(birds chirping) (dog barking)
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- Hey, my name is Malaika,
I just graduated from Stanford last year,
and I was a psychology major.
And next year, I'll be a Master's
in environmental communication.
(upbeat music)
Usually, I wake up around 9 or 10 a.m.
I make some breakfast in the kitchen
and then head off to a psychology class.
And then in the afternoon,
I might have a tour guide shift,
so do a campus walking tour or something like that.
And then I might have a break or go to section,
which is like a smaller discussion group from the class.
Pretty much all row houses have dinner at 6 p.m.,
so come back and eat dinner with the house.
And then after that, go to rehearsal.
So I might go to some improv practice
and then come home and talk to some people in the house
and head to bed.
(lighthearted music)
This is the roof, we like to hang out up here.
It's really nice at night
when you can have this full view of the stars.
You can see Hoover Tower from over there.
This is my room from this past year.
I painted big time on the wall,
'cause that's something I say a lot,
and put this little skateboard guy on my mirror.
This is our kitchen,
this is one of the main places of our house
where we do our cooking
and a lot of socializing as well.
Because it's a co-op, we cook and clean
and take care of the house all by ourselves.
So that means just spending like,
two and a half hours in the kitchen
using pretty much anything from our stocked fridge,
and our pantry to make dinner for
the 35 people that live here.
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- [Interviewer] So we're in the Psych building now.
Yeah.
- [Malaika] These halls around the Psych building
is where the Sanford Prison Experiment was held.
- [Interviewer] Oh, okay.
- Which Phil Zimbardo did that kind of like,
they had to be shut down two days into it
because the guards were actually like,
being really abusive to the prisoners.
- So you majored in psych?
- Mmhm.
- Why did you choose psych?
- Yeah, I chose psych because super interested
in the human mind and why we do what we do,
our behaviors and everything like that.
As someone in the theater, like,
I've been thinking about that a lot
with like, different characters and stuff.
Also, Stanford's psych department
is number one in the country,
so a lot of the professors that I took classes with,
like, their own research was what we were studying,
and like, pioneers of their psych field,
which is really cool.
- What's your favorite psych course you took?
- Probably social psychology was really cool.
It was kind of a large lecture class,
but we got to actually do like,
a little bit of negotiation, like, in the seats,
with like, the person next to you,
which was kinda fun,
and just learn a lot about social dynamics
and that kinda thing.
- And so, after this,
you're doing a Master's program, correct?
But not in psychology.
- No, it's through the Earth Systems department,
and it's called environmental communication.
And it's a relatively new one, about like 20 people
where we do earth systems, but like,
do writing, and multimedia stuff
and communicate earth science, basically.
And my hope is to include a lot of psych stuff in it
and just learn about why humans
make decisions, environmentally, that we do.
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- [Interviewer] So where are we now?
- We're here at the Nitery Black Box Theater.
So this is called the Nitery,
and inside this theater there is about 70, 80 seats
and a black box that you can transform
into any set or anything.
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(cheering and applause)
- What does theater look like at Stanford?
- So there's a lot going on,
you could be a theater major and do stuff in the department
and take theater classes,
if you're majoring in something else,
you can get involved with a lot of student theater.
So there's Stanford Shakespeare Company,
which I did my sophomore year.
You can be part of theater lab and like,
pitch shows, direct shows, produce shows, that kinda thing.
I was in this thing called Gaieties,
which Rams Head puts on in the fall,
where it's like a student produced
and student written musical that makes fun of Stanford
and makes fun of Berkeley.
- And you also do a lot of improv here.
- Yeah, yeah.
So I'm on the Stanford Improvisors, or SIMPS,
which is a really fun community.
You have to take the beginning improv class
to audition for it.
It focuses on like, how improv can be applied to your life,
for like, life skills.
You have to read this book called
Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson
that just shows you like,
mistakes are gifts and like, say yes,
and things like that,
and how to like, use that in your life.
Which, I wholeheartedly believe in.
♪ Every day I walk the streets ♪
♪ With my little poodle poodle ♪
(accordion music)
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This is the row, it has a bunch of different houses
that about like, 60 students live in each.
And different themes and stuff like that.
- But it's not just fraternity houses,
it's other houses as well.
- No, it's not just fraternity or Greek houses.
You can just kinda like draw into this house,
but it's like top tier housing at Stanford.
So usually you wait until your senior year
to use your like, tier one housing,
and just draw into one of these houses.
And most of these houses, besides Columbae over there,
which is also co-op style like my co-op,
have a chef that cooks lunch
and dinner for you five days a week,
and like, your own cleaning staff and stuff like that.
So you can like, draw in with friends, move in with friends
and they each have nice lounges and kitchen areas
and dining halls to like throw events and stuff like that.
I think what's really unique about Stanford
is that 98% of students live on campus all four years.
So in other schools that I've visited with friends,
like, we'd have to go to an apartment off campus,
or something like that.
But everything that you would wanna go to on campus
is totally walkable, which just makes it really simple.
- Yeah, everyone's here.
- Yeah.
(lighthearted music)
- [Interviewer] So we're in the Camp Kesem Office right now.
Tell me a little bit about it.
- Yeah, so Camp Kesem is a non-profit organization
that puts on a free week of camp for children
whose parents have cancer.
And it was actually started here
through Hillel at Stanford in 2001.
And then since then, it's spread to like,
70 different colleges and the college students
are volunteers for the week long camp.
They say the goal is just to like
give the kids a week of total joy and playfulness
that they might not get a home
with all the cancer treatments going on.
And a community of both counselors
and kids that get what they're going through.
So I started sophomore year as a counselor
and then junior I was on the year round
student leadership team,
and worked with the director
and did communication stuff.
So like, Facebook, social media.
And then this past year I went back
and was a counselor with the kids again.
When you join Kesem, it's just this
really special experience 'cause you're just like,
it's the most generous
and compassionate community you could imagine.
So you come in and you choose your Kesem name
and everyone just like, is just so loving in this community
and I've grown a lot through being able to
show a lot of love and compassion for the kids.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, so there's a tour over there.
You're listening to the end spiel,
you're like, I got that down. - Yeah, I got that down.
- So how long have you been a tour guide?
- Since my freshman year.
So I've been guiding for four years now.
- What's it been like being a tour guide?
- It's been awesome.
It's really cool to share about my experience
to just like, visitors,
and answer a lot of different questions.
A lot of times people ask me like,
why did you get into Stanford,
as if I was my own admissions officer.
- Right, and then you're like, well,
I decided I would get in with...
- Yeah.
- Yeah, what do you tend to answer to that kinda question?
- I talk about following my passions
because I think that was definitely something that helped.
Just pursuing a lot of theater in high school
and different opportunities,
like being in DC Black Theater Festival,
that was one of my essays,
and just telling them about how like,
I didn't worry too much about,
oh, hey, kids.
(laughs)
I didn't worry too much about like,
my grades and test scores and stuff,
but I just wanted to like,
pursue my passions.
- What surprised you the most about coming to Stanford?
- Really how kinda chill and down to earth it is,
and how down to earth people here are.
Like, they've done some incredible things
and it wasn't until like, mid sophomore year
that I realized that one of my hall mates
in my sorority like, did some really amazing stuff
at the Intel Science Fair.
And kind of the vibe of the place
of just being super wacky
and not taking ourselves too seriously,
yet, meeting people all the time
that are doing some really seriously incredible things.
Thanks for watching our video,
if you wanna learn more about top colleges,
make sure to subscribe to Crimson Education down below.
(laughing)
- [Man] Click on the link.
(laughs)