My UPenn Visit!

We had off today and yesterday for NJEA conferences, so I seized the opportunity and took the train down to Philly to spend some time at the University of Pennsylvania!  I took courses there in the summer of '09 (see here), and since a lot of my friends (including my roommate) were a year older than me, I now have a bunch of friends who are freshmen at Penn.  I took the train from New Brunswick to Trenton, and then from Trenton to 30th Street Wednesday night and met my roommate Matt at the station.  Matt was nice enough to let me stay in his roommate, and I met his new roommate David, who is a very cool guy.  Wednesday night I ate dinner at Beijing (terrible Chinese college food that's way cheap) with Ellen, James, and Matt, and then hung out in Matt's room.  Abe came and joined us a little later in the night, and we talked for the rest of the night about politics and college stuff.  I slept on an airbed that Matt's parents had brought a few weeks earlier, so I brought sheets and was actually pretty comfortable.

Thursday was classes, starting with Astrophysics with Prof. Bernardi and then Russian History with Prof. Holquist.  Astrophysics was a lot of fun, we talked about stars and how we analyze things like distance, temperature, and luminosity.  It was a surprising amount of math and geometry, which I found really cool, although I guess not so surprising once you realize that it's astrophysics. Russian History was really intense, and in that class more than Astro I could tell that I had missed a good part of the class, probably because I caught Astro just as they were starting a new unit.  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, I ate lunch with Matt, Arielle (another friend from the summer), and Arielle's boyfriend Kevin.  Fun times, and then I went to talk to Prof. Sen. about recommendations and all that jazz.  It was nice to catch up with him again, he's a really nice guy and was an excellent professor (not to mention that he advises for the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics department, which is likely the major I'll be pursuing).  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed again; we went to Commons for dinner with Lizzy, one of Matt's floormates.  It apparently was national apple harvest day, so they had wicked (wicked) desserts.  Strudel, pie, little iced cakes, muffins, turnovers, and vanilla ice cream with hot apples and cinnamon.  Shwow.  Glad to know that dining won't be a problem.

Friday was Biological Basis of Behavior with Dr. Medina pretty early in the morning.  I went to breakfast with James (it was his class) and then went to lecture, which was pretty short, only about an hour.  The lecture was a guest lecture on the neurological basis of sleep, which was very cool (and ironic because I was pretty tired).  The only bad thing about the guest lecture aspect was that I didn't get to hear Dr. Medina lecture, but it seemed like a very cool class nonetheless.  On my way back I bumped into Bhargavi, a girl from EB who was two years older than me.  It was really coincidental, we were both just going through the quad gates at the same time, so we had lunch together at Houston Market, the a la carte dining hall.  I left around 3:10, barely missed the 3:31 train from 30th Street Station because there was traffic and had to wait for the 3:49.  When I got to Trenton though, the announcer gave us the wrong info about the train to New Brunswick, which was actually on a *different* platform that wasn't accessible from where we were.  There was a whole platform full of people who missed the 5:03 train as a result, and we all had to wait until the 5:49 train, which was not fun.  I got home eventually though, and it's not like I was in any hurry.

My trip was a lot of fun, and I definitely know UPenn is still a really strong choice if I get in.  Really, UPenn is my first choice, but I didn't apply early decision because I didn't want to be locked into it if I get in.  I want to see what kind of money I get from other schools, see where else I get in, and just generally play the college game.  I seriously hope that the decision not to ED won't bite me in the ass in the future; I'm a legacy, which helps the most when applying early, and if I don't get in regular I'll probably always blame the fact that I didn't apply early.  Penn is a great school, Philly's a cool city, and I'm more than excited for college.  The only bad news is that I've got the whole rest of senior year to go (plus applications, guh).  Visiting has gotten me more excited, and hopefully it will motivate me to do some more really good work on my applications!