College Visits

College is a time in the life of a young adult where they get a taste of what it means to be independent and self-reliant. For many, it is their first time living on their own and having to do things such as cooking and cleaning. It gives them the opportunity to experience these aspects of life while still keeping close ties to their family.

Before May 1, I have to accept a spot at one of the colleges that accepted me. This means I have a very short amount of time to make a decision that could have a profound effect on the rest of my life. For the past week or so I have been visiting different Universities trying to get an idea of how I might fit into the different environments that each provides. Last Saturday I drove to Austin with my family and took a tour of the University of Texas. The tour guide, who I believe was a senior, was short with tan skin and dark hair. She seemed congenial, speaking loudly and with a confident tone in her voice, but she didn’t seem to take her job very seriously. Almost absent-mindedly, she took us through the four malls surrounding the bell tower at the center of campus, naming several buildings and departments as she pointed in their general direction. The tour guide didn’t provide much background information on the school and most of what she did say wasn’t very relevant to whatever location we happened to have stopped at. We did go into a few buildings, including the business school and student recreation center. Overall, the tour wasn’t that bad, but it didn’t give me a very good idea of what it would be like to be a student at UT. Regardless of this, I was still generally impressed by the school.

After we visited UT, my family and I drove down to San Antonio and spent the night at my aunt’s house. On Sunday we drove around the campus at Trinity University so my dad could see it because he had to fly back to Texarkana later that day. Being located in the hill country, it really was a beautiful campus, but it was quite small. Walking around campus there reminded me a lot of walking around Brookhaven or Richland College, except more areas had road access. When I picture a University, I envision something slightly more expansive. We also met up with a friend of the family that was a student there. He took us to his dorm room so that we could see what they were like and there we discussed different aspect about the school. I just want to note here how messy his dorm room was. I hope that I never let my dorm become such a mess. On Monday my mother and I returned to Trinity and attended a tour of the campus and I then interviewed with an admissions representative at the school. This time tour guide was a small, timid looking girl. She didn’t give of an air of confidence like the guide at UT did, but she was much more informative about the school. We didn’t see much of the campus because it was cloudy outside and the guide seemed convinced that it would unexpectedly start to rain in a nervous sort of way that made me think she might have been afraid of the rain. The admissions representative that I interviewed with was very adamant about small liberal art schools. He spent most of the interview highlighting the benefits of such schools in general, rather than just focusing on Trinity. He seemed genuine and did actually make several good points. I took his card at the end of the interview and went on my way.

Quite suddenly after we returned from San Antonio, one day to be exact, my mother and I flew to Arizona to look at Arizona State University. We flew in at about 11:30 and, after dropping our luggage off at the hotel, made it to the campus just in time for my 1:00 appointment with a representative from the Barrett Honors College at ASU. I was shocked when she handed me a full schedule of events for that afternoon and the next morning. She also tried to get me to hand in my application to the Honors College right there, but I told here that I still needed to print out my essay (which I had written on the airplane) before I could hand it in, which made her a little upset. After the meeting I spoke with someone from the department of computer science and academic counselor from the honors college. I then attended an honors class, The Human Event. The class was very interesting and stimulating. We discussed a book they had read, “The Way of Man” by Martin Buber, but I won’t get into all of that. That night I polished my essay so that I could hand it in the next day and then went to bed early. The next morning, at 9:00, I met with an undergraduate admissions representative to discuss the terms of the scholarship they had awarded me. I then went on a whirlwind tour of the school. Okay it was actually pretty leisurely and I got separate tours of both the honors college and the main campus. The dorms weren’t as nice as the ones at Trinity, which all had balconies, but I can deal with that. The campus was pretty big, a fifteen minute walk from one side to the other, and the computer science building was off-campus. Also, there has to be something said about a school that has a Chick-fil-a and a Jamba Juice right on campus.

I’m having a really hard time deciding which school I like the best. It’s easier to compare UT and ASU because they’re similar, but Trinity is very different from the two. I’m kind of leaning towards ASU because it is somewhere new, I really want to experience somewhere other than Texas, and I have a friend that will be going there as well. My parents are pushing for Trinity because they’re confident about it’s educational program and it’s close. They want me to stay close. I’m trying to make a fair decision, that’s why I haven’t responded to any of the school’s yet. I guess we’ll see in a few days.