Why UChicago!
with Patrick and Ife
00:00:01 Hannah Skaran
Hi and thanks for tuning into this Why UChicago podcast, where I'll be chatting with some current students about why they love UChicago and what brought them here.
00:00:10 Hannah Skaran
My name is Hannah Skaran. I'm the multimedia producer for the admissions office, and I'm also an alum of the college. Today I'll be chatting with two current students, Patrick.
00:00:20 Hannah Skaran
And Ife.
00:00:21 Hannah Skaran
I hope you enjoy their insight and perspective.
00:00:27 Hannah Skaran
Well hi, you too thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
00:00:32 Hannah Skaran
Good both of you.
00:00:33 Hannah Skaran
Please go ahead and introduce yourselves.
00:00:36 Patrick
Yeah, my name is Patrick.
00:00:37 Patrick
I am a fourth year here in the college, originally from Cupertino in California.
00:00:42 Patrick
I you see him, his pronouns.
00:00:44 Patrick
Academically speaking.
00:00:46 Patrick
I am a math and economics double major with a minor in Norwegian studies.
00:00:51 Ife
I am Ife.
00:00:52 Ife
I am a third year in the college from Powder Springs, GA and I use she her pronouns.
00:00:57 Ife
I am a sociology and global studies double major with a minor in Spanish, very.
00:01:02 Hannah Skaran
Cool out both language minors.
00:01:04 Hannah Skaran
I like that.
00:01:05
Cool well.
00:01:06 Hannah Skaran
I am really.
00:01:07 Hannah Skaran
Excited to talk to both of you and.
00:01:09 Hannah Skaran
Just get a little bit more.
00:01:10 Hannah Skaran
Have a sense of why you each chose Uchicago as your college home?
00:01:16 Hannah Skaran
So I thought it would be good to kick this off by talking about classes at Uchicago.
00:01:21 Hannah Skaran
I think that's one of the things that really sets us apart as a school, so eBay, why don't you start and tell me about one of your favorite classes that you've taken, either for the core or for your major?
00:01:32 Ife
I think my favorite class has been these social science sequences that you take as part of the core.
00:01:38 Ife
I took self culture and society which teaches you all about social structures, how the individual relates to society and also how you form different kinds of social instead.
00:01:48 Ife
And I think taking that class was really something that showed me that I liked sociology as a discipline and encouraged me to further explore sociology.
00:01:57 Ife
So when I took self my second year last year, I really got into the topics that we discussed with Marks and Labor and Smith Finn and a lot of different other.
00:02:08 Ife
Scholars and that really encouraged me to get into the sociological discipline.
00:02:13 Hannah Skaran
And what about you, Patrick?
00:02:15 Hannah Skaran
What has been one of your favorite classes so far?
00:02:18 Patrick
I think within my majors and minor, uh, my.
00:02:22 Patrick
I think my favorite class that I've taken is actually a class in further my Norwegian minor.
00:02:29 Patrick
The first quarter we got to have a full Norwegian breakfast and and.
00:02:37 Patrick
Like you know, fully paid for by the Norwegian professor who was a wonderful.
00:02:43 Patrick
And we had to only speak in Norwegian, so if you wanted to eat, which is a big thing for me, you had to speak in Norwegian.
00:02:50 Patrick
And so it was a great way to practice and just like have some fun.
00:02:55 Patrick
While you know, being in a relatively low stress class to balance out some of the more technical classes that I might have been in.
00:03:02 Patrick
At the time.
00:03:05 Hannah Skaran
Thinking outside of the academic realm, what?
00:03:08 Hannah Skaran
Are some things.
00:03:09 Hannah Skaran
That you like to do outside of the classroom.
00:03:12 Hannah Skaran
Whether that's our SOS activities, things that you do in the City of Chicago, maybe a house tradition, what is?
00:03:20 Hannah Skaran
What are a?
00:03:20 Hannah Skaran
Few of those things that you've enjoyed so far, if they will start with you.
00:03:24
I think.
00:03:25 Ife
My favorite thing.
00:03:26 Ife
To do is just to get around the city of Chicago.
00:03:29 Ife
I'm from the suburbs, so I never really had the chance to explore the city, but I really have the opportunity to because of EU pass, which lets me on all CTA buses and trains for no cost.
00:03:40 Ife
So it's very easy to jump around different neighborhoods with my friends on the weekends.
00:03:44 Ife
Go to a different coffee shop to study every once in a while and really just get to know them.
00:03:49 Ife
City that I live in.
00:03:50 Ife
I really enjoy taking advantage of all the different culturally distinct neighborhoods we have in Chicago.
00:03:55 Ife
They have all different kinds of food and places you can hang out at, so it's very fun for me to just get outside on the weekends and find something different to do.
00:04:03 Ife
Around the city.
00:04:04 Ife
It's a great city.
00:04:05 Hannah Skaran
Absolutely, there's so much.
00:04:07 Hannah Skaran
Do Patrick what about you?
00:04:09 Patrick
I think for me, so if they already talked about sort of engaging with the city a little bit, I guess I'll focus a little bit more on stuff that you can do sort of live in campus and on campus.
00:04:18 Patrick
Within my house, one of the things that we do or that we did when I was living in housing was a back to back one weekend after the other awkward date night followed by.
00:04:29 Patrick
Karaoke night so awkward.
00:04:31 Patrick
Date Night is sometime in the middle of winter where it's you know it is cold outside but you know we're having a nice Saturday night in.
00:04:39 Patrick
We got spaghetti and meatballs.
00:04:41 Patrick
But then everyone is paired up with someone else and everyone has to do, you know, two to three so-called awkward things.
00:04:49 Patrick
You know spilling water on your date, not using the utensils to eat spaghetti, and things like that where you know it's just all in good fun and and the following week being able to do karaoke night.
00:05:03 Patrick
On the 15th floor, one of our dorms campus North Residential Commons.
00:05:07 Patrick
And justice, you know, walking down the multipurpose room for four to five hours and just playing karaoke.
00:05:13 Patrick
You know, like songs on YouTube and just having a good time with everyone else in the house.
00:05:17 Patrick
It's a really nice way to bond with everyone and in a very sort of natural environment without needing to pay for anything either.
00:05:24 Ife
They're very key.
00:05:25 Hannah Skaran
For college students, for sure.
00:05:28 Hannah Skaran
Well, I'm glad that you explained what awkward date night is, because when I was a student at U Chicago I always saw houses having awkward date night, but I never actually knew what that entailed.
00:05:39 Hannah Skaran
So thank you for explaining that, and I think that's actually a really nice transition into my next question, which is what were your favorite?
00:05:48 Hannah Skaran
House activities or traditions.
00:05:50 Ife
So something that we did my old week orientation week, first year was we went to Second City which is like on the.
00:05:57 Ife
North side of Chicago.
00:05:59 Ife
They got us free tickets.
00:06:00 Ife
I did not have to pay for anything which was again very nice because in college you don't want to pay for any.
00:06:05 Ife
Thing, but that has become one of my most favorite things to do is go downtown, you know?
00:06:11 Ife
See second City, see a show for like very cheap with my friends and I think every year I go at least twice.
00:06:18 Ife
So that's one of my more favorite activities to do, but we also have a lot of different house trips that my house has LED.
00:06:24 Ife
We would go see.
00:06:26 Ife
Shows like Mean Girls.
00:06:27 Ife
I got to see rent.
00:06:28 Ife
I also saw West Side Story all through my house so we really have this affinity for going to all of these different.
00:06:36 Ife
Art shows throughout Chicago, which I
00:06:37 Hannah Skaran
Really loved, that's awesome since it's such a Chicago staple for the people at home who might not know.
00:06:45 Hannah Skaran
Can you talk a little bit more about going to second City and what the 2nd?
00:06:48 Hannah Skaran
City is.
00:06:50 Ife
So the second city is a popular comedy group HERE in Chicago.
00:06:54 Ife
I don't remember.
00:06:55 Ife
Which order they are into.
00:06:56 Ife
Of comedy troupes they might have been like the first or second national one, but they do a lot of improv shows.
00:07:04 Ife
They have sketch shows up with a lot of different comedians and they have different kinds of shows throughout the year.
00:07:09 Ife
The one I visit is called after hours.
00:07:11 Ife
It's usually like at 11:00 PM and they do like a bunch of improv skits with.
00:07:17 Ife
Like different words like buzzwords, they like pick a member from the audience and they make a story based off of them and they have a lot of different other shows as well that you can go to.
00:07:27 Ife
For like a little laugh.
00:07:28 Hannah Skaran
That's awesome.
00:07:29 Hannah Skaran
Yeah, the great thing about Chicago is it's such a comedy.
00:07:32 Hannah Skaran
Study fun fact about the second city actually is it was founded by a U Chicago alum Bernie Sahlins, who was a member of a founding member of Off Campus, which is the Chicago Improv Group.
00:07:45 Hannah Skaran
He went on to found Second City, so that's a a cool connection that U Chicago specifically has to the second.
00:07:52 Hannah Skaran
City as well.
00:07:53 Hannah Skaran
Patrick, I know you already told us about awkward date night, but I'm sure there has to be another house tradition that really stands out to you.
00:08:01 Hannah Skaran
What do you do?
00:08:01
For us
00:08:02 Patrick
Yeah, so I can talk about a house tradition and then I also want to touch on something that our dorm does as a group.
00:08:09 Patrick
So within my house, we're a very big Mario Kart house, so we will do Mario Kart tournaments pretty much constantly throughout the entire school year, which gets only mildly.
00:08:24 Hannah Skaran
What's your go to Mario Kart build?
00:08:25 Patrick
Oh boy, UM is the is it?
00:08:29 Patrick
The the Caterpillar buggy with the little red wheels?
00:08:33 Patrick
And then the standard glider?
00:08:34 Hannah Skaran
Right?
00:08:37 Patrick
So and we we play at 150CC which allows me to do that if we're playing at 200, I have to use a bike.
00:08:43 Patrick
And I'm not good at that.
00:08:45 Patrick
'cause I.
00:08:45 Patrick
Don't know the turn radius, I'll I'll.
00:08:45 Hannah Skaran
Who's your character, though?
00:08:47 Hannah Skaran
That's the most important part.
00:08:49 Patrick
I usually play a me that I've created I I just find it comical I I don't.
00:08:59 Patrick
I like making fun of myself in in in cart so.
00:09:02 Hannah Skaran
For sure.
00:09:03 Patrick
Uhm, it's a great time so, so yeah, so we're a big Mario Kart house, but then our dorm so we have different sort of structures within the housing system, so we've got our dorms as well as our houses, which have both physical and social subdivisions of the dorm and so at the dorm.
00:09:24 Patrick
Double we have these people called the resident Deans who are in charge of the whole dorm, and so they run all the programming for that and they have a bigger budget because there are more people that they have to take care of, and so they're the ones.
00:09:38 Patrick
That throw our.
00:09:39 Patrick
Super Bowl party.
00:09:40 Patrick
They host our Taco night.
00:09:42 Patrick
And so they're like bringing a band, and they cater tacos and stuff which is really fun.
00:09:49 Patrick
I I was also a salsa night at the same time so you can learn to salsa, but then they also like bought us all tickets to go see Les Mis and to go see Hamilton and like some of the bigger shows.
00:10:02 Patrick
That, like you know, we're in really hiding.
00:10:04 Patrick
And and so I really appreciated being able to do that as well as activities within the House as well.
00:10:11 Hannah Skaran
I'm sensing a theme here.
00:10:12 Hannah Skaran
A lot of house trips to go see stage performances, which is a lot of fun.
00:10:16 Hannah Skaran
I was a student when Hamilton first came out and I remember it being quite a big deal when it came to Chicago finally.
00:10:24 Hannah Skaran
That a couple houses got funding to go see it when it first opened in Chicago, so that was a very exciting thing for sure.
00:10:31 Hannah Skaran
Let's transition to talking a little bit about your pre U Chicago experiences back when you were a college applicant and still in high school.
00:10:41 Hannah Skaran
What were the initial qualities that I know it's it's tough to think about.
00:10:45 Hannah Skaran
I see Patrick here like making a stressed out face because I know it's hard to put yourself back in the shoes of a high school student.
00:10:52 Hannah Skaran
Applying to college, but what first drew you to Uchicago as an applicant and Patrick?
00:10:57 Hannah Skaran
Why don't you start us off?
00:10:58 Patrick
Yeah, so I first learned about U Chicago through an alum who went to my high school and learned about how you Chicago really pushed you to think as opposed to just sort of teaching you a bunch of things to know which I really liked it.
00:11:19 Patrick
As an idea, because I had always been told that most of the stuff that you learned if you were to learn things in.
00:11:25 Patrick
Knowledge you probably wouldn't end up using later in life, and so I was like, well I may as well get some skills while I'm in college, and so that is what initially drew me in addition to sort of the academic prowess and all these other things, but I think sort of fundamentally, it was that sort of key aspect.
00:11:45 Patrick
Of a Uchicago education that drew me here.
00:11:49 Hannah Skaran
When you say.
00:11:49 Hannah Skaran
I use Chicago education.
00:11:51 Hannah Skaran
Can you talk a little bit more about the specific academic qualities?
00:11:56 Hannah Skaran
That that made you Chicago stand out to.
00:11:59 Patrick
You yeah, so I think it's best highlighted by the core, which we'll get into in a second.
00:12:04 Patrick
About a third will go to your major and.
00:12:06 Patrick
Then the latter third.
00:12:07 Patrick
Will go to electives.
00:12:09 Patrick
A second major minor, whatever else it may be.
00:12:13 Patrick
And so when it comes to the core, it's similar to how like other schools will have general education requirements and so for us we have sort of seven concentration areas within the core and each class within the core sort of, you know, will cover everything from the humanities to what?
00:12:33 Patrick
If I talked about earlier with the social.
00:12:35 Patrick
Science is to mathematics and Biological Sciences, so it really gives you that liberal arts education.
00:12:41 Patrick
But at the same time you have a lot of optionality and the reason why is we want you to like be able to actually do something that you are interested in, but then also gets the same fundamental skills out of it.
00:12:53 Patrick
And so it's those critical analysis.
00:12:55 Patrick
Skills taking an argument, breaking it down.
00:12:58 Patrick
Looking at their evidence, sort of seeing where they're coming from and seeing how you might agree, disagree, qualify, and articulate all of the.
00:13:08 Patrick
Whether in essay form or in some other kind of form, and so for me, that's been sort of how that sort of initial draw team to the University of Chicago ended up actually happening within my education here.
00:13:23 Hannah Skaran
Can you tell me a little bit about what drew high school you to
00:13:26 Hannah Skaran
UChicago as an applicant?
00:13:28
So it's actually.
00:13:29 Ife
Kind of a funny story I I did not know anything about U Chicago until like a week before the.
00:13:35 Ife
Rd, deadline and everything. I heard about it was from my older brother who was already in college at that point he was like Oh well, I know a few people from Uchicago and hearing them talk about it.
00:13:46 Ife
I think you would be a good fit and I was like what do you mean?
00:13:48 Ife
I've never heard of this place before so I had to, you know, do a little bit of research and as I was exploring I was really looking into.
00:13:56 Ife
The academic flexibility afforded by the core as Patrick was talking.
00:14:00 Ife
About and also just the breadth of academic courses available and so that was the strongest draw for me, because being that I was doing a lot of different things in high school, I was very much undecided as to academic path.
00:14:14 Ife
What I wanted to do after graduation, even like the specific discipline I wanted to get into.
00:14:20 Ife
So doing that research and finding out that Uchicago gave me those first couple of years to kind of, you know, dip my toes in the water, explore different fields through the core, get to know my academic interests a little bit better.
00:14:33 Ife
And then kind of branch off from there into whatever I found interesting really made this school stick out to me from the rest.
00:14:41 Hannah Skaran
I am curious to hear more about.
00:14:44 Hannah Skaran
Your high school selves, and specifically how you've changed since coming to college and the differences between the person you were as an applicant and the person that you are now as a student and sort of.
00:14:59 Hannah Skaran
How has this experience.
00:15:02 Hannah Skaran
At U Chicago changed you and what are the differences that you notice in yourselves now?
00:15:07 Ife
I think.
00:15:08 Ife
Now that I have the opportunity to take classes in all of my academic interests, it's a lot easier to get my work done.
00:15:16 Ife
I think procrastinating is easy when you don't feel attached to what it is you're learning, but I find it a lot harder to procrastinate when the stuff that I'm looking at is stuff that I want to continue pursuing.
00:15:27 Ife
On a deeper level, and sometimes I find myself like not doing anything and I'm like you know what I'll do, I'll do my readings because I'm really excited to talk about this in class this week or like for example, I do research with a sociology professor.
00:15:40 Ife
Are now analyzing democratic backsliding and the sociology of democracy, and that is something that I never thought I would find myself being interested in, but it's a newfound passion of mine that, like you know, really drives how I attack my work, and it makes me want to dive into my work a little bit more.
00:15:57 Ife
So thankfully, I'm not.
00:15:59 Ife
Doing math and science.
00:16:01 Ife
On a deep level, but now that I'm given the time to pursue my academic interests on a deeper level, I really find myself like wanting to do it and striving to do it and finding new ways to engage with it that I didn't have the opportunity to do in high school.
00:16:17 Hannah Skaran
See, I feel like you hear so many people have that experience.
00:16:20 Hannah Skaran
I think the the core really seems to attract students who.
00:16:25 Hannah Skaran
Maybe aren't 100% sure which direction they want to go.
00:16:28 Hannah Skaran
In and then.
00:16:29 Hannah Skaran
It just seems like people always end up.
00:16:31 Hannah Skaran
Finding these really cool niche things.
00:16:33 Hannah Skaran
I think when you're in high school you think.
00:16:35 Hannah Skaran
That you know.
00:16:36 Hannah Skaran
All of the paths that are available to you and once you get to college you realize there are way more than you ever thought.
00:16:42 Hannah Skaran
So I I agree, I think that's something cool about the core that it opens you up to those.
00:16:46 Hannah Skaran
Sorts of things.
00:16:47 Hannah Skaran
Patrick, would you say that you had a similar experience or what?
00:16:51 Hannah Skaran
What did your experience look like?
00:16:53 Patrick
I have, I think overall become a little more goal oriented in a way I in high school I wasn't.
00:17:03 Patrick
I wasn't doing things for specific purpose and I didn't necessarily have, you know, a five year down line plan in place, whereas now I do.
00:17:13 Patrick
And so the things that I do, yes, are things that I'm interested in and that goal that I have in mind is something that I'm interested in.
00:17:21 Patrick
And so I'm, you know, working my way to that through classes and through career services and through like the the friend groups that I've made while I've been here, sort of.
00:17:35 Patrick
All of that has been sort of instrumental and sort of forming the kind of student I am today.
00:17:41 Patrick
Which yes, I still.
00:17:43 Patrick
I will try to do my best in classes and I still am interested in the things that I started out trying to study for the most part, no region was the was a late addition, but I have loved learning languages since growing up and so for me it's been, I think, a uh.
00:18:03 Patrick
More concrete formulation of the sort of where I want to be in the like.
00:18:08 Patrick
You know, the five years, the, 10 years, etc.
00:18:11 Hannah Skaran
I'm I'm going to make you.
00:18:13 Hannah Skaran
Stay in your high school brain for just a little while longer because.
00:18:17 Hannah Skaran
I want to know when you were making those hard decisions and picking what college you wanted to call home for the next four years.
00:18:27 Hannah Skaran
How did you make that choice?
00:18:28 Patrick
So I had a spreadsheet which is very econ major Y of me up, but I had a spreadsheet where I sort of listed all the factors that I wanted in a college education.
00:18:43 Patrick
So whether that was the major that I wanted the flexibility of.
00:18:48 Patrick
The social scene, for example.
00:18:51 Patrick
Uhm, whatever it may have been, I put it into a spreadsheet and for me U Chicago had the flexibility for pretty much everything.
00:19:00 Patrick
It was very much a.
00:19:01 Patrick
It's very much a choose your own adventure sort of school where you can do pretty much whatever you want to.
00:19:08 Patrick
You have the ability to change your major.
00:19:12 Patrick
Once you're here as many times as you want because you're at the college as opposed to a separate college within a university and so sort of like nothing is awful.
00:19:22 Patrick
And you're not defined by, say, your major in any way, shape, or form.
00:19:26 Patrick
Career advancement is not limited to only you know XYZ majors.
00:19:31 Patrick
It's open for everyone, and every advisor is open for everyone, and so to that extent.
00:19:35 Patrick
Being able to have come the optionality of deciding what I want to do after I got to college for me was something that really drew me to Uchicago, in addition to everything else that you Chicago provides, whether it be the you know the fundamental skill set that I think you get from your Uchicago education.
00:19:56 Patrick
To being sort of semi City Schools, semi college town school.
00:20:00 Patrick
Pull up to you know the flexibility of the social scene, whatever it is for me, I think it was the marriage of all of it.
00:20:07 Patrick
At the same time, in the same place that really was the deciding factor for me.
00:20:13 Hannah Skaran
Can you speak a little more to you mentioned the idea of U Chicago being part City School Park, College Town?
00:20:21 Hannah Skaran
I think that's a really interesting way of describing it.
00:20:24 Hannah Skaran
Can you speak a little more to that?
00:20:25 Patrick
Yeah, so we are still within the city limits of Chicago and and so, and we're about probably about half an hour outside of downtown by public transit.
00:20:38 Patrick
And so we're a little while away from the the city proper, but we're still in the city and so.
00:20:45 Patrick
It's very common for students to be going downtown even during the week.
00:20:49 Patrick
I know I do that, and especially on the weekends too.
00:20:53 Patrick
But then at the same time we still have a college campus and it down here in Hyde Park, which is one of the 77 neighborhoods offshore.
00:21:00 Patrick
Although it's new Chicago and the community here and we also have our little downtown, we have our own couple of museums here and so it's a little microcosm of Chicago in some sense.
00:21:12 Patrick
Uhm, but then walking down the street, a lot of people that I bump into are from U Chicago and so for me it's really nice to be able to have that because we feel connected to the people that I'm sort of living around.
00:21:28 Hannah Skaran
It's your turn.
00:21:29 Hannah Skaran
You were making tough college decisions.
00:21:32 Hannah Skaran
Break it down for me.
00:21:33 Hannah Skaran
What was that process like for you?
00:21:36 Ife
So my process wasn't nearly as organized as Patrick was spreadsheet.
00:21:41 Ife
I think the most I did was make mental pros and cons lists.
00:21:45 Ife
Because I just do not have the ability to.
00:21:47 Ife
Sort my thoughts out so neatly.
00:21:49 Ife
Props to you.
00:21:51 Ife
I actually kind of narrowed down my selections to U Chicago in a few other schools in April, which is like a month before college decision day.
00:22:01 Ife
Because I visited U Chicago as part of an April overnight.
00:22:05 Ife
So I got flown up here for a couple of days and I got to stay with the current student in the.
00:22:11 Ife
Dorms I've met a lot of the other students who are going to be coming to Chicago, and I also got to sit in on a couple of.
00:22:17 Ife
Model classes and see how they were run.
00:22:19 Ife
And I think in that introduction period that I had, I was like oh wow, look at all of these people who have very niche academic interests and things that I would have never like thought about studying before.
00:22:30 Ife
Maybe even things that I had never even heard of coming from home, so it was very cool to see all of these students who were like me who had this.
00:22:39 Ife
Endless curiosity academically and had a lot of things that they wanted to pursue intellectually.
00:22:46 Ife
And you know, I was like, oh, this is a community that I could see myself excelling in.
00:22:50 Ife
Especially if I get to.
00:22:52 Ife
To explore more deeply what I enjoy doing, and so you Chicago really stood out for me and also having the experience of staying in the dorm and getting to meet all of the other students who were here who would be like, Oh well, I took this life changing political science course and I've never met a professor like this before this person.
00:23:12 Ife
An internationally renowned scholar on X subject.
00:23:16 Ife
It was absolutely nuts to me that there were people here who had done so much academically and had made such a change in their academic fields and that I could potentially be a part of that.
00:23:25 Ife
And so that really drew me here as well as the extremely welcoming and supporting student community that I got to discover in those short few days.
00:23:34 Ife
I had never met a more supportive group of students and in high school I feel like I was very much of the competitive mindset that it was me against everybody else and not everybody else.
00:23:45 Ife
And me against whatever it is we're.
00:23:48 Ife
Saying and so coming to U Chicago, I got the sense that all of the students here are in it together.
00:23:54 Ife
Everyone going for their different degree, everyone pursuing a different postgraduate opportunity and the best way to do that is to help other people on the path there.
00:24:04 Ife
And that was the kind of community I was seeking to have in college.
00:24:08 Ife
That I didn't really have in high school.
00:24:10 Hannah Skaran
I like that a lot.
00:24:11 Hannah Skaran
But you did bring up a good point that I'm curious to hear more about.
00:24:17 Hannah Skaran
Which is that I feel like every Uchicago undergrad has a great professor story, or at least has taken a class with that one professor who either has done so many amazing things or is just such an interesting.
00:24:32 Hannah Skaran
Person that it really sticks out in their mind.
00:24:34 Hannah Skaran
So do either of you have a great professor story that you'd like to share?
00:24:38 Hannah Skaran
'cause I'd be really interested in hearing about that.
00:24:41 Ife
I think this isn't really about like.
00:24:43 Ife
Super Crazy intellectual pursuit or anything like that, but in the full quarter of my first year I took Spanish 203, which is the last class of the intermediate sequence.
00:24:53 Ife
And you can imagine like being an 18 year old stepping into one of your first college courses, and you have to speak entirely in Spanish with Luke. These other 18 to 22 year olds.
00:25:04 Ife
You've never met before.
00:25:05 Ife
There's like 10 of you.
00:25:07 Ife
You're like Oh my God, I don't know the Spanish language anymore, but my professor her name was Amaya.
00:25:12 Ife
She was one of.
00:25:13 Ife
The kindest, most sweetest people I've ever met in my life.
00:25:17 Ife
I like to call her my school model.
00:25:19 Ife
Because she was.
00:25:20 Ife
Just so like.
00:25:21 Ife
Focused on getting me to speak in class.
00:25:24 Ife
She would do anything she possibly could like, asking me what I did over the weekend, or having each of us go around and say one sentence or analyze song lyrics or anything like that.
00:25:34 Ife
But she really showed that she cared for me and wanted me to excel in the Spanish language.
00:25:39 Ife
And we got really close over the course of the quarter and she was one of the reasons why I decided to keep doing Spanish in college as well.
00:25:47 Ife
And another funny story about her was.
00:25:51 Ife
At the end of the quarter, I went to her office hours to do my final exam with a partner and she was like you guys know like I'm in this band and you know, we play at some of the Hyde Park venues.
00:26:03 Ife
If you guys want tickets I can hook you up and I can even give you a little.
00:26:06 Ife
A CD and I was like I it was amazing.
00:26:08
That's so cool.
00:26:12 Ife
I was like I don't have a CD player but like.
00:26:14 Hannah Skaran
Thank you.
00:26:15 Hannah Skaran
For the thought of even giving.
00:26:17 Ife
Me your band CD like it was crazy I was like so you're a professor by day and you're a performer by now.
00:26:23 Ife
Like that's that's so Hannah Montana of you.
00:26:25 Ife
It was astounding.
00:26:27 Hannah Skaran
That's such a great that's such a great Spanish department story.
00:26:30 Hannah Skaran
I was also a Spanish minor.
00:26:32 Hannah Skaran
And yeah, the professors in that department.
00:26:34 Hannah Skaran
They're very cool.
00:26:36 Hannah Skaran
Patrick, do you have a professor story for us?
00:26:40 Patrick
I do for many of us, math is not the easiest thing in the world.
00:26:44 Patrick
It doesn't necessarily come to us that easy.
00:26:47 Patrick
And so therefore it's really important to sort of get clarification outside of class sometimes, and so being able to go to office hours is really important.
00:26:56 Patrick
And so while every professor is required to have office hours, not every professor has office hours for two hours a day, every day of the week, and so.
00:27:07 Patrick
My during my second year I was in the analysis.
00:27:10 Patrick
Sequence in math and my professor Sarah Zeisler had so many office hours and she wouldn't just give us the answers she wanted us to actually work through the concepts in a way that would allow us to finish the proofs.
00:27:30 Patrick
Without having to just give us the answer, because partially because you don't want to make it that easy, but then also so that we would actually learn as opposed to just like kicked out of her office hours and getting on with our lives.
00:27:42 Patrick
And she would always ask us like how are you doing?
00:27:45 Patrick
You know beyond this class, how is this class for you, you know?
00:27:49 Patrick
Is it too hard, too easy, joining to slow down, speed up, and that kind of feedback and and genuine care for her students?
00:27:58 Patrick
I, I think is something that I really valued in that class, especially because I had it for.
00:28:02 Patrick
The whole year.
00:28:04 Hannah Skaran
That's so nice to get 2 hours a day of office hours for math, I mean that that would be very helpful, especially 'cause analysis that was that's.
00:28:12 Hannah Skaran
The hard 1 right?
00:28:14 Patrick
Yeah, that that's like proof based multivariable calculus in however many dimensions you want it to be, so it's hard to.
00:28:24 Patrick
It's hard to visualize.
00:28:26 Hannah Skaran
Well, this has been really interesting talking to the two of you and I have one last question to.
00:28:30 Hannah Skaran
Wrap things up.
00:28:31 Hannah Skaran
Thinking back to your high school self when you are making decisions about what college you are going to.
00:28:36 Hannah Skaran
And what's one piece of advice that you would give to yourself?
00:28:40 Hannah Skaran
Looking back, that might be helpful to some of our listeners.
00:28:44 Patrick
I think I would have said to myself to make sure that the decision and the factors that I'm I'm taking into account are things that I care about, not things that other people have told me to care about.
00:28:58 Patrick
I, I think in in high school, especially where I sort of.
00:29:03 Patrick
Came from in the high school environment that I grew.
00:29:05 Patrick
Up in it's.
00:29:07 Patrick
A pretty high pressure environment, and so it's really sort of easy to.
00:29:12 Patrick
Fall into a sort of spiral of like Oh well, my parents want me to do this.
00:29:18 Patrick
My friends are telling me to do this.
00:29:19 Patrick
My teachers want me to do this, but ultimately it really should be a question of what do you want to do and so for me I would have just wanted myself to make sure that no, I am going to college for reasons that I want to.
00:29:33 Patrick
I am still consulting my friends my my parents and my teachers because they know me in a different sense and so they might come up with things that I don't necessarily come up with, but making sure that they have my best interest in mind and still taking those as pieces of advice as opposed to like things that I must do.
00:29:54 Patrick
And and so in that way sort of mitigating the kind of social pressures that are really involved with the college application process, because it is.
00:30:03 Patrick
So like there's so much pressure involved with that one decision and the those you know that first semester senior year is just so compressed because of that and.
00:30:15 Patrick
And so making sure that you are taking the time for yourself and making sure that you are going to college for you is something that I think I would have told myself back in the day.
00:30:23 Ife
I think if I could tell my high school self anything it would be to chill out.
00:30:29 Ife
I I was very very wound up and yes college is a big decision that you have.
00:30:36 Ife
To make but.
00:30:37 Ife
You can't make any sound decision if.
00:30:39 Ife
You're too like worked up about it and so.
00:30:42 Ife
I think what I needed.
00:30:43 Ife
To do was take a step back and realize.
00:30:45 Ife
That I would.
00:30:46 Ife
Make the right decision in the.
00:30:47 Ife
End and that it all came down to me just taking the time to sit back and think and stop stressing myself out and stop stressing my parents out by asking them to help me choose.
00:30:58 Ife
Because ultimately, like Patrick was saying, it is a choice that you make for yourself.
00:31:02 Ife
And you should be doing what makes you feel right, and you can always tell when you feel right.
00:31:07 Ife
It's it's kind of corny to say this, but it's that gut feeling that you.
00:31:10 Ife
Yeah, well, that's so corny but.
00:31:14 Ife
You you know when?
00:31:15 Ife
You're choosing the.
00:31:16 Ife
Right place for you and if you keep returning back to it in your head, chances are it's not something that's you know, unimportant to you.
00:31:23 Ife
It's probably something that holds a lot more weight, and if you trust that feeling then you'll always end up in the right college home for you and you'll.
00:31:30 Ife
Also end up doing things that you.
00:31:33 Ife
Ultimately, will probably end up doing for the rest of your life because you will love it so much.
00:31:37 Ife
So, like if I could just tell my high school self to chill out, take a little break, sometimes you know, sit back up.
00:31:46 Ife
Like, really take the time to acknowledge the different parts of yourself and what you.
00:31:51 Ife
Like to do.
00:31:52 Ife
And ultimately, you will end up making the right choice.
00:31:55 Hannah Skaran
True good good words of advice, just in general in life.
00:31:59 Hannah Skaran
Just just chill out.
00:32:01 Hannah Skaran
Take a breather.
00:32:05 Hannah Skaran
Obviously y'all made your choices.
00:32:07 Hannah Skaran
You came to Chicago.
00:32:08 Hannah Skaran
So how would you describe if you had to take the last few years and somehow summarize them?
00:32:16 Hannah Skaran
How would you describe the experience so far?
00:32:19 Patrick
So I'll split my answer into a couple different spheres.
00:32:23 Patrick
Academically speaking, it is what I wanted.
00:32:25 Patrick
I do, and have felt academically challenged in that.
00:32:29 Patrick
I've had to think about things that I didn't think I would be thinking about to a level that I didn't realize existed.
00:32:35 Patrick
Uhm, which may sound really abstract, but you know having to think about, say, critical race theory when I'm a math and economics and economics double major is not something that I thought I would be doing, but it's something that I have been doing while at U Chicago and so pushing the realms.
00:32:55 Patrick
In which I focus because of that breadth of that liberal arts education.
00:32:59 Patrick
And for me it's something that I knew that I wanted but didn't realize that I think I would actually be getting to that to that extent.
00:33:08 Patrick
And so it is everything I wanted.
00:33:10 Patrick
I think I did very much get those like critical analysis, argumentation skills and so I think thinking back is now a fourth year.
00:33:19 Patrick
You know, like having my eyes on graduation, I think it there.
00:33:22 Patrick
I very much got what I wanted academically.
00:33:24 Patrick
I think, socially speaking I would not give this up for anything else like I have met my best friends for life.
00:33:31 Patrick
Probably like in college and and.
00:33:35 Patrick
You know you meet people in weird places and then you sort of stick with them, and so whether that be in your house, in, you know your first week of classes wherever, maybe like you know, maybe it's eating breakfast at the same time in the dining hall every day and sitting at your house table and then realizing that there's the same person there every single day of the week.
00:33:55 Patrick
And so you become best friends with them.
00:33:58 Patrick
Because of that I like.
00:34:01 Patrick
I I would not give that up for anything else and and then I think thinking forward for myself and sort of thinking about post graduation and such.
00:34:10 Patrick
Like usual, Congress prepared me in a way that I don't think I would want to change like I felt in terms of pursuing my career.
00:34:19 Patrick
Extremely supported throughout my four years here, because you'd also in your first year you not only get an academic advisor, you also get a career advisor who works with you throughout your.
00:34:29 Patrick
Four years and so they're just as invested in you as you should be in yourself.
00:34:34 Patrick
And so I've been able to actually utilize that resource.
00:34:39 Patrick
In addition to all of the extra curriculars that I've been able to do over the last couple of years, whether that be in publications in the Emergency Medical Service, to research and.
00:34:49 Patrick
All these other things that I pursued just 'cause I was interested in them.
00:34:53 Patrick
I think it very much has been a an adventure that I have chosen that I have enjoyed.
00:35:00 Ife
I think for me, being kind of at the halfway point, which is really wild to think about there.
00:35:08 Ife
There's still so much left for me, which is particularly exciting because there's still so much I haven't done in terms of my majors and my minor, and I'm looking forward to writing my thesis and doing research for that.
00:35:21 Ife
I think the academic base that I've had set up has prepared me quite well for the rest of my college career.
00:35:27 Ife
Just giving me the insight into how.
00:35:29 Ife
To analyze things in ways that you would have never done before, like Patrick has been talking about.
00:35:36 Ife
I really have had the opportunity to like nail down my academic interests and also socially I think it has built me up in a way that I have that support system that Patrick was talking about.
00:35:48 Ife
I have funds in my.
00:35:49 Ife
Disciplines, but also across a lot of different majors across the university and that kind.
00:35:55 Ife
It makes my view of things a little bit wider and it makes me appreciate.
00:36:00 Ife
What it is that I'm studying?
00:36:01 Ife
A lot more and helps me bring different perspectives to my different classes and the different jobs that I've held and the different social scenes that I've encountered.
00:36:10 Ife
And so I think you Chicago has really.
00:36:12 Ife
Made me a better.
00:36:13 Ife
Person again, I'm being so corny.
00:36:16 Ife
But there are a lot of different yeah.
00:36:19 Ife
There are a lot of different structures in place.
00:36:21 Ife
That have changed.
00:36:23 Ife
How I approach my own work and the work of others and I think.
00:36:26 Ife
Without that, I would be a very different person and I very much enjoyed the stuff that I'm doing here at Uchicago, 'cause I'm doing things that I would have never imagined doing before, and there are lots of opportunities that I have taken advantage of and still have yet to take advantage of, but I'm really looking forward to diving into in the next two years.
00:36:47 Hannah Skaran
Well, Patrick and FA.
00:36:48 Hannah Skaran
Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:36:50 Hannah Skaran
It's really been great listening to all of your stories about U Chicago and I really hope that our student listeners have enjoyed them as well.
00:36:57 Patrick
Awesome, thank you Hannah.
00:36:58 Patrick
Thank you.