This last weekend, I went to visit a friend at Cornell.  I sat in on a bunch of classes and noticed that Middlebury and Cornell have some differences and similarities in media use while in class.  I found that at a bigger school like Cornell, where most of the classes that I went to were over 200 kids, there was a lot more digital media use in distracted ways.  Middlebury students definitely use laptops and phones in class, but they definitely aren’t as distracted by their technology as Cornell kids were.   I believe this has to do with the class size and how it can be much harder for the professor at Cornell to maintain attention in such a large size class room.  I believe the class size at Middlebury is more conducive to learning than at Cornell, but still digital media can be a major distraction everywhere.  Sitting in on a big lecture was an interesting experience because I was able to observe that there were some kids that were paying attention and some kids that weren’t.  It goes to show that you can definitely learn something if you want to learn something.  I saw kids playing games on their computers, which was interesting because if you go to a big lecture like that where the teacher doesn’t know or care if you show up, than why do you even show up at all.  At Middlebury it is more important to go to class and get involved because not all the professors post their notes online and many of them take attendance and care to if people don’t show up or not. It would be nice to have some sort of balance between the two types of schools.

This past weekend for fall break, I traveled to the University of Maryland. As I headed there, I didn’t know what to expect. The school is very different than Middlebury, with over 22,000 students and being located only twenty minutes outside of Washington D.C. Surprisingly, I really liked the school and the atmosphere.The campus was very pretty with all brick buildings and I did not feel like it was too crowded. The sport’s facilities were huge and very nice. When I was younger, I always wanted to go to a school with D1 sport’s teams where the student section was huge and the teams were dominant. As I grew up, I realized that I liked smaller schools better, but it was still nice to be able to see what my old “ideal school” would have been like. One major difference between Maryland and here was the amount of diversity. Forty percent of the student population is non-white and there was a very noticeable difference from the population here at Middlebury. Also the food selection was very different. In the main food court there were places like McDonalds, Sbarro, Auntie Anne’s, Panda Express, and Chick-fil-A. If you took a ten minute walk away from campus, you came to a strip of restaurants and bars. The strip included pizza places, Chipotle, as well as my personal favorite ColdStone. Even though I really enjoyed switching it up a little and eating more mainstream, I am very thankful that Middlebury does not have these options. I enjoy being able to eat meals from the dining hall rather than pay for food and consume an enormous amount of calories every meal. Overall, I really enjoyed my trip and I would love to go back. However, I definitely made the right choice in coming to Middlebury.

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