I just got back from my trip about an hour ago. Here are my thoughts & impressions: (yea, I know it's long; it's 3 days worth of blogs!)
Monday- The first thing I remember is being unbelieveably hot- hot and sticky. After the basic welcome speech and everything, the group split up to visit the separate colleges; I went to the Engineering one. The college session was a lot of fun: we had a competition to build straw bridges and an egg drop device. It was a lot like what I did in physics class last school year, except harder. The materials we got to use were worse (bridge building- 20 straws, 10 paper clips, 10 rubber bands; egg drop- 6 sheets of newspaper, 5 rubber bands, drop from 3rd floor), and we only had 30 minutes to work on each. My team of 3 got first (out of like 15) in both events; for that, I got a calculator and a flashlight.
Oh yea, some time around dinner, I realized that that was the largest group of "gifted" black people I'd ever seen. I remember having to walk a lot, and at the end of the day, I had the worst wedgie ever! When I showered that night, I noticed that the water was really soft (, or is it hard? whichever is the one where the water won't wash the soap off of your body); I usually spend about 30 minutes in the shower, if I went there, I'd spend an eternity just to take a bath- I guess I'd have perpetually pruney skin. =/
Tuesday- After breakfast, we went on our choice of "special tours"; I wanted to go see the nuclear reactor, but I guess that was full, so I went on the computer engineering exhibit. It really didn't have all that much to do with computer engineering, or any engineering for that matter, except for the fact that the guy whipped up a couple of drawings in AutoCAD. Then he just showed us a bunch of 3D animation stuff that his students had made; I did leave the tour wanting to study computer animation though. After that, we did some boring stuff, then had lunch. One of the computer science professors came and sat with me and a couple of other guys. We talked about technology in modern society and then he taught us a little about quantum computing and programming. After that, they had a professor of neuroscience give us a lecture. It was supposed to be about The Matrix, but something got messed up and he talked about dreams instead (, which was rather ironic, because about 1/3 of the people fell asleep during his lecture). I thought it was pretty interesting (, I'll write about it some other time). Not much else happened at A&M after that. My dad picked me up, and we (me, my dad, grandpa, aunt, and 2 cousins) just drove around somewhat aimlessly all over Houston and Galveston.
Wednesday- We went deep sea fishing today. It kinda sucked because no one caught anything, at least no one in my family. Someone caught a huge sting ray though, it woulda been pretty cool... if that someone were me, haha. After that, we dropped my aunt and cousins off in Houston and drove back to Dallas. I drove for like 100 miles on Interstate- 45; man, soooo boring! Note to self: scrap plans to become a truck driver when I grow up. =P We stopped off at AwShuck's for dinner; funny, we don't eat any seafood in Galveston, but instead, we wait until we're back in Dallas to do so.
A&M Revelations- I had a chance to talk to several of the students there, and it actually made me start to consider Texas A&M as a serious choice for college. Before, it was like, "A&M? hyea right!" Now, I'm thinking about swapping it for UT as my safety school. I became aware of several opportunities/pros during this visit, and unless UT can match or beat 'em (at their honors program tour), I might go to A&M instead. I went there with the impression that A&M was smack in the middle of Hick-town. They told me that that stereotype was overrated, and even though they all go around saying, "Howdy!" to everyone, it wasn't as bad as other places... At least they didn't have the accent. =/ Also, I had the idea that there wasn't anything in the town outside of the campus (, heck, the town's called College Station). They said that it's just like a big city, except scaled down... a lot; you can still go to clubs, and movies, and all that in town.
The honors students get to be in small classes taught by head honchos at the university; I know Plan II at UT gives similar treatment, but I dunno about regular honors. One of the major selling points of A&M was the research opportunities; if you know me, then you know I'm big on research. Also, we got to visit their recreation center; it was reeeeeeaaaaally nice (it was humongous and had lots of cool stuff). Their facilities were nice also, like the computer labs and stuff. They also told us about how A&M has such a "sense of community"; from what I saw, this looked pretty true- the people we saw all interacted kinda like a team and stuff (, of course they were probably trained to behave that way in front of the prospective students, hahah).
Oh yea, a MAJOR selling point for A&M is how "cheap" it is. A guy came and talked to us about how with in-state tuition and a scholarship here and there, you (could) actually get paid to attend college. I dunno, it's probably the same with UT, but it sounded really cool when he said it. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure I could get into a good college out-of-state, but I don't want to bankrupt my parents in the process, that's why I've been taking a closer look at Texas schools recently.
"Not Sweet"- But, of course, there was some NOT so cool stuff about A&M also. First and foremost is all the TRADITION! I'm not too fond of "yell practice", or saying "Howdy" all the time, or standing up for an entire football game. And also, I didn't get the whole "whooping" thing when you call your class the "Fighting Class of ____". Oh yea, I didn't see very many Asians there either- not cool.
Monday- The first thing I remember is being unbelieveably hot- hot and sticky. After the basic welcome speech and everything, the group split up to visit the separate colleges; I went to the Engineering one. The college session was a lot of fun: we had a competition to build straw bridges and an egg drop device. It was a lot like what I did in physics class last school year, except harder. The materials we got to use were worse (bridge building- 20 straws, 10 paper clips, 10 rubber bands; egg drop- 6 sheets of newspaper, 5 rubber bands, drop from 3rd floor), and we only had 30 minutes to work on each. My team of 3 got first (out of like 15) in both events; for that, I got a calculator and a flashlight.
Oh yea, some time around dinner, I realized that that was the largest group of "gifted" black people I'd ever seen. I remember having to walk a lot, and at the end of the day, I had the worst wedgie ever! When I showered that night, I noticed that the water was really soft (, or is it hard? whichever is the one where the water won't wash the soap off of your body); I usually spend about 30 minutes in the shower, if I went there, I'd spend an eternity just to take a bath- I guess I'd have perpetually pruney skin. =/
Tuesday- After breakfast, we went on our choice of "special tours"; I wanted to go see the nuclear reactor, but I guess that was full, so I went on the computer engineering exhibit. It really didn't have all that much to do with computer engineering, or any engineering for that matter, except for the fact that the guy whipped up a couple of drawings in AutoCAD. Then he just showed us a bunch of 3D animation stuff that his students had made; I did leave the tour wanting to study computer animation though. After that, we did some boring stuff, then had lunch. One of the computer science professors came and sat with me and a couple of other guys. We talked about technology in modern society and then he taught us a little about quantum computing and programming. After that, they had a professor of neuroscience give us a lecture. It was supposed to be about The Matrix, but something got messed up and he talked about dreams instead (, which was rather ironic, because about 1/3 of the people fell asleep during his lecture). I thought it was pretty interesting (, I'll write about it some other time). Not much else happened at A&M after that. My dad picked me up, and we (me, my dad, grandpa, aunt, and 2 cousins) just drove around somewhat aimlessly all over Houston and Galveston.
Wednesday- We went deep sea fishing today. It kinda sucked because no one caught anything, at least no one in my family. Someone caught a huge sting ray though, it woulda been pretty cool... if that someone were me, haha. After that, we dropped my aunt and cousins off in Houston and drove back to Dallas. I drove for like 100 miles on Interstate- 45; man, soooo boring! Note to self: scrap plans to become a truck driver when I grow up. =P We stopped off at AwShuck's for dinner; funny, we don't eat any seafood in Galveston, but instead, we wait until we're back in Dallas to do so.
A&M Revelations- I had a chance to talk to several of the students there, and it actually made me start to consider Texas A&M as a serious choice for college. Before, it was like, "A&M? hyea right!" Now, I'm thinking about swapping it for UT as my safety school. I became aware of several opportunities/pros during this visit, and unless UT can match or beat 'em (at their honors program tour), I might go to A&M instead. I went there with the impression that A&M was smack in the middle of Hick-town. They told me that that stereotype was overrated, and even though they all go around saying, "Howdy!" to everyone, it wasn't as bad as other places... At least they didn't have the accent. =/ Also, I had the idea that there wasn't anything in the town outside of the campus (, heck, the town's called College Station). They said that it's just like a big city, except scaled down... a lot; you can still go to clubs, and movies, and all that in town.
The honors students get to be in small classes taught by head honchos at the university; I know Plan II at UT gives similar treatment, but I dunno about regular honors. One of the major selling points of A&M was the research opportunities; if you know me, then you know I'm big on research. Also, we got to visit their recreation center; it was reeeeeeaaaaally nice (it was humongous and had lots of cool stuff). Their facilities were nice also, like the computer labs and stuff. They also told us about how A&M has such a "sense of community"; from what I saw, this looked pretty true- the people we saw all interacted kinda like a team and stuff (, of course they were probably trained to behave that way in front of the prospective students, hahah).
Oh yea, a MAJOR selling point for A&M is how "cheap" it is. A guy came and talked to us about how with in-state tuition and a scholarship here and there, you (could) actually get paid to attend college. I dunno, it's probably the same with UT, but it sounded really cool when he said it. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure I could get into a good college out-of-state, but I don't want to bankrupt my parents in the process, that's why I've been taking a closer look at Texas schools recently.
"Not Sweet"- But, of course, there was some NOT so cool stuff about A&M also. First and foremost is all the TRADITION! I'm not too fond of "yell practice", or saying "Howdy" all the time, or standing up for an entire football game. And also, I didn't get the whole "whooping" thing when you call your class the "Fighting Class of ____". Oh yea, I didn't see very many Asians there either- not cool.
posted by Dear Daniel at 8:18 PM
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