Alice Ollstein ’10

All life is an adventure, and moving to a new city, building/finding a new community, and scrambling to make it in a uncertain field definitely qualifies.

Even in the worst economy ever, we ex-Obies find a way. Glimpses of the post-college lives of the Class of 2010.

From job hunting to house hunting to cheap cultural activity hunting, I don't think I'm in Kansas (or Oberlin) anymore.

My goal was to graduate without any lingering "I should have done X, Y and Z!" I (almost) succeeded.

On Senior Week, graduating, and facing my future.

Not that I dislike Oberlin's small, enclosed environment. It's been an incredible space to figure out who I am, what I like, what I don't like, what matters to me, and what I want to do about it. But it is time to leave.

A few more I LOVE OBERLIN moments.

Times in recent memory where my brain has screamed I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW LUCKY I AM TO GO HERE

See Alice network with alums. See Alice shamelessly beg for a job. See Alice hobnob with reporters from Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and National Geographic.

Raising awareness on campus about a problematic, popular fruit.

A vitamin-D infused blogpost.

Free New York Times, talented friends, and Oberlin's love of puzzles.

Long, cold winters, unethical fruits, and other Oberlin oddities.

A few personal goals for my last semester at Oberlin

I've transitioned very quickly from seeing suffering and resilience to silliness and pleasure, and it's been difficult to rationalize and connect these two parts of my life.

Keeping vegetarian in Oberlin is easy. In rural Nicaragua? Not so much.

Going back through the many pages I scribbled two years ago has been extremely helpful, and alternately depressing and entertaining.

How to get money at Oberlin to fund your meaningful ideas

Why is it that the one time of year we're too busy to do anything we are presented with a plethora of incredible performances and events?

Possibly my dorkiest post yet.

My waking self was indecisive, but my subconscious knew.

Lessons from a (sometimes) grumpy senior with a touch of senioritis

Why it's much easier to join organizations than quit them, and why quitting is sometimes the right move.

I didn't win. But I was proud to remember both the 3 D's of apparition AND Ron's favorite Quidditch team.

How I accidentally minored in Politics and loved it.

The drugs, plus several more days of going to bed at grandma hours, eventually cured me.

I'm always the first on campus to bust out my winter coat, scarf, boots, and hat. Am I ashamed? Not in the least.

Finally, after almost 20 hours of waiting, I had original paintings by Goya and Toulouse Lautrec in my hands.

A few changes around campus since my freshman year, for better and for worse.

A few words of advice mixed with my nostalgic ramblings of yore.

It suddenly hit me that I have only four days left at my internship at La Opinion, and only two weeks left in LA.

Sure, there are a few bloodthirsty, ambitious climbers at Oberlin, and a few deadbeats content to coast on their parents' funds, but the majority have found a healthy middle path.

In the life of an intern, just about anything can happen. Well, almost anything.

At first I was annoyed at the little assignments Oberlin's making me do to get credit for my summer internship, but now I'm grateful.

Upon learning I attend Oberlin, many people ask if I go into Cleveland every weekend. Usually my facial expression is enough of an answer.

My own computer, grammar errors, and what it's like to be the only Anglo at the country's biggest Spanish paper.

There's a flower shop on S. Main that writes a different name on their sign every day, and if you are blessed with that particular name, you get a free flower. I had never seen my own name until this past Commencement.

You can't do everything at Oberlin, but by god do we all try.

Dan stood in front of the bulldozers and blocked the construction for hours before they hauled him away. Why weren't there hundreds of people with him? Thousands?

As my time in Arizona draws to a close, my thoughts drift away from the mountains of work I have to do to how excited I am for senior year at Oberlin. Here are some of my top fantasies.

I can't decide if I'm excited to go back to a traditional academic setting--to actually read novels again and discuss theories in the safe confines of a classroom--or apprehensive that I'll be frustrated not to be learning by doing, not to be out on the frontlines of the issue that moves me the most.

Some seem to think I've strayed from the original purpose of the blog--giving prospies an unmediated account of Obie life--yet here are the ways my experiences here in Arizona have a great deal to do with far-off Oberlin.

"The people who come here illegally across the border are not educated people," Ms. Richardson said. "They don't have any culture or any respect for ours."

A few things I learned on yesterday's patrol with the Samaritans, a group that sends a group out to the desert every day looking for migrants in need of water, food, medicine or simply a friendly face.

Amnesty International just released a pretty horrifying report on immigrant detention in the U.S. calling the system "broken." What can we do about it?

And ultimately, end.

A handy glossary of border terms. More to come.

To learn the routes of migration, we did in a couple of easy hours what takes most migrants four excruciating days.

Today my program spent the afternoon in court. It's not what it sounds like.

What if good intentions and a strong desire to "make a difference" aren't enough?

Living with a host family is a difficult adjustment after two and a half years in Oberlin's dorms.

Drugs, thugs and racism: a smidgen of what I've learned so far on the border.

Tomorrow marks both the end of the Border Studies program orientation and the end of Bush's reign. Now the real work begins.

I crossed the border for the first time today, and witnessed firsthand the tragedies and ironies of our immigration system.

This ain't your momma's study abroad.

It took putting 3 ten-page papers, a five-page paper and two exams behind me to realize that I just might miss this ol' place after all.

Off-campus status is both a blessing and a curse...but mostly a blessing.

. . . in a style reminiscent of XKCD!

It's important to look around.

It's a bummer to be sick at school, but not as bad as you might think.

I had the distinct pleasure of flying to Rome for fall break to see my S.O., who is studying Classics there, and I got to employ a lot of what I've learned in classrooms and the coops during my stay.

To my delight, a prospie e-mailed me last week and asked if she could spend some time with me during her visit to Oberlin. We had a good time, but here's how to have an even better stay.

The election results may come down to our little state, and the town and college of Oberlin is rising to the challenge.

Sustainability meets book buying.

With our independent magazine finally published, now we just have to get people to read it.

Why everything is easier at Oberlin and harder out in the real world.

When confronted with wastefulness and hostility, what's an Obie to do? It ain't easy being green...

Thousands of miles from Oberlin, it's still all around me.

I'm back home in Santa Monica with a real job at a real newspaper, and I'm realizing that my time at the Oberlin Review has been the perfect preparation for the journalism world.

The end of sophomore year brought the stress of finals, but also the fun of commencement week and parties at professors' houses.

I received a request to elaborate on my experience going from a big, urban California environment to Oberlin, Ohio...so here goes!

A bit about how I ever left L.A. sunshine for Ohio and why I'm so glad I did.

My packed day of activities this weekend was a perfect example of Oberlin's environmentalism, and I'm glad there were a ton of prospective students (aka prospies) here to see them.

All about Drag Ball, arguably the biggest yearly event at Oberlin.