(upbeat music)
I'm Sam Clark with Crimson Education and we are here
at the University of Chicago to ask some big questions.
We actually asked the big questions yesterday
in an uncharacteristically beautiful and sunny day
but we forgot to film the intro so here we are
in a typical rainy day in Chicago, Illinois, cheers.
(upbeat music)
- [Interviewer] What is the best thing about U Chicago?
- Best thing about U Chicago,
probably just the student body.
They're really accepting.
And there's some really nice people here.
And I've actually made a lot of friends who are
from groups I might not have otherwise interacted with.
- The campus is pretty great I guess.
Yeah, great people.
- Like it is a lot of work here.
I do spend a lot of time in the library.
But when it comes down to it, it really is a good community
and there's a lot of different subcommunities
that you can hang out with and just enjoy yourself.
I feel like if you manage your time well in terms
of your work, it's easy to balance your work
and your play time, kind of thing.
- The best thing about U Chicago,
for me personally, is food.
- Harold's chicken.
- Harold's chicken, that's the best chicken?
- Yeah, best chicken on the planet.
- I like the high ceilings
in the Social Service Administration Building
because I get to juggle and there's a lot more patterns
that I can do with the juggling under a high ceiling.
- Is this hammock a frequent thing
or just for this nice weather?
- Yeah, when it's nice out I come out here
pretty much every day so I'll be either on my hammock
or on my slack line, just hanging out with friends.
- What's the best thing about U Chicago?
(meow)
So what's the worst thing about U Chicago?
- I guess I'd say the quarter system.
Again, double edged sword.
It's nice in that you take three sets of classes a year.
So you have more opportunities to explore different things.
And if you don't like a class,
it's not the end of the world.
You're not stuck in it for too long.
But at the same time it's super, super fast paced,
which if you're not good at managing your time
or you're a procrastinator, like myself,
you can kind of get screwed by that.
- Restrooms, restrooms, and finals.
- Econ. - Econ, are you an econ major?
- Yes I am. - Okay, how's it going?
- Not so well. (laughter)
- I would say, like they said, the work load.
- Probably just the homework load, you know.
It's, yeah, it's kind of a stereotype here, you know,
It's where where fun comes to die,
which I don't totally agree with.
But you're definitely signing up for a lot of work.
- I think this campus can be really,
really intense sometimes.
So one of the things that I had to learn coming here,
is how to manage my time and be balanced.
- The winters, yeah. - The winters?
- I think it's a combination of the atmosphere
that's very academic and very stressful in that aspect.
- Yeah, maybe the location,
like it's just far from the city.
Like my friend got lost on the way down here, that's her.
But that might be, that might just be her, not the location.
- [Interviewer] And what's a typical Saturday night
like at U Chicago?
- I'd say like first year I'd go out
from like Tuesday night to like Sunday.
Yeah, basically I'd go out every night,
but that became less and less feasible as time went on.
- Pretty academic, reading, writing,
and once in a while juggling.
- Saturday night, it's either going downtown
or going to a party or having somebody in our apartment.
- We just hang out at my apartment, play some music,
do my nails, and drink wine, yeah.
- Maybe in summer go on a bike ride on Lake Shore,
go to a bar with my friends and drink afterwards.
(laughter) I'm over 21.
- So maybe like the first couple weeks we might go out
to a party or a club or something or go downtown
and maybe go shopping and enjoy ourselves
when there's not a lot going on.
But then towards the end you find yourself in Reynold's Club
at like 10:00 at night eating a taco from the thing,
wondering what you're doing with your life, you know.
- [Interviewer] What did you write
your college application essay about?
- So my common app essay was on my first Subway sandwich.
Common app, I wrote it about, oh my race,
that's more or less what I wrote it about.
- Yeah I do not remember.
- What about your U Chicago essay
because that's a different question every year, right?
- So I wrote it about pH, like what my pH is, on a pH scale.
- Basic. - Basic, yeah, yep.
- What is your pH level?
- pH 4, acidic.
- Oh, I wrote mine about what's so odd about odd numbers
and I basically, it was kind of nerdy.
But basically just showed off
all of my mathematical ways of thinking.
- So I just talked about how my dad's side
is like very Catholic, predominantly Catholic
but my mom's side is Jehovah's Witness.
So just coming to terms with that.
- Common app, I wrote about my experience
living in Panama for a month in high school.
It was like a home stay program where I stayed
with a Panamanian family and basically got to hang out
with them a lot and volunteered in a school,
building a kindergarten classroom and hanging out
with the locals and stuff like that.
Which was a tremendous experience and kind of just gave me
a lot of perspective on life.
And that was not the most luxurious way of living,
like my house had ants in the sugar
and the shower was half cold and half hot at the same time,
which drove me insane, but you know, you get used
to that kind of stuff and you end up feeling at home
just the same as you would in America
or wherever else it is.
- How in the 21st century,
conversation is becoming more of a task,
rather than an art, I guess.
- Great, I think that's it.
(upbeat music)
- If you like this video and you want to learn more
about other student experiences at school in the states
and other places, be sure to subscribe to the channel.
- What's your cats name?
- Beans, regards beans, he's very busy.
I get it, I get it, he's on a mission.