Let's Go Vandy!!!

I woke up startled to the sound of my alarm ringing at five in the morning. I thought nothing much. I sat up on the hotel bed and had one last look at the room before leaving for Tennessee. I got up and tried to wake Jahnvi up. I could tell she was still really tired, but she still got up and began to gather her clothes from the floor. 

We had a rough night. After we finished blogging we fell asleep. Zooming passed to three in the morning, I felt my ear raise to the sound of footsteps across the hallway adjacent to the bathroom. Jahnvi and I panicked and thought that it must have been a spiritual being. Because of this, our sleeping suffered and were left feeling low on energy. 

In order to raise our energy for the long day ahead of us, I decided to go down to the lobby to grab water to make coffee.  I walked towards the front door and realized that beneath my feet laid a piece of paper that listed all of the services that we were with while we stayed at the Emory Conference Center. Our worries were for absolutely nothing. Totally embarrassing. 

I went to the hotel room and put the water to boil in the coffee maker, and then went back to my bed and continued to pack the little clothes I had left. Ten minutes later, I realized that I had put the coffee to boil but did not put a cup for the coffee to fall into. I quickly rushed to the coffee maker and found a large puddle of coffee on the counter top. I cleaned the mess up and started to make another one. This time I made sure that I had everything in its designated place. I finished packing and went to go check on the coffee. I stood disappointed in front of the counter top again. The coffee was overflowing. I decided to leave it at that and try no more. I cleaned up the mess, took the coffee that remained and went to the lobby with Jahnvi to meet with the rest. 

We all eventually went to the parking lot and loaded the family van at an impressive rate. We left the Emory Conference Center and headed off towards the Atlanta Airport. We arrived on time and collected our boarding passes. All but Mom were given Pre-TSA. We rushed through the security check and waited for Mom to go through TSA checking. We went to the gift shop while we waited and ended up purchasing a few key chains for those back at home.

Mom went through the security check and we went to our boarding gate. Approximately 30 minutes after arriving at the boarding gate, we were allowed onto the plane. The whole cohort was once again close. No talking to strangers this time...Again.

Still tired from not being able to sleep the night before, I decided to get some shut eye before landing in Tennessee.  Before I knew it, we had already landed in Tennessee. We got off the plane, grabbed our luggage and took a taxi to the hotel we were to be staying at for the next couple of days.

We waited in the lobby for a couple of hours because there were no rooms available yet. In the meantime, we went to eat and went to Vanderbilt University afterwards. 

I walked onto the campus and saw the opposite of what I thought the university was going to be like. Vanderbilt University is beautiful. I would always receive mail from Vanderbilt but it didn't really seem appealing to me. I quickly realized that postcards aren't everything. 

Before touring the university, we went to the admissions office to see an informative presentation about Vanderbilt University. The presenter's name was Zedd. He had a
wonderful personality and maintained to keep the presentation interactive and easy to follow considering that it was an hour long. He did his best to get to know us and our interests and then began to talk about finding a university based on comfort-ability and not on brand. He mentioned all that Vanderbilt had to offer to those accepted.

I was surprised when Zedd mentioned that Vanderbilt University covers full financial need and does its best to make sure that the student stay on track and motivated to graduate. I felt right off the bat that Vanderbilt would be welcoming to me in a few days.

Jahnvi, Zedd and I

After Zedd's presentation, we were split into different groups and were assigned to Simon Silverberg, a sophomore at Vanderbilt University. He gave us a tour around the whole campus and shared a lot about his experience with feeling welcome at Vanderbilt. He talked about his experience with Greek life, living in the commons, the food provided, and the competitions between all of the 10 houses in Vanderbilt. It was enjoyable listening to all the traditions that have continued to hold significant memories to Vandy alums and current students.

Vandy Cohort+ Simon.

Out of today, my visit to Vanderbilt showed me how important believing and supporting each other is to the staff and students. This is the type of environment I find crucial to choosing a university to attend. Knowing that the staff and students will always serve as emotional and as academic support will be another reason to consider applying and attending Vanderbilt in the future.

Although today was much calmer than the previous days, it waa just as beneficial.