiving much-needed help from the best tutors in the campus. Staff at NECC, however, notice how much students put so much time into studying and working hard to obtain their degrees, so NECC offers students multiple miscellaneous activities to easeout these difficult times and help students cool down.

One of these activities is a popular activity among students, sports.A hobby for some, and a focus for others, sports give students & staff the perfect opportunity to form close bonds with one other and learn the concepts of communication and togetherness.

Athlectic Director Daniel Blair believes that there is something very valuable in learning when it comes to sports at NECC

“Just like the classroom, students can learn many life lessons from athletics and make friendsthat will be life long,” he said.  “Athletics is an extension of the classroom learning experience. The athletic department allows me to work with a diverse group of student-athletes everyday. Ig et great pleasure in working with students and watching them succeed both academically andathletically.”

A much bigger picture, as claimed by the source, can be interpreted when it comes to sports,where most people would see more of the athletic side rather than the academic side.“

We are open to any student who is interested in our program, we try not to turn away any student that wants to be on a team without a fair tryout. Additionally, our coaches recruit specific students for their teams that they believe will be a good fit for the program and allow both thestudent and team to succeed,” he said.

Sports give students a variety of opportunities both in their personal lives and in their academic lives to further their developments.

Jeffrey Mejia, baseball coach and assistant athletic director at NECC, also believes sports can bring ou tboth the physical and mental presence of anybody.

“There are many lessons that can be applied to everyday life. Accountability, dependability andwork ethic are the keys to being successful on and off the field,” he said.

Features, Home Page News Bytes

Reconsidering screen time

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During these challenging times, we seem to have a greater relationship with our devices to fill the void of our boredom, especially in the beginning of the pandemic when the entire world was on lockdown and all we could do was binge watch Tiger King on Netflix, make whipped coffee and do the latest Tik-Tok trends. With the pandemic having no light at the end of the tunnel anytime soon, it is high time for all of us to reconsider the amount of time that is taken out of our day to mindlessly scroll and think of better alternatives to occupy our time.

With all schools and colleges being remote learning now, there’s no hiding the fact that we are all on our devices for the majority of the day.

PR Newswire created a poll surveying 2,000 parents of school aged children for more information regarding screen time with both themselves and their children. The surveys concluded that “69 percent feel “addicted to their phone.” We can probably all admit that we are somewhat addicted to our phones.

It’s hard to not mindlessly scroll especially with so much happening around the world everyday. They also concluded that “62 percent admit to spending too much time on their cell phone while with their kids.” With the pandemic, it has become difficult to spend that quality time with your loved ones. However, when we are with them it is hard not to break your habits of looking at your devices.

Remote learning has also increased the screen time in both children and adults. Working from home has also increased adults device usage with zoom meetings and typing out emails.

Online learning can be a struggle for some students. For culinary NECC student Mercedes Rodriguez says “I wish that I had classmates and teachers I could meet with and lean on when I need help.”

Rodriguez also says it is challenging to get ahold of teachers sometimes for help or guidance. Online learning is almost new to everyone and it can be a hard transition for many people. Kacy Florence, a student at Middlesex Community College says “I had a hard time navigating through my online course since I didn’t have anybody around that knew how to navigate the website.”

To help reduce our device usage, we can think of ways to occupy our time that will benefit our day to day lives. Rodriguez states that she “purchased a mixer and got into baking.”

Cooking and baking can become a fun and relaxing for some people like Mercedes herself. Florence says that she has been spending more time with her family since they just adopted a puppy in the middle of quarantine. Just being able to find that new hobby or passion for something that you’ve been wanting to do will help reduce your screen time and quality of life.

Campus Life, Home Page News Bytes, News

Center for Liberal Arts offers students academic help, events, advising and more

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The Center for Liberal Arts is a social and academic home for all Northern Essex students who have a liberal arts related major so that they can have access to academic help, events, after school snacks, advising, and more.

The idea of the Cente rcame about from the Business and Accounting center and at the time since there were many other centers already established that catered to those majors it seemed as if the Liberal Arts majors were the only students who were missing out on that experience. which is how the Center for Liberal Arts came about.

Students can find the center in the Northern Essex Haverhill campus, room C209. Though, due to the current pandemic the room for the center is currently closed to the public. Fortunately, the center is still up and running even during the covid-19 pandemic andstudents or faculty can join events now online.

The Center for Liberal Arts has many things to offer the Northern Essex student body and faculty. You do not necessarily need to be a liberal arts major in order to attend the center. But the center specifically caters to those with liberal arts majors just like how the other centers such as the Math center and Business center cater to their majors.

Dermot Luddy the head staff member for the Center for Liberal Arts and an occasional professor for the Ethics Oriental Philosophy World’s Religions course stated what is the meaning behind the center and on its impact on students when we can gather on campus again.   “It means a place where students feel welcomed. Where they can crash, have snacks, meet friends, and hang out. Wherethey meet faculty. The kind of things that are unique to the center is that you have faculty who come from pretty diverse backgrounds and different interests that have them coming in and hanging out in the same room that really sparks conversations that can be interesting; that sometimes students just ease drop into conversations that are taking place and you know that they are getting something out of this. They don’t intrude, that they don’t want to necessarily draw attention to themselves but they’re hanging on to every word that’s going on and you can see that they are having a great experience listening to professionals in their field discussinginteresting topics.”

Liberal arts majors in Northern Essex are considered to be Psychology, Communications,Journalism, History, English, Sociology, and more.

When the center and campus are open to the public, you can visit find events related tot he students or regarding the media and what is important in our society today. You can also graba free snack and at times the center offers free pizza if they’re hosting an event. In the center you can also see faculty members who hang out and engage into conversation with the students who visit the center, which is a great opportunity for the faculty and students to make connections and hold important educational conversations. Also, the center has advising for all liberal arts students who are looking for transfer help, to enroll into classes for the following semester, or just simple advising questions.

Fortunately, for any liberal arts students who are passed their first semester in the school is expected to report to the center for advising help and for those who are just starting their first semester can look to the information center to enroll into their first classes.

The best way to stay updated to any future eventsfor the Center of Liberal Arts has to offer is by email: centerforliberalarts@necc.mass.edu or viasocial media in which you can follow their Instagram page at @neccliberalarts.

Also, if you are looking for virtual advising help you can reach out to Shakira Moreta the academic advisor for liberal arts and business students through email or navigate to set up an appointment for all youradvising needs.

Moreta is currently doing advising for both business and liberal arts majors but eventually is going to be an advisor solely for liberal arts students.

Regarding her virtual appointments she stated that “I think the thing about being virtual is that at least myappointments have gone at least 30 minutes increments so I have that time to share my screenand if you are planning to transfer next fall for example and you’re going through that transferprocess we are able to share screens and look over the process you have in the application.”

There are many ways liberal arts students can be assisted with academic advising as long ast hey take the time to reach out to Moreta and reserve an appointment. Students can also email the Center for Liberal Arts email to get into touch with Moreta.

Unfortunately, many students may not be able to experience all the center has to offer at the moment because of the global covid-19 pandemic the world is facing but there is hope that the center could possibly be re-opening in the Fall of 2021, sources say.

Even though there isn’ ta Center for Liberal Arts in the Lawrence campus there is commotion that there will be something very similar opening up in the future.

Amy Callahan the Dean of the Liberal Artsdivision and previously a professor for Journalism/Communications courses as well as thep rogram coordinator for the Journalism/ Communication program said that “the Lawrence campus, if we hadn’t of had the pandemic then we would already have the center open. But when we re-open we will have an academic center for Lawrence that will actually serve I think all, everything except health because health I think has its own center over in the new building.”

So, for all those who attend the Lawrence campus look forward to possibly seeing a center similar tothe Center for Liberal Arts opening when the pandemic starts to clear up.

Overall, many of my sources all had a similar goal for the center which was for more student engagement.

Luddy had this to say about the student engagement for the center: “Well,it’s kind of difficult right now because we are off campus, I suspect there is a certain number of students who think that the center does not exist because we are not on campus but I think we remedied that quite a bit because we’ve had pretty regular events by zoom and lots of people are well zoomed out at this point but I have been heartened by how many people who are willing to turn up to events that we hold during the day time or the evening. That they can come andparticipate in.”

For more information about the center, visit https://www.necc.mass.edu/current-students/academic-centers/center-for-liberal-arts/liberal-arts-center-events/

News

Covid’s impacts on our lifestyles continue

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Lifestyle in 2020 took an unexpected turn. When covid hit, it shook up our everyday lives.

The life that we once knew was gone, workplaces, schools, etc, had been shut down. As humans, connecting to one another and being social is a part of our being.

For some, Quarantine took a toll on mental and physical health while others used this time to better mental and physical health.

That being said there was no right or wrong way to quarantine this was such a hard time to get through and I’m glad you are all safe. I got to sit down with these students to see how they spent their quarantine, how their lifestyle changed and how their mental health was affected?

Sophomore Sabrina Spero a Nursing student here at Necc said that “my lifestyle changed because I woke up every morning about a month into quarantine and did at least an hour of youtube workout videos and it made my day start off great.”

Senior Colleen Jameson said “I think excerise plays a crucial role in your mental health, I think that its important that everyone takes control of themselves and take that time to recalibrate. I can truly attest to the fact that my mental health is better than before the pandemic because I implemented exercise into my routine.”

Everyone’s mental and physical health is different so what works for some won’t work for all.

Selfcare is not about the destination it’s all about the journey you go through to learn and grow into who you are and who you want to become. If your looking for a place to start your selfcare journey NECC offers counseling and You can make an appointment by e-mailing counseling@necc.mass.edu or calling 978-556-3730.

 

 

Opinion

The power struggle between the media and real-life violence

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The entertainment industry is one of the most popular and influential things that we as human beings consume. One of the more popular themes that we are exposed to within this industry is violence, but there is a troubling aspect to this as well. The thing that concerns many folks out there, including me, is the connection between violence in the entertainment industry and violence in real life. Acts of violence like mass shootings have been popping up quite frequently over the past couple of years, and it feels like the entertainment industry plays a role in this.

One of the biggest reasons for this is because the media tends to overdramatize the scenes that include violence in order to enhance the plot of the product they produce.

There are many ways they do this from massive explosions, to big fight scenes, to using top of the line weapons among other things. While it often leads to a successful product, it can also show a susceptible audience (children) that violence is cool and shows that it is acceptable for anyone to solve their problems with violence.

There is another aspect that should be considered in this struggle as well and it is something that is difficult to talk about: mental health.

While nobody has ever proven that there is a direct correlation between this, violence in the media and violence in real life it makes me wonder if we devoted more resources into this if events such as the Stoneham Douglas High School shooting and many others could have been possibly prevented if we had done this.

Now that the problem has been discussed, what are the ways that we can combat this problem to possibly prevent it from happening in the future.

There are the old tried and true ways of doing this by controlling what are kids have access to, but kids will just find a way around that.

There could be more resources devoted to mental health, but it is not on the top of the decision makers to do list. The discussions will continue to happen, and we need to figure out a solution now.

Hopefully, the media will be a part of the solution instead of continuing to be a part of the problem.

Campus Life

Connecting with the community during the holidays

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Northern Essex Community College hosted a holiday themed movied night in December.  The community was encouraged to participate in the showing of the movie, The Holiday, being shown via Zoom. Any and all students and faculty members are welcome to join with a super simple signup through link.

The organizer of this recurring movie night, Stephanie Haskell, actually calls it Theater Thursday. For members of the community who are trying to stay inside, this is a perfect plan for every other Thursday night during the holiday season.

This event can be found easily on the Northern Essex Community College website, along with many other events! . There is no better way to stay cozy and entertained than watching a holiday movie with the members of your community. “I am always looking for a way to stay a part of my college’s community and this movie night is right up my alley,” says NECC Alumni Emma Formosi. Theater Thursday is perfect for current and past students, faculty, and family members!

It can be difficult to get into the spirit with everything going on in the world, but watching a holiday movie definitely helps!  The organizers of this event would be more than excited to answer any questions you may have as well. For inquiries, feel free to contact Kalyn Ryll at kryll@necc.mass.edu.

 

Features

Holidays in a pandemic

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No matter what your typical traditions may entail, this holiday season is most definitely going to look a little different this year. With the aim to keep family members and loved ones safe, many people are avoiding huge family parties or going out at all.

“This year’s going to be really different for my family, actually.” says NECC student, Emma Kallery. “Usually, I spend Christmas Eve with my mom’s side and Christmas Day with my dad’s (with around 15 people present for each day), but with everything going on this year, we all made the decision to stay home and celebrate within our own houses.”

Many other people have had to make difficult decisions like Kallery and since a large part of Christmas involves being close to the ones we love, people like Isabella Behm, who “…haven’t felt like it’s ‘that time of year,” are left with Zoom calls and curbside pickups to try and replace the once ‘jolly’ holiday.

For some, the inability to visit family is much more taxing.

“On Thanksgiving night two years ago (2018), after our usual gathering of the whole family, my dad fell ill and passed away two nights later. That’s one reason my sisters and I didn’t like the idea of nobody seeing my mom in person for Thanksgiving,” NECC professor, Dave Rattigan says.

“Originally, my teenage daughter and I were going to go over and sit at the other end of a long table from my mother, but I had contact with someone who had Covid so spent the whole week in self quarantine. My only contact with Mom came when she packed up a turkey dinner and I picked it up off her porch like a ransom drop,” he said.

“With cases escalating, I’m not sure about Christmas. One sister and her two adult kids are planning to self-quarantine for two weeks and go see my mother. I’m probably going to end up with another dinner-to-go from my mother’s porch.”

Being alone for the holidays has become somewhat the norm this year, and while this statement in of itself is a depressing one, it gives people something to bond over; a similarity between us all that will fuel the drive to hopefully make the get-togethers and parties of Christmas future worth waiting for.

In the meantime, students like Shaun Hood are making an effort to do the most within our current situation. “I even figured out how to play music in a Zoom meeting!” Hood exclaims, referring to his plans to meet his family via Zoom this Christmas.

“Hopefully things will get better in the new year and we can visit our relatives then,” mentions another NECC student, Greg Lagasse.

It is the constant reassurance of our own selves and others that things will indeed be good again, but rather than dreaming of ‘going back’ to normal, I believe we should try and ‘push ahead’ to something even better.

2020 has taught us all many valuable life lessons, one of which is the importance and values of a community. We’ve all learned so much about ourselves and one another through this pandemic that we can now attempt to take what we’ve learned and grow from here.

Opinion, Slider

How I didn’t handle burnout this fall, and why you should

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I got burnt out mid November, from school, juggling three schools has not been the easiest the whole semester but I was managing for two months until my father started making me practice driving again.

I hate driving with a burning passion and the amount of energy and time that took out per day became a little too much for me to handle along with school.

We stopped after a week because my dog got sick, and I needed to take care of him during recovery, this is where the issues began.

Instead of taking care of myself and my dog for a few days I ignored the fatigue completely, I pushed myself to do work, everything I was churning out was just as bad as it could be, I wasn’t proud of it but I knew it’s not going to matter much.

Skip ahead a month to the first week of December and I have done two weeks worth of missing math assignments in two days, and I shut down after that. I didn’t touch anything school related for three days, I ignored all my math work for two weeks, focused on college and my other high school, and it blew up in my face.

I couldn’t, and have not gotten any motivation back since then. Every time I do work I spend at least 20 minutes forcing myself to do the work, before I even press a key.

That feeling, like glue on my brain has been one of the worst feelings I have felt in my life, and I just started accepting zeros because I knew the more I push myself, the more zeros I will have to take.

Burn out is terrible, when you start to feel drained especially with how everyone is home right now, take a day or two off.

Contact who you need to in order to do that and take a break, breathe for a few days and just let yourself enjoy something else besides work.

Cause I don’t know when and if I can fully recover from how much I took on mentally, but I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone else.

I baked pumpkin bread the other day, trying to take a break for myself, me not realizing I’m taking a break churned out a whole essay in the hour it took to bake, I could have taken that time to read one of the books I have been wanting to get to.

Instead I got sucked back into my work, that’s something people need to realize right now.

Motivation and willpower are so limited, there is only so much one can do before their body starts to give out, before the days start to warp together and turn into one mangled mess.

Time stops moving properly when you get like this, time starts to feel irrelevant like the only thing that matters is getting whatever you are avoiding out of your life, but you can’t because there is no coal in the train. No warmth for a cold house, it’s just empty, that train was retired a while ago, and that house has been left vacant.

Note: IN fall 2020, Griffin Caruso was a duel enrolled Early College student.

 

Campus Life

Journalism program coordinator hosts conversation about the craft

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On Dec. 10, 2020,  the new coordinator of the journalism and communciations program at Northern Essex Community College, Kim Lyng hosted a journalism and communications ‘conversation’ for all students and staff members to attend if they pleased.

Lyng began the presentation by talking about her introduction to writing as a child.

Lyng believes her love for writing stems back to her childhood, which she connected by saying she “really (loved)  to write from a really young age, and I love to write everything from short stories to poetry.”

She goes on to talk about how she believed she would go into the journalism field froma young age because of this.

Already knowing from a young age that she wanted to pursue writing, Lyng found herselfat a liberal arts college. Once she had graduated from her liberal arts college, she “worked at a newsroom [for] a newspaper where everybody in the newsroom… had been in liberal arts.”

Eventually, she would end up working for the Cambridge Chronicle, which is a section of the Somerville Journal. From here on, she found herself working for newspapers and other journalism and communication programs. Lyng went on to have varied experiences in newsrooms, including working in TV news.

One of the journalism stories she shared, revolves around a nurse who broke her leg walking to her car, and the CEO  of the hospital was very rude. When she had tried to ask about the situation, none of the workers wanted to go on record, so she instead “started getting [a lot of] anonymous sources,” since nobody wanted to openly speak poorly about the CEO of the hospital. As a journalist, Lyng still had to finish the story, but had to piece together all of the anonymous tips

Reluctan on the record sources is not uncommon in journalism, as journalists are meant to always tell the truth, which may not always align with what certain people want to hear.

Lyng went on to tell more about her experience in journalism and communications, and also answered some student questions, which delved deeper into her career and life as ajournalist. Some of these questions revolved around other careers in journalism, such as sport journalism. When talking about sports journalism Lyng said “there’s lots of different opportunities in local sports teams to kind of start there and then say, Okay. From there, I get together like a reel of me, you know, doing announcements you know.” This can lead to “to getting into  a different job somewhere, you know, ESPN.”

She answered a few more questions like this, in order to make sure the students attending the meeting got as much information about the journalism fieldas possible

.Lyng decided to end the conversation by reminding everyone on the call that now is the best time to start writing. There is not a lot to go outside and do, so with time all this homea nyone interested in going into the journalism field should start working on developing stories and testing out different types of journalism. The conversation lasted around 83 minutes, and found many people within the call to be active. The meeting was held as a conversation rather than a presentation, which is why personal journalism questions were encouraged, asked, and answered. Lastly, Kim encourages anyone with questions about journalism to reach out to her via email at klyng@necc.mass.edu.

Campus Life

Learning from home affects student life

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Due to coronavirus, student life at Northern Essex community college has changed drastically.

Before Covid struck students were able to attend meetings, have in person classes,and enjoy the beautiful campus. Now that nobody is allowed on campus, all meetings and conversations have to be held online.

There have also been online student town halls. It seems as though everything has changed since the pandemic hit, and students are greatly impacted by these changes. The remote learning has affected staff and faculty as well.

When asked how these changes affected his life, Dermot Luddy of the Center for Liberal Arts said“It took a while for everyone to get the hang of hosting events online. Most people seem to have adopted Zoom, which is limited in its adaptability, but is still great in the way that it can facilitatelarge gatherings of people.”

“You do not know who else is at the meeting, and you cannot interact with them. Cameras are never on, and so even the hosts don’t know the level of engagement by the attendees,” said Luddy.

The effects of Covid are vast on the students and have greatly impacted their engagement both in webinars and in their classes.Before Covid, there were many activities that would be held at the NECC campus tha tworked with student schedules, but the same can’t be said for online activities.

“When we are oncampus there are always events that I would like to attend, but can’t due to scheduling

difficulties,” said Luddy.

Many students could attest to these changes affecting their daily lives and availability, and it seems like the spring will be very similar.

Spring classes are going to be completely remote as well, but might entail more structured meeting times. This will most likely be difficult due to the great diversity of students in Northern Essex, as many students’ schedules don’t line up with each other.

Luddy, who helps students with schedules, stated “I think that most students appreciate that they can have thes emeetings one-on-one where they get my undivided attention.”

This could be seen as one positiv ein the current situation, but there are still many questions about the coming semester and seemingly ever changing state of the current world.