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"Hi, my name is Julia."


One score and eight years ago, I was born into a Chinese family. The moment I graced the Earth with my presence, it was decided amongst the elders that I would become a world-renown neurosurgeon with a medical degree from Johns Hopkins, doctorate from Stanford, and MBA from HBS. (just kidding)

Well, here I am: a kid in college with no money to spare and much too many cancellation fees from Amazon for ordering the wrong books.

About the School: The New and Enhanced Version
I thought Mount Holyoke was the most magical place on Earth where unicorns ate rainbows and butterflies were besties with purple squirrels. That was before I got there. Soon after my arrival, the school's enchantment wore off after a couple weeks and I started wondering what college life would be like at other schools. There I was, three weeks into the semester silently wishing that I could change schools or hoping that someday Mount Holyoke would prove that it was a good fit for me. One and a third semesters and a handful of decisions and occurrences later, I found myself at home in New York and in bed much too often.

That previous January, I applied to City College's Spitzer School of Architecture right here at home. Five months later, I was accepted and five months of hair-pulling over my uncertain future had come to an end.

I chose this school because 1, it's cheap. While at Mount Holyoke, I met a guy who attended UMass Amherst and when asked why he picked UMass, he said "because it's cheap" and that line firmly planted itself in my head. 2, it's in NYC AKA the greatest place on the world AKA home. I intend to commute the hour and a half to school for the next four (or five) years while silently wishing for a private bus service to take me to school everyday. Regardless: Oh boy, METROCARD fare... (sigh). Number 3: I had taken a summer architecture class there and it basically molded the way that I envision architecture school. Whatever they say, goes.

In the end, I'm just a normal kid in kollege.


About the School: Version 1
Mount Holyoke College is a small liberal arts women's college in the western Massachusetts (the Pioneer Valley, to be exact). At the time of my college applications, it wasn't my first choice or my second or my third or my fourth. In fact, I never gave it a number. 8 of the 10 programs I applied to were professional architecture programs, lasting 5 years and a whole lot of coffee. One of the two non-professional architecture schools I applied to was Mount Holyoke. The other was NYU.

By the time decisions started trickling in, I began to feel unsettled by the idea of going to architecture school. It began with the lists of classes and courses that I wanted to take, the activities I wanted to have time for, the clubs I wanted to join, and everything else that architect students don't have the time for. Alas, I didn't get into my first choice school. Or my second choice, or my third (although it was close). At that point, I was just waiting for my NYU decision, as it had become my first choice with the decision to direct away from architecture school.

The day before NYU decisions were scheduled to be released, I went online and logged into my NYU account through which I could track my application process. Guess what? They never received my transcript. That, and decisions were just about to be sent out. So there went my first choice school, out the window and into the garbage dump. By then, there was nothing to be done.

In the end, I was deciding between RPI, Pratt, and Mount Holyoke. RPI offered me a $30,000 annual scholarship, Pratt was the option my parents nudged me toward, and Mount Holyoke is the school I chose. Pratt gave me the least money, I had to fight for more aid from Mount Holyoke (I also would not have to spend another year of tuition), and RPI is 70% male/nerd/geek/dork/unsociable/cave-dweller. But you know what? I am completely happy with my decision. So here I am in the happy valley, a home away from home.

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