Tour with a Twist: Part II
By Vinu Ilakkuvan | February 2, 2006Only a handful of people get to call the center of one of the top-ranked Universities in this nation their home.
Only a handful of people get to call the center of one of the top-ranked Universities in this nation their home.
Anyone catch the State of the Union Address Tuesday night on channel ... everything? By now, it's yesterday's yesterday's news -- but Dubya likes the word "freedom." We've known that for years, of course, which is why I was sure the new game created by my roommate would be too perfect. Whether it was during my ever-so brief tenure as a fraternity (de)pledge, or just while hanging around an Everglades campsite during Spring Break with no electricity, a bottle of tequila and a deck of cards, I've always been averse to being forced to drink.
At the beginning of this semester, like any, students flocked to the Course Forum, or its predecessor, RateMyProfessors.com, in the attempt to avoid courses deemed too difficult or instructors viewed as not cool.
The Lawn, or as Jefferson called it, his "Academical Village," is considered by many to be the very heart of the University.
Although unrelated to lawmaking, one of the biggest headlines from the 2006 Legislative Session of the General Assembly has been the accidental firing of the gun of Del.
"I can feel it's a big thing," second-year College student Jonathan Chung said of the impending Super Bowl. An international student, Chung has never seen the Super Bowl. Yet, as Super Bowl XL -- Pittsburgh Steelers vs.
"We're going to fly two and a half miles up and throw you out of an airplane," the cameraman said to first-year College student Jessie Shields as she prepared for her first skydive. Shields grew up near West Point Airport on the York River -- you can see the skydivers from her house. She's from a pretty rural area where it takes 30 minutes to get to the nearest mall or movie theater.
This summer I lived in New York City for my second summer in a row. Unlike the first summer, where I interned at a magazine as an editorial intern, this summer I spent most of my time working on the business side.
When he's not working on his Ph.D. in Materials Science, graduate Engineering student Aarash Sofla spends almost every weekend hanging by a rope from a steep mountain.
What do you get when you add four fully functional car lifts, two incompetent auto mechanics and a nail in your friend's tire?
Since her first year at the University, third-year College student Laura Bonner has been a part of the Outdoors Club, partaking in activities such as backpacking and whitewater canoeing.
There comes a time in every man's life when he has to move on. Since I have acted like a little boy for most of my life, I have only had to face this truth recently, most notably after my roommates forcibly burned my blankie in effigy.
Living in Southern Florida sometimes makes it difficult for fourth-year College student Kamran Bakhtian to find rides back to the University after breaks.
Northern Virginia doesn't scream "distinctive" or "extreme" -- but it sometimes pro-duces students with an edge.
With the drop deadline fast approaching -- at least in the College -- many students have only a few more days to finalize their schedules. In the first two weeks of the semester, students have had a chance to assess such criteria as subject matter, teaching style, class size and textbook weight while they decide which courses to commit to for the semester. These all may be useful considerations, but left unmentioned is one quality that will surround a student throughout the semester: the character of the classroom itself. Second-year College student Brett Faulcon said his favorite learning environment is one where the professor can take advantage of a variety of media. "I took a politics course during the January term and the professor had DVD, video [and] Powerpoint," Faulcon said.
To: EVERYONE@toolkit.virginia.edu From: dooleyd@virginia.edu Subject: BOOKS FOR SALE!!! Dear 13,000 people I've never talked to or met before, My name is Daniel and I own every college textbook ever published.
At the end of the year, a new amendment might appear in the 230-year-old Virginia State Constitution's Bill of Rights, redefining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
I took one look at the pink ribbon-belt of Curtis Sittenfeld's "Prep" in bookstores last spring and cringed with the memory of so many shrieks and plaid kilts of my own prep school education.
"It was pitch black outside," second-year Engineering student Justin Starr said. The Amtrak train arrived late at night, after all, but as Starr explained, he was only five minutes away from the station stop in a major city. "It was surreal," he said, commenting on the darkness. A closer look revealed the cause: "If you really pressed your face to the windows, you could see rows and rows of houses ... all just abandoned," Starr said.
People who cry usually make me laugh. Two teammates and good friends of mine, Fiona F. and Rachel W., broke into tears when reminiscing about their time spent at the University.