<p>The most important criterion for choosing whether to go to Caltech at this point is whether I fit in with Caltech's student body and especially my entering class. To make the most informed decision, I would like to talk to the people who are in the same position that I am in: people who have been accepted to Caltech and are also considering other options. I want to start a thread for fellow Caltech acceptees to introduce themselves, and hopefully to get some conversations going between potential Caltech '09ers.
I'll start:
My name is Sam Pierce. I live in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where I have gone to an all-boys private day school since kindergarten.<br>
Intellectually, my interests are wide-ranging. I am eager to learn more in a variety of different fields. I enjoy science because I like knowing how the human body and the physical world work from a technical standpoint. I was excited by the independent medical research project I conducted because I saw how the minute transforms into the comparatively gigantic when I learned how the expression of a gene affects protein synthesis and eventually plays a part in the whole organism. I am stimulated by learning about things which are present at all times, but which I cannot see, like the laws of physics or the formation of chemical compounds. I also value historical analysis and cultural studies, because I think that knowledge of history, art, literature and culture make an individual more interesting and well-rounded. My primary interest, however, is in economics. Economics excites me because it is practically applicable and because it helps me to understand the business world, which is an interest and a curiosity of mine and which I see as a probable career path. To a certain extent, the courses that I have taken my entire life have started to seem like a means to an end as I have discovered what I want to concentrate in, and that end is economics. The AP Economics class I am taking this year has excited me more than any other class I have ever taken.<br>
Outside of the classroom, I am a big sports fan. My father is a sports agent so I have grown up around sports. My favorite sports to watch are football, basketball, baseball, tennis and golf, and my favorite sports to play are golf, tennis, and squash. I love to play those sports and I also swam competitively when I was younger, and I continue to swim for exercise. Politics is another passion of mine. I am a devout conservative but I am open to political debate from all sides. I love city life. I think shopping malls and superstores, far from being the scourge of America, are very convenient. I am not a big fan of camping or hiking or any sort of outdoor adventures.
I enjoy dating, and my biggest fear about Caltech is that it will be hard to find a compatible girlfriend. I also enjoy parties, and I think alcohol can be enjoyable, safe, and even healthy if used in moderation.
I wouldn't consider myself a "nerd" or a "geek". I distrust stereotypes and want to see for myself whether Caltech is "nerdy". After all, one person's geek is another person's stud.
I really would like to learn much more about computers, as I know very little now. It made me wonder why I was accepted to Caltech when I couldn't figure out how to use the language to change the color and size of the word accept in my post. Despite getting an 800 on the verbal section of the SAT, the spell checker usually finds multiple mistakes in anything I write.
As far as music, I like Phish, John Mayer, the Beatles, Dave Matthews, and a bunch of other groups- just no rap or classical or techno.
At this point, I've bored anyone reading this post to tears so I'll stop. But I would really like to know more about the other people the admissions office chose to accept.
Just as a side note, I want to thank everyone from Caltech who has posted on this board about admissions and life at Caltech. I especially want to single out Ben Golub for his willingness to share information and answer questions.</p>
<p>Wow, you and I have a lot in common. :) Everything except going to an all-boys school and your taste in music. Classical and hiphop's cool, though techno sucks.</p>
<p>Thats nice of you to say.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ben as well. His posts have been so helpful! :)</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, I'm from a suburb of Cleveland too.</p>
<p>Where do you go Sam, US? Gilmour? WRA?</p>
<p>US...I'd like to get together sometime and talk about options. I'm going on vacation to Mexico from early tomorrow morning until April 3rd, but maybe after that. I sent my pre-frosh weekend information in today because I am going to be gone for 10 days...still working on the flights and everything though.</p>
<p>My name is Jacob and I'm from Alabama, where I've lived since 9th grade. I go to a pretty bad public school. I'm probably not going to Caltech simply because I want to continue music with a good university orchestra (if anybody can tell me about Caltech's, that'd be great). I play bassoon, sax, piano, and I listen to music including Metallica, Rush, Yes, The Shins, The New Pornographers, Black Sabbath, Frou Frou. I don't listen to garden-variety techno because it's mostly boring but I don't have any particular objections to any genre of music.</p>
<p>I'm a self-described geek, not nerd, whatever that connotes for you... My humor run a bit sideways. I play tennis, enjoy baseball and semi-follow football and basketball. Lots of computer stuff.</p>
<p>Academically, I'd like to do physics, math or computer science, but I'm really unsure about Caltech because I want to get a balanced humanities-style education too (this is why Columbia is my first choice). I got interested in physics thanks to The Great Populizer, Stephen Hawking. My biggest thing here is that I want to be around students who really think about stuff... not just science, but everything.</p>
<p>All-in-all, I find it doubtful that I'd go to Caltech, but it'd be great if some current Caltech students did this sort of thing for us to help us get a feel for the campus culture.</p>
<p>(That was a lot of "I"s).</p>
<p>Hi Jacob. Actually, it looks as if I was meant to answer your question, so I'd better do that! As my screenname implies, my name is Joe and I graduated from Caltech last year.</p>
<p>Continuing in music was also VERY important to me coming out of high school. I played in the marching band, concert band, pep band, two out-of-school orchestras, and various all-star bands. I was either going to be an engineer or a professional percussionist, but I decided that I had a lot more talent in math and science and that I could always keep music on the side... anyway, I did NOT lack for music opportunities at Caltech. I played in the orchestra (I was the timpanist) and the concert band for all 4 years, as well as occasionally playing for the various choirs, graduation, etc. The orchestra and concert band are in conjunction with Occidental College--both Caltech and Oxy students can audition, and the concerts are performed on each campus. Oxy actually offers a music major, so generally they do have pretty good musicians. However, actually, both ensembles are surprisingly mostly Caltech students, despite the fact that Oxy is larger and one might assume has a more well-rounded student population.</p>
<p>I have some recordings of the Caltech band and orchestra on my webpage at <a href="http://www.joejewell.com%5B/url%5D">http://www.joejewell.com</a></p>
<p>So, you can definitely pursue music at a good level at Caltech. I've kept up and currently play in a summer semi-pro municipal band, my grad school's campus orchestra, and also teach at high school band camps on the side.</p>
<p>As to getting the balanced, humanities-style education at Caltech, I will say this: if you want it, it's definitely there. The humanities and social science profs are some of the most involved and excellent you will find anyplace. You won't have a hum class with more than about 15 students in it, and all of them are taught by real professors. Most are discussion-style seminars.</p>
<p>I became a history double-major (my primary major was aeronautics) after taking a class with a particularly good history prof at the end of my freshman year. I did my junior thesis on music history (focused on program music of the Romantic period, from Beethoven to Richard Strauss) and my senior thesis on attitudes towards violence in the medieval church (medieval history was my primary area of emphasis). These were both one-on-one research projects with professors--extremely fulfilling and a lot of fun to work on. Caltech also paid for me to take a study tour to medieval sites in Germany with my favorite professor, his wife, and another medieval history student (however, that was definitely a special opportunity). That other medieval history major is currently in history grad school, actually, having decided she liked that better than biology.</p>
<p>P.S. Stephen Hawking comes to visit nearly every year for weeks at a time--his best friend is a Caltech physicist named Kip Thorne--and nearly every Caltech student has either met him or at least seen him tooling around campus in his wheelchair.</p>
<p>Thx for your post, Joe! I'd heard that Caltech hum classes were better than what most expected and your post is very reassuring! :) I wonder if we'd be able to meet Stephen Hawking during Pre-Frosh! lol I didn't know he frequented Caltech.</p>
<p>Thanks for that post... that's really very surprising.</p>
<p>Samp --</p>
<p>"I am a devout conservative"</p>
<p>I have a suggestion, which has resulted in lots of interesting discussions with my conservative friends. If you have time sometime, read Peter Singer's book, The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush. ( <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006BD87U/ref=lpr_g_1/102-7352575-4877720?v=glance&s=books%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006BD87U/ref=lpr_g_1/102-7352575-4877720?v=glance&s=books</a> )</p>
<p>It's an incredibly engaging read and so beautifully written and closely reasoned that you will either abandon your conservatism entirely or at least sharpen your views to a razor's edge. (It will be more challenging intellectually if you buy the socially conservative and/or hawkish half of the Republican agenda, too. Libertarian fiscal conservatives are less at odds with Singer, although he pokes at them a bit too.)</p>
<p>So I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts (or those of any other conservatives) on the book. I don't think the experience will disappoint if you take me up on the offer. It certainly elevates the intellectual level of the political discourse in this country by several orders of magnitude.</p>
<p>Slightly more generally, I assume you foresee that it is not exactly a cakewalk to be a conservative (especially if you are outspoken) at a top university in Southern California, of all places. (In my view, it's not entirely coincidental that the intellectual elites -- that is, the smarter people -- in this country are overwhelmingly opposed to the modern Republican agenda.) If like-minded political nuzzling is important to you, don't go to Caltech (or most other top universities). But if you don't care much or actually like arguing it out, Caltech will be fun for you.</p>
<p>All the best,
Ben</p>
<p>If this is the same Singer at Princeton who favors necrophilia, it should be an interesting read.</p>
<p>In all seriousness, as a conservative also (who doesn't even like Bush that much), I'd still be willing to hear what he has to say. It's just that some of his other "well-reasoned" opinions border on the ludicrous, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Lots of things are said about/attributed to Peter Singer... when one reads what he has to say in reality, all that makes for a very good laugh (and an interesting case study in how the media report what goes on in academia).</p>
<p>Just curious, anyone going from Logan in Boston? It would be nice to have a buddy.</p>
<p>Ben, I would like to read that book...I will as soon as I get back from Mexico and finish Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists, which is excellent by the way. Actually, I find it more interesting to talk politics with liberals than conservatives...plus I don't really care that much. And I'm no social crusader, I haven't even been to church in years. I am definitely a conservative of the libertarian stripe. I am still shocked that I was admitted to Caltech and I am glad to hear that Caltech has an active political community.</p>
<p>I don't' know if I'd say active. As far as Californian schools go, Caltech is pretty apathetic. I also lean towards libertarianism, and I've had some interesting conversations with my liberal friends here (not the least vocal of which is my roommate, who treats liberalism as a religion). Also, being fiscally conservative is much more accepted than being socially conservative.</p>
<p>Yeah, alleya's right in that it's not <em>nutty</em> politically, but "politically apathetic" would be overstating it a bit; there's a good deal of activism especially around elections, and one can have intellectually stimulating conversations about politics, as opposed to ideological shouting matches. A tangential point is that a good bit of the interaction between undergraduates and graduate students gets started through political-type organizations.</p>
<p>Alleya's definitely on the money (no pun intended) with her last sentence. Lots of brilliant people are fiscal conservatives, but social conservatism is considered ignorant backwater nonsense in most intellectual circles. (To be fair, there are quite a few smart people who subscribe to those views too, just much fewer.)</p>
<p>Libertarianism is real popular, especially among the people who think they invented politics, which there are a lot of here (hint: political systems would be a lot easier if people behaved rationally, but they don't), but in general what passes for politics on campus is not so much pro-anything as vaguely anti-Bush. Most Techers don't like him or his faction but few are willing to actually do anything about it.</p>
<p>Hullo everyone! My name is Fireman, (well, actually is my last name..but everyone calls me by it because its so awesome..and because most ppl cant pronounce my first name). I think I'll prob go to the pre-frosh in april and end up going to CIT. More stuff about me...Im a dude, Im french and jewish( i know..weird combo, possibly why i got in lol) enjoy simpsons, family guy, and a ton of other stuff. I wanna go into nanotech, so probably something along the lines of engineering physics for a major..although I'll see what happens hehe...also possibly want to get a linguistics minor, since I already speak 3 languages and definitely want to pick up at least 1 more by undergrad</p>
<p>I doubt it. There is no shortage of Jews (ranging from uberJew to Jewtheist) at Caltech. If you ever meet a girl named Emma, run...</p>