Michael Hudak '12
Hey prospective students! My name is Michael Hudak, Mike for short, and I am in the class of 2012 here at Amherst College.
I recently declared my majors as Geology and Environmental Studies. I love the outdoors and between the two majors, I’m absolutely enthralled. I hail from Jacksonville, Florida down south where it's never cold and we don't have seasons. Needless to say, western Massachusetts is a little different than home! I love it here though. The academic year is well under way at this point and I’m fully immersed back into college life.
This year I have been given the opportunity to be a Residential Counselor for Residential Life in a mixed class dorm. It’s a pretty amazing job. Being an RC is not at all like being an RA. I’m not here to get my residents in trouble. I’m here to help build community in my dorm and to be a resource for my residents when they need some guidance. I organize social events for them and feed them excessive amounts of candy. Like I said, great job. So I came back to school in mid-August before anyone else to do RC training. I hardcore bonded with the other RC’s, 55 of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I honestly feel as though I grew as a human being just as much through that week and a half of training as I did all of last year. Pretty crazy, huh?
My job keeps me busy, but I still have time to be active on campus and maintain a social life. My biggest activity this semester has turned out to be Amherst Dance. I played Varsity Tennis all four years of high school, but I had some injuries that really set me back and in the mean time I discovered how much I love to dance, especially hip-hop and acrobatic stuff. (I can do back flips. I’m awesome, I know. (-; ) I break it down all the time and I’m sure I look ridiculous more often than not. But give me a good dance party and I am there! I’m taking on five pieces for the Fall Semester show. All the dances are choreographed by students and everyone who “auditions” is guaranteed a spot in a least one dance, two usually if you want to give tapping a try. Groups like this are one of the best things about Amherst because there are so many of them. You can give anything a try whether you have experience or not. I actually happen to be writing this completely exhausted after four hours of West African Dance class and rehersals this afternoon and evening.
I am also a TA for Geology 11, the introductory course, which is the classic Amherst College class. It literally changes the way in which you view the world. I’m really excited to be helping out this semester because I’ll get to watch just how much people learn in a matter of weeks and thus, how much I learned in a brief thirteen weeks. Plus it’s a good refresher for my Mineralogy class. And finally, I'm a tour guide, and now a blogger, for the Admissions Office. So keep following my blog as the semester goes on. I’ll have lots of exciting things to talk about. (I hope!) Feel free to email me with any questions that you may have. I’m at mhudak12@amherst.edu. Good luck with the application process this year, seniors!
Mike's Blog Entries (listed chronologically, latest to earliest)