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Johns Hopkins, UPenn, Princeton, Columbia...--sightseeing and the Phantom of Opera was enough--and this was our last stop. Though being weary, I still had hope that I could see two of the most outstanding schools in the world: Harvard and MIT. It was unbelievable that I can really see the schools that I looked only at brochures. Maybe, this day was considered about 40% of my memories and impacts of the field trip.
Across the Charles River, at the end of the bridge, the Student Center of MIT was right there. Actually, there was no official info-session, but my group bravely went to the Admissions Office and got info-session from the Admissions Officer. After that I went to shop some gifts. However, accidently(or fortunately), I met a Korean undergraduate from Seoul Science High School. His name was Kim Ji Won, a freshman, and an International Olympiad winner, and he was very willing to guide me into MIT.
As we walked through strange tech-oriented buildings and the famous 'nerd' of MIT, he gave a lot of information admissions officers wouldn't provide otherwise. He said the curriculum is very rigorous and that I really have to prepare much for academic competence. He also said that the people are truly devoted to academics. We shared many funny accounts of both MIT and KMLA. At last, he showed a state-of-art dormitory, built about 2 years ago and probably the most expansive one in the US. His room was, to tell the truth, as messy as our room was, but full stacks of books. At the end he wished me a good luck. I had two mixed feelings about MIT. One was that this is the school for me and the other was that this school would be the toughest one ever.
My last school was Harvard, the most famous school in America and in the world. After touching the feet of the statue of John Harvard, the founder of the school, my group had a special appointment with my uncle's best friend, Dr. Kim Doo Hun, who worked as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. So we went across the Charles River again to go to the Medical School. Five minutes after waiting, he and his Korean colleague greeted us warmly. He showed us his research room where a cell attachment experiment was conducted. I was surprised at brand-new facilities and zealous researchers who were dying to find the patterns of nature. They were looking at microscopes as if they were flaming for searching knowledge from the slightest pieces of organisms. Dr. Kim also introduced Dr. Springer, the best expert on the cell transplantation in the world, to us. Dr. Kim talked proudly that Dr. Springer will likely win the Nobel Prize soon. It was so exciting and it changed my attitudes toward science which I found a little bit harsh and boring. After seeing the great facilities and great researchers, I wondered if Korea would have affluent fund for contributing to societies by the means of technology rather than for wasteful arguments by ignorant politicians.
The most meaningful lesson learned from the trip was simple: do your best, the goal is near me. Watching great students and professors, and hearing about their life, I eventually found them rather challenging. I promised to the Charles River that I would float on you two years later as a student of either one college. Two weeks is not a long period of time, but it will be the guiding light that will set my road map to success.
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