Life after Graduation: A trip to the East Coast

I don't know if the area is intense enough to warrant capitalization, but that's what a quick google search told me. East coast? east coast? Ehhh.

Anyways, this week has went by too fast - I was supposed to write up a review of the campus while it was fresh in my mind, and funnily enough, I've been contacted by all four of my schools this week, including an acceptance to the UCSB Geography MA/PhD program! (More on that later. Focus.)

Wake Forest.

After a very cold red eye flight, two transfers (LA and Cincinnati), and all around sleep deprived day (I started experiencing vertigo when I woke up at some point and got too scared to wake up, so I tried fixing that by...not sleeping), I landed in one of the most beautiful state in the east coast.*

*This is the only state I've ever been to on the east coast.

BTW, Wake Forest University isn't actually in Wake Forest, the city. It's actually on the other side of the state, in Winston-Salem, a cool city with a hyphen in it.

I obnoxiously took many pictures throughout the car ride to the hotel. The graduate student who picked me up does her field research in the Andes. Badass! According to her, this is the traffic people there complain about.

So one thing I realized I sorely miss are seasons. Look at the leaf less trees! Aahhh deciduous trees. One thing that really hit home was the lack of our coniferous friends. I've only heard about their absence in myths and tales! And um, textbooks.

Yup, I'm not in the Bay Area anymore.

Winston-Salem has a glorious skyline, something I'm a big fan of. I have a feeling most of the skyscrapers are banks, and not apartments though. This was my view for almost 30 minutes. Turns out, I did experience real life traffic that day. However, that was because there was this crazy car crash (~7 cars in a row) right before our exit. That, and the fact that the other prospective student getting picked up with me had a delayed flight, made us really late. Late enough that I had to be introduced during dinner, and had everyone actually remember my name!

Inside the actual city. The streetlights hang from little cords. How quaint!

The first night was cocktail hour and a dinner at the hotel. I didn't make it in time for the cocktail hour because I was too awed by my super fancy hotel room.

The living room.

Looking into the bedroom.

The view the next morning.

Dinner was excellent. I feel like all the department's prospective students were there, but we sat with our own department. Biology took up two tables, but I heard Cell Bio took up half the room. There was a professor sitting at each table, who's there to answer our questions about the department. Afterwards there were presentations about Wake Forest itself. I felt a common theme they've continued to emphasize at Wake is that while they are a small college, they have big ideas. Awww. That, and everyone just seems to love the place. Not sure if it's a recruitment thing, or they're just unreasonably happy. Me gusta.

I obnoxiously took pictures on the way to campus in the bus.

!!!

I think the people from North Carolina was amused by my excitement. One offered to take a picture of me. :D Now they know what I have to deal with living in Hawaii. (Actually, I'm still that person taking lots of pictures, so uh, yea.)

The bus that took us to campus.

Random parts of the campus is in the woods. It's so crazy.

Looking through my pictures, I don't think I took any pictures of the actual department. We had a quick tour around campus on the way to the Biology building. After a brief orientation, we followed our personalized schedule. Since Dr. Anderson was out in Tanzania, I hung out with his graduate students all day and got to attend a lab meeting. I even got to help plant African grasses in heels!

Everyone else had interviews with several professors, and some didn't even know what their project will be focused on. My day was substantially less stressful than theirs for sure. I did get to talk to one faculty member, but he was the token aloha professor, and we pretty much talked about Hawaii...Good times.

"For humanity" What a badass motto.

On Saturday most people left, but the cheapest flight required me to fly out Sunday morning at 6. The SAGE lab grad students (Savanna And Grassland Ecosystem, hehe!) graciously let me hang out with them, feeding me and showing me around town and their apartments. One of them lived in what looks like a mansion that has condos in it! Crazy! It was soo pretty. I tried googling it, but I couldn't remember the name. Boo.

Small world event: the person who drove me to the airport at 4 in the morning (she's amazing!) is one of the professors at UH's daughter! In fact, I think we're in the same building...