Bits & Bobs

Today we offer some bits and pieces.

SUMMER CHALLENGE
SAIS Bologna is running a month-long contest aimed at alumni. They have been asked to show what they miss most about their year in Bologna. It's a way of sharing memories and drawing the SAIS Bologna community closer together.

If you go to our home page and click on any of the pictures on the right under the heading "Summer Challenge", you will see contributions from alumni. After less than a week, the offerings include photographs, video and an essay from an alumna whose fondest memories will surprise and move you.

Most of our readers are not alumni and so would not want to participate in this contest -- even if the first prize is a dinner worth up to $600. But if you are a prospective applicant or an incoming student, you might like to take a peek at the contributions to see what Bologna has meant to our alumni, from the most recent graduates to those from earlier days.


POLLS
Some of you may have noticed that we recently added some new features to this blog including a search function and a list of the labels or tags that we've used on posts. We'd like to start running occasional polls of readers to promote interactivity and stir ideas.

Our first poll aims to help us focus on what might interest our readers. We are asking you to tell us what kinds of polls you would like to see: polls on international economic issues, graduate study, SAIS Bologna, politics, global security, global social trends or technology.

After one week and with one week remaining, we've received only seven responses. We thank those who have taken the time to register their views; however, seven responses are not enough to give us a clear idea of what readers would prefer.

So please take a minute -- quite literally, a minute -- to vote on this poll so we know what kinds of polls would most interest you.

PROSPECTIVE APPLICANTS
We watch our readership statistics with an eagle eye. (If you have a blog, I bet you do the same.) In any case, we've noticed a pickup in the number of readers who are shopping around for graduate schools. We know this because they are reading some of our earliest posts which laid out the basics of SAIS.

If you are considering applying to a graduate school in international relations, you might like to subscribe to this blog. It's an easy (and free) way to stay in touch and learn more about SAIS. We would encourage you to submit your email address in the "Follow by Email" section on the upper right hand of the main page. Up to you whether you'd like to become a Follower.

We encourage readers to send in feedback, either by using the comment boxes at the bottom of posts or by sending an email to admissions@jhubc.it.

In the next few weeks, as our incoming students get their feet on the ground in Bologna, we'll turn our attention to those readers who know relatively little about SAIS. Our goal will be to give readers a sense of who and what we are, how the application process works, what is expected of candidates, how to learn more about us and how best to prepare an application.

We look forward to helping prospective candidates take the right decision as they -- you -- face the future.

Nelson Graves