Boston University, MIT and Brandeis

Lisa Bleich

Boston University

We (my daughter and I) arrived at the welcome center at BU and were greeted by friendly students available to answer our questions and tell us about their experience.  We were then escorted to a large lecture hall where we ran into some people we knew from our hometown.

Boston University’s campus is located right in the heart of Boston, near Kenmore Square (home to the Red Sox!).  The buildings line Commonwealth Avenue for several miles and are completely integrated into the city. The backside of the campus on Bay Street overlooks the Charles River.  That side of campus feels less imposing with its line of classic Brownstones and some green area.

MIT

Our next stop was MIT.  When we arrived, my daughter received a personalized handout describing the areas of study she checked off when she registered: Writing, Foreign Language, and Linguistics.  In truth, we did not think that MIT would be a good fit, but since I wanted to visit and it did offer Creative Writing as a major, she was game.

The first thing that struck us as we approached the imposing visitor center planked with columns was the sheer size of the campus.  As we ascended the staircase, it felt like we were not at a college, but at some important governmental building in Washington, DC.  There was a large group of prospective students taking pictures at the entrance and in the dome shaped lobby.

 

Brandeis

We spent the next day at Brandeis (my alma mater).  We started off the day having lunch with a student.  There are two dining halls on campus, Sherman, which offers all-you-can eat food as well as a kosher kitchen and Usdan, which is a pay as you go model.  We went to Usdan and also met one of my former students who had to stay in Usdan the entire week as part of his fraternity pledging obligations.  We had a surprisingly good lunch; there were numerous healthy, fresh options including a salad bar, sandwich bar, Mediterranean bar, grill, and sushi.