[MSJ] - Day 3: The Beginning of Dorm Life

Our last morning at the Omni

This morning began in a somewhat hectic manner. Shreejal, Isaac and I all had to finish packing and take showers before meeting down in the lobby at 9:15. This proved to be a bit challenging due to us only having one bathroom and the suitcases and clothes that were strewn around the room as we all repacked at the same time. For the first time so far on the trip, the whole cohort had made it to the lobby before John. Strange, but we then received a text from the Admiral saying that he was "taking care of something important" and would be down in five minutes. The something important? Surprise donuts! A great way to start off a morning and save valuable time.

We then took a taxi down to UChicago, and since the dorms weren't open until 1 PM and we had an official tour of the University at 11, we stored our bags and officially checked in to the summer program before heading towards the building where our tour would start. We walked with Jim Wessel, the Residential Director of the summer program, and he gave us a brief tour of our route. As an immense coincidence, I met another friend of mine, Asa, who goes to the camp I work at in the Bay Area while walking on campus. I guess Chicago is just a really popular tourist destination.

Our dorm building from the outside

Zach Evans, a Deputy admissions officer at UChicago who was also an alumnus, gave the presentation at the beginning of the tour. As soon as the presentation started I could tell that the atmosphere at UChicago was very different than that at Northwestern. While at Northwestern the atmosphere felt somewhat laidback with lots of options and flexibility for students, at UChicago there was a large emphasis on academic rigor, and the core curriculum similar to that at Columbia that is imposed on students restricts class choices much more. There were certain similarities, however. Both Universities boast small class sizes, a large choice of majors, excessive amounts of student-run clubs and the option to take advantage of internship programs. Some other differences: while both colleges are research institutions that allow undergraduates to participate in research, Northwestern emphasized that almost all research is entirely student-led and open to whatever students want to do, while all the research options explained by our tour guides today were students helping faculty with their research. In terms of location, while both are in smaller suburbs of Chicago, UChicago feels much bigger, with more buildings, a higher density, and taller more imposing buildings. I preferred the more open, spacious campus of Northwestern by the lakeside. Overall, both Universities seem like excellent institutions, but I think that Northwestern would be a much better fit for me than UChicago.

It's called the Ivy League Connection for a reason

After the tour, we went to the deli that our tour guide, Liam, recommended to us for lunch. We had some sandwiches and Shreejal also had a pizza, and then we headed back to the campus to check out our rooms. After we got our luggage we said goodbye to John, at least for a little while. My room is on the sixth floor. Shreejal has the room across from me, and Kayla and Isaac are a couple floors down. I have a single room, which I am happy about because it means I can sleep when I want to without worrying about someone else making noise or trying to sleep.

My room

The view onto the city from my window

We had a few minutes to unpack, then we went to Orientation. It started with an introduction of some of the Residential Assistants (RAs), then they led us on a walk around campus very similar to the tour we had earlier. Floors are divided up into different Houses (think kinda like Hogwarts), mine being Rogers. Each house has different RAs, and in Rogers we have two: Xav and Mercedes. They are both second-year students at the University. After the walking tour we had a presentation about safety around campus from a UChicago Police officer. We then had dinner in the main dining hall. I only had a salad because I had eaten a lot for lunch and we had eaten pretty late, but there were lots of other options.

Afterward, I went back up to my room to unpack, at a little while later we had a house meeting to learn names and cover some basic ground rules. And that brings us to now, where I am sitting at my desk, finishing up this blog.