Friday, June 17, 2011

Platform Nine and Three Quarters


I walked onto the Yale campus and stood awestruck; this was the closest I came to going to Hogwarts. Yale looked entirely different from New Haven. Once I stepped onto the campus, I was in a different place, ignorant to the world happening outside the gate of the University. The Gothic style of the buildings complemented the trees to create a style similar to old English cathedrals. The buildings were accented with iron doors to further the transition to a different age. I was in colonial times, and I could not wait to see what other features the school had within its walls.


The first impression left me expecting the best and I was not disappointed. The orientation, although we had missed a considerable portion, was a music video the alums and students created titled “Why I chose Yale,” and was organized by two Youtubers I was familiar with—Kurt Hugo Schneider, Sam Tsui and some of the cast of College Musical, a continuation of High

School Musical. I was entertained and it looked like the students creating the music video also had fun; I could see why they went to that school. We then went on our tour.

On the tour we got to see Theodore Dwight Woolsey's foot, and we got to touch it for luck. Erin touched the wrong foot, but defended herself claiming the luck of the bird poop was enough. As I walked through, I got a greater sense of the culture: popular melodies played by the bells, numerous extracurricular centered and the tour guide’s enthusiasm and pride of the school. The library also reflected the school’s humor and educational values. A library built as a cathedral, commemorating scholars and dedicating the position reserved for the deity to a mural of Yale’s goddess. And we saw the Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library equal to and greater than the magnitude of Harvard’s rare book and manuscript library.


Even though Yale has everything to offer, it is surrounded by a dangerous city and one of the fraternities pledge about rape towards women. I looked up the rate of acceptance for Yale and the most searched topic after I typed in Yale and the first two letters ra, I got in the suggestion was Yale rape. The tour guide did say that there is a lot of security at Yale, but even then the fraternity is discerning.

Union League Café was a nice French restaurant where we meet Yohanna Pepa and her friend. Ms. Larson had not foreseen the extra person, and instead of waiting for another seat, she left, which I thought she would have felt embarrassed. Her stories were very interesting and the story that made the biggest impression to me was her attempt and success at getting a picture with Sam Tsui, which she showed us after. Yohanna appealed to my interest when she talked about her friend that applied to Yale, but after a few weeks tried to transfer to MIT. She told me that if I was interested in MIT and get accepted I should apply there because the transfer rate is very small.

Wesleyan continued the theme of Harry Potter reference when the orientation talked about a class that focused on popular media such as movies and literature, which one of the textbooks being Harry Potter. Although Wesleyan had an extensive science program as a Liberal school, I felt it was just a school. All the other schools I have went to had something special about them

that made me consider them, with an exception of Boston University. I thought the other schools offered the same programs and Brown as the same open curriculum and their science program has a legacy of scientists. I also thought the town surrounding Wesleyan looked too much like a neighborhood. I think I would mistake someone’s house with a dorm and mistakenly go into their house. Ironically, the school was centered in the middle of nowhere but, after searching up the college to find anything that the orientation may

have left out, it was an urban school. It is a good school if you just want to learn; it feels like how you choose a high school, you just go there without the consideration of what else may be out there.

The week is almost through, and I anticipate meeting other students and drawing my own blood at Brown.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't understand the blood drawing until you explained to us at breakfast this morning! Best of luck to you and Frank in your Biotech class and don't pass out from the needles.

    ReplyDelete

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