Precious Gem: Becky Vanarsdall

Welcome back to our Precious Gems student spotlight of the semester, this time featuring Becky Vanarsdall!

Becky is a senior Math and Economics major on Team JUDGMENT. She is originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, where she attended Montgomery Blair High School. Becky claims that she is terrible at coming up with interesting facts about herself, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s BECKY!

Becky is a tremendous figure in our Gemstone community. Not only is she our current Fall Food Olympics champion (along with Skyler Golt), she has also been a SL for GEMS100, GEMS102, GEMS202, and a CL for GEMS Camp! She also loves the playful and extremely friendly team dynamic of her Gemstone team. Team JUDGMENT’s research is focused on the influence of construal manipulation on a person’s willingness to support a violent cause. Construal manipulation puts people in either an abstract or concrete state of mind, which theoretically affects whether a person focuses on immediate repercussions or long-term benefit. On her team, Becky primarily works with data analysis.

Last spring, Becky interned at the Department of Treasury’s Office of Performance Budgeting. As she described it, she worked with “a lot of Excel sheets” and budgeting tasks. More recently, she worked with the Science Education Outreach Program at the Walter Reed Institute of Army Research, planning curriculum and organizing activities for dozens of young aspiring scientists. After she graduates, Becky will be working in Washington DC with the Mathematical Association of America Competitions Department full-time! How exciting!

Perhaps one of the most unique things about this Precious Gems is her passion for the sport of curling! Becky is clearly a talented curler, as evidenced by her consistent showings at Junior Nationals both in high school and college. She spent much of her younger years at the curling rink in Laurel, Maryland. It’s not your typical ice rink: it’s pebbled. And you wear tennis shoes instead of ice skates, one of which is made to help you slide around. Even while being afflicted by shingles during a competition, Becky triumphed at Regionals and qualified for Nationals! And due to being listed on the USA Curling Team website, she also appears in several news articles as a (mistakenly identified) DC Olympian. One of her favorite memories as a curler is seeing the Northern Lights after competing in Alaska.

In her free time, Becky enjoys running half-marathons with Caroline McCue! She also watches a lot of TV, including trashy reality shows and shows produced by Shonda Rhimes: Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. Becky LOVES red pandas and can’t really function without coffee (she prefers it black). Her birthday, March 4^th, is the only calendar day that is also an inspiring command. And at two different times in her life she has walked into a street sign.

If you ever see Becky around campus, be sure to say hello! This bubbly, enthusiastic, energetic, and whimsical Precious Gem will surely sweep you off your feet put a smile on your face.  

-26 November, 2015 - David Nguyen

Meet the GSC: Cohort Relations

Co-Vice President of Cohort Relations: Lara Fu

Lara is junior Government & Politics major on team MORALS. As co-VP, she hopes to be able to facilitate more interaction between underclassmen and upperclassmen. She is super pumped for GEMS FORMAL this December. When she is not discussing current issues in the Supreme Court in her favorite class of the same name, doing homework, or doing amazing things for Gemstone, she likes going horseback riding, traveling, and watching Friday Night Lights.

Co-Vice President of Cohort Relations: Lauren Amrhein

Lauren is a senior Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering major on team SAVIOR. She hopes to be able to organize enjoyable and useful professional events for Gemstone students this year. She is a cat person who is extremely fond of ballet and choreography. She thinks The Office is the best show of all time. She also claims that North Campus squirrels are nicer than South Campus squirrels because the latter will “straight up attack you”. Be aware.

Class of 2016 Representative: Isha Agarwal

Isha is a senior Cell Biology & Genetics and Government & Politics major on team SAVIOR. As the representative for the senior Gems, she hopes to be able to create and execute fun activities for the senior class. According to Isha, all the squirrels on campus are savage. In her free time, she enjoys reading, dancing, and watching her favorite TV show, Friends. This year, her favorite class is her Genetics Lab because she gets to mutate worms in that class. She is also an avid lover of Indian food, sushi, and pizza.

Class of 2017 Representative: Paige Chan

Paige is a junior Bioengineering major on team MTB. As the representative for the junior Gems, she is most excited about all the fun GSC events that are coming up and she hopes to get her cohort more involved in Gemstone. Her favorite thing on campus is the sparkly Testudo in the School of Public Health. In her free time, she enjoys baking and exploring the outdoors. She believes that Gemstone is the best because Ellicott rocks.      

       

Class of 2018 Representative: Nicolette “Nikki” S. Wolfrey

Nikki is a sophomore Government & Politics major on team BIASES. As representative of the sophomore Gems, she is looking forward to planning various events for her cohort this year. Her favorite thing about UMD is the school spirit and Gemstone. She has a penchant for photography and likes to go horseback riding in her free time. Gemstone has provided her with friendships to last a lifetime, which is why she thinks Gemstone is the absolute best.

Class of 2019 Representative: Christopher Hallock

Christopher is a freshman Fire Protection Engineering major. He is excited to have direct influence in the events for his cohort and has some exciting plans on board for the freshman class this year. His favorite thing about UMD is Testudo and his favorite food is sushi. In his free time, he likes dancing and cooking. You will also find, if you ever come by E2, that Christopher likes to give the residents free haircuts!

  

-12 November, 2015 - Nazifa Chowdhury

Precious Gem: Trisha Mandrich

This week’s precious gems features a hard-working Spanish major by the name of Trisha Mandrich. Trisha is a junior from Shady Side, Maryland, where she graduated from Southern High School. She left a piece of her heart in Spain while studying abroad last semester and traveling across Europe. This semester, she is back in UMD

to share her life-changing adventures with us.

 

Making her way downtown, through the streets of Spain and exploring the gorgeous architecture, she learned to look at life through a different perspective. She appreciated the authenticity of the language, the food, and the lifestyle. She studied business, literature, history, culture, and art as part of her study abroad program. She claims that truly immersing herself into a different culture has enriched her mind and made her a better Spanish scholar. It was quite the life-changing experience for her because she came back with a new goal in her mind: to teach. 

Initially, she wanted to be a physician’s assistant, but now she wants to take her passion for Spanish and spread the love by teaching the language. In the past, she has been a camp counselor who taught Spanish to children with no Spanish backgrounds and it was interesting for her to see how children innately have the interest to communicate in a different language. She values how much quicker children are able to adapt to and develop a penchant for a new language. 

In her free time, she loves cooking and is an avid explorer of vegetarian recipes. She is part of VegTerps, Terps for Bernie, intramural soccer, and flag football teams. In addition, to satisfy her curious, art-loving self, she likes to hike and travel, so she can see how beautiful the world is.

Her team, team DIRE, is exploring the dark internet and how it has created a cohesive culture and community. The team has special interests in how the dark internet affects the economic exchange and the use of bitcoin. So far, they have acquired substantial research and have talked to people in the dark internet.  As Team DIRE’s liaison, Trisha is in charge of organization of meetings and is head of communications. You could say she is the glue that holds the team together. Recently, they have started fundraising to buy bitcoin to engage in purchasing in the dark internet to compare it to commercial outlets, such as amazon.  Trisha likes that her team is discovering new knowledge all the time and is not repeating any experiments. They hope to be able to reduce the stigma attached with dark Internet.

In the future, Trisha sees herself working with children and with language, and cooking some awesome meals for her loved ones. If you ever need a friend to remind you how beautiful the world is and to teach you some Spanish, count on Trisha!

-06 November, 2015 - Nazifa Chowdhury

Meet the GSC: Finance Committee

 

 Now introducing the Gemstone Student Council Finance Committee for 2015-2016!

Vice-President of Finances: Nate Nenortas

 

Nate is a junior Biochemistry major and part of Gemstone Team MTB. As Vice-President, he hopes to effectively fundraise and manage the budget for the Gemstone Student Council and is excited about the new lineup of fashionable GEMS apparel that will be hitting the shelves soon! Nate loves playing rugby and watching The Wire and Spongebob Squarepants. If he could eat any food for the rest of his life it would be burgers and barbeque, for sure. 

Budget Chair: Patrick Shan

 

Patrick is a sophomore Finance and Mathematics major here on the Finance Committee. His primary directive on the Gemstone Student Council is to help manage the GSC budget. Like any sane person, Patrick is looking forward to the GSC Jason’s Deli fundraiser. Patrick enjoys sleeping, watching Community, and eating pickled vegetables. His favorite part of Gemstone? Dr. Coale. Obviously.

Fundraising Co-Chair: Neha Kalla

Neha is a freshman Chemical Engineering major. She loves Gemstone because of the community: filled to the brim with ambitious and intelligent people. As Fundraising Co-Chair, Neha hopes to run successful fundraisers and get more people involved in Gemstone events, and is super excited about Gems Formal! In her free time, Neha enjoys running, reading, writing, and listening to music. Her favorite food is Chana Masala, which is a very tasty chickpea curry. Her favorite class right now is PHYS260: Thermodynamics!

 

Fundraising Co-Chair: Jay Swayambunatham 

Jay is a sophomore Mathematics major on team MATRIX. He hopes to help the Gemstone Student Council by being involved in the planning and execution of a variety of fun fundraisers. Jay’s favorite part about UMD is the amazing people he’s met. Jay is a cat person, and also thinks that the squirrels on South Campus are different from their northern brethren. In his free time, Jay enjoys watching sports as well as The Daily Show. Jay is in love with Oreos. 

-28 October, 2015 - David Nguyen