Preparing for the Longest Two Months of My Life

Hey everyone!  I’m Nick Shebek and I’ll be heading out to Brown in less than two months to take a Macroeconomics course.  It’s normally pretty hard for me to think about things even a week in advance thanks to my busy junior year schedule, but I’m already at the point of wanting to hop on the plane to Providence as soon as possible.  I went to Cornell last year thanks to the ILC, so I was already excited about being lucky enough to go through this program again, but Tuesday’s potluck really made me understand that I’m actually going again!

I have always been a fan of food for those of you who read any of last year’s Cornell blog should probably have figured out, and Tuesday night didn’t disappoint.  More importantly however, (and you know it’s serious if it’s more important than food) I really got to know my chaperone for the entire Brown Session 1 trip: Ms. Kaplan.  I had met her briefly when a few former Cornellians met with this year’s group taking the Freedom and Justice Course, since she had chaperoned a previous Cornell cohort, and I already could tell that this summer would be another great experience just from the few minutes I was able to talk to her a few weeks ago. 

Ms. Kaplan has been involved with the ILC for the last few years, so she already has a great idea of what places to see, and countless tips on making our overall ILC experience fun.  After Ms. Kaplan and the Columbia chaperone, Ms. Lilhanand, finished their discussion on the overall workings of the ILC, The Cornell and Columbia cohorts split up so we could go over our itinerary and discuss other Brown specific items.  After hearing the plans for the first week and learning just how many colleges we will get to tour, I realized that this could be an even better experience than last year! 

Last year, since nothing is within approximately a couple light years of Ithaca, the Cornell group stopped in Chicago, which was fantastic, but we only were able to tour two schools, University of Chicago and Northwestern. While I did love Northwestern, my only regret about the program as a whole was that I wasn’t able to tour more schools. This year however, I’m getting to tour Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Yale, and MIT! I am somewhat apprehensive about having to wake up early for the tour of the colleges a ways away, but I think getting to see four of the best schools in the nation comes about as close as anything can to making up for losing a couple hours of sleep.  All in all, the potluck was yet another of the great ILC experiences I’ve had, and I’m getting more and more excited about this summer with every word I type