WashZoo

I awoke to the sound of an alarm clock this morning and Mariko and I rolled out of bed to check out the hotel's work out room.  After a quick work out, I showered and met the rest of the cohort at 8:30 for a nice complimentary breakfast. We had a little time to relax before our tour and info session so we hung out in the nicely air conditioned Holmes Lounge. 

 During our info session, I learned even more about WashU that made it sound like an appealing college option.  Students can take classes from any one of the five different schools.  Often students end up accidentally completing a second major by taking classes they are interested in.  I was very happy to hear of the strong support system offered to the students here.  Students receive assistance from a four year advisor, a pre-professional advisor, a career advisor, two residential advisors, a freshman advisor, and sometimes the professors themselves.  I think anyone could thrive here with a support system like that.  Students have the opportunity to study abroad, sometimes in more than one country, and some classes travel to different countries as well.  I am very interested in doing research as a college student, so I was happy to learn that 60% of students participate in research on and off campus.

After the info session, we went on a campus tour and got to see more of the university's beautiful grounds.  I loved that the dorms are spacious and have one bathroom for only four people.  Many of the businesses on campus are owned by students and the campus food, which we sampled for lunch, is very good.  The more we walked around, the more I could see myself fitting in here as a student.  There were even baby birds nesting in the architecture.

I then got the chance for a personal interview with a member of the WashU faculty.  Going in, I didn't know what to expect from the interview, but it was great to discuss the school on a more personal level.  

Chloe prepares for her future in WashU's biggest classroom

We had a couple hours of downtime in the afternoon so we decided to go to the Zoo in Forest Park.  Although it sometimes makes me sad to see wild animals cooped up in cages, I was happy to see that this Zoo does a lot of substantial work in conservation.  We saw a variety of animals, including the baby elephant that we had heard about at dinner last night.

For dinner we went to Tony's, a fancy Italian restaurant. Even though the formal ambiance was initially intimidating, it was great to unwind as a cohort without the pressure of having dinner guests. We had a great time laughing and learning more about each other. The food was delicious, I ordered the trio of veal (I'm pretty sure my Dad will be proud about that one) and I had ice-cream pie for dessert.  On our way to the car, we stopped by the St. Louis arch.  I never realized how tall it was; we all stood there for a bit wondering how they got it so high.

Tomorrow we leave for Chicago.  I hope I enjoy the schools there as much as I enjoyed WashU!