Maroon and Nuclear Chain Reactions

The final school on the agenda for my college odyssey was the University of Chicago.  As the last school, it was either in the best slot or the worst depending on whether I was exhausted and it would need to make a great impression to overcome that or I was more likely to retain my impression of it because it was the last one I saw.  I’m still not sure which was the case, all I know is that, like W&L, I want to go to the University of Chicago.

This school does not need to tout its academic reputation.  It has produced more Nobel Laureates than any other school in the country.  The Manhattan Project happened under its football stadium (that’s not a joke, there’s a plaque commemorating the site of the first sustained nuclear chain reaction where the football field used to be).  In the words of the tour guide, the professors are “wicked smart”.  However, the school does have the unfortunate reputation of being the place where fun goes to die.  Our guide is acutely aware of that: it was his house that coined the phrase.  In an ironic twist proceeds from selling SWAG emblazoned with that slogan go toward fun trips into Chicago to see stuff like Second City or theater for his house.  And he is quick to assure us that the university is working to change that impression (of course so is all the admissions literature I get in the mail from them). Of the many student run organizations, University Theater is the most popular and with all the SRO opportunities there is always plenty to do on campus.  Hell, Greek Life is even on the rise.  The University of Chicago has by far the lowest percentage of students involved in Greek Life (10-15%) but that number is steadily increasing.  And they have athletics!  They’re Division III, but they do very well.  Their Women’s Basketball team went undefeated in their regular season and lost for the first time in the Sweet Sixteen of the Division Championships.  The school also has an impressive athletic history.  Their women’s basketball team was the first to fly to an away game.  The first Heisman trophy winner was a student at the University of Chicago.  Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was their coach for forever.  They did do away with their football program in the ‘50s, but they brought it back and they’re doing fine.  And they just built a gorgeous athletic complex.  Not that I’m much of an athlete.  I’ll probably do club fencing if anything.  But it’s still nice to see a school spending money on improving its image. 

My one area of reservation is with regard to the percentage of classes taught by professors.  At most of the schools I’ve looked at, the percentage has been in the high 90s with some schools being at 100% simply by virtue of not having graduate students around to be TAs.  At the University of Chicago that percentage was in the 80s.  Now that’s not terrible, but it’s also not great.  On the plus side, the University of Chicago mostly doesn’t have TAs. They have ABDs.  An ABD is a graduate student who has completed “All But their Dissertation”, so they do know what they’re talking about.  It’s not like you’ll see a first or second year graduate student who is less informed about their topic.  But I still have my reservations.

All in all, I think the University of Chicago is a really good fit for me.  Also, I am a huge fan of the fact that I now own a t-shirt listing all of their Nobel Laureates on the back.  

On the Waterfront

Today marked my first day in Chicago, the beginning of the end of my college visit odyssey.  The penultimate school on my list, Northwestern, was today's goal and I'm not entirely sure what to say about it.

Purely objectively, it has pretty much everything I want from a school.  Good fencing, good religious studies, good physics, good theatrical design, an active social scene centered on campus.  It's maybe a little bigger than I would like (one of the guides told a story about a girl who helped him out in a computer programing class that he hasn't seen since), but not so big that it becomes depersonalized.  Hell, a very good friend of mine is going there; the kind of friend that you would trust to recommend stuff to you.  But I can tell you that it probably isn't for me.  I was not viscerally repulsed by it within 10 minutes the way I was with UVA, but I can tell it's not right.  But I could not possibly tell you why.  The campus has great traditions and history, but none of them did anything for me.  Logically speaking, I probably could be happy there; but I cannot imagine myself on this campus.

But setting aside my disappointment with/ambivalence toward Northwestern, I had a really cool day in Chicago. I've connected through O'Hare many times, but I've never properly seen the city before today.  My dad drove me around and pointed out important land marks that he remembers from when he lived here and we got to go to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (MSI).  Incidentally on the same day that the Mythbusters were there.  An exhibit about their science opened up today, and I got to see the ribbon cutting.  Admittedly I could only see the shower of sparks created by the event, not the source of those sparks, but it was still pretty cool to be 50 feet away from Adam and Jamie.  Mythbusters was a huge part of my childhood, and I'm still a fan.  I think the best part of that whole experience was the fact that it was completely unplanned.  I found out about the whole thing as my dad and I were parking via Twitter (I follow Adam: @donttrythis).  I love Twitter.  MSI also has a German U-Boat, which was super cool.  The special exhibits I sought out were one on the future of manned space travel and one on the inner workings of the Internet.  Networld was somewhat underwhelming, but the Space Exhibit was super cool.  I kind of love space, so it was really interesting to see models of real things juxtaposed with clips from sci-fi imaginings of space travel dating back to the nineteen oughts.  I also happened to wander into an exhibit on inventors where I saw a car with a drag of 2.11.  For perspective, a 10-speed bike has a drag of 3.something. To sum up: I love twitter, space, and inventing stuff.

That's it. Later today I'll be heading out for some real Chicago pizza and tomorrow I'll be seeing the University of Chicago.  Get pumped for continued blogging!