Admissions Blog

As Fall Orientation quickly approaches, many of you are preparing to move to Baltimore and are currently trying to find a roommate and/or a place to live. While there have been many blogs in the past that discussed transportation, housing and the housing hunt, today I’d like to focus on a convenient service offered by the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Housing Office: a Roommate Finder.

Through this tool, members create a profile about themselves and list a few things about what they are looking for in a roommate. Once the profile is made, members can search other members or look at the entire database. All members are connected to Hopkins, whether faculty/staff, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows or undergraduate students. The system also offers great leads on finding housing as well.

Incoming students who have received their JHED ID will use this to login, otherwise admitted students can find the guest login information on their personalized site on the Baltimore 101 tab or by e-mailing the Admissions Office at jhsph.admiss@jhu.edu.

Happy searching!

Not far from JHU’s Homewood Campus is the 32^nd Street Farmers Market. After a year and a half living in Baltimore, this is my favorite farmers market. It has a wonderful mix of local farmers, bakers and artisans. At this farmers market you can find everything from the freshest produce and organic meat to musicians and local organizations.

What I love about this particular market is that it is easy to get to from many neighborhoods, and since it’s close to the Homewood Campus, students can easily get there using the JHU shuttle service from different campus locations.

The 32^nd Street Farmers Market is open year round on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to noon and offers limited free parking. However, street parking is easy to find within a block or two of the market.

A friend of mine recently informed me that one of her favorite things about Baltimore is that you can go from city, to suburb, to rural all within five miles. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true throughout all of Baltimore, but it does seem fairly accurate when you live on the outer edges of the city. True or not, the Baltimore area does have plenty of U-Pick farms. And I love to spend a Saturday picking fresh produce.

My first U-Pick experience in Maryland was at Baugher’s Orchard and Farm. It is much farther outside Baltimore in Westminster, Maryland (Westminster is northwest of Baltimore). This orchard truly caters to the family experience. In addition to picking your own fruit, there is a petting zoo, a child’s dream of a playground, a family restaurant and market.

Larriland Farm quickly became one of my favorite farms as it is a wonderful place for both the family experience as well as the young adult afternoon out. As a farm, Larriland offers U-pick vegetables and fruit. Whether you want to pick your own kale, carrots, beets and other vegetables, or pick your own fruit from apples, peaches and cherries to black raspberries to blueberries, this is the place to go. And perhaps the best perk is that you can pet and feed the farm’s llama (see the picture of my co-worker’s daughter on the right)! This farm is west of Baltimore off of I-70 and about 45 minutes outside the city.

My most recent, and favorite, experience took place at Weber’s Farm. This farm is very close to Baltimore and what caused my friend to comment on how quickly you move from city to farm land. In Parkville, which is on the northeast side of Baltimore, Weber’s is a much smaller farm and a quieter experience. Still wonderful for children, the festivals and petting zoo take place in a different location. So whether you’re picking blueberries, blackberries, peaches or apples, you will hear the birds chirping amid the delight of children’s exclamations. U-pick hours are limited so it’s import to check their Facebook page for the most up-to-date hours.

As I’m sitting here writing, and snacking on some of the best blueberries I’ve ever had (thanks Weber’s Farm!), I encourage you to take some time and go experience a U-pick farm.

Last spring was the inaugural LightCity Baltimore, where technology and art merged for a weeklong event at the Inner Harbor (check out last year’s blog that mentioned LightCity). With family friendly activities, foodie favorite vendors and local band performances, LightCity Baltimore was declared a success and advertised its 2017 return before the inaugural week was over.

While the favorites from last year remain, one of the additions to the 2017 Light City Baltimore are daytime “labs”, or mini-conferences, open to the public. With the HealthLab kicking off the series, the Bloomberg School was right there with faculty, current students and an alumna presenting.

Jeffrey Kahn, Director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics, spoke on the ethics of genetic editing. At the basis of all advancements he asked, “How do we control these kinds of technologies? Science does not know borders.”

Later in the day a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Mental Health, David Fakunle, and MPH alumna Sonia Sarkar presented on the important role community engagement plays on health. And current part-time MPH student Nick Rodricks got things moving—literally—while speaking about building community through fitness.

Nick Rodricks of @Nov_Proj_Balt just got everyone up & moving! What a way to kick off the second half of the day! #InnovateHealth #AwwYeah! pic.twitter.com/7Z1HSIzZK5

— Labs@LightCity (@LabsAtLightCity) April 3, 2017

With all the buzz surrounding this year’s LightCity, I can only imagine what next year’s event will bring!

Happy opening day, Baltimore! The opening pitch is set for 3:05 this afternoon. Let’s go O’s!