<p>I’m sure she’ll be very happy with her decision. Congratulations and good luck to her.</p>
<p>congrats Lenn2 - From a mom/geographical perspective…it’s going to be nice having her closer to home 
I’m sure she will love it! Now I’ve got to hit the road, because we’re moving my girl home today. yipee :)</p>
<p>I am happy she stayed on the waitlist since she has been selected for admission now! It was admirable of her to become excited about USC and to have emotioanlly and mentally attached to USC, and I know it is hard to let it go now. </p>
<p>You should hit the ground running re her interest in International relations and Vandy. Maymesters offer a month in DC for starters. My son practically forgot to study at first because he was dazzled by the constant barrage of debates and speakers on campus not only in the undergrad school but sponsored by the Div School or the Law School or the Sieganthaler Center or the Center on Ethics that is connected to all of Vandy but particulary to Health Careers. It is important to schedule in time for these events that make your education much fuller. </p>
<p>Vandy son doesn’t have talent in foreign language but eldest at Duke mastered a new language and went abroad in an immersion program. He is the one who discovered how important language is to opportunities in foreign service and his language is NOT on the top 10 list our nation is seeking. Take a moment with her to see if she has any interest in this area if she truly wants to be picked up in an international relations job. Also take a look at the requirements for job titles at the State Dept. As I stated before, each embassy needs security details, cybersecurity employees with computer science skills and engineers, accountants and people with human organization skills. There are many ways to prep for this type of career at Vandy although it is obviously not the Georgetown SFS. The Public Policy degree takes up a great deal of your credits because I think it is multi-department based, so never to early to fool around a bit with how to distribute her study choices. HOD would be another avenue besides the obvioius Poli Sci degree…each degree in that dept requires an area of focus and International Affairs is one of them. If she is interested in public speaking, tryouts for the debate team are as soon as you get there and our son made that team without high school experience. The Communications Dept also dovetails well with a few other degrees for double majors and there is a big focus on public speaking. Our son was a bit blown away by the talent he found in other students in that class. </p>
<p>If you want to PM me sometime, I will talk with you more about Vanderbilt VIEW and you will have options freshman year for a freshman seminar on international topics. My son was in a seminar on Terrorism taught by a professor who had been embedded with the troops. He has also taken a course from an army officer with significant foreign service. And he writes for the Hustler and other outlets on campus regularly. </p>
<p>He was not selected, but he applied to be one of the students chosen to come to campus early to work in Media and to get training on the equipment on campus before the freshman orientation. He didn’t have any significant high school experience to stand out…ie film work, editor of school paper, sports reporting and he was not one of the chosen as I said. But if your daughter has something on her high school resume, tell her to watch for the invitation to student media services. Vandy’s insidevandy.com website is really very good.
The Hustler could be a much much better paper. However, unlike at say…UVA which puts out an excellent daily…requirements for publishing are not as demanding nor is the competition to have your submissions published as difficult. At the Cavalier, the editors practically live there. So again, my advice is for her to follow my son’s lead and to simply show up, start writing and write regularly. He does this purely for pleasure and as a release from study hours but he has learned tons and made many friends in this arena on campus.</p>
<p>So…re vegetarian interests…my son eats in the restaurant in the Jewish Center once a day…many students who like healthy choices enjoy this selection on the main campus. Nothing will prevent her from being very happy re dining first year at the Commons. He eats Indian often as well on foot locally…so many choices. He is also a Predators fan.</p>
<p>Lastly, Nashville has many many immigrants residing there and there are opportunities to work with them. You may also want to look at Alternative Spring Break’s webpage to see some of her opportunities to serve throughout the USA. My son never comes home frankly anymore but we enjoy a couple nights in Nashville at least once or twice a year because we have so many friends there from our era of grad school.</p>
<p>warm welcome to the Vanderbilt community</p>
<p>FWIW, my friend’s D at Vandy (who was in international relations) studied abroad in Chile, Denmark and South Africa IIRC, and landed a terrific job with the Nat’l Security Agency. </p>
<p>When she was a freshman, she was in a poli sci course and the professor said, “I have someone on the phone who would like to listen in to today’s lecture and you can ask him questions.” He hit the speaker button on the phone. It was BIll Clinton, who answered the students’ questions for a good hour.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the great info Faline. I have copied your post and emailed it to my daughter. She will be excited about all this.</p>