Why UChicago!
with Ellie and Brandon
00:00:03 Jack
Hello everybody and welcome to Why UChicago. A podcast from U Chicago about students at U Chicago about why they chose to go to UChicago. I'm Jack. I'm a recent alum working in college admissions.
00:00:20 Maya Scheidel
And my name is Maya Scheidel.
00:00:21 Maya Scheidel
I am also a recent alum and an assistant director of admissions here and really excited to be able to speak with some of these students about why they love you.
00:00:30 Maya Scheidel
Chicago, we hope you enjoy their insight and perspective about you, Chicago.
00:00:36 Jack
To start, why don't you share your name?
00:00:40 Jack
Your year in school where you're from and your major?
00:00:43 Ellie
Hi, my name is Ellie.
00:00:45 Ellie
I'm a fourth year student at U Chicago.
00:00:47 Ellie
I'm originally from upstate New York.
00:00:49 Ellie
Small town called Ballston Spa shout out bespa.
00:00:52 Ellie
I'm a public policy major with a history minor.
00:00:55 Ellie
I'm going to law school next year.
00:00:56 Brandon
Hi, I'm Brandon.
00:00:58 Brandon
I'm a third year here in the college, originally from Walton, Ky.
00:01:01 Brandon
I grew up on a horse farm a little bit South of Cincinnati, OH.
00:01:04 Brandon
Before coming here, I am an economics and music double major here in the college. I do a little bit of theater and I'm also a member of the university's motet choir.
00:01:12 Maya Scheidel
All right, thank you so much for sharing so something that I love to sort of dive right into with these conversations is to hear a little bit about some of your favorite class experiences.
00:01:23 Maya Scheidel
Maybe in a core class or maybe in your major, but something that really has been memorable to you in your time here.
00:01:30 Ellie
So this is actually one of my favorite questions to get when I give tours because I took what I truly and honestly believe is the greatest class ever offered at any institution or in any context, and that is Italian Renaissance.
00:01:41 Ellie
It's taught by Ada Palmer, who is obviously an expert in the Italian Renaissance.
00:01:46 Ellie
And you start with the first four weeks sitting in lecture, getting a lot of information about the historical conditions of the Renaissance.
00:01:53 Ellie
What sort of things were happening at the time period?
00:01:54 Ellie
Learning about the major figures of the Renaissance, and then you enter what is truly the craziest.
00:02:00 Speaker 1
Three weeks.
00:02:01 Ellie
2 weeks to date of my entire life, which is the papal election simulation?
00:02:06 Ellie
Students will all be assigned a different character.
00:02:08 Ellie
I was Cardinal Breshna of France.
00:02:10 Ellie
My goal was to take over Milan.
00:02:13 Ellie
And so I spent two weeks actually in full character running around campus meeting in Rockefeller Chapel to hold our Papal election really, really, really trying to invade Milan until 8 Palmer gave Milan the plague, and I no longer wanted to invade Milan.
00:02:28 Ellie
It was a really, really amazing time.
00:02:30 Ellie
I learned so much I truly believe you'll never learn more about history.
00:02:33 Ellie
And actually by being in history yourself, and I had a lot of fun, but I did not get to invade Milan, so that was probably the L of the class.
00:02:41 Brandon
I think the favorite class I ever took here was in the music department for my major.
00:02:46 Brandon
I actually the first class I took for the department.
00:02:49 Brandon
Was this class just called rock and it?
00:02:52 Brandon
I honestly don't know really how to categorize the classes.
00:02:54 Brandon
It was something of like a musicology class, but also we did a lot of analysis of music and so the professor.
00:03:00 Brandon
Trevor Jackson is a very well known musicologist in the field, has done a lot of work for different music dictionaries across the world.
00:03:09 Brandon
And he basically walked us through like the history of rock and roll.
00:03:12 Brandon
But we would take a lot of time like delving into like what does it mean to be a Jimmy Buffett fan?
00:03:17 Brandon
And to be a parrot head and obsess over that fan base, but also what does it mean to use synthesizers and music and like how to build since and so we got to take all of these different fantastic approaches too.
00:03:29 Brandon
Like the music of rock and roll and then at the end of the class we spent the last probably three weeks of the course creating our own remix.
00:03:37 Brandon
And so I got together with a couple of my friends in the class and we spent many countless hours in my friends apartment, taking audio stems from nude by Radiohead and.
00:03:48 Brandon
David Bowie.
00:03:50 Brandon
Space oddity and basically mashed them together into this bizarre yet beautiful remix that I am deeply proud of.
00:03:59 Brandon
After all the hours I spent making this ridiculous piece of music.
00:04:02 Brandon
But yeah, that was an amazing introduction to the music department.
00:04:06 Jack
Well, obviously and hopefully you guys spend some time in class here at school, but what are some other things that you're involved with outside of the classroom?
00:04:18 Brandon
The things I probably spend most of my time outside the classroom in is going to be like I said before, theater in choir, as well as both of my jobs on campus.
00:04:27 Brandon
I definitely am a student slash worker on campus, so I work as a tour guide and.
00:04:33 Brandon
Just general student visit coordinator in the admissions office here, basically helping with all sorts of admissions, admissions, related events, giving tours, getting to talk about the school that I go to and how much I love it.
00:04:44 Brandon
I also get to be a barista on campus, making coffee as coffee is one of my true paramours and so.
00:04:52 Brandon
All the free coffee I drink from my cafe, the cafe where I'm a priest at it's super critical to my time here.
00:04:58 Brandon
And then also, yeah, I like to practice music quite a bit, and so the university of motet choir is an organization that I'm a part of where we get to sing not just motets from the medieval era and Renaissance music, but also really cool, modern pieces.
00:05:13 Brandon
The motet choir sings quite a bit of Whittaker throughout our time.
00:05:16 Brandon
Eric whitacre.
00:05:17 Brandon
And actually, a few years ago the choir got to meet Eric Whitacre.
00:05:21 Brandon
He came in and did like this little collaboration with the choir to get to practice some of his music, like Luke.
00:05:25 Brandon
So room quote.
00:05:26 Brandon
And it was really, really crazy meeting him.
00:05:29 Brandon
Absolute character wore like sandals and socks.
00:05:33 Brandon
A lot of the times he came in to talk with us.
00:05:35 Brandon
Really, really crazy guy.
00:05:37 Brandon
But yeah, that's kind of how I spend most of my time.
00:05:40 Ellie
So well either.
00:05:41 Ellie
And I also work in the Admissions office as a tour guide, so I spend a lot of my time obviously out on campus giving.
00:05:47 Ellie
If you ever have the privilege of taking my tour, you'll know it's me.
00:05:49 Ellie
'cause I actually wrap my tour introductions come so if you're out here listening and you heard someone rap, hopefully you had a good time on that.
00:05:55 Ellie
Or I always have a good time doing it, but aside from that I also held another job.
00:05:59 Ellie
I'm a resident assistant in the dorms.
00:06:01 Ellie
I'm the area of Danada house, which you may know as the best house on campus.
00:06:05 Ellie
I hope I'll get tends to talk.
00:06:07 Ellie
More about house traditions and housing throughout this podcast, but it's definitely one of my favorite parts about being a student at U Chicago.
00:06:13 Ellie
And certainly the most rewarding thing I've.
00:06:15 Ellie
Done here as it's my senior year.
00:06:18 Ellie
A lot of my time has actually been taking up by sending out my law school applications and working on my senior BA thesis.
00:06:24 Ellie
I'm a public policy major and I'm writing my thesis looking at organizing and Woodlawn, which is the neighborhood directly to the South of right, right here in Hyde Park, looking at how they responded to the Obama.
00:06:35 Ellie
Presidential Center, which is set to open up in Jackson Park, which is part of the Woodlawn neighborhood.
00:06:39 Ellie
So a lot of my time is working on that.
00:06:41 Ellie
I also used to do mock trial, so I like to describe it as arguing fake court cases against real undergraduate.
00:06:49 Ellie
I I travel around the country with my teams but a lot of hours in practice I was the opening attorney, so I'd give opening arguments I I'm a self described lover and fighter so mock trial was a good way for me to, you know do the both of those things so something I loved and I got to fight a little bit so I really enjoyed that.
00:07:06 Ellie
So that's really my my timing breakdown.
00:07:08 Maya Scheidel
Well, thank you so much.
00:07:09 Maya Scheidel
Those are both very fascinating examples that you've shared and Allie.
00:07:14 Maya Scheidel
I'd like to thank you for providing a perfect segue into talking about house traditions and what that looks like here at U Chicago.
00:07:21 Maya Scheidel
So were there any House traditions that are your absolute favorite or things that?
00:07:28 Maya Scheidel
You know you've enjoyed doing with your housemates.
00:07:31 Ellie
Well, so I'm going to assume everyone has about 30 minutes to listen to my next answer because I could easily talk for that long about house traditions.
00:07:37 Ellie
I will not actually talk for 30 minutes unless I'm allowed to.
00:07:40 Ellie
No, I'm getting notes.
00:07:41 Ellie
I'm getting notes, so anyway.
00:07:43 Ellie
Health traditions.
00:07:44 Ellie
One of my fear things we do in June at a House is actually one of my favorite things.
00:07:47 Ellie
Outside of Janado Housewitches watch, RuPaul's Drag.
00:07:49 Ellie
Grace here in Chicago we have an amazing drag scene and a very very very, very small subsection of the drag world is captured in RuPaul's Drag Race.
00:07:59 Ellie
So we watch it once a week.
00:08:01 Ellie
It used to be twice a week when we were in between seasons I showed two at a time because my residents really enjoy it, but we'll watch RuPaul's Drag Race in the lounge.
00:08:08 Ellie
But really?
00:08:09 Ellie
The biggest house tradition of Janata houses are karaoke night.
00:08:13 Ellie
That is a competition I mentioned.
00:08:14 Ellie
I'm a lover.
00:08:15 Ellie
And a fighter.
00:08:15 Ellie
Really great place to put that in practice is through karaoke nights so all the houses in Renee which is the dorm.
00:08:21 Ellie
That Janata is in.
00:08:22 Ellie
All the houses will prepare both a group performance in either a soloist or duet performance, and we'll all head to the dining hall after hours.
00:08:30 Ellie
We had some after hours access we get some food and we basically Duke it out for supremacy through song and dance which is really the old fashioned way.
00:08:38 Ellie
This past year.
00:08:39 Ellie
Do not house did quite well.
00:08:40 Ellie
We placed second overall.
00:08:42 Ellie
We performed a really grueling routine to call me mother.
00:08:45 Ellie
I'm not a dancer, but I put.
00:08:47 Ellie
Actual so many hours in a dancer herself the past few weeks trying to learn it.
00:08:51 Ellie
My knees are still recovering from all the like drops we were doing, but it was a really great time and certainly my favorite house tradition and we ended up end up the night with a open karaoke performance so anyone can get up and.
00:09:03 Ellie
Sing a song.
00:09:03 Ellie
Obviously we're not expecting you to choreograph.
00:09:06 Ellie
Routine for this just go up with your friends and hang out.
00:09:09 Brandon
Yeah my house as well has countless traditions that I could probably ramble on for quite a bit.
00:09:14 Brandon
We also do screenings of our own.
00:09:16 Brandon
However, instead of RuPaul's Drag Race, it's almost ratatouille every single week.
00:09:19 Brandon
My house absolutely loves the movie Ratatouille.
00:09:23 Brandon
For so many reasons, I feel like I've had dozens of conversations at my house table in the dining hall.
00:09:29 Brandon
About the movie.
00:09:30 Brandon
Ratatouille and its comments on class and artistry.
00:09:33 Brandon
Fantastic movie, but I think perhaps my favorite tradition that we have is this yearly trip we take at the beginning of the academic year to Second City to go see a comedy show with this.
00:09:46 Brandon
The Improv troupe, second City absolutely hilarious shows that they put on there, and it's so much fun going.
00:09:52 Brandon
I always just laugh until I cry.
00:09:53 Brandon
Every single time.
00:09:54 Brandon
Umm, so it's always just like a great way to start off the year with like all your friends and then after the show will always kind of like split off and go get desserts at various places downtown and the group that I always go with goes to this place called firecakes downtown.
00:10:08 Brandon
Just a quick walk away from Second City and a little bus ride and get an ice cream.
00:10:14 Brandon
Donut sandwich so good.
00:10:17 Brandon
I love firecakes so much for the art they put into these ice cream sandwiches.
00:10:21 Brandon
Is donut Ice Cream Sandwich?
00:10:23 Brandon
I don't really need to say anything more.
00:10:25 Ellie
I actually have a follow up question is.
00:10:26 Ellie
It made by rats.
00:10:28 Brandon
I have not seen under the chef hats so highly possible.
00:10:32 Ellie
So actually we have some homework for everyone who's listening.
00:10:34 Ellie
Please go to fire cakes if you could knock the hat off a chef.
00:10:37 Ellie
We will give you a.
00:10:38 Ellie
High 5 all right.
00:10:39 Jack
So I'm going to ask you guys to think back to a time before you were a college student.
00:10:45 Jack
If if such a thing can even be comprehended by the mind.
00:10:50 Jack
Uhm, if you're anything like me, you looked at a couple different schools.
00:10:55 Jack
You toured schools, you applied to several schools, but
00:11:01 Jack
At some point.
00:11:03 Jack
U Chicago stood out from the noise.
00:11:05 Jack
What first caught your eye about U Chicago?
00:11:08 Brandon
So my application story is a little crazy.
00:11:11 Brandon
Just because I wasn't, I didn't really have my eye on U Chicago for a really long time.
00:11:16 Brandon
I applied regular decision.
00:11:18 Brandon
It was definitely a school I did not know a ton about when I applied and so like sending in the application was not something I was super like stressed about.
00:11:27 Brandon
It didn't really think too much about it until after I got accepted.
00:11:31 Brandon
I actually came to Chicago on an overnight visit.
00:11:33 Brandon
I was very much thinking about going somewhere else.
00:11:35 Brandon
Was looking at universities like University of Cincinnati and kind of somewhere.
00:11:39 Brandon
Close to home.
00:11:40 Brandon
And then when I got to Chicago, I was absolutely floored when I got here as I like walked into Ida Noyes, this big reception hall we have near the main clause and I remember just like.
00:11:51 Brandon
Like getting to walk in and immediately talking to the admissions counselors there and then talking to the other prospective students that were there for the same visit as me.
00:12:00 Brandon
And it was this crazy experience of getting to know all of these.
00:12:05 Brandon
Wildly diverse characters, such kind of a contrast from my very small hometown that I was from, and immediately they would, you know, kind of all run up to me and ask me, you know, what do you want to do?
00:12:15 Brandon
What do you want to study?
00:12:16 Brandon
I was super undecided at the time and you know, I thought I was going to do physics.
00:12:20 Brandon
Little did I know I would like start.
00:12:22 Brandon
Out at Uchicago, pre Med.
00:12:23 Brandon
And then eventually end up music and economics.
00:12:26 Brandon
But they would all like try to like pry at me and like when I would go back and ask the people here you know what did they?
00:12:32 Brandon
They wanted to do?
00:12:32 Brandon
What do you want to study?
00:12:34 Brandon
Every single person I talked to here at Uchicago, just like my future classmates.
00:12:38 Brandon
They were still in high school.
00:12:39 Brandon
Their eyes would light up and they would go off at me about whatever it is that they loved and like really quickly.
00:12:46 Brandon
In this, just like little reception hall before we started going out on events I was having like 15 minute long conversations about like.
00:12:53 Brandon
String theory in Keynesian economics and the Kardashians.
00:12:56 Brandon
With these total strangers and it was really, really wild and I kind of got this feeling of just everyone.
00:13:03 Brandon
There is a super genuinely curious individual.
00:13:07 Brandon
Loves learning from the world and the people around them.
00:13:10 Brandon
And I think that was something I had never really experienced in high school before.
00:13:15 Brandon
And to like come to this college campus where it's like really the 1st place that I had these kind of like connections with people.
00:13:22 Brandon
And like with other students, and it was really, really touching to me and meant a lot.
00:13:29 Brandon
And I think it was.
00:13:31 Brandon
Probably the most important thing that ended up in me making my decision to come here, whereas I did not.
00:13:37 Brandon
I was not as sold on the school until I actually got to come here and talk with students and get to learn from them and have them learn from me.
00:13:44 Brandon
It was truly a wonderful.
00:13:46 Ellie
So it sounds like I was actually a little more loyal here, because when I visited Uchicago, it was already my top choice school.
00:13:53 Ellie
We just want to say that it has to be if you want to make it over to campus, but for me it was something that I spend a lot of time researching at home.
00:13:59 Ellie
I'm very like spreadsheet oriented, so of course I had my numerous spreadsheets with every school I was looking at, I did.
00:14:06 Ellie
Hours of research making sure I really understood the in's and outs. I could probably have given you EU Chicago information session when I sat for the Chicago information session.
00:14:14 Ellie
One of the things that initially drew me to Uchicago, though, was the idea of a housing system.
00:14:19 Ellie
So I like, I imagine, many other people have grown up reading Harry Potter and so.
00:14:25 Ellie
Thinking about the sort of interactions I saw the characters having with their house, having like a central meeting zone, really a home within the school.
00:14:32 Ellie
That for me was something really exciting and I did not realize it was a real thing.
00:14:37 Ellie
I genuinely thought it was fictional, and so when I was looking at U Chicago and I saw like on the website little tab that says housing so I you know click.
00:14:45 Ellie
And they talk about houses and like is this real?
00:14:47 Ellie
I couldn't.
00:14:48 Ellie
I could not actually believe it when I was reading it.
00:14:50 Ellie
And then when I got here for my tour and I got to actually explore campus a little bit.
00:14:54 Ellie
Hearing students talk about the sort of communities that they found in their house and how they never felt lonely, even from day one having that house experience that for me was something that really sold me because.
00:15:05 Ellie
Community was one of the things I was certainly looking for, and I think I've found here to this.
00:15:09
OK.
00:15:10 Maya Scheidel
I love hearing so much about, you know the stories of why students ended up here and what they love about East Chicago.
00:15:16 Maya Scheidel
So thank you for sharing that.
00:15:19 Maya Scheidel
As we reflect kind of up the past few years for you both, what how would you describe your experience that you should write like you've talked about?
00:15:27 Maya Scheidel
What drew you to use Chicago initially?
00:15:29 Maya Scheidel
But overall, what would that experience look like?
00:15:32 Maya Scheidel
Kind of in a nutshell, if you were to describe that.
00:15:34 Maya Scheidel
To a admitted student.
00:15:36 Ellie
So I think the first word really that comes to mind for me is formative, and I mean that in a lot of different ways.
00:15:42 Ellie
I'm going to use that.
00:15:43 Ellie
You know, all encompassing explanation.
00:15:46 Ellie
I think for me, one of the biggest things was I had never been in a place before where I was actively encouraged to share.
00:15:52 Ellie
First of all, my whole person and second of all.
00:15:55 Ellie
You know my thoughts and feelings about things we were discussing in the classroom, so.
00:15:59 Ellie
That was something that's been one of my favorite parts about you.
00:16:01 Ellie
Chicago is the sense that what I have to say is.
00:16:04 Ellie
Valuable, and that's something I did not really get from high school, which is not to say my high school experience wasn't great, but it's to say that the professors, the students at U, Chicago really, truly care about your own perspective and so getting to put that out there for me, I think, is something that influenced, you know, my future plans and also really made me into the person I am today.
00:16:23 Ellie
And I think the other.
00:16:25 Ellie
Aspect of that of the idea of the experience really being formative.
00:16:29 Ellie
Is sort of the the different people.
00:16:31 Ellie
I've gotten to me and gotten to interact with.
00:16:33 Ellie
I think some of my my best friends and the people who've shaped me most as a person.
00:16:37 Ellie
I've met through U Chicago and getting to have that experience again of being part of such a close knit community and being really supported in that community has been really, really crucial to me becoming the person I am.
00:16:49 Ellie
Today, so those are the big things for me.
00:16:52 Brandon
Yeah, I think if I had to choose a word that that's not formative, I would say something of like enriching or deconstructive as opposed to constructive.
00:17:02 Brandon
I think this university really my experience being here has been something of.
00:17:07 Brandon
Challenging all of my current perceptions and justice perspectives on the world.
00:17:13 Brandon
And really, that's I think primarily through the core curriculum here that takes you through all these different subjects.
00:17:20 Brandon
The general subjects of a liberal arts curriculum, but in every single class you are sitting down at a table and discussing with people.
00:17:27 Brandon
And everyone's like ideas and conceptualizations of the world are out on the table to be challenged and changed and formed. And so the kind of intellectual just exchange that happens in a lot of the classrooms here at UC.
00:17:40 Brandon
Chicago are things that have kind of just reshaped the entire way I think about the world, conceptualize the world, and I think so much of my time here at Uchicago is me really thinking about all the different knowledge I take for granted, and just like the ways of thinking that I take for granted.
00:17:57 Brandon
Like you know, what is the scientific method?
00:18:00 Brandon
Why do we use it?
00:18:01 Brandon
Why is it important and like that kind of thought process is something that I really value is probably one of the most important things I'm going to take away from my education here.
00:18:11 Jack
Well thanks guys.
00:18:12 Jack
Before we wrap up I just want to ask you if you have any tips or pieces of advice for students who might be making a similar decision right about now that you made when you were a high.
00:18:25 Jack
School senior.
00:18:26 Ellie
I think one big tip is that if you have the opportunity to visit a school, I would certainly take it.
00:18:31 Ellie
I think that was something that was.
00:18:32 Ellie
Really helpful for me is getting to have actual face to face interactions with current students getting to see where I would fit in on campuses and getting to really feel the vibe while I was there.
00:18:42 Ellie
If you don't, though, I don't think that you're you know, not going to be able to make an informed.
00:18:46 Ellie
Decision I think just thinking about what things are most important to you and where you really want to spend the next four years.
00:18:52 Ellie
If you were someone who really cares about, for example, having a strong chemistry program or having a really good soccer team, or I don't know like being in a small town for example, these are all things that are important to consider and will really shape the way that you live.
00:19:06 Ellie
About the next four years.
00:19:08 Ellie
So thinking about where you see yourself and what your priorities are and thinking about how you Chicago fits or maybe even doesn't fit where you see yourself the.
00:19:16 Ellie
Next four years.
00:19:17 Brandon
I think in a very similar vein.
00:19:19 Brandon
UM, two visiting campus is really picturing yourself as a student on that campus, and how four years in the university are going to change you.
00:19:27 Brandon
And so I think in the ideal scenario in which you visit campuses and get to talk to students, I I think an easier part or something that makes the college.
00:19:38 Brandon
Selection process easier is finding a place where when you're talking to like a third or a fourth year there at the university, that's a person that you can empathize with and you could see yourself growing to be in the next couple of years.
00:19:50 Brandon
And if you don't think that's who you're going to be, who you want to be in the next couple of years, then maybe you start looking at some different kinds of colleges.
00:19:57 Brandon
Different places that you want to be, and I think there's a lot of different variables that are going to go into that.
00:20:04 Brandon
The opportunities that are going to be available to you when you get to the end of your university experience the opportunities available.
00:20:10 Brandon
When you just start out, where are you coming from?
00:20:13 Brandon
And so I think a lot of my tips are going to be along the same vein of picture where you want to be in four years and find a university in which you think you're going to be there at the end of that experience.
00:20:25 Maya Scheidel
All right, well thank you both so much for joining us and sharing a little bit of your passion for Uchicago and end tips for those admitted students.
00:20:36 Maya Scheidel
So with that, I think we can wrap this one up.
00:20:40 Jack
Yeah, thanks for joining us guys.