I didn't fall in love with Olin, not really. Not like so many other Oliners do.
I was impressed when I first visited in summer 2010. I came to Olin right after leaving Mathcamp, and what I heard about Olin culture reminded me of Mathcamp culture. I liked the idea of knowing everyone and especially of knowing the professors. My Olin visit also changed what I looked for at other schools. I started asking about how easy it was for students to be trained on the machines, looking at how present design was in the curriculum and how early, and finding the statistics on how many graduates went into industry. But I wasn't in love, not yet. It was far too early to fall in love, far too dangerous to fall in love a year before I started applying to schools.
I called Olin my top choice for all of junior year and most of senior fall. It was close to Rice and Georgia Tech, and a lot of times I just grouped the three together as my top choices, but if asked to name one, I would say Olin. In January 2012 I was invited to Candidates' Weekend, and in February, I became a candidate.
I liked Candidates' Weekend, but so many people talk about leaving CW knowing for sure they wanted to go to Olin. I didn't know that for sure. I liked the other candidates and had some good conversations with Oliners, but the design challenge had made me pretty uncomfortable, and I still wasn't sure about parts of the curriculum. I wasn't sure about the curriculum constantly changing. While I liked campus, I didn't like the location, and the small size came with a lot of disadvantages.
Obviously, I ended up choosing Olin, but I wasn't in love when I chose. I was sure, but not in love.
I still don't think I'd say I'm in love, not in any continuous way. I have had plenty of moments over the past two and a half years of being in love, and a lot of them are unsurprising: good team experiences, great conversations with professors, opportunities I wouldn't get at other places due to school size or my major. But not all of these moments are so predictable, and some of them remind me that whether or not I'm in love with Olin, I do love it.
Last Friday wasn't exactly the kind of day to make me love Olin. It hasn't been the easiest or happiest semester in general. I was leaving at 1pm to go to the airport and fly home for the long weekend, but I had an assignment due at 5pm that wasn't done. I had gotten too little sleep, hadn't finished packing, and was frustrated with the assignment and myself, but I still felt like I needed to go to Linearity class and NINJA.
And then I stood in the middle of the Dining Hall Mezzanine after answering a couple of questions at a whiteboard, looked around at the eighty or so Linearity I students working on problem sets and quizzes, and thought, "This is why I'm here."
Some days that's all it takes.
