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My weekend began at 2:44 AM on Friday, when I was awakened by my cell phone. I had hastily instructed Orbitz to call me 3 hours before my flight departure time, without consideration for when, precisely, that would be. Begrudgingly, I finished packing and got ready; my cab was due to arrive at 4. Before the sun had risen, I was in the air, headed to San Francisco. To Palo Alto, really. It was Stanford’s visit weekend.

The path I walked as I exited SFO took the form of a loop; I walked out, walked right back in again, and stuffed my jacket into my suitcase. It was the hottest March 11 in San Francisco history. The sky was, well, blue. At the Sheraton in Palo Alto, where Stanford put me, there were people swimming in the pool. As these two screenshots clearly illustrate, the weather difference between Boston and SF was nothing short of comical. I immediately changed into shorts and a T-shirt, donned my sunglasses, and meandered to campus.

There were events planned throughout the weekend, including campus and housing tours. On Friday night, a group of us hopped on the BART and went into San Francisco for dinner (at Ramblas Tapas). We followed that up with a walk through Chinatown, coffee in Little Italy, and hiking the streets. Saturday was mostly business: information sessions, seminars on the various research groups, and meetings with professors. I spent the evening relaxing with some other admits and grad students. We played Taboo, and I later joined forces with the talented Finale to trounce some non-MIT folks at Foosball.

Unfortunately, I took most of the pictures on Sunday morning, before returning to MIT. This means you don’t really get the same sense of student life as I witnessed on Friday. For example, this fountain was filled with people in bathing suits and inner tubes, catching some sun. This field was populated by students lounging on beach blankets and playing frisbee. Although there are better factors than weather based on which to pick a Ph.D. program, Stanford certainly made a compelling case in that regard.

This is only the beginning, however. Next weekend I’ll be at Carnegie-Mellon, in Pittsburgh. I won’t be packing my shorts.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 16th, 2005 at 2:45 am and is filed under School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.