Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2008-05-10 07:57 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2008-05-10 07:57 pm
Smith. I want to go to Smith.
The first round of college visits is over and done with.
We were going to hit Simmons, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, UMass Amherst, and possibly Swarthmore on the way back, but due to unexpected complications... well.
Mom and I drove up to the Pioneer Valley, which as a bunch of you probably know is home to a little knot of schools in central/western MA. We hit up Mt. Holyoke first; the campus is pretty, the Admissions people seemed a little snotty, everyone else seemed friendly, and their computer science department appeared to be working on cool stuff. We didn't see very much of it, since classes were over and we missed all the opportunities for tours and interviews, but that's okay since our general reaction was "Oh, that's nice." Nothing more, nothing less. So Holyoke is a backup school.
Based just on online research, I was most interested in UMass Amherst, but I only had to see it to go oh hell no. I would slit my wrists if I had to pass the winter on a campus that offensively ugly. Also huge and impersonal and it gave off a distinctly unfriendly vibe of who the hell are you and what are you doing here? We tried to sit in on classes, never found the classroom, and didn't manage to get good directions from anyone. Their CS department is outstanding, and also 90% male; we managed to meet with the lady in charge of attracting women to the IT department, and she sat us down and said "Well what do you want to know?" and seemed utterly baffled by our questions about things like community, and hostile environments, and whether the male students even interacted with the girls at all. With all due respect, ma'am, if you're trying to attract female students, you fail. We also met with one of the professors, and he at least was happy to chat about the department and give us honest information about its character and strengths and weaknesses: they do outstanding work there, and there are plenty of research opportunities for undergrads, but their requirements are also very rigorous and if I transferred in with mostly liberal arts credits I wouldn't be able to take almost anything but CS. That, and the fact that I'd missed the fall transfer deadline, were the final nails in the coffin. Final verdict on UMass: I'd take individual classes there, but you couldn't pay me to attend as a full-time student.
And then there's Smith. Admissions had closed by the time we got there on Wednesday, so we just wandered around the campus and it made the same general "Oh, that's nice" impression as Holyoke. Although we did notice that even though it was 5pm in the middle of finals week, there were students wandering around reading and chatting and using the facilities. We came back on Thursday and--wow. Everyone in Admissions was incredibly nice and friendly and helpful; we got a tour, even though we were the only ones on it, and the campus is gorgeous and there are all these study and congregation points on campus that people actually use, and the housing and dining is in actual houses where you know everyone you're with. The whole place just seems so nerdy, and engaged, and like one giant geeky community--like there's interesting stuff going on and it's easy to participate and pursue your interests. The interview went really well, and Friday morning I had breakfast with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
elyse24601 and some of her housemates. And there are fanfic nerds there! ♥ And... I think I'm in love with Smith. We also got to talk to the chair of the CS department, which was fun--they're pretty oriented towards graphics and computer music and the like, whereas I'm more interested in systems and programming, but they have a decent amount of that stuff and they're also really geeky. There was a lot of "My toys, let me show you them! :D" and said toys included a printer that "prints" 3D objects. How cool is that? Their requirements were also a lot more workable; apparently since I took high school programming I can either skip the first prerequisite course or take it as a coreq with something more advanced. And if there's something I really want to take that they don't offer, there's always cross-registration with UMass.
So you'd think this would be easy, right? I love Smith, and they appear to love me. Just one catch--the absolute, final deadline for all fall transfer materials is May 15. Thursday. Filling out the necessary forms and writing the necessary essays is simple, but they also need high school and college transcripts, a college official's report, and teacher recommendations. And there is no fucking way the disorganized mess of Simon's Rock bureaucracy would ever have gotten it in on time if we'd written to them about it.
And so, instead of visiting Simmons and Swarthmore, we went an hour west. To Simon's Rock. And marched into the registrar's office with a list of stuff we needed and when. And true to form, they dragged their feet about it--well, we'll try to get it done, we'll have it FedExed to you by Wednesday if we can, we'll do our best... you assholes, it's your job, stop acting like you're doing us a favor. One of the ladies there, who sort of does jack-of-all-trades work for the registrar and student affairs, was really happy to see me--she was kind of a mother hen during my semester from hell, and helped me navigate the bureaucracy and probably kept me from killing myself on multiple occasions--but she also made all these backhanded "advice" comments about "don't get your hopes up" and "Smith is very selective" and "don't go for a school just because it's a big name" and "keep your options open." It makes my skin crawl how nice the people there are about stabbing you in the back.
I wish I'd just stayed in the fucking car and let my mother deal with Simon's Rock. I knew there would be bad feelings and bad memories, but I was not expecting to have a breakdown in the car on the way out, or to slip back into how I felt the whole time I was there. That place must be populated with dementors or something; it's like clinical depression personified. The hopelessness, the feeling of being incapable of anything, the inability to enjoy anything, the emotional bleakness and deadness, the feeling that there's something wrong with you and nobody else feels that way. You feel like a ghost, like nobody sees you or cares. Hell, you never see anyone else either--there's nobody walking around, nobody hanging out, nothing going on. All the buildings smell like rotting wood and all the outdoor spaces smell like tobacco because three-quarters of the population chain smokes. I'd been prepared for it, going in; I spent the drive through the Berkshires making snarky comments about the surroundings and putting up mental barriers, which just makes it scarier that I started feeling like a zombie again after ten minutes inside. There's something really evil and deadening and depressing there; you can't see it in photos, or read it in the course descriptions, and it's all the more insidious because it denies its own existence--but it has to exist, because it started working on me the instant I set foot on campus. My mom felt it, even though it didn't affect her in the same way, and she spent most of the ride back reassuring me that it wasn't just my imagination. I just... ugh. At least I know for sure, now, that I'm never ever going back there, because the emotional toll of even a one-hour visit is fucking exhausting.
Smith. I want to go to Smith.
We were going to hit Simmons, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, UMass Amherst, and possibly Swarthmore on the way back, but due to unexpected complications... well.
Mom and I drove up to the Pioneer Valley, which as a bunch of you probably know is home to a little knot of schools in central/western MA. We hit up Mt. Holyoke first; the campus is pretty, the Admissions people seemed a little snotty, everyone else seemed friendly, and their computer science department appeared to be working on cool stuff. We didn't see very much of it, since classes were over and we missed all the opportunities for tours and interviews, but that's okay since our general reaction was "Oh, that's nice." Nothing more, nothing less. So Holyoke is a backup school.
Based just on online research, I was most interested in UMass Amherst, but I only had to see it to go oh hell no. I would slit my wrists if I had to pass the winter on a campus that offensively ugly. Also huge and impersonal and it gave off a distinctly unfriendly vibe of who the hell are you and what are you doing here? We tried to sit in on classes, never found the classroom, and didn't manage to get good directions from anyone. Their CS department is outstanding, and also 90% male; we managed to meet with the lady in charge of attracting women to the IT department, and she sat us down and said "Well what do you want to know?" and seemed utterly baffled by our questions about things like community, and hostile environments, and whether the male students even interacted with the girls at all. With all due respect, ma'am, if you're trying to attract female students, you fail. We also met with one of the professors, and he at least was happy to chat about the department and give us honest information about its character and strengths and weaknesses: they do outstanding work there, and there are plenty of research opportunities for undergrads, but their requirements are also very rigorous and if I transferred in with mostly liberal arts credits I wouldn't be able to take almost anything but CS. That, and the fact that I'd missed the fall transfer deadline, were the final nails in the coffin. Final verdict on UMass: I'd take individual classes there, but you couldn't pay me to attend as a full-time student.
And then there's Smith. Admissions had closed by the time we got there on Wednesday, so we just wandered around the campus and it made the same general "Oh, that's nice" impression as Holyoke. Although we did notice that even though it was 5pm in the middle of finals week, there were students wandering around reading and chatting and using the facilities. We came back on Thursday and--wow. Everyone in Admissions was incredibly nice and friendly and helpful; we got a tour, even though we were the only ones on it, and the campus is gorgeous and there are all these study and congregation points on campus that people actually use, and the housing and dining is in actual houses where you know everyone you're with. The whole place just seems so nerdy, and engaged, and like one giant geeky community--like there's interesting stuff going on and it's easy to participate and pursue your interests. The interview went really well, and Friday morning I had breakfast with
elyse24601 and some of her housemates. And there are fanfic nerds there! ♥ And... I think I'm in love with Smith. We also got to talk to the chair of the CS department, which was fun--they're pretty oriented towards graphics and computer music and the like, whereas I'm more interested in systems and programming, but they have a decent amount of that stuff and they're also really geeky. There was a lot of "My toys, let me show you them! :D" and said toys included a printer that "prints" 3D objects. How cool is that? Their requirements were also a lot more workable; apparently since I took high school programming I can either skip the first prerequisite course or take it as a coreq with something more advanced. And if there's something I really want to take that they don't offer, there's always cross-registration with UMass.So you'd think this would be easy, right? I love Smith, and they appear to love me. Just one catch--the absolute, final deadline for all fall transfer materials is May 15. Thursday. Filling out the necessary forms and writing the necessary essays is simple, but they also need high school and college transcripts, a college official's report, and teacher recommendations. And there is no fucking way the disorganized mess of Simon's Rock bureaucracy would ever have gotten it in on time if we'd written to them about it.
And so, instead of visiting Simmons and Swarthmore, we went an hour west. To Simon's Rock. And marched into the registrar's office with a list of stuff we needed and when. And true to form, they dragged their feet about it--well, we'll try to get it done, we'll have it FedExed to you by Wednesday if we can, we'll do our best... you assholes, it's your job, stop acting like you're doing us a favor. One of the ladies there, who sort of does jack-of-all-trades work for the registrar and student affairs, was really happy to see me--she was kind of a mother hen during my semester from hell, and helped me navigate the bureaucracy and probably kept me from killing myself on multiple occasions--but she also made all these backhanded "advice" comments about "don't get your hopes up" and "Smith is very selective" and "don't go for a school just because it's a big name" and "keep your options open." It makes my skin crawl how nice the people there are about stabbing you in the back.
I wish I'd just stayed in the fucking car and let my mother deal with Simon's Rock. I knew there would be bad feelings and bad memories, but I was not expecting to have a breakdown in the car on the way out, or to slip back into how I felt the whole time I was there. That place must be populated with dementors or something; it's like clinical depression personified. The hopelessness, the feeling of being incapable of anything, the inability to enjoy anything, the emotional bleakness and deadness, the feeling that there's something wrong with you and nobody else feels that way. You feel like a ghost, like nobody sees you or cares. Hell, you never see anyone else either--there's nobody walking around, nobody hanging out, nothing going on. All the buildings smell like rotting wood and all the outdoor spaces smell like tobacco because three-quarters of the population chain smokes. I'd been prepared for it, going in; I spent the drive through the Berkshires making snarky comments about the surroundings and putting up mental barriers, which just makes it scarier that I started feeling like a zombie again after ten minutes inside. There's something really evil and deadening and depressing there; you can't see it in photos, or read it in the course descriptions, and it's all the more insidious because it denies its own existence--but it has to exist, because it started working on me the instant I set foot on campus. My mom felt it, even though it didn't affect her in the same way, and she spent most of the ride back reassuring me that it wasn't just my imagination. I just... ugh. At least I know for sure, now, that I'm never ever going back there, because the emotional toll of even a one-hour visit is fucking exhausting.
Smith. I want to go to Smith.
no subject
Good luck on getting into Smith.
no subject
"it gave off a distinctly unfriendly vibe of who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"
...INORITE?