Here is the moment you have all been waiting for: the Cape Cod/Boston post! I know is has been well overdue, but it is finally here!
This trip was a lot of fun. I went to Cape Cod (at the Meritime Academy) for a baseball camp (Frozen Ropes) for the first 5 days of the trip. The Maritime Academy is in a pretty cool location on the water. To see more pictures, check out
my Flickr page. I would have taken more pictures of this beautiful place, but there was almost no down time during the day. Everday would start at 6:30am and end at about 8:00pm. Lights out was at 10:30pm, which left a couple hours to hang out. Speaking of hanging out, some guys in my dorm brought poker chips, which we used in poker tournaments every night. This was about the only thing we could do to pass the time because we were not allowed to socialize with the other camps that were at the Academy. I ended up getting third in the main tournament and I lost $5 in the side games, in case you were wondering. Anyway, about the camp! Throughout the week, there were special guests, mostly college coaches, that would come and talk with us about sertain aspects of the game. The only thing that disapointed me was that we did not play more games. We mostly worked on, well at least for me, pitching and hitting. The guy running the camp, Tony, was really into what he called "Diamond Strength" exercises. I found this to be boring because I came to the camp in pretty good shape. It was basicly 5 stations that did everything from really light medicine ball exercises to a variation of Yoga. I was able to do all of the exercises without breaking a sweat. Most days there was an afternoon activity. They ranged from going to the beach (where the water was a whole foot deep, but the sand was awesome) to a Cape Cod Baseball league game.
I love the Cape League games because there are some of the best college players from all over the country. Speaking of people from all over, there were 3 Belgium guys and a whole team of French guys that came to this camp. I ended up hanging out with the French kids (even though I don't speak French) and found them to be really awesome. I could tell you all sorts of stories about different French kids, but the show must go on.
After the camp my parents picked me up and we drove up to
Olin College for a tour. I have to say this had an eery resemblence to
St. Margarets...just with a machine shop. There are only 300 students and there are 2 main buildings. They call the building with all the classrooms the "antfarm", which fits it perfectly because the one side is almost all glass and you can see all of the people going up and down the escalators and steps. I was extremely suprised to see the dorms. They are like little apartments with a bathroom, microwave, refrigerator, air conditioning, and TV in every room. I could definatly go for that!
We left Olin and drove up to Boston, where we checked into the Hotel at MIT in Cambridge. The next day I met up with Roland for a tour of
MIT. I never knew the MIT was so large. I was very impressed with the very different buildings on campus. They look a little funky, especially the computer engineering building (which you can see photos of in
Roland's Smugmug), but it is what makes the school special. After the tour, my parents and I walked around Cambridge and then ate lunch at Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage. If you ever go to Boston, eat here! They make some of the best burgers and frappes (which are milkshakes). Then we went to the MIT Museum. It is a very small museum, but has a lot of cool stuff. I didn't see anything past the 1990's, but it was still cool to see the robots and other stuff that was developed at MIT. Later that evening I met up with Roland and fellow SMES-ers for dinner in the north end.
Sunday we really didn't go on a formal tour, but we looked around
BU, at which point I decided that I didn't want to go to school in the middle of a sprawling city such as Boston. Later in the day we walked around the heart of Boston and ended up going to Quincy Market for lunch. for dinner, we went to a quirky pizza place called Upper Crust. It was a very small place with only one table. At the end of this pretty big table there was a guy rolling the pizza dough. The pizza here was of the thin crust variety and was actually quite tasty.
It was now the last full day of the trip where we were going to to tour
WPI and
Northeastern...and have a little fun too. WPI was first on the list, but it was about 40 minutes outside of Boston in a town called Worcester (pronounced
Wuhster). WPI is situated on top of a hill that overlooks Worcester (which is a pretty cool city with about 10 colleges). The campus itself was very cool and had a lot of character. The buildings were brick on the outside, but very modern on the inside. I liked the fact the school had old, classic campus looking buildings, yet was very nice to work and live in. Probably the coolest thing about the school is that they have their own nuclear reactor. It can power 2 computers and a toaster. One of the best parts of the school was the food. The cafeteria was more like a cafe. They had a huge variety, and even a Burger King for those who want fast food. This was the only school that gave the visiters free lunch. After lunch, we drove back to Boston to Northeastern. I was not impressed with Northeastern at all. It looked like a business park and the people there did not seem happy at all. This was the only college where an admissions person did not give us part of the tour (or even talk to us). The thing that was a little scary for a potential student is that they cannot guarantee housing. I was not impressed with the engineering part of the school either because it was one building the size of the Upper School at St. Margarets that enclosed all of the engineering classes. Another thing that did not impress me is the Co-op program. Essentially they ship you off to work for 6 months becasue they do not have housing for you. I don't think i will be applying to Northeastern any time soon...
Overall this was an awesome trip. I found out that I would like to go to a school in a suburban atmosphere. Something not too big, but also not too small. I want to thank Roland for the list of schools that eventually led me to this discovery. Stay tuned for more updates!
