Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Tommy's updated
but they still have the same awesome chilicheeseburger--it's all good!
Second Day
no college tours on sunday... we were going to drive by/through Pepperdine, but the traffic on PCH was hellish, so a leisurely drive down to Venice Beach with a stop at Tito's Tacos on the way (wow, those are good burritos!), street performers, basketball, muscle beach, handball, and people watching galore--all the fine things that VB has to offer. Drove up PCH to Sunset and back into Westwood and our swanky hotel--boys went down and worked out in the gym for a couple hours--I went down to check on them and I promptly broke a light fixture--large pieces of glass showering down from the ceiling... so that was good...
I did go for a long run in the morning, all around campus and Westwood--turns out that the annual sprng UCLA fun run was yesterday, but I missed it, only realized it had happened as a ran through the after party... oops!
Ate at Noodle Planet in Westwood (Pho and Pad See Ew) and then saw the fine flick "Fast and Furious" and then I called it an early night while the boys played video games...
all in all, fairly educational, I'd say...
I did go for a long run in the morning, all around campus and Westwood--turns out that the annual sprng UCLA fun run was yesterday, but I missed it, only realized it had happened as a ran through the after party... oops!
Ate at Noodle Planet in Westwood (Pho and Pad See Ew) and then saw the fine flick "Fast and Furious" and then I called it an early night while the boys played video games...
all in all, fairly educational, I'd say...
Sunday, April 5, 2009
First Day part deux...
Harvey Mudd, one of eight intitutions that make up the Claremont Colleges, was the next stop on our way in to Westwood.
Pomona College
Claremont Graduate University
Scripps College
Claremont McKenna College
Harvey Mudd College
Pitzer College
Keck Graduate Institute
Claremont University Consortium
We walked about the various interconnected campuses--no official tour was available on sturday afternoon. we started at Harvey Mudd where there were lots of serious-looking science buildings and fountains and people practicing fencing on one end of the small campus and on the other were a number of dorms situated around a field across which many lemons were flying; seems there was a spirited dorm versus dorm lemon fight going on which included lacross sticks, lemon cannons (loud) and various other devices. We made a qick right turn--because a 140mph lemon to the head hurts--and went on the other campuses. Each of the campuses has an acedmeic emphasis, the only one that emphasizes the hard scineces is Harvey Mudd, but a student at any of the colleges can cross enroll in classes at any of the others, in fact, must do so to meet graduation requirements. All of the colleges and students share athletic facilities--there were lots of fields with all kinds of serious events going on... and a lot of field-side tailgating with bbq and air jumpers too. Seems that at least on this Saturday, no one was inside studying and everyone was out enjoying the day. I got the feeling that the separate colleges would be a bit insular, not allowing too much cross-mojination between the art history majors and the engineers. Of course, the website touts this arrangement as an advantage--all the benfits of a small school in the individual colleges (small classes, know your professors, esprit de corps) with the advantages of a big school (athletics, student body activities, clubs)...
Up to the boys to decide on that I guess.
We continued westward towards Westwood, but the boys were, once again, hungry--boy do they eat! So, we fumbled our way to chinatown where ryan directed us to Sam Woo BBQ and we ate some serious noodles. Thus fotified, we made our way--finally--into Westwood where we drove around a bit to see old apartments and dorms where I had lived, we drove around the campus, we drove to the hotel, checked in and hooked up the XBOX...
Not much time to play though, as we decided to go grab a snack and movie and dinner--in that order--in Westwood. We had to hurry to catch the 7:40pm movie as the boys were tired (from what!?!?) and voted against staying up to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Nuart Theater on Santa Monica Blvd... alas, how will they make it in college??
Spring Break?
Ryan studies away (physics) during the second full day of spring break... Note the XBOX ont he right--guess which boys are playing on that?
First Day
up at 0730... it seems when you tell three teenage boys "we will be leaving in 10-15 minutes", what they hear is "in a few minutes I will come get you and tell you it is time to go"... if you don't realize this and explain clearly to them what to do and where to be, you may well be waiting in the car for them to show up while they are inside playing video games waiting for you to go get them...
2 hour drive on I-15 N from Carmel Valley to just Northeast of Riverside is the city (perhaps a municipality) of Redlands, nestled below the hills that lead to Big Bear.
University of Redlands is over 100 years old, almost exclusively undergradates--2400 of them, making it smaller than Torrey Pines. But, the campus is quite beautiful, the small sutdent body is friendly, close, involved and the average class size is around 18-22 students--better than 5th grade in Carmel Valley. Almost everyone lives on campus for all four years (85%). Acedemic emphasis on liberal arts, although "pre-med" is in the top three acedemic programs--that is, not a real strong emphasis on science and math, but enough to meet medical school prerequisites. No engineering. Strong emphasis on service to community and a vast majority of students go overseas for anywhere from 1 month to 1 year. They do have a strong athletic program, including a division III football team. About 95% of students get some financial aid (both merit based and need based) during their time at Redlands. We got a free lunch!
Chatted up the tour guide for a bit after the tour and he got us four free meal passes at the main commons for a sweet meal. The boys were impressed that at 1230 when we were going to eat, many of the students had obviousliy just rolled out of bed and had come to the cafeteria in their PJs... A Redlands Morning is our new term for early afternoon...
then, a drive west to Harvey Mudd....
2 hour drive on I-15 N from Carmel Valley to just Northeast of Riverside is the city (perhaps a municipality) of Redlands, nestled below the hills that lead to Big Bear.
University of Redlands is over 100 years old, almost exclusively undergradates--2400 of them, making it smaller than Torrey Pines. But, the campus is quite beautiful, the small sutdent body is friendly, close, involved and the average class size is around 18-22 students--better than 5th grade in Carmel Valley. Almost everyone lives on campus for all four years (85%). Acedemic emphasis on liberal arts, although "pre-med" is in the top three acedemic programs--that is, not a real strong emphasis on science and math, but enough to meet medical school prerequisites. No engineering. Strong emphasis on service to community and a vast majority of students go overseas for anywhere from 1 month to 1 year. They do have a strong athletic program, including a division III football team. About 95% of students get some financial aid (both merit based and need based) during their time at Redlands. We got a free lunch!
Chatted up the tour guide for a bit after the tour and he got us four free meal passes at the main commons for a sweet meal. The boys were impressed that at 1230 when we were going to eat, many of the students had obviousliy just rolled out of bed and had come to the cafeteria in their PJs... A Redlands Morning is our new term for early afternoon...
then, a drive west to Harvey Mudd....
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