Welcome to spring, current and prospective students!

To start, congratulations to admitted students on decision day last week! You’ve all worked incredibly hard and now the wait is over.

I remember the sheer joy I had when I received my admit packet in the mail — in 2015, I got the acceptance letter before decisions were posted online. But I also received acceptance letters from other schools, and I had to make some really tough decisions about which school I really wanted to attend. Best luck on your decision — naturally, I hope you choose Carleton — and remember to think critically about what you want in a college and to come prepared with questions for your hosts, profs you meet, and the admissions staff. I remember I came horribly prepared and when current students asked me what I wanted to know about Carleton, I wasn’t ready with questions and given the short duration of accepted students days there’s only so much time to get direct, face-to-face access to current students.

This spring break I spent most of my time working with admissions to prepare sending out thousands of decision letters. I also gave a few tours to prospective students and their families, which is always fun to do, notwithstanding my initial fears of talking about Carleton for an hour a few years back when I started. For a day, I took over the Carleton Instagram story to celebrate the release of admissions decisions with a few stop-motion videos and filters galore. I got to see my roommate A LOT considering he was working with me full-time and we spent most of the time in our dorm. It was really nice to take a break after an exhausting winter term.

This term I will be in the following courses:

• JAPN 206 Japanese in Cultural Context – so, I actually finished the mandatory language sequence last year but I decided on a whim to continue with my Japanese studies. Plus, Habuka-sensei is probably the most energetic professor I’ve ever had.
• LING 130 Sociolinguistics of Semitic Languages – I’m so excited to take this class! Most of the linguistics department focuses on linguistic theory, but this class focuses more on the social role of language and how it relates to language structure.
• LING 340 Topics in Semantics – another rare offering in the department, we’ll be looking at how sentence structure relates to meaning. Our first assignment required us to define the words chair and book in three paragraphs without consulting a dictionary, which is surprisingly more difficult than it seems.
• LING 399 Senior Thesis – I start the comps process this term and finish during fall. Wish me luck…
• MUSC 182J Chinese Musical Instruments (Juried) – fifth term learning guzheng!

When I’m not busy with my heaviest course load yet, I’ll be cycling around Northfield more regularly (because the sun is back, sort of!), figuring out summer and post-graduation plans, and learning/teaching dances at the rec center.

To conclude, I hope this spring term goes well and I welcome all prospies to our school — in fact, I’ll be a host for a prospie during one of the accepted students days.

Chase is a junior linguistics major and is more than glad to exchange the year-round California heat for some Minnesota seasonality. In his free time, he enjoys learning and teaching urban dance choreography, playing guzheng, and cycling around Northfield. When Chase doesn’t have free time, which is often, he’ll be in the libe or Sayles with a cup (or cups) of chai tea in hand.