Hopkins is a place where I truly believe you can access resources and support in anything you could imagine. Being a student here, you get the sense that the institution is vast, and in many ways geared towards helping you. Whether it’s finding professional or academic support to advance your career or accessing accommodations should you find yourself down on your luck with an injury or illness, there is always someone whose job it is to listen and help.
Take, for example, the time I broke my knee playing pickup basketball. This was during the spring semester of my sophomore year and posed a huge challenge to me as a student given my busy schedule of classes and extracurriculars. I’ll be forever grateful to Student Disability Services (SDS) for single-handedly getting me through that semester, and I’m not exaggerating. The SDS office made it so easy for me to get in contact with case managers who first, provided their sympathy and helped me feel seen during a debilitating injury, but more importantly worked with me to ensure I could see the semester through to the best of my ability. This involved helping moderate conversations between my professors and I, so I felt empowered to advocate for myself.
Furthermore, SDS has a partnership with Lyft that provides free (yes, completely free) Lyft rides for injured and disabled students. It’s as simple as calling the office, specifying the desired pickup and drop-off locations, and within five minutes a Lyft will come to pick you up. It helped as well that campus has conveniently placed access roads that allowed the Lyft’s to drop me off as close to my classes as possible. I can’t stress enough how this helped me overcome the challenge that getting to class posed. Thanks to this service, I was able to retain some level of normalcy throughout my recovery period and keep up with classes and the extracurriculars I cared about most. It was especially nice that the service was offered at no cost, removing a huge barrier to students who may not be able to afford such frequent usage of personal on-demand rides.
Another great campus resource I connected with during my time here is the Life Design Lab (LDL). The LDL is located in one of the newer buildings on campus, the Imagine Center, which is a beautiful modern building on the north end of campus. The LDL provides students with guidance, resources, and opportunities to navigate their careers. Through this office, I was able to get personalized advice on crafting my resume, writing cover letters for different positions I’ve applied to, and other miscellaneous things like free headshots.
The LDL also offers opportunities for students to obtain funding for underpaid internships and grants. I’m very thankful for connecting with this resource early on in my undergraduate experience, because they made doing research over the summer so much more financially feasible. As part of the grant program, students engaged in a low-stakes online course that was designed to help us think strategically about our professional network and how the summer experience fits into our broader career paths. This and other experiences I had with the LDL were formative in terms of gaining a sense of knowing what I want out of my career, as well as gaining practical skills like composing emails and networking.
Hopkins offers so many resources aimed at helping you actualize the growth you want to see and succeed in anything you put your mind to. I wouldn’t even consider myself the most adept at accessing resources (something I am actively working on improving), but through my experience here I’d say that I’ve learned the value of taking advantage of what’s available to you. That semester my knee was injured lives on in my head for being very difficult and suboptimal for many reasons, but I genuinely really appreciated being able to Lyft where I needed at any time. And while I certainly hope others don’t fall into that same predicament, I just hope reading this will give you the confidence to know that there are people out there who will look out for you.
