This past weekend, my family and I took an awesome trip to Virginia Tech. I wanted to at least visit all the campuses before I made any decision about the colleges I got into. We drove for fourteen hours starting from the greater Fort Lauderdale area, Coral Springs through South Carolina, North Carolina and finally ending at Blacksburg, Virginia around two in the morning. It was forty degrees outside (which is very cold mind you, compared to the seventy’s in FL) and we definitely went to bed pretty fast, cuddling up under the comforters. We woke up in the morning with forty degree weather to attend Hokie Focus, a special event being hosted at Virginia Tech showcasing the different colleges and programs offered at VT.

I will admit, that I was pretty impressed with the campus. It is pretty spaced out, but not too much and the weather was just really nice with clear skies. Apparently, one of the catch phrases that the students like to use is that “Blacksburg is one of the only places that you can experience all four seasons in one day”.

One misunderstanding that I’ve had about these old looking colleges is that everything about them would be old: their facilities, buildings, technologies.  That is one thing that I am glad that I straightened out on the visit.  I’ve realized that the “old look” is just an image of the buildings.  Inside, you would find high def flat screens, projectors, WiFi.  I only got to look at the classrooms inside the CS (Computer Science) building and they looked pretty contemporary.  The chairs are fun to sit in and each seat comes with a power outlet and Ethernet cord.  Can’t really go wrong with that to be honest.

In contrast, I did visit the UCF (University of Central Florida) campus on the way home.  As soon as I arrived, I did like the feel of the modern upbeat campus life, but I didn’t get the same pull from the campus as I did from VT.  The campus was definitely larger than VT’s and beating with activity everywhere.  However, on the inside, I didn’t like the idea of being a big school near a bigger city as much as I would have thought.  Suddenly, the smaller town ran by the larger college seems a lot more interesting and fun.  I can’t put my tongue on it, but there is just something about being a Knight that didn’t win me over.

My final decision comes down to these two schols: VT and UCF.  Frankly, I’m really liking the idea of becoming a Hokie and I’m getting excited about it.  Now I just have to find the $400 deposit money…