Two Colleges In Three Days

Never before had I attended a college tour before, but already on this trip I have attended two! Today, we visited the University of Chicago, located in Hyde Park, a beautiful campus that resembles closely the campus of Hogwarts. :) We spent our morning talking to the wonderful Northern California admissions director Callie Brown. Next, we got a special tour from Elin Meliska and then got to join her and two other students, Lucy Peterson and Cullen Seaton, for a delightful lunch. I must confess, this experience has solidified in my mind that personally talking to students is the make it or break it factor. We had a jolly good old time!

A very impressive aspect of the campus was the brand new Joe and Rika Mansueta Library, a glass dome that was part of the largest library in the whole United States! It was really fun to explore; especially the moving bookcases. I also thought UC had an innovative implementation of classroom discussions. Instead of front-of-the-room lecturing teachers, the class sits around a table as equals and just talk and debate as their course experience. This was a new idea for me, and I found it very interesting.

After leaving the beautiful campus, we made our way back to the hotel, waiting for buses in the ever-present sporadic rain. Then we had a lovely dinner at Gibson's, getting to see and speak with Ms. Brown some more. One thing I must say is that I have never seen desserts the size of my head before. And that slice was only a small portion of the whole cake!

We finally head to Ithaca tomorrow. I look forward to stepping foot upon and exploring the campus where we will be spending our next three weeks, as well as the upcoming orientations. Wish me luck in getting a good roommate! Here is my ritual before-bed blogging, and now I'm off to bed hopefully for some sweet dreams.

(P.S. sorry about only having group photos, a memory card was misplaced and cameras not having batteries) I'll show the lovely campus of UC in some other upcoming blog, I promise!