Underage Entertainment

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by Meghan O’Neal

Sometimes, it can feel like there isn’t much to do in this town if you’re under 21, and at some point, house parties just don’t do it anymore. Don’t worry, there are plenty of activities for you youngsters in this great town of ours.
The Bowl
The Bowl, Bozeman’s only public bowling alley, is one of the more popular spots in town. With Monday night specials, it won’t break the bank, and it’s a great place to bring a group or make new friends.
The SUB
You don’t have to travel far to have some fun. The Rec Center has billiards and bowling, big screen TVs, musical shows and you can even rent video games. Or check out a cheap flick at the Procrastinator Theater. 
Local performer Tales from Ghost Town at the Rec Center.
The Zebra/Mixers
Keep your eyes peeled for their 18+ shows. Listen to live performances, show off your dance moves, and get a little taste of what downtown nightlife is all about. More information about upcoming shows can be found on their Facebook pages, or visit zebracocktaillounge.com or mixersclub.com.
Norris Hot Springs
These natural hot springs provide the perfect setting to soak away school stresses. Check out their live music on the weekend, grab a bite to eat, and relax with friends at this hot spot. And you can’t beat the views on the 30-minute jaunt outside Bozeman.
Few things beat unwinding after a long week at Norris’s hot springs.
Hike the M
There’s a reason why this is a popular Bozeman go-to. With three different routes and views that are difficult to beat, this close-to-home hike is perfect at any time of day.
Get Involved
MSU works hard to provide alcohol-free events for students. Mingle with your neighbors at RHA events. Get involved in one of MSU’s many clubs. Join an intramural team. These activities provide wonderful opportunities to meet new friends, get to know the school, and there’s always something to do. 

Your days of high-school sports may be over, but intramural opportunities abound.
Make the most of your college experience. Don’t get stuck in a rut. Expand your horizons and try new things. That’s what the college experience is about, after all.

Becoming a Leader

By Carmen McSpadden
Leadership can be an intimidating concept when you’re still trying out majors or formulating a career path. Yet, with a small and supportive class environment, the literary shoulders of giants to stand on, and local leaders as mentors and role models, a whole generation of MSU students are coming into their own—and empowered by an MSU certificate program that rewards students who think for themselves and do the things that they dream of doing.
The MSU Leadership Fellows certificate program (LF) does just this, adding value to all MSU degrees. The program incorporates self-study, service work, and experiential education to empower students to become positive agents of change. Every semester, the students’ “Personal Leadership Plans” tell the story further.

Innovative MSU programs tap into students’ potential to lead.
One student fellow supplemented her study of books by leaders such as Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton with an initiative to make the MSU campus smoke-free. Two students grew their non-profit Tias y Tios organization by enlisting other students to help support the children of Spanish speakers new to the area. A Sustained Dialogue chapter, designed to air out contentious issues, emerged when several students identified a need and worked to make it a reality. These are just a few examples of how students are merging their interests with a new understanding of themselves as leaders.

Montana State University student Michael Edwards talks during a presentation by MSU Leadership students.
Becoming an MSU Leadership Fellow during your undergraduate or graduate education is a straightforward process. Take the three-credit “Leadership Foundations” seminar, the three-credit Leadership Capstone seminar (recommended for senior or junior year), and 12 leadership electives from a list of over 150 approved courses. Easily tailored to fit any major, LF recently added a one-credit “Leadership Exploration” class for first-year students.
To get involved in the MSU Leadership Fellows Program, contact Carmen McSpadden at cmcspadden.montana.edu or visit montana.edu/lf.

A Guide to Filming Action Sports

By Duncan Williamson


Do you ogle your friends’ YouTube videos? Dream about being a powder-ripping star? With the accessibility of inexpensive cameras suitable for shooting action sports, it seems that everyone these days has a YouTube account, hoping to impress their friends and get millions of views. You may be asking, how do you separate yourself from the pack? Here’s a quick guide to getting ahead in the oversaturated world of amateur action-sports cinematography.



Step 1: the Right Camera
Any one of a dozen different cameras will suffice in the quest to become the next great action-sports filmmaker. But the right one for you is harder to find. First off, consider cost-effectiveness. Don’t go spending thousands of dollars on a camera with features you’ll never use and that will leave you too broke to actually get out and film. The perfect camera will match your budget and fit your skills at making videos. GoPro is the most popular choice, with a wide selection of options, ranging from $200 to $400 – can’t really go wrong here. GoPro even has a omplete package that will do, and go, wherever you need. 

If you’re on a tight budget, the Contour Roam is the way to go. With a few different trim levels, it can do most of the necessary technical things you will need as a beginner. The best part about the Contour is you can find it for discounted prices. 

In the end, it is up to you, but my suggestion would be a Contour for the beginning action filmmaker, and a GoPro for the next Red Bull athlete. 



Now Let’s Make A Movie
So you have a good camera and you want to go out and make a badass video. First make sure you have the essential accessories. Extra battery packs are always a good idea, especially for those long days on the slopes. The most avoidable problem is running out of battery life before you get the best trick of the day. Second, you need camera mounts. One of the best ways to ruin a video is with shaky, badly focused or directed shots. Also, make sure you have the right attachments for your camera. Both the GoPro and the Contour make a whole slew of mounts and attachments to get every shot you could imagine

Now let’s shoot. As YouTube videos attest, the first-person view is popular. With a simple chest or helmet mount, you can capture awesome footage that will make you feel like you’re right there doing it when you watch it. Don’t stick too much to one type of shot. Get creative with the mounts. Find cool angles and interesting ways to capture the action. And don’t be afraid to poach ideas from other videos – copying styles you like is good practice and will teach you what you like and don’t like, which is integral to developing your own unique style.


Time to Edit
Once you’ve completed a killer day filming, its time to put a video together. You can do this with simple programs like iMovie for Mac, and Windows Movie Maker for PC. The first step is finding an epic song that fits your footage – play around with different songs and styles until you have something that matches the pace and tone of the day. Once you have a song picked, start editing. Make sure you cut to the music, or in other words, make it fit. This will make awesome shots look even better when they go along with the music. Don’t forget to play with editing and vary the speeds of shots or transitions. If you’re new to editing, don’t get fancy – just make a simple, clean-cut video. Get creative after you’ve got some experience under your belt. 
Photo by Ryan Krueger

After all this is done, you should now have a YouTube-worthy video to show off to your friends. The best thing about this is that with a very low budget you can make awesome videos and progress your skills as both a filmmaker and an athlete.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll whip up a video worthy of the Coldsmoke Awards or the Backcountry Film Festival. Get your gear, set your plans, and get out there!

Resources:

GoPro YouTube Page

Duncan Williamson’s pages:
YouTube
Vimeo

The Veterans’ Families Freedom Scholarship

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By John Baden, PhD, Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment

In 2012, the Montana State University Alumni Foundation, working in conjunction with interested donors and Montana State University’s Office of Disability, Re-Entry and Veteran Services, established the Veteran Families Freedom Scholarship Initiative. 
Gifts to this initiative create endowed scholarships (for undergraduates) and fellowships (for graduate students) are designed to help:
  • Qualifying spouses of veterans—who have made their own tremendous sacrifices—to pursue college degrees and their related economic opportunities.
  • Address known gaps in the Post 9/11 GI Bill, improving access to and retention of veterans and veterans’ families at our University
  • Empower veteran families to say “Yes, both of us,” rather than ask “But, which of us?” to higher education. 
  • Establish MSU and Bozeman as the University and community of choice for those veterans returning from military service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Allow the Montana State University community to benefit from the diversity, talents, experiences and leadership skills that our veterans and their families uniquely offer. 
Bozeman is remarkable for its contagious generosity. We swim in a pool of opportunities to participate in good causes.  Many are interconnected. I will spare you the details but this one links Warriors and Quiet Waters, the Montana Chamber Society, the Bozeman Symphony, the Museum of the Rockies, Eagle Mount, the recent Bozeman Gun Show, and the MSU Alumni Foundation. Rejoice in the result and resolve to somehow contribute in 2014.  
 
Carol Clarke Smith might win the IM (individual medley) in Bozeman’s pool of opportunities to participate in good causes. Here is her story:
 

My motivation for creating the VFFS stems from my experiences as a volunteer for Bozeman’s Warriors and Quiet Waters. My favorite job was hosting spouses of Vets for a day of camaraderie. Their stories were heart wrenching. Unlike their military husbands, these courageous women are untrained for the battles of life at home. What most impressed me was their strength, determination and commitment to make their family’s lives as normal as possible, in spite of overwhelming medical circumstances that face so many of our returning Veterans. It is always warming to send them home knowing they were able to laugh, cry, bond, and yes, learn to fly fish in our beautiful Montana! (The first recipient of my scholarship is Saul Martinez’s wife, Sarah)! In a serendipitous meeting, Sean Gifford, former president of the Veteran’s Association at MSU, an alum, and veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, told me of the scholarship needs of spouses of veterans. While the GI Bill covers veterans’ tuitions, spouses are not covered.   As a member of the MSU Alumni Foundation Board, I asked our president, Michael Stevenson, what our foundation was doing for our veterans’ spouses support.  Answer — nothing…yet.  There was a matching gift MSUAF program in place.  Through this match,  $12,500 became a $25,000 scholarship. If only I had the $$$ I could make this happen.

An unanticipated sale of her family’s business in Illinois gave her an opportunity.  Carol Clarke Smith opened a new checking account.  Her first check for $12,500 established the initiative. Then she provided a second check for the same amount. With the match, this provides $50,000 in scholarships for spouses. Carol concludes with this: “Establishing the scholarship is my humble and infinite gratitude to those in the military that have defended our freedom and our great country. Big hugs to the spouses, children, parents, siblings, of our vets. Thank you.”
Carol feels good—and so will you. To contribute, contact Tyler Wiltgen, Principal Gifts Officer: (406) 994-3743, [email protected].
Editor’s note: Carol’s “windfall” also funded a contribution to the MSU President’s Fine Arts Series and the newly formed Bridger Biathlon Club at Bohart Ranch.

Keeping the Resolutions

2014 has arrived, and chances are you’ve made a resolution or two for the coming year. Whether it be better grades, losing weight, or finding better relationships, it’s a great time to make those changes you’ve been putting off until now. Problem is, though, many fail to keep those resolutions. Fear not; we’ve compiled a few tips for keeping those resolutions as you head into the new semester.

The “drinking more than everyone else” resolution should be reconsidered.

Don’t expect to completely reinvent yourself.

“New year, new me” is a delightfully overused Facebook status this time of year, but that attitude alone sets you up for failure. It’s all too easy to make the mistake of taking on too many resolutions; and it can create a domino effect when one does not work out. So instead of resolving to attain a 4.0 GPA, lose 50 pounds, get a better job, save a thousand dollars, and discover the fate of the Amelia Earhart; choose one or two and give them your all.

Set goals that can be gauged.
“Do better in school” is certainly an admirable resolution, but also incredibly vague. How can your success be gauged? Instead, set a specific goal to attain. Try to choose a goal that can be achieved with incremental success along the way, so if the goal is to improve grades; keep track of your individual assignments along the way to keep your eye on the prize.

“I passed Econ!”

Keep the resolutions reasonable.
Ambition certainly isn’t a bad thing; it’s what keeps our world moving forward. Sometimes, though, we overestimate ourselves as we set our resolutions, and feel the sting of failure when they don’t work out. Carefully consider what you think is within your power to accomplish. Instead of shooting for bench-pressing 400 pounds by the end of the year when you have yet to break 200, pick a goal inbetween. Besides, if you surpass what you expected to do, soldier forward and you might just accomplish what you never thought you could.

Slow and steady for reaching those resolutions, don’t go overboard.

With all of that in mind, here are some helpful articles for common New Years resolutions:

Weight Loss
Shedding Those Winter Pounds
Working Out for Credit
Avoiding the “Freshman 15″

Improving Grades
Senior Advice

Frugal Use of Money
Frugal Fun

Jobs/Careers
Start Now for a Future Career
Bozeman-Area Careers

Do you have any tips for keeping resolutions? Let us know in the comment section.

The Bridger Bowl Cloud

by Christine Rogel

Why Bridger gets so much snow.

Every so often, a blue light flashes on top of the Baxter Hotel, alerting anyone within view of the tallest building in Bozeman that snow is falling at Bridger Bowl. The light—a repurposed airport runway strobe that flashes for 24 hours when the ski area receives at least two inches of snow—was installed in 1988 and played an important role before the era of the Internet. It’s related to an isolated weather phenomenon affectionately called the BBC, or Bridger Bowl Cloud,which descends like a blanket over the east-central Bridger Mountains and leaves behind a prodigious amount of snow.

“Because of the BBC, we’d get these isolated snowstorms and get a Screen-Shot-2013-12-10-at-2.03.07-PMbunch of snow in the mountains, but nothing was going on in town, so people wouldn’t know,” says Doug Wales, marketing director for Bridger Bowl. “So in the ‘olden days,’ the flashing blue light is how people would become aware it was snowing at Bridger.”

According to Eric Knoff, an avalanche specialist with the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center, the BBC is a “sneaker” and can drop up to 36 inches of snow at Bridger, while only one or two inches end up in town. Don’t be fooled by the clouds pouring over the ridgeline and seeping into the valley—the true BBC is the one that drops loads of snow,” says Knoff.

It’s hard to predict when the mysterious cloud and its revered powder-pouring abilities will occur, but January tends to be a good month for the cloud. During some seasons, the BBC appears half a dozen times, and during others only once or twice, according to Knoff. Last season, despite the thick cloud that frequently obstructed the view of the mountains from town, there was only one cycle of the BBC, when a white blanket fell over the mountain and the Bridgers saw 30 inches of snow in just a few days. It’s times like these, says Knoff, laughing, that “Big Sky has BBC envy.”

The BBC’s beloved snow load is actually not caused by a cloud at all, but rather a weather event called “upslope precipitation,” says Megan Vandenheuvel, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Great Falls. The snow starts to fall when a cold, moist northwestern air flow moves through the canyon and is forced upward by the unique geography of the mountains, creating precipitation in the higher elevations.

Regardless of how it forms or what it’s called, the BBC and its isolated snow showers are, at least in part, responsible for the current location of Bridger Bowl. The weather pattern was considered when the ski area moved from its lower elevation at Bear Canyon in the mid-1950s. It’s a unique phenomenon related to the particular geography of the mountains, and interest in the “cloud” is representative of the enthusiasm locals have for the landscape and the outdoors.

 

Start Now for a Future Career

by Erin McCormick
What do Boeing, Micron Technology, the USDA, the Peace Corps, and Montana Fish,Wildlife & Parks all have in common? Probably more than you think, especially when you consider that each regularly recruits MSU students for internships and full-time employment. The recruiting season for employers starts as early as the beginning of September for May positions. This means students need to plan to attend early recruiting events by preparing their resumes in advance, researching organizations, and watching for open positions.
As the experts on campus for career-related information, MSU’s Career, Internship & Student Employment Services team stays updated on what employers are looking for by keeping in regular contact with hiring authorities. Our office also hosts several career fairs each year to connect these employers with qualified students, in addition to offering free coaching and advising services, resume critiques, practice job interviews, and job-search assistance. We also have an exclusive job-search portal (mycatcareers.com) which offers one-stop searches and applications for full-time jobs, student employment, internships, and volunteer experiences. Students can also sign up for interviews and receive advance notice of which employers will attend upcoming career fairs.
Planning early and gaining experience pays off with employers. Employers report that they’re looking for students who have built their resumes while in school by holding leadership positions in clubs and activities, working, doing internships, and even conducting research. In fact, most employers indicate that internship experience is the number one reason they will offer a new college graduate a position with their organization.

Even in a tough economy, employers say they are hiring. But students need to be well versed in their abilities to be competitive. Generally speaking, MSU students are highly qualified for jobs due to their work ethic, trustworthiness, and academic training. By planning ahead, gaining valuable internship and work experience, and putting together a competitive application package, students can get the jobs they want when the time comes.

Erin McCormick is the assistant director of the Career, Internship & Student Employment Services department at MSU. For questions or assistance, call 994-4353 or visit here. 

Pet Perfect

by Patrick Hessman

If you’ve moved into your own apartment or house, you may be looking at the opportunity to have an animal friend in your life again. That year in the dorms without pets was terrible, wasn’t it? Don’t just go out and grab any animal, though; each pet has pros and cons of its own. Here is a handy guide for commonly accepted pets in most apartments, so you can bring an animal friend into your life.

Dogs

Let’s get this out of the way now: Most apartments and many houses forbid dogs. Dogs may be the animal that was expertly bred to be the perfect pet, but most landlords don’t appreciate the mess and noise they make. On top of that, dogs need outdoor space you may not have available, and many require daily exercise you may not be able to easily provide. Yet if you do brave the search to find a dog-friendly rental here, it will all be worth it to have man’s best friend in your life. If you do plan to get a dog, consider adopting. There are many dogs out there who need a home, and will love you just the same. Also, be sure to clean up after your pooch—no one likes stepping in the presents they leave behind.

Cats
Unfortunately, for many of the same reasons they prohibit dogs, most landlords are not cat-friendly. They tend to dislike cats for the smell they leave and their kitty trails of destruction. In fact, it’s probably easier to find a dog-friendly apartment in Bozeman than a cat-friendly one. Yet still, they’re out there, so there’s still the possibility of having your own meme generator in your college years. You might just adopt the next Grumpy Cat pictured below.

Birds
Now we’re getting into the rental-friendly domain of the pet kingdom. Birds can often be negotiated on rental leases because they are primarily cage animals. This is a lot more appealing to a landlord than a free-roaming poop machine. They make nice scenery and can come to be affectionate eventually; but also consider bird calls can be as shrill and annoying as their singing can be beautiful—don’t say I didn’t warn you when Paulie starts shrieking at 2am the night before a major exam.

Birds also claim the “Most Stylish Pet” award.


Reptiles, Fish, and Amphibians
Even if you’re staying in the residence halls, reptiles and fish are an option. Since a tank is even more contained than a cage, most landlords will be okay with a scaly/slimy friend joining your new home. They may all be interesting animals to watch and always look cool, but unlike mammalian and bird pets, these animals will never come to be loving or affectionate. Reptiles also can carry salmonella, so be sure to buy from a reputable pet store.

Who says reptiles can’t be cute too?

Something else to consider about reptiles would be their long lifespan: If you plan to travel after graduating, you may have a lizard or turtle that still has decades to live, so be prepared to make accommodations.

Pocket Pets

In many ways, these small mammals are the compromise of pets that are both contained yet still loving. A trip to PetSmart presents you with hamsters, gerbils, chinchillas, mice, and my personal favorite, rats. These animals always make a cute conversation piece and rats in particular come to be very loyal and loving animals. They often take some time to acclimate to you though, as rodents haven’t been as thoroughly domesticated as dogs or cats have, but even wild rodents have shown some pet-like tendencies.



Why are people afraid of these things again?
The downside to many small-mammal pets is their short lifespans; they won’t be with you as long as a dog or cat will. As a rat owner, I can attest to the heartbreak that comes from having such a dear friend for such a short time, but they’re worth every minute you have with them.

Few people deny the wonderful effect pets bring to your life. Just make sure to do the research beforehand, and always clear a new addition with your roommates and landlord. Little else is more heartwarming than an animal that thinks you’re the entire world.