I plan for this blog to be a record of my day to day activities and thoughts as I begin NC State University this fall. However, before I can move forward I feel I must first look back on the year long path that has brought me to where I am today. While I am attending NC State the path that I have followed has been shaped by a very different school: New York University.
It all began almost a year ago when I received in the mail an advertisement for NYU’s new school in Abu Dhabi. While admittedly I had little to no interest in attending school in the middle east, what did peak my interest was the name NYU. It was from that point onward that a seed was planted in my mind. A seed that would grow and develop throughout my senior year.
I planned to be a Computer Science major (and am), so NC State was a natural choice due to its location and strong engineering background. However, as I began to look more into New York University, the more it began to appeal to me. First, and foremost was its central location in downtown Manhattan. It is right next to Greenwich Village. For any of you that don’t know, “the village” was, along with San Francisco the emanating point from which much of the counterculture of the 1960s sprang. Along with that it was one of the most respected schools in the States…. and in all truthfulness the 60:40 female to male ratio was pretty appealing as well.
Now, there were other schools that I could have found similar benefits at. For instance UNC is very similar to NYU, but I was blinded at the time. For me it became NYU or bust. So I sent out my applications to both NC State and NYU, and the wait began. Now I must explain a development that happened in the interm, while the esteemed Admissions people reviewed my applications. I gained a new love: Philosophy. I began to read the works of Kafka and Camus with enthusiasm. And as it turns out, NYU just happened to be the top Philosophy school in the world (according to the Philosophy Gourmet at least). My resolve was strengthened ten fold.
Before I knew it, it was spring. Actually thats a lie, I counted the days till I got my acceptance/rejection letters, as any good college-student-to-be does. I was accepted to NC State on my birthday. It was a cause for celebration indeed. It wouldn’t be another month until I got the letter from NYU. And when I did it was the worst possible news. I wasn’t accepted, nor was I rejected. I was waitlisted. I was plunged into university limbo. You see, as much as I wanted to let go of NYU, NYU didn’t want to let go of me. It would only get worse.
Every day I would check a forum of people in the same boat as I was. A boat stalled on the river Styx. After a month of this it finally became apparent that I, and many others like me weren’t going to be getting off the waitlist: it was time to move on. I put it out of my mind, and for a while NYU become only a memory that seemed silly and distant. That is, until I got an email two weeks ago. The email told me I was accepted, not to NYU, but another school: NYU Poly.
I devoted the next 24 hours to finding out everything I could about the aforementioned school. Ever other piece of information I could gather either brought my hoped up, or dropped them into the dirt. You get to take NYU classes I learn; but only as upperclassmen, and only one or two a year. Its located in downtown New York; but in a “bad” part of Brooklyn. It is one of the US’s oldest technical schools; but it almost went bankrupt before NYU purchased it. Right when I had settled against it, NYU made its last fleeting grasp to pull me back in: I was offered a $72k scholarship. Two days ago I finally made my decision: I am going to NC State. What the future holds for me, I dont know. But I hope to share it (at the very least the interesting parts) with you, my readers.