on tour part 6: impersonating a grad student at The Farm

My college tour continues in San Francisco, California! My mom had a meeting at Stanford, so I came along for a college visit.

My mom's meeting was on Friday, so we drove to Stanford together, and then I was on my own to explore the campus. I experienced a typical day as a Stanford student, complete with a morning lecture, lunch at the Union, and visitors asking me for directions! I was on a very tight schedule that required a lot of quick walking. And I mean a lot. I went between three main points that are spread out in a large triangle. On this map, I drew where I walked throughout the day, with the paths in rainbow order from red to blue.

Red: From a morning class to the visitor center for a walking tour.
Orange: The walking tour from the visitor center to the bookstore and dining areas. 
Yellow: From the endpoint of the tour back to the visitor center for a Q&A session with Stanford students.
Green: From the visitor center back toward the dining areas for lunch at Tresidder Union. I got a little lost along the way and accidentally went on the walking tour a second time...
Blue: From Tresidder Union back to my mom's meeting.

I actually used the map scale to measure how far I walked, and I walked more than 5 miles! Strangely, it was much more tiring than running 5 miles, and my legs ached afterwards. Now I understand the appeal of a small, urban campus. No wonder all of the students were biking around. Here is a long row of bikes parked outside one building.

First, I went to a lecture from 9 to 10:50 am, called "BioE222B: Multimodality Molecular Imaging in Living Subjects II." As I was looking for the lecture room in a building of classrooms and offices, I was suddenly surrounded by medical machines and nurses wheeling around patients. I must have looked so strange, wandering through a hospital with a large campus map and confused facial expression. I had to ask a doctor for directions to the classroom. Eventually, I found the classroom entrance in this courtyard, which is where I was before I started looking!

I was really excited for the class because I'm interested in studying bioengineering in college. The professor, Dr. Brian Rutt, was a guest lecturer from the Department of Radiology. When I asked him whether I could sit in on the class, he asked me if I was a prospective grad student! Yes! I can pass for a 21 year old! Most people are excited to look 21 years old so they can get into bars, but I'm excited because I look like I belong in an undergrad/grad class. The lesson was on MR probes and particles, and the professor went through a whopping 81 slides in about 35 minutes! The surprising thing about the class was that all of the students were late. We started class about 10 minutes late, and even then, only one-third of the students had arrived. Some stragglers came in more than an hour late. Maybe they were up late the night before working on the business plans for their start-ups.

After the class, I had 10 minutes to get to the visitor center for the guided walking tour, so I did a combination of speed walking and very slow jogging to get there on time. Obviously, the tour couldn't cover the huge 8,180 acre campus in 60 minutes, so we just walked past some main buildings and landmarks, through the Main Quad, and ended near the bookstore and dining areas. The campus was beautiful, and the sunny California weather definitely didn't hurt.

Here is the Hoover Tower, a major landmark on the campus. I heard that there is a gorgeous view of Palo Alto from the top of the tower!

This is The Oval, a large grassy area in the middle of campus. The grass really is greener in California!

The Main Quad is one of the best places to admire the beautiful architecture at Stanford. In the center of the Quad, you're surrounded by it! The buildings were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park. I love the Spanish-style design, with the red tile roofs and sandstone.

In the Quad, you can see the Memorial Church, which has so many amazing details painted on it!

And, of course, it wouldn't be California without the palm trees! Here is one in front of Montag Hall.

After the tour, I did some more speed walking to get back to the starting point of the tour for a Q&A session with current Stanford students. There were four Stanford students and about 10 visiting students at the session (with no parents), so it was very personal and casual. We all sat in a circle, introduced ourselves, and talked about anything we were curious about. The session gave me a really good sense of the people and everyday life at Stanford. The students were so friendly and easy to relate to. Surprisingly, they only had great things to say about Stanford! It was nice to talk directly with students about their experience at Stanford rather than reading a brochure or going to an information session, which eventually starts to sound the same at every college. I asked about the research opportunities on campus, and the Stanford students said all together, as if on cue, that it's really easy to find research.

After that, I got lunch at the Union and then met up with my mom after her meeting! We were planning on seeing the Rodin Sculpture Garden since apparently Rodin is kind of famous or something. But then, someone suggested the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden, which wasn't listed anywhere. It was a hidden gem! The back-story was that the New Guinean artists were visiting campus and said they could do a better job than Rodin, so they made a bunch of pieces for this little park.

Here's one of the sculptures with geckos and fish on it! I love the intricate scales carved on the gecko.

Most of the sculptures were carved, but here's a painted one!

Ironically, I look pretty stupid in my thinking pose.

Posing for a picture with my new New Guinean friends!

on tour part 4: land of the wahoos

There was no school today so we drove down to visit the University of Virginia! On our way, we stopped for breakfast and I tried chocolate covered bacon for the first time. It also had mint chocolate drizzled on the top, so it was an interesting combination of savory, sweet, minty and lardy.

I liked the information session because the assistant dean of admissions was really funny and entertaining. He was saying, "In all of the college brochures, there are above average looking people of every race holding hands and singing Kumbaya," which is pretty accurate. He also talked a lot about how much they revere Thomas Jefferson at UVA.

Then, we went on the grounds tour, which I hate to say was very boring. It was supposed to last for an hour and a half, so we separated from the tour early and explored by ourselves. The campus was beautiful, with open grassy spaces and lots of trees changing colors.

 

We also found a tree with giant leaves, which made for a good photo op.

 

At the campus bookstore, Ella bought a UFO and comet ice tray. Definitely one of those things you never knew you needed. At least it's less gross than the brain shaped one!

(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDc3WDQ5MA==/$(KGrHqVHJ!sE-gEE1vDFBPt(dSC0Nw~~60_35.JPG)

on tour part 3: exploding balloons and metal tigers at p-town

My school has a good sized Jewish population, which means two good things for me: lots of bar and bat mitzvahs (I partied so much in middle school) and no school on Jewish holidays! Today, I had no school for Rosh Hashanah, so my family and I went on my third college tour to... Princeton University! We drove up to New Jersey last night, stayed at a hotel for the night, and then visited the university in the morning.

 

My mom had the idea to sit in on a class before the engineering tour and skip the general information session, since I had already gone to one in Maryland. I chose "CHM 207 Advanced General Chem: Materials" taught by Dr. Robert Cava. Coincidentally, it was the first class of the course, so I didn't miss anything! In fact, since it was the introduction to the course, I knew most of the information from what I have learned so far in AP Chemistry.

Here I am in the back of the auditorium before the class. If you were wondering, the seats were very comfy!

 

Here Dr. Cava is writing on the board before class. The blackboard was really cool. You can use a switch to send each panel of the blackboard up, so he has plenty of space to write!

Dr. Cava was so engaging and funny. He showed his college ID from his first semester freshman year, and then a picture from his second semester sophomore year. He had grown a scruffy beard and was wearing a tight shirt and sunglasses. It was hilarious, and my mom suspected that it was probably a picture from Halloween or something. He showed us a drawing of his "Legal Seafood Theory of Science." There were four fish of different sizes, with each bigger fish eating a smaller one. From smallest to biggest, the fish were labelled "materials," "components," "devices," and then "systems." He said that his case for why everyone should switch to a major in material chemistry is that without materials the whole ecosystem dies! I thought it was a cute analogy. :) Then, there was a demonstration. There were three balloons: the first was filled with helium (He), the second with hydrogen (H₂) and the third with hydrogen and oxygen (2H₂ + O₂). His co-instructor lit each one on fire! The He balloon caught fire and popped, but the H₂ balloon exploded really loudly, and the 2H₂ + O₂ balloon exploded even louder! We all had to cover our ears for the last two. Awesome explosions always make a class more interesting!

The class was in the Frick building, which was really pretty on the inside and the outside. The hanging lanterns and the glass ceiling sort of reminded me of the Gilman Hall that I saw on my tour of Hopkins.

 

After my first class in college, we went to the tour of the engineering school. The tour guide said that engineering students make up about 20% of the undergraduates. She talked about the different fields of engineering at Princeton and showed us through some labs.

Then, we walked around the campus a bit before going to lunch. There are a lot of cool statues and structures.

Here is a metallic statue of the Princeton mascot, a tiger.

There was this pretty fountain. Not sure what the animal heads on stakes are supposed to signify...

We also saw this statue. My mom and sister thought that it was an artistic representation of holding hands, but my dad disagreed. He said that it was an artistic representation of an eight. That's some deep artistic interpretation.

When we were outside of the campus for lunch, I had this picture taken of me, and was surprised to find that my visit to Princeton had transformed me into Albert Einstein! No way!!

After lunch, we went on the general tour of the campus. The campus was gorgeous. There were trees everywhere, and the architecture gave the college an old, rustic feel. As we walked around the buildings, our tour guide pointed out buildings or parts of buildings that were designed by the same people who designed the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. She also showed us the library, which she said had 7 million volumes. Strangely, she seemed to think it was a special treat that people could find library books on the shelves by themselves, instead of having a librarian do it for you.

Here are some pictures of the pretty buildings around the campus:

West College:

Nassau Hall:

East Pyne Hall:

She also talked about student life. Eating clubs are unique to Princeton and are a pretty significant aspect of student life. They're like dining halls and social houses. I remember that at the Princeton information session I went to, one of the alumni speakers raved on and on about his eating club. Sadly, we didn't get to see any housing on the tour. Our tour guide said that every house was so different that showing us one house would be pointless.

Speaking of eating, here's a cute picture from outside the cafe. Yay for the periodic table! I'm suspecting that the food there supplements your calcium and iron!

She mentioned that it is easy to get to either New York City or Philadelphia, and that Princeton was a really nice and safe town. Also, as an ice cream connoisseur, it intrigued me to find that there are six places for ice cream and frozen yogurt just on the road next to the campus! This tour guide knows what prospective students really care about! 

on tour part 2: pranks and shared bathrooms

My dad, aunt and uncle all went to Caltech in the '80s and lived in the same house, which I hear is the best house. Last time I visited Caltech, I was only 12 years old and was mainly focused on playing in the fountains with my sister and cousins.

This time around, it was all business. First, we went on a tour of the campus. My dad and aunt came on the tour too, so it was interesting hearing the perspectives of some alumni. Unfortunately, I don't have my own pictures of the campus because our camera broke at the beach. :(

The tour guide talked a lot about Caltech pranks. Two of the most famous pranks were the changing of the Hollywood sign to read "Caltech" in 1987 and the rewiring of the scoreboard during the 1984 Rose Bowl game to show that Caltech was leading MIT 38 to 9 when, actually, UCLA was playing the University of Illinois. My aunt commented that she must have been at Caltech during the Golden Age of pranks because both of these pranks happened when she was there.

(http://blog.allanellenberger.com/wp-content/uploads/hollwyoodsigncaltech2.jpg)

Then, the tour guide showed us his dorm room in Dabney House, which was nice to see since most tours don't show housing. It was a single with a loft bed, desk, sink and closet, and looked like a reasonable size for a single. In the hallways, there were shared bathrooms for men and women which seemed a little too progressive.

We also went into the lobby of the GALCIT lab, which is where my dad did his graduate research! The tour guide said that it's really easy for undergrads to find research opportunities, which is awesome! He said that the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) program was just like real research in that the students write proposals that get reviewed, and that 99.9% of them get funded. At that point, my mom whispered to me, "Yeah, except that 99.9% of grants don't get funded in the real world."

After the tour, we went to the information session. It was interesting, the admissions officer said that as long as your test scores are between their 25th and 75th percentile you should stop trying. What he didn't explicitly say is that their 25th percentile numbers are already insanely high.

Afterwards, we had lunch with my grandma at Green Street, which is near Caltech. I loved it! The zucchini bread was so good, and the dishes we had were fresh and delicious. I thought the flavor combinations were interesting, like papaya in chicken quesadillas.

on tour

Just went on my first college tour! My mom, sister, and I took an hour long road trip to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. My mom says she went there 100 years ago, but I'm not sure I believe her. Anyway, I have always wanted to visit. My mom also mentioned that colleges may read my blog, so in deference to this, I have decided to use proper capitalization in this post.


First, we went on a guided tour of the campus. It started off wonderfully, with my mom subtly informing our tour guide that his fly was down. Wow, what a truly awkward beginning to my first college tour. He looked so embarrassed, the poor guy. I don't think that I could tell a complete stranger that his fly was down, especially if I had to spend the next hour with said stranger. This just shows that my mom is an extremely nice person. In fact, she has also told two strangers that their shirts were inside out and two that their sweatshirts were backwards.

As you would expect, the tour only showed us the nicest buildings on campus. I was especially impressed by Gilman Hall. The guide said that they recently renovated the hall for $73 million. *Jaw drops*. The hall was really dark and old when my mom was at Hopkins, but I guess that the huge chunk of money transformed it into an amazingly beautiful place to hang out and study. The rooms are surrounded with stained glass windows that let light in. There is a little coffee shop with large white lanterns hanging from the high ceiling.


I also really loved the Hutzler Reading Room, nicknamed the "Hut," which is a study area. It looks so quiet and comfy. According to my mom, people pull all-nighters studying at the Hut.


The rec center is also really nice. It was created in 2005, so it is fairly new. Apparently, there are separate workout spaces for athletes and students so that students don't have to exercise next to athletes and feel insecure about themselves. Really, that is actually what the tour guide said. So, since there is a lot of equipment, the rec center isn't too crowded during non-class hours. My mom told me that that was a problem at Berkeley, where she went to graduate school. In addition, my little sister and I got pretty excited when we saw that there was a rock climbing wall.

We walked past the freshmen dorms, but didn't get to go inside. Then, we walked to the library, which apparently has six floors. According to the tour guide, the library gets quieter as you go down, so you can customize your study experience. Before we actually went inside the library, my mom, sister, and I left the tour early to catch another tour of the engineering school.

We visited three labs. One was a structural engineering lab where they tested cold form steel with a Multi-axis Structural Testing Rig. It was quite huge and painted blue, thus given the nickname, the Big Blue Baby. The next lab worked mostly on medical devices to assist surgeons. I found it really cool, since I am interested in the biomedical engineering field. One device they designed helps surgeons avoid tremor when doing surgery on the retina of the eye. My mom pointed out to me that the lab, which was programming-related, was located in Hackerman Hall, haha. The last lab was a material sciences lab where they tested how stress, heat, and electrostatics affect various materials.

I don't really have any other colleges to compare to, but I love Hopkins. It is close to home, the facilities are nice, and there are great research opportunities for engineers. I bought some Hopkins clothing at the bookstore, too. :)