(no subject)
August 25, 2006
So we woke up in candlewood suites and we ate cereal (rice crispies!! yay) and then we first went to see NYU… on the way there, I got a good look at New York.
For one thing, it reminds me of Bombay. Lots of trash around the streets… low-income apartments… but it is called the friendliest city, and the people are very friendly and helpful there. Chicago definitely suits me better. It was a good experience to see NY, though. Anyhow, we went to NYU’s information session, and we decided not to go on the campus tour because NYU didn’t have biomedical engineering or a BS/MD program or anything else I was especially interested in. It just wasn’t the right fit for me- plus, the only reason I took a look at it in the first place was because they still had the website for their BS/MD program up and I was dumb and didn’t look it up on their list of degree programs offered on their website. Apparently, the BS/MD program ended three years ago or something. That was a little humiliating not knowing that when I asked the admissions lady about the program…woops.
Anyhow, NYU just wasn’t for me, so then we went to see the Empire State Building…and then we went to see Columbia!
I gave my friend Arita a call before going (she goes to Columbia) to see if she was in NY, and she wasn’t .. she goes back on Tuesday! Aghhh. Anyhow, Columbia is awesome and closely-knit and the admissions guy did an AMAZING job w/ the info session. Oh man, he did a great, great job. He involved the audience a lot, and he did this whole thing of bringing up three students, giving them credentials, and explaining how he’d go through the admissions process… that part didn’t do a lot for me because it’s stuff I already knew, but oh well. He said some pretty cool stuff… like um.. lemme find my notes from his session…
Ok so the stuff that was the most interesting to me was how he described the CORE. So the core is the required classes, but I didn’t know that they’d be so discussion-based. And he gave some examples of questions they might ask and discuss in class. For instance, after reading the old and new testament of the Bible (they have to read the Koran too- which I think is really, really essential these days), they come to class the next day and the teacher asks, “so Jesus is in Ohio…so who would he vote for in the most recent election?” and then he/she sits down and the class discusses this for an hour and a half. Brilliant. LOL. Though it did seem a little weird to me- so yeah, the question is fascinating and you do have to think out of the box and bridge diff fields of knowledge, but… practicality? Reading these texts is great, of course. Esp philosophical texts. I’ll def take philosophy classes in college…
Ok so some other examples were “if the Ancient Greeks had a bible, what would it look like?” and “If Shakespeare had to write a movie, what would it look like?” etc. and then he put another one out about Beethoven and what he’d say to Britney Spears other than “don’t make babies!” which was REALLY WEIRD. Hahahaha
The guy was hilarious, I tell ya.
Anyhow, it’s interesting how I’m totally ok w/ the Core yet at the same time I like Hopkin’s approach of having fields where we have to take classes in, but having some leeway in the classes we can take.
Oh and other great things about Columbia…
- no classes on Friday! (unless you’re doing some intensive language class or you might have a lab, but otherwise, nothing else)
- lots and lots of study abroad… and even engineers can do it
- you could double major!
- Small campus- 2nd smallest Ivy… nicely enclosed in the 2nd safest district of NY city
- Called safest urban university in the US
- 85 languages offered!! :O omgz
- free broadway tickets given out in spring and fall!!! *happy dance* but there’s like a raffle and ppl have to jump in early and get them.
- free/discounted access to museums
- people can CHANGE their university here. And that really stuck with me because I have a feeling I couldn’t make a huge impact on other schools… for example, due to the students demands, now they have Indian curry, kimchi, etc in the main cafeteria. Woot!
- Arita goes there, and I have been impressed w/ her general knowledge and her work ethic and she’s just really cool and the tour guides were cool, too.
- Ze Statue. Ze statue that I adore and love love love love Loooove. The one that Columbia is famous for… the woman w/ the hands outstretched in front of the humongous library… <33333333333333333333333333333333333 that statue.
- Oh and I like their symbol…that crown.
Something to note for myself if I do apply here…
- Columbia does not take the common application
Oh and this is random, but did you know that there’s not really that big of a difference between a 790 and a 760 on SAT subject tests? I didn’t know that! There’s a thirty-point buffer zone so people who get 790s and ppl who get 760s are pretty much in the same boat. Which is pretty sweet, because that makes my scores look *great*
And so we went to Wall Street, which was pretty boring. Dad looked into the exercise place where all the rich business folks go to, and he looked into it (longingly, I think) and the only thing that I liked about the place was that the front of the building of the New York Stock Exchange is really cool w/ a humongous flag over it and mini flags and carvings and stuff.
And after that we went to see Ground Zero. Truthfully, I had completely forgotten about 9/11. I didn’t put it and NY together until… well, until Dad said we were going to see ground zero. I’m kind of ashamed to admit it. The whole area is fenced off, and there seemed to be piles of material in the middle to start construction with. The memorial had lots of pictures, many of them very moving and emotional, about 9/11 and the heroes of 9/11. I couldn’t look at the empty place inside the fence and imagine the worlds tallest building there… I had never seen the world trade centers before, anyway. I couldn’t imagine how tall it’d be… how far I’d have to crane my neck to look up at it. There were a lot of very tall buildings around ground zero, one of them this really tall black building. In the pictures of the memorial, I noticed how much taller the world trade buildings were than the buildings around it. Just looking up at the tall black building and imagining pieces of it falling down and it collapsing sent a shudder through me. What a horrible experience it must have been. I heard one man beside me telling his family that the world trade center looked like how it was in one of the pictures when he got there three weeks after 9/11… and how emotional it was for him to see it. I saw a man crying and two women embracing… I felt a lot of sympathy for these people because this is their home- and how awful it’d be for your home to feel unsafe and infiltrated like that. It’d be how I felt if the Space Needle fell down… just..oghaowighweag. Really awful. Anyway, I took pictures of most of the pictures in the memorial… and I also took pics of the area that talked about what they were going to do in place at ground zero. I don’t know if you guys knew this… I didn’t… but they’re gonna build Freedom Tower in its place… it’ll have an octagonal bottom, and it’ll be just as tall as the world trade center buildings were… and it’ll symbolize … ok you know what, I’m just gonna type from the text of the picture I took of the board..
The freedom tower will soar to 1,776 feet in the sky and serve as an inspirational and enduring beacon on the New York city skyline. The base of the tower is a cube whose square plan- 200 ft by 200 ft- is the same size as the footprints of the original Twin Towers. At its middle, the tower forms a perfect octagon and then culminates in a glass parapet with elevations of 1362 ft and 1368 ft- the heights of the original Twin Towers.
If you want to learn more about this memorial … you can go to www.buildthememorial.org
After we went to ground zero, we went to Times Square and took pictures of where the ball would fall for new years and stuff. It was flashy and sparkly, but since I had seen Tokyo downtown, which has way more stuff, I felt like Tokyo outdid NY… and I missed Tokyo. Lol.
So we went back to Amiya... ate dinner there.
Oh I just remembered about how a few days back, mom was telling me about diff ways to sit in India and how there’s only one acceptable way to sit when one’s wearing a skirt… which is with your ankles crossed. Having one leg over the other shows way more skin and is looked upon pretty badly, and what’s even worse is if you try to sit (with a skirt or even w/ pants) the way guys sit, with one leg bent and its ankle resting on the knee of the other leg… considered an extremely vulgar way to sit in India. I guess because you’re exposing yourself, sort of? (well of course you would be if you were wearing a skirt…)
Anyway, I never thought about that because I’ve never been comfortable sitting any way other than ankles crossed or feet next to each other… I thought that was an interesting conversation.
Anyhoww, tomorrow we’re gonna see the statue of liberty and we’re leaving NY!
Note (written on aug 26): I won’t be applying to Columbia, lol. Great place, but no merit scholarships whatsoever, and I like Chicago way more than NY. La ciudad de Chicago es mi amor- sorry, Clover!