Ready for New York

A sculpture of the evolution of
transportation at the train station.

 Our campus visits are combing to a close. After visiting Princeton today, we only have one more college to visit. This morning, we took a train to Princeton, New Jersey after a quick breakfast at our hotel. We arrived at a pleasant suburban town with high end stores decorating the streets. We walked through  Princeton's wide gates and set foot on the historical campus adorned with ivy. We walked around the deserted campus looking for the building that hosts tours and couldn't help but notice how aesthetic the campus was. Our tour took off in one of the campus' libraries which had a wide variety of ancient books in every language and topics one could think of.

Garden at Princeton.

Our tour guide, Jennifer, showed us around her campus.  Her tour focused on the historical aspects of the University more than what it was actually like to attend Princeton which I wasn't necessarily fond of.  Since the campus was so desolate,  I didn't get a sense of the community that a student would expect. One of the unique aspects of Princeton's education is their grading system which only allows the top 35% of a class to receive an A. I don't like this system of grading because it seems to foster a spirit of competitiveness. The students assured us that this wasn't the case, but the very nature of this system is extremely contrary to their claim. After the tour ended, we were able to ask the students any questions we had for them, but I got a sense that life at Princeton would be too mundane for my taste. After the tour,  I felt like I didn't actually learn much about what it's like to be a student at the campus.

Independence Hall.

After the tour ended, we took the train back to Philadelphia  to tour Independence Hall. Mrs. Thrift had made reservations previously, so we didn't have to wait in the long line to get a spot for the  tour. We were able to see the room where the Declaration of Independence was created as the Constitution. Our tour guide, was energegtic and made a potentially boring presentation fun and interesting.

Later, we took a taxi to a restaurant in The Rittenhouse hotel called "La Croix". La Croix was very upscale and was my favorite dinner so far. None of the admissions officers or students from any of the schools joined us, but Mrs. Thrift's friend Stephanie joined us. The food was very light and appetizing and when I left, I didn't feel too full like I had at the other dinner.

My wonderful strawberry desert at La Croix.

When we got back home a couple of people went to the pool. Our day was very busy and I'm in need of a break but tomorrow we're finally going to New York for dorm check-ins. I'm excited to meet my roommate and I hope she's an outgoing type of person, but even if she isn't, I'm sure that I'll meet some interesting people in my Business and Economics class when we start on Monday. I can honestly say that my anticiption is building and I'm ready for New York.