Day Sixty-One

Caitlin H.

May 28, 2010 - 1:00 PM

The following takes place between 1:00pm and 2:00pm:

Goodbye Oregon, HELLO MICHIGAN! For now anyway...

I'm taking an exciting visit to Michigan State University for Memorial Day weekend! I'm excited to finally see the campus and get a sense of the place. A friend of mine from my days at Western Washington University happens to be going to law school in Lansing, so I'll even get a chance to spend time with her! This is going to be a busy, but very important weekend. This could one day be my graduate school.

Advise for all you future college students out there: visit the campuses before you commit. Its one of the most important steps you will take when making a decision about what college is right for you.

My top 5 impressions from my MSU visit today.

5. MSU IS HUGE! I'm not exaggerating, I spent 3.5 hours looking around today and I STILL didn't see it all. This campus is 5,200-acres. It has 577 buildings. It has its own bus system to get students around campus. There are more than 200 programs of study. That is a lot to take in. This will be different from Oregon, but I think I'm willing to step into that challenge and explore a larger university.

4. Landscaping that feels like home. Campus is big but trees are everywhere. The Red Cedar River runs through campus. That makes it feel like a home away from home. In many ways I loved Oregon for its sheer beauty. It made it easy to be there and to imagine myself living there and being successful. I think its important to feel comfortable in the landscape and capable of feeling like you could call a university home for a while. MSU has that quality. Climbing ivy across old brick buildings, large trees, grassy quads, you get the idea - it's almost like a big Eugene.

3. Diversity...how am I going to fit in here? The sheer size of the school considered, one would imagine there would be people from all walks of life at MSU. So I was a little surprised when I heard only 20% of students are out of state. Diversity can mean so many things: race, religion, political ideas, socioeconomic status, etc. It really made me wonder if I would be able to find others from the west coast with similar ideas, or if I was wandering into a new world full of things from the east coast and Midwest I had never heard of. It's also exciting to think about being exposed to so many new things. However, even though 20% are out of state, I was excited to hear more than 80% enter MSU with scholarships either from the university or an outside contributor.

2. My timing stinks. There are 47,278 students at this campus. I saw maybe three or four. MSU is a semester school, so they're already out for the summer, and it is a holiday weekend. Campus wasn't exactly overflowing with collegiate life. It's hard to imagine what it might be like, but unfortunately, this was the time that worked best for me to visit. Second piece of advice for you future college students: if you can, schedule a visit where you get to see a normal day in campus life. Not a weekend, not in the summer, not during finals week. Just a regular old, run of the mill, standard work day. That's when you're going to REALLY see what the university is all about.

1. Is this a place I can see myself? That's a big question. I'm still working through it myself and there are a lot of factors to consider: education, environment, costs, location, (aka distance from home, friends, and family). All the usual things one would consider before planning a big move. Visiting MSU has been an essential part of my graduate degree planning process. I'm excited to keep thinking about it and talking about it. Looks like I might be on my way to becoming a Spartan!