Hello hello everyone!
I hope you’re all super excited about Wellesley starting up in 55 days! I’ve been cruising the Wellesley 2018 Facebook page to see what kind of questions people are having… and I’d encourage you to post there (as well as here!) if you have questions. Mostly, the topics seem to be administrative, which I’m useless at. But there were a few I’m capable of answering:
What banks are available?
Well, not Wells Fargo, that’s for sure. If you’re from the Midwest like me or the West Coast, expect to pay a transaction fee every time you withdraw cash. The only ATM on campus is a Bank of America ATM. Though you’ll see many other banks in Boston, it’s often inconvenient to go into the city, so I just signed myself up for a Bank of America debit card last year, and it’s worked well!
When do we get housing/roommates?
Next week, according to the Orientation coordinators! I’m so pumped for you guys. Though the campus is only about 15-mins wide, your housing location definitely impacts where you study/eat/hang out. And roommates of course are quite important :). I personally have never been great friends with any of my three roommates, but in every case we each respected each other, so I’ve always had a pleasant living situation. And the best situations, peoples’ dormmates are still great friends up and through their senior year!
How comfy are the beds?
Ha! Funny story—the first time I went up to my friend Suman’s room, I sank down onto her foam body-memory-fit-or-whatever-it’s-is mattress and just looked at her. Then I informed her that her 3-inch monstrosity was more comfortable than even my mattress at home, where my parents paid for mattresses. Her mattress pad is definitely a prize possession (though of course no object-person bond can exceed that of me and my laptop.)
Meaning that if you want to buy a super mattress pad, go for it and everyone will be jealous. If you want to buy a normal mattress pad, you’ll be like the rest of us and will love your bed throughout college all the same :).
What computer should I buy?
Ooh, pick me! Pick me! The majority computer on campus seems to be the MacBook Pro. (Which is incidentally what I have.) There are also a fair amount of people with PCs in various varieties. I personally kind of wish I’d gone for a MacBook Air, because you lug around your computer everywhere, and my friends who have the Air don’t seem to run out of memory or other issues (except I do think you need to buy an external CD drive if you want to watch movies? I don’t know.)
Speaking of technology, I also have a phone, a camera, and now a tablet. I have all of these things because I quite dislike phones (meaning I don’t really use it), I break cameras like no one’s business (so mine’s a special indestructible kind—Kodak Sport yeah), and I’m an obsessive elliptical reader (meaning, I work out on the elliptical excessively and read off the tablet while doing so.) As for what the majority of Wellesley students have at college: a good laptop, and a SmartPhone with all of this stuff already built in. I think with those two items you’ve already spent quite a bit of money, you’ll completely fit the norm at Wellesley, and you’ll have everything you could want in college :).
Can I drive on campus?
Yep, if you sign up for ZipCar—I don’t think first-years are allowed to have cars on campus. That said, I wouldn’t recommend it. Not many people even bike on campus—it’s a 15-minute walk maximum to wherever you want to go. I even have several friends who have told me that being at Wellesley has gotten them into better shape, due to the fact that all of Wellesley’s buildings are on hills :). (Though if you’ve ever hung out with me, you know that “It’s good exercise!” is a refrain of mine, so I might be a tad biased :).)
Are there kitchens?
Kitchens and bathrooms on every floor (sometimes two to a floor, depending on the building), with a fridge, microwave, stove, and oven! Not that you’ll do much cooking—pretty much everyone is enrolled in the meal plan, which is unlimited—but the option exists if you want to do some baking.
Where can I get information on ______ major?
There’s usually some information online on the department’s website, and I’d check out what classes are available for that major on the Course Catalogue. Then as soon as you get to Wellesley, start asking the upperclasswomen for advice. (You’ll have an assigned First-Year Mentor to ask as well, and I’m sure she’ll be happy to point you to herself or her friends.) Also keep in mind that people generally don’t choose their major until sometime in their sophomore years, so don’t worry too much about it in choosing your classes.
Can I walk onto a sports team?
Depends on the team! I’d email the coach and let her or him know what you’ve been doing. The answer is probably going to be yes—you’ll at least be invited to show up to try-outs—but there are too many variables for me to give you an answer.
Can I take private lessons on my instrument?
Yep! You have to take one of the intro music classes concurrently though. However, once you do that the lessons become free… and by going through this process you can start taking a completely new instrument as well :).
I have a question about _____?
Then please ask the Facebook group, or me, or email a professor, or email a dean, or wait until Orientation when all of these people will be available to you! But you should definitely ask me. I’m very friendly. Really. 😛
…
Hm, I love thinking about the start of the new year :). I’m messing about with my schedule again, hoping to cram in more computer science classes… one of my only regrets about college is not taking more of them. But I’m not done yet! I can force more in, I’m certain!
Still, I’ve got some time until school starts again, and in the meantime I’m halfway through my summer research program! Or should I say, programs, since I’ve just learned I’m also enrolled in the Wellesley Summer Research Program as well as the CBMM Summer Research Program. The Wellesley program has lab presentations next Monday, so Galen, Evelyn, Eileen and I are busy at work putting that together. Or at least I will be busy doing that sometime tonight, once I finish cooking my food for the week, working out, doing that assignment I was supposed to do on Friday, and finishing that bit of anatomical processing I said I’d do on Thursday ;P. Good thing that it’s summer, and no matter what I do or don’t accomplish, I’ve got all the time in the world regardless :).
It’s been a great week (can you tell? I’m feeling very pleased with myself right now. Though I’m told my posts are always kind of disgustingly sanguine, so I wonder), and I’m also collected a bunch of pictures together, so I’ll launch into that. As always, questions and comments are so welcome, and I hope you’ve had a great Independence day weekend. 🙂
Monica
FIrst things first– The M2 bus has been upgraded! This is the bus that I take from MIT to Harvard Medical School, twice a day every summer and often enough during the year. And ALL OF THE BUSES GOT REPLACED WITH THESE AWESOME NEW BLUE ONES! I was definitely oohing and ahhing in my head. I think I even did a bit out of loud, too ;P.
(Side story: The one time I decided not to take this bus this week, I ended up 40 minutes late to work because I accidentally went to Boston Medical Center instead of Longwood Medical Center. Typical Monica… )
Dimsum from last week! I forgot to post it because I was busy adamantly arguing my position about how lucky we are :). This was the first week since Alice came back from study-abroad to London, so it’s a Wellesley’ group :). It was so good to see her!
Another picture from last week– this is my MIT program :). There’s about 15 of us from CBMM, and the rest from MSRP-Bio. I’m having such a good time with everyone here :).
GREEEEE. You know, I really should be taking practice tests. Instead I’m engrossed in all of the GRE vocab because I find it interesting, especially since I haven’t heard of a good number of these words. Probably because most of them were used in the 1850s (have you checked out Google’s “define” function? It’s brilliant! Definition, etymology, sentence example, pronunciation, provenance, use throughout time…) I’m a pretty avid reader, and I’m just so pleased when I discover that my personal definition of a word doesn’t match that of the dictionary, or learning that a word exists at all…
Fourth of July :). Third of July, actually, because the people who were running the fireworks did an astoundingly brilliant job of predicting the weather. We had the fireworks on July 3rd night, they started 20 minutes earlier than planned, and ten minutes after they finished the rain started pouring down. I was back in my dorm, since McCormick (where I’m staying) is literally 300 feet from the boat that does the fireworks, but I was emailing a friend when it happened and it went something like this: “whoa, now it’s raining! Ooh, sirens. Ooh, people screaming. And windy. Huh. Those meterologists guys are astoundingly good…”
And then the 4th of July itself :). I headed out to Tiffany’s house, where we watched Harry Potter 1 (awwwww!), baked this (doesn’t it look like a starship?), baked what’s in the next picture, played cards, and hung out. The level of confort I have at Tiffany’s place is ridiculously close to what I have at home :).
Tiffany, her sisters Patricia and Abby, and me :).
And then we have yesterday. Yesterday was AWESOME. First thing the morning, I went to the gym and finished my book on my fantabulous tablet… (look, it’s the same size as a cantalope!) Now I’m on the hunt for a new book, and am trying to decide whether I should read Hyperion, another classic hard-sci fi epic, or just and fangirl some more with Neal Stephenson. Still undecided as of this morning :).
Dimsum :). These are some MIT program folk– Brian, Cassandra, me, Alejandro, Conan, and Candace. It was Candace’s first time, and everyone’s first time at Hei La Moon. I adore dimsum :).
Then we went food shopping at Haymarket, I did more food shopping at H-Mart and Harvest, and then I packed myself up and headed to South Station to be picked up by my Wellesley friends for Cirque du Soleil! I had to bring heels in my backpack because I insisted on wearing tennis shoes with my dress until we arrived :). Here we are at the Big Tent: Jeanne, Erin, Alice, Tiffany, and Me, at Amaluna, the name of the show.
After a great show, we headed out to dinner at one of the Pho restaurants (vietnamese) in Chinatown.
Yum :).
And then back home, to read some more and watch some videos of Prof. Conway at the World Science Festival :). Prof. Conway is my research advisor, and Wellesley recently alerted us to this video to watch :). It’s a very cool contest, about What Color Is, and I’ve also been a fan of the third speaker, Prof. Eagleman, since my first year. Check it out! http://www.centerforcommunicatingscience.org/the-flame-challenge-2/flame-challenge-winners-2014/
Happy 4th, guys :).