Visiting Stanford

March 3, 2010 - 11:24 PM

If you didn't see my earlier blog, I got into STANFORD for graduate school.

I will be in their 9-month journalism program, earning a master's degree.

When I got the news, the e-mail also told me that I was invited to attend an open house tour day.
Immediately, I called my dad and asked him if we could go.

So in short order, he and I were on a plane to SFO, where we would rent a car at an off-airport rental company, where we got what we paid for, and drive the half an hour south to Palo Alto: the home of "The Farm."

When we arrived on Tuesday, we took the day to fumble around the ENORMOUS Stanford University campus. It is at least five times the size of the University of Oregon's campus-I will definitely be needing a bike-and it took hours to figure out where we were going.

We saw the student union, the bookstore, the main quad, and after visiting the visitor center, we went to see the grad-student housing.

It was really interesting to find out that almost all of the graduate students live on campus. At Oregon, almost none of the grad students live on campus. Hell, no one beyond sophomore year lives on campus.

But I LOVE the fact that there is grad-student housing because it fosters a sense of community, which I will need in a new place.

The next day, I went to McClatchy Hall, where the Communication Department is housed-right in front of "The Oval," which is the first thing you see when you drive up the main street of campus.
They know how to prioritize journalism.

After meeting with one of their advisers, another prospective student, Chiara, and I went to a two-hour, 10-person class titled Human Rights Reporting. It was a FANTASTIC class, in which Chiara and I felt comfortable participating. After that, two of the current graduate students showed me a café built into the building in the half-hour break between that class and the hour-long Graduate Seminar. We talked about the program and I found myself extraordinarily comfortable around them.

I have never really considered myself Stanford-material, but talking with the students in and outside of class showed me that I am better qualified than I thought.

In the Graduate Seminar, we talked about media ethics with an associate editor from The Washington Post. We used a case study to discuss the difficult decisions that go into the art and business of the journalism industry. I LOVE this topic. It was one of my favorite courses as an undergraduate, and I am so glad to see that it will be incorporated into my graduate studies as well.

Chiara and I went to a series of meetings with the Pulitzer Prize-winning professors, in which we discussed the courses and opportunities in the Communication Department at Stanford.

Finally, one of the current journalism graduate students escorted us around campus and showed us all of the highlights-including the William Gates building.

I am still stunned that this was not a dream but an actual experience.

My dad and I ended the day with a dinner with our cousin and her husband, who live about 10 miles north of Palo Alto.

It was so nice to have someone with whom to connect while I am down there at school.

Before we left, Dad and I went to the bookstore so that I could get my long-anticipated Stanford sweatshirt and to pick up "Thank You" Stanford mugs for all of my wonderful recommendation-letter writers.

My dad was so proud that he got himself two T-shirts!

I will always remember this trip as an opportunity for my dad and me to do something extraordinarily memorable together. With a chance unlike anything we ever imagined for ourselves, he and I shared our pride and hard-earned success in a humbling trip to Stanford.