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Day 3 (Rice University Tours)

January 10, 2019

       Hello readers, today was SUCH a fun day, and a very informative day too. We started our day fresh and early by visiting the Houston Hillel, which is a non-profit organization that works towards helping undergraduate college students as well as graduate college students, specifically Jewish students. Houston Hillel specifically works with students from Rice University and University of Houston. This non-profit coordinates things from student charities to hosting Shabbat every Friday. For them it's very important to make the students that work with them like they have a support system and like they can rely on Houston Hillel for whatever they want. They also organize the trip which is called birth-right, which allows people of Jewish descent to have a free 10 day trip to Israel. It was very nice to see that even when we go to college, there are people out there who want us to succeed and will help us in any way that they can. At the end of our visit we got to play pool, which was very nice... (Ilan and I won).

       The next visit we made within our day was a Rice University student-led tour. During the tour we talked about many different things; such as, the different academic centers as well as the different centers the university offers which allow access with your tuition, resident halls, the library, dining halls, cafes, student center, wellness center, residential colleges. We got to see the University from the perspective of a student, which really made a difference because often times we hear about Universities from an adult perspective, but hearing it from a student makes it 100x more relatable. A couple of the things that stuck with me from the tour were that colleges make a lot of money, a lot of it comes from our tuitions, which means that the facilities on campus should be taken advantage of. This is true for ALL colleges, make sure you're aware of all the different things your college offers and make the most of it. Rice University has amazing gyms, and amazing sport opportunities as they are a Division 1 school. They have two Wellness Centers, which are there to benefit and help the students in any way they can. Finally, another very interesting thing is that, the way dorms and living arrangements are set up is that in your freshman year you are assigned a resident college based on your personality. There are 11 residential colleges, and people there joke about them comparing them to the houses in Harry Potter. After the tour we had a meeting with the student center office. Here we learned about the importance of getting involved in your school, wether it be high school or college. We got to meet Ariana, the president of the Student Association at Rice. She told us that it is essential to join clubs, and volunteer at your school because it will end up benefiting you in multiple ways; such as, networking, learning to balance your social life and academic life, meeting new people, and even learning more about yourself and your interests. At the end of our tour we met with an admissions director who went into more detail about what Rice has to offer its students. It's essential that when people attend these schools and hear their information, they differentiate between what is unique to that college and what most colleges offer. You have to look at this as a business proposal as if you're about to invest A LOT of money into this proposal. You have to figure out which business deal will benefit you the most and will end up making you a long time profit, instead of making you lose money. Throughout this tour, we learned a lot of different things not only about Rice University, but also how universities function as a whole, and we got to see what goes on behind the scenes.

Ps: The campus is absolutely beautiful and it's definitely worth a visit. The food is also amazing and have a lot of variety. Fun fact, they have a part of the Berlin Wall as an art piece.


Playing pool (Maria, Izzie, Ilan, Kayley, Justin, Emily)

More pool

Rice University

Statue in Rice University (founder of Rice)

Pretty places in Rice U

Piece of wall from the Berlin Wall

 Small Vlog of the day

Residential College in Rice (Will Rice Residence)

The 11 different Residential Colleges

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