Moregon

So, I'm in Oregon, and there are a few things that I like and a few things that I don't like.

DISLIKE

• 65-mph speed limits. Freeways are conservatively designed for 75. Speed limits on these roads should be no less than that.
• Gas stations attendants. I understand that Oregon is trying to create jobs, however, I think they should focus more on trying to create jobs for people who have the capacity to be functional members of society.
• The weather. The weather in Denver is bi-polar, but the frequency of change is only once or twice a day. Western Oregon can go from drizzle to sunny and warm to torrential downpour to profoundly hot and then back to drizzle in a matter of 2 minutes.
• The street layout in Corvallis. Like downtown Denver, none of the streets go anywhere and some of them do it in only one direction. Compounding the problem, some of the streets are so narrow that the city only allows parking on one side of the street, which makes it looks like it's a one-way street even when it's not. It took me 40 minutes and half a gallon of gasoline to find the Corvallis Institute of Religion today.
• The pronounced lack of navigational landmarks. I grew up in Denver, where the mountains denoted west. Then I moved to Provo, where the mountains denoted east. Now I'm in Corvallis, and I have no idea which direction is which. I'm literally buying a compass for when I move here in the fall.

LIKE

• The Civil Engineering program at Oregon State. I like the faculty and staff and where the program is going in the near future. I'm excited to be a part of it.
• The facilities. I toured the labs and offices with the geotechnical group leader and it looked like they had plenty of equipment and resources for grad students to use. It helps that I'll have my own office space (kind of cubicle-esque) with a computer. The undergrad labs where I'll likely be teaching soon also look pretty good.
• The aesthetics. Most of western Oregon and also the Oregon State Campus itself are very attractive. I'm not used to so many trees blocking my view of the surrounding buildings and other things, but I think I'll get used to it.
• The Institute. If you can find it, the Institute building is a nice place that's open most of the time. I haven't been to the ward yet, but it seems like there are a good number of people, most of whom are pretty cool.
• The bookstore. This might change once textbook time rolls around, but they have OSU spirit gear beyond my wildest dreams. I dislike the prices, but that's no surprise.

This isn't totally connected to the state of Oregon itself, but I found out from the geotechnical group leader during my tour of campus that each section of geotechnical engineering classes has on the order of 100 students in it, giving each lab section about 20 students each. My soil mechanics class at BYU had a maximum of 8 students in each lab section and most of them ended up with 5 or 6 in each. Needless to say, the idea of 20 students in each lab section sounds rather overwhelming.

Overall, I like Oregon and am excited to start at Oregon State in the fall. I'm glad I made this trip at this particular time. I knew that there would, most likely, be something that I wouldn't like about Corvallis (or about any city in which I could live) but I'm glad that I was able to sniff out those things now so that I can prepare to deal with them in the fall when I move.

The Final Report

So, after spending the last seven months applying to master's programs at grad schools all across the country, I have finally made my decision and will be attending Oregon State in the fall. After going through the application processes, there are some schools that I won't be attending on which my opinions have changed significantly and some that really haven't changed at all. With this post, I will be pretty much closing the book on the 'grad school' tag that I've used in many posts before (not that anyone even pays attention to those things) unless I start thinking about a Ph.D. which, I hope, will not happen for at least another 12 years, but who knows. But don't worry, I will blagging plenty about my experience in grad school under the tag 'Oregon State.'

Here's how I feel about each of the schools to which I applied:

CU Boulder - Stock: way up. - I wasn't terribly impressed with the application process to the university, but after visiting the campus and the civil engineering faculty, I was pretty much hooked. I grew up cheering for CU and it would have been really interesting going full circle and matriculating to their grad school. If they had had funding for me, I totally would have been heading to Boulder in the fall.

BYU - Stock: high as ever. - BYU will always be my alma mater, and there will always be a special place in my heart for the BYU campus and Provo. It saddens me that I will have to leave on a permanent basis.

Purdue - Stock: pretty much the same. - I was never terribly excited about the prospect of moving to West Lafayette and going to Purdue, so it didn't break my heart too much when I didn't get in. Though it was shocking, considering that I would have been an above average admit two years ago.

Virginia Tech - Stock: down slightly. - I have been, and will continue to be, impressed with the academics at Virginia Tech. They manage to produce cutting-edge research that's useful in industry as well as in the ivory tower of academia. However, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed if I never had to step foot in Blacksburg again. One of my fellow prospective grads at the geotech group visit said, "I like it here, because I think that anyone could fit in here." In a sense he's right. The students come from all different backgrounds and geographic locations and they are bonded together by a common thread: the copious consumption of alcohol. Yes, you can fit in in Blacksburg... as long as your liver sports the school colors.

UCLA - Stock: down. - My initial distaste for UCLA came from them not telling me that letters of rec had to be signed in ink until after my recommenders had already all submitted their letters. This boondoggle was, at least mostly, ameliorated when I found out that my application had actually been completed and that I had been accepted. However, with the application letter came the notification that they had no funding for me. This was followed by an email to my hypothetical adviser that went unanswered for 6 weeks and to which the response was two sentences. On the net, I'm just much less excited about UCLA than I ever was in the past.

UW - Stock: way, way down. - UW began crapping on me from the moment that I started filling out their obnoxious application and didn't finish until I filled out the last piece in a large pile of profoundly Byzantine paperwork, which told them that I would not be attending. I was absolutely shocked that the application process would be THAT terrible for a school that's not even THAT good. Oh yeah, and don't forget that tier III (the tier system is just a testament to how awful the bureaucracy really is) graduate tuition is $8,600 A QUARTER!!! Oh, and that's going up 16% each year for the next two years... which means that, by the time I finished my master's degree, I'd be paying about $11,500 A QUARTER for tuition. The list just goes on and on.

There's a good chance that I will never step on and any of the campuses in the latter 2/3 of this list (again, in one case.) If I was going to apply for a Ph.D. at some point in 12+ years, The University of Colorado at Boulder would probably be the only one of these 6 to which I would consider applying. Also, at this point, I've been reading about how profoundly weird Austin really is, so I'm not even sure I would want to go to the University of Texas at Austin. However, I'm planning on making that decision in the distant future, so I'll have plenty of chances to expand my possible list of schools from just Georgia Tech.

I've said a lot about different schools in this blag post. In all this smorgasbord of information, let's not forget that I will be going to Oregon State in the fall and that my master's degree will say, "Oregon State University" on the front. Let's go Beavers.

Edit: [On second thought, Austin might just be the best place for me. :D]

Since I've Never Actually Been There...

I got real license plates on my sweet new ride, so now I'm planning an epic road trip to Oregon at the end of this month (May 2011). This is approximately what it will look like:

Tuesday, May 24th: Leave Denver, CO at approximately 9 am. Travel west via I-70 and US-6 to Provo, UT. Party with former roommates until the wee hours of the morning.

Wednesday May 25th: Leave Provo at approximately 10 am. Travel northwest via I-15 and I-84 to Ontario, OR. Stay with Steve's parents.

Thursday May 26th: Leave Ontario at approximately 5 am. Travel west via I-84 and I-5 to Corvallis, OR. Meet with geotechnical group leader at 3 pm and school operations manager at 4pm. Attend institute D&C class at 7 pm.

Friday May 27th: Meet with EERI student branch faculty adviser at 9 am. Take Oregon State campus tour at 10 am. Lunch at Corvallis institute at 11:30 am. Tour college of engineering at 2 pm. Screw around in Corvallis.

Saturday May 28th: Screw around. Probably visit Salem and/or Eugene. Maybe go to Oregon State at Oregon baseball game in Eugene at 2 pm.

Sunday May 29th: Church at the Corvallis institute at 10:30 am. Napping.

Monday May 30th (Memorial Day): Leave Corvallis, OR at approximately 10 am. Travel east via I-5 and I-84 (and possibly I-15) to Boise, ID or Twin Falls, ID, or even Provo, UT depending on how I feel that day.

Tuesday May 31st: Leave Boise, ID/Twin Falls, ID/Provo, UT at approximately 6-7 am. Travel east via I-80 or I-70 back to Denver, CO

During this trip, I would certainly not be opposed to having a companion or two. If anyone in the Denver or Utah population corridor areas wants to accompany me on some portion of this epic adventure, let me know and we'll see what we can work out. I was planning on staying in a hotel in Corvallis and possibly in Twin Falls on the return trip. (Twin Falls is almost exactly halfway between Denver and Corvallis, in case you're wondering why I would seemingly choose that location at random.) The Rodeway inn in Corvallis has rooms available for $51 a night; and I would certainly welcome a division of that fee and a roommate. Since gas is pushing $4.00 a gallon through most of the country, I would also demand at least a little monetary compensation for the additional weight of an extra person and stuff.

This is going to be awesome.