1st Hunt Blog

What a start to college planning week! On Thursday, September 26th there were only 8 students left on 1st Hunt for check and no RLAs. So I had the pleasure of calling check, which was completed by 10:03pm.  But enough about the weather. This month was another great month on First Hunt. We are continuing to learn about each other through spending time together both on our own and organized activities.  Some of the highlights were scooter races, 1st Hunt lunch in the PFM, IHOP, sock wrestling, Karaoke with Ground Reynolds, Beyond Hunt with Zach Richardson '20 and so much more!

1st Hunt Potlock: Mark Your Calendars

Sunday, December 1st 3-5pm

Mark your calendars for December 1st for the 1st Hunt Potluck! I'll send a sign up out at the beginning of November for folks to sign up. This event is for ALL 1st Hunt students and families! This will be a great time to get to know others from our community and send off the students to their final exams well fed and ready to end the year strong!

Thank You: Birthday Celebration, Hall Food, & Pantry

August Birthday Celebration

Thank you for the Burgess & Byrne/Elson-Rogers Families for providing the birthday celebration! I was serving cookie cake, so didn't get as many pictures, but they sang beautifully and had full bellies!

Hall Food

Thank you to the Taylor Family for providing hall food for this month! Students enjoyed subs and cheese trays from Harris Teeter along with cake, chips, leomonade, and more! One of our faculty/staff sponsors, Charles Robinson, also supplied sweet treats like donuts and cookies for the evening as well. Needless to say they were VERY excited for all of the food and enjoyed eating while our guest, Zach, talked to him about his NCSSM and UNC experiences. 

Food Pantry

Thank you for the Betz, Skeels, and Warren, families who have sent items via Amazon or dropped off items in person for the 1st Hunt Food Pantry. I think students are really enjoying it and hopefully it's just 1st Hunt who is! I've tried to put only a few things out at a time just to make it last longer and also make sure it doesn't get taken. The students have worked well together in trying to make sure it lasts a little longer as well by establishing a number of items to take per week (I think it's 2-3)!

How To Get Involved:

Bring Back Reusable Plate, Bowl, Fork, Spoon!

I usually request this before everyone arrives and totally forgot this year. When you come back from Fall Break, try to remember to bring a reusable plate, bowl, fork, and spoon to use at all events so we can cut down on the amount of paper plates, bowls, etc. Of course, we'll have some on hand in case you forget, but try to remember!

Happenings On Hall

IM Soccer, Scooter Racing with 1C2C1D, 

& Karaoke with Ground Reynolds

IM Soccer is well underway and I was able to catch a few minutes of our first game. So far, we're undefeated and will resume after the break with our last few games that were rained out. We enjoyed a night of scooter races with 1C2C1D and had lots of laughs! Cassidy, the other CC, and I even raced... I'll spare you the footage! And lastly, a few quick snips of karaoke with Ground Reynolds singing everything from Disney to oldies and lots inbetween.

1st Hunt Movie Sept.mp4

1st Hunt Lunch

I was too busy having lunch and talking to everyone, but for lunch on Thursdsay, I put out table reservations and invited everyone to drop by to have lunch together. It was a great turnout with more than half of the hall stopping by to eat and chat. Look for this every month and next time I'll try to snag a picture or two. They loved being able to tell others that the tables were only for them!

Canvas Painting with 1st Hill

I'm so sorry I've forgotten who purchased the Canvas and paints for the hall to have to be creative! We had more than enough and will definitely do another activity with canvases with another hall this year for sure! This time, we didn't have a them and students painted whatever came to mind. We have some creative folks on hall!

Beyond Hunt: Zach Richardson '20

As mentioned last month, I'll be inviting a 1st Hunt alum back each month to talk about their time at NCSSM and what they've done afterwards. This month, Zach Richardson, from Rocky Mount, returned back to 1st Hunt to talk about his time as an RLA, RBio student, and finding his major which was biology, with a minor in stats and data science. Now, Zach is an intern for the OKC Thunder NBA basetkball team doing stats and hopes to land the full time position in January. His best advice was to do your work, but it's not the only thing that is important. His best memories were playing games with his friends and participating in hall activities. He also encouraged 1st Hunt to take classes in different areas as that's how he learned at NCSSM and UNC things he did and didn't like. It took a few minutes for questions to get going, but when they did, 1st Hunt asked lots of questions and some folks chatted with Zach afterwards. It seemed like there was a lot of folks who enjoyed having Zach back and looks forward to the other alumni who return! 

Next month, we'll invite Nathan Ostrowski '19 from Davidson who attended Duke as a computer science major.

Sock Wrestling

Sock wrestling is a hall event that has been passed down since at least 2 CCs before me where the goal is to take the sock off of all other students to win! It's always a favorite and a lot of fun for everyone! They've already requested to do it again, but it's an even that only occurs 2, maybe 3, times per year. So they'll have to wait a bit until it happens again!

Yum Yum Box: Korea

This month, we traveled to Korea for our Universal Yums box. Man - I wish I had video or better pictures of Sam trying the shrimp chips! Now that was a great face! Seems like the shrimp chips were either loved or hated with possibly no one inbetween. The ramen snack was delicious as as the peach gummies. There was lots of other stuff in there as well that was quite tasty also! 

Upcoming October Highlights

Get excited about what's to come next month on 1st Hunt:

Campus Wide Reminders/Information

As students adjust to the rigors of NCSSM it is also important for them to make time to have fun, relax, and enjoy all parts of the Science and Math experience. To that end, it is important that you and they know about the NCSSM Student Activities Board and all the amazing opportunities that it offers students. 


SAB is made up of student and employee volunteers from across campus. Under the supervision of Kori Willoughby, the Student Activities Coordinator, SAB meets every other Thursday throughout the year to plan activities and events for the student body. Meetings are open to all students.


Some popular SAB events, outside of major campus-wide events like Welcome Week, the Halloween Dance & Costume Contest, Winter Semi-Formal Dance, Prom, and End-of-Year Celebrations, include:

You can find out more about SAB and see upcoming events on their website.


In preparation for Wednesday’s PSAT administration, we will follow a Wednesday Lab schedule during the day on Monday, Oct. 14th. All juniors will take the PSAT in the morning on Wednesday; we will then follow an abbreviated Monday schedule that afternoon. Evening classes and Online webinars will meet on their normal Monday schedule.”


“Over the next few weeks your students will be receiving emails from me to schedule 1-on-1 meetings. These meetings give me a chance to get to know your students better, respond to any issues they are having on hall or campus, get ideas about things they would like to see on hall, and just generally check in on how they are enjoying their time at NCSSM. 1:1s typically last between 20 and 30 minutes. We will have these meetings every semester.”

“As October draws to a close, faculty across campus will be completing grading assignments so that we can release second progress reports for your students on November 8th. To view your student’s progress report you will need to log into Blackbaud and select the “progress” tab. Then click where it says “report cards” to open all the progress reports for this year. Select either “Semester 1 - Durham” or “Semester 1 - Durham (no comments),” depending on whether you want to view grades and teacher feedback, or just grades.


If you have concerns about your student’s performance, please let me know. I always meet with students who have multiple Cs or a D to help develop a plan for improvement, but will be happy to meet with anyone if there are concerns. It is also important that your student reach out to their individual teachers, guidance counselor, and the Center for Advising and Academic Success for advice on how to improve. This is also a good time for students to evaluate whether they should be attending tutorials more often.”


“Just a quick reminder that the Residence Halls will be closing once before our next update:

Students will complete an electronic Extended Sign-Out Form during hall meeting. On this form they indicate where they are going for the break, who they are traveling with, and how they are getting to their destination. If students have specific questions about checkout procedures for Extended Weekends, they should speak to me.”