Visit To CMU

Last weekend was Family Weekend at Carnegie Mellon University, where son Josh is a first year student. We spent a great Saturday in Pittsburgh visiting with him in his new home at CMU.

To say that he is happy there is an understatement; he is soaring, both as a student and as a growing up young man. Josh is enjoying his classes, although challenged, he’s learning and doing well on the tests and papers. More importantly he’s living a quality life in this rich environment. Unlike the typical college student who spends his or her weekend partying and sleeping, he and his group of friends spend theirs playing dodgeball or tag variants throughout the campus building or exploring the maize of crevices, basements, and dark corners of the campuses. And sleeping.

Much of our day was spent touring the campus with Josh as our highly active and animated tour guide. We visited several computer clusters, once of which he frequents daily, and is a regular meeting place for his diverse group of friends. Josh guided us up and down stairways and elevators, showing off classrooms and lecture halls. In several lecture halls he demonstrated their full featured audio-visual systems, raising and lowering screens, displaying computer displays, digital whiteboards, and pointed out to us which locations were the best of viewing movies in the evenings, when they could get in.

Josh told us story after story of both fact and myth of the pranks and other activities of CMU students, including tales of dropping computer monitors and desks down nine stories. But more importantly, he shared his happiness and comfort in being part of a diverse, exciting, intellectual community where he fits in.

The college search was certainly a challenge for both Josh and myself, as I’ve shared in previous posts. I am so happy that Josh has made the right choice on selecting Carnegie Mellon, and glad he has found a place he now calls his home.