Wednesday, July 9, 2014

St. Louis Tour

You know us just hanging around
Today in the morning we had our tour at 8:30 AM, we needed to meet each other in the second floor at 7:40 AM to eat breakfast.  Our tour guide was very detailed about the school and gave us explicit information about the school.  Her name is Samona and she’s from California, too.
Samona teaching us how to use the touch screen map
Samona told us that she chose Washington University, St. Louis because she applied to it and got accepted. 


Then she got an email from the university telling her that if she wanted to come down and visit the school she could.  

She accepted the offer and fell in love with the university because everyone in the school is friendly with people who want to know about you and your experience at the university. She loved that the university provides students the option to take a double major so you would not have to focus on just one major. Something I found very interesting was that the Knight Hall for business was constructed in March of this year. Knight Hall is a very beautiful building and unique because it has modern technology.  They have 6 different touch screens and there’s one used specifically to find where your professor’s room is located and it shows you the route that you need to take (that’s very cool and helpful for freshmen). 

Another thing I like is that they have a career center that you can go at any time to get help and there are always people in the career center trying to support you with school purposes.  She told us that you can go any time to the career center and they have a saying, “Once you’re a Washington student, you’ll always be a Washington student”.  There’s a fun room upstairs in the same building (DUC Hall) where you can go relax and clear your mind.  It has two pool tables and a plasma TV where you can play the X-box 360, PS3, and the Wii.
Fun Room
I can imagine myself playing in the fun room because I like to play pool with my friends.  


Every Tuesday they have a tradition to give free tea at 3 o’clock.  What I really like about this school is that they are like a family and every one helps each other and nobody feels alone.  The dorm rooms have double twin beds with Tempur-Pedic mattresses and they share the hall with 40 to 50 students. There’s a store called Bear Necessities that is by the freshmen dorms and is a non-profit, where students can shop and the money is donated back to the school. On the other hand, there are for-profit stores that are run by students. 

After the tour ended we went to our information session where we learned more about how the professors interact with the students and that sometimes the students and the professors can get close like friends.  They also talked about the steps to apply to the WashU and what are they looking in the essays.  I feel the information was very helpful because it gave me ideas for when I start applying to colleges.

After we finished listening to the admissions information, we went back to the hotel to go blog about the tour so it would be easier for us to finish the blog on the plane and we could rest during the flight.  Alie gave us an hour to blog and then we needed to meet her at the lobby to go the art museum and then to the Zoo in Forest Park.  When we all met in the lobby we headed out to the art museum.  I have never gone to an art museum as huge as the St. Louis one. 
St. Louis art museum
The art museum has three floors and is very wide and has a variety of sculptures and art from around the world.  Alie gave us and hour to go around and look at the art and she gave us another mission and it was to find an art piece we like and read about its history and what was so special about it. After we shared our art piece that we like and discussed it, we gathered up in the entrance of the museum and we walked to the zoo.  The zoo was very big and has a lot of animals such as monkeys, tigers, tortoises, zebras and the list keeps on going.  I like that the zoo had a mist fan so people can cool off.  I saw my favorite animal the lion but he was sleeping.


Triple Play
After the Zoo we went to Fitz’s, famous for their root beer and sodas, and I ordered a Triple Play ice cream for the hot weather of St. Louis. It’s too sad that tomorrow we are leaving.  I really enjoyed being here because the people are very friendly here and you can feel like the city is just a whole big family.  After we refreshed with the ice cream we headed back to the hotel to keep on blogging and to get ready for our dinner with the alumni of WashU.

My cohort and I needed to be ready at 6 PM, so we could head out to Atlas restaurant. I was nervous because I didn’t know what I would talk about with them but I felt confident that I was going to do a good job making conversations with the alumni at the dinner.  

We got there before our dinner partners. When the alumni arrived I felt relieved because they were young so I thought they would be fun to talk to. Their names are Jenny, who works at the admissions office, Nicole, Courtney, and Avery, the office intern/students.  Avery plays Frisbee on the B team at WashU.  This is something cool because I never knew Frisbee was a major sport like that in the universities. Courtney does rowing as a sport but she has some back problems so she’s the navigator, or coxswain, for her team.  Courtney has to wake up at 4:30 AM to go to practice and her practice starts at 6 AM. I think this is something that I wouldn’t like to do because I love sleeping.  During dinner we talked about the Bay Area and which schools we go to and how our high schools work.  I had a fun dinner with all of them because for the first time I was able to be myself and not worry about being professional. I realized that the whole point of the dinner is so they can know me and I can know them.  After we finished eating, we all went outside and took a picture with them and we said our goodbyes. One thing that surprised me is that they have to blog too but not every day just on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (I think). It was a pleasure meeting them and getting to know them.  All of them are so friendly and I like that because it made me feel more comfortable around them. 
My cohorts and I with the alumni.

1 comment:

  1. It’s hard to believe you were able to cram all of this into one day.

    And I’m proud of the way you were able to manage your time to handle the required blogging.

    I think you’re seeing the value of these site visits, too.

    ReplyDelete