In my first blog post, I wrote about the hurdles in choosing between colleges in the US from 9000 miles away not knowing what it “felt” like to be at any of them and not even getting a glimpse of the campus.
I was itching to see the colleges for myself so I did what anyone would do: Google their campuses. A plethora of beautiful images and videos filled my screen, but the problem was that they were all taken from various spots around the universities. It was just a jumble of photos.
What happens if I turn right from this huge swimming pool? The main library looks fantastic but is it on the other side of campus from my dorm? Wait, is this even the right picture of the dining hall?
“Piecing” together the campus jigsaw was simply impossible.
So I tried Google Street View. But to no avail. The closest I could ever get to Yale for example, was Phelps Gate.
Frustrated, I simply stopped researching what the different campuses looked like altogether.
Over the past few months, the staff and recruitment coordinators at the Office of Undergraduate Admissions have been working hard to design, photograph and compile a comprehensive Virtual Tour of Yale.
The first time I saw it; I said to myself “Man, I wish I had something this awesome during my applications!”
When I arrived at Yale, the first place I stepped foot onto was Old Campus. As I clicked this same location on the Virtual Tour and looked through the amazing 360 panoramas of Old Campus from various viewpoints, the incredible rush of excitement I had on my very first day at Yale came back almost instantly.
I remember standing there wide-eyed in the middle of all the FOOT groups (Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trip) spread out across Old Campus thinking: look there is Harkness Tower! There is Durfee, the hall I’ll be staying in! OMG, this is the spot where they filmed the musical! And wow, so many squirrels on campus! The panorama of Old Campus is actually centered near the spot where I first arrived at Yale and I can definitely say it is so much more real than the clutter of flat images I saw off Google.
Yes, Commons Dining Hall, is as big as it looks in the panorama – I have lunch in there every Monday and Wednesday after Physics. Yes, Cross Campus is beautiful – I pass the walkways everyday from Durfee Hall to my classes up Science Hill. Yes, Bass Library and Sterling Memorial Library are perfect quiet spots to study – I was in there all week during mid terms. Yes, suites at Yale are sweet – I wrote a whole blog about it! And yes you thought right! Morse looks like and is the best residential college!
I have learnt that you spend more time “living” than “learning” at a college. So getting a feel of the environment where you will be eating, participating in extracurricular activities, walking through everyday to go to class, chilling on a weekend, meeting and hanging out with friends and “living” for the next 4 years of your life is ever so important.
So click on the link on the top banner of this page and check out the Virtual Tour! I really hope it helps you get a feel of the places I experience on a daily basis and get a sense of the environment around Yale’s campus where the connections between friends, students and professors (and Bulldogs!) happen every day.