From the Editor

I know what you are thinking, "Didn’t we just have one of those issues six months ago?" We did. However, this is a little diff erent. My family and I decided to take an excursion to the Northeast to look at colleges. My son is of the age where thinking about college becomes a reality.

My son, we’ll call him Isaac (because that is his name) needed to be up in Boston to compete in a forensics tournament at Harvard. Not the CSI type, but the one where they debate and give speeches. We thought it would be an excellent time to go look at schools because the students were still in school; and, we could really see the schools "in action."

Fortunately, my wife chose to pack like we were going on an expedition to the North Pole – gloves, scarves, parkas, sweaters, boots and long underwear. Inevitably, our luggage proved to be overweight, and we began our journey crouched down on the fl oor of the airport sorting out items and rearranging our luggage. I spent the entire fl ight bitching and moaning about the over packing.

It wasn’t long, however, before I was eating my words and thankful for every item my wife had packed. When we landed, the weather in Boston was brutal and snow was predicted for later in the week. Of course everything is relative. Days below 60 degrees are considered intemperate for South Floridians. The high temperatures in Massachusetts were in the 20s. The fi rst school we visited was Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its architecture and planning department is world class. Some of the most famous architects in the world have graduated from MIT and many have come back to campus to build structures including: I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, and Eero Saarinen.

Of course, that is not even half of what goes on at MIT. Research is what really happens at the school. Some of the greatest scientists in the world are conducting experiments and teaching here. Even freshman are allowed to sign up to be research assistants.

We met a professor who is working on high-speed digital photography where his favorite thing to do is shoot bullets at various objects and take pictures of the way the fragments disperse. They are able to capture these high-speed events with thousands of frames per second and as a result get amazing photographs.

MIT is not all work. Students have used their engineering skills to strand police cars on top of the school’s Great Dome building. They have also come up with ingenious ways to steal their rival’s mascot. Plus, every January students sign up to take a month of not so serious classes like Charm School where engineers are taught proper manners, formal dancing, and etiquette.

We really enjoyed MIT; but we never found the lab where it is rumored they are cloning Albert Einstein. While in the area we also visited Harvard. Its campus is the epitome of "Ivy League" and out of all its famous alumnae Tommy Lee Jones is the one that gives the prospective students through a video presentation an orientation speech.

Harvard has a storied history with a distinguished faculty. It is defi nitely a wonderful place to go to college. When I asked the cost, the total number was just south of $50k per year. I told them I didn’t ask how much it was to purchase the school; I just wanted my child to attend for a year. They failed to see the humor.

From Boston we headed north to New Hampshire to see Dartmouth. The scenery is gorgeous, but we were traveling in the late evening in a "wicked" snowstorm and had no idea what we were passing on the road. New Hampshire is very energy effi cient and chooses not to light any of its roads or highways.

However, the trip was worth it. The next morning everything was covered with snow, but the roads. (New Hampshire is defi nitely very effi cient with snow plows.) It was cold, but beautiful. At Dartmouth, none of the students appeared to be aff ected by the cold and they all walked around like it was springtime. Dartmouth’s student body is less than 5000; but, the school still has a world-class library.

The school runs on a quarter system and has a large percentage of its student population studying abroad during any particular quarter. The dorms are wired to be eco friendly and have competitions to see which fl oors can be the most energy effi cient. Monitors are set up to tell you exactly how much energy you are consuming at any given moment.

The best part of Dartmouth is the skiing. It is minutes away from a major ski resort and less than an hour from six others. Our guide told us she arranges her class schedule so that she has Tuesdays off to go skiing. Next we headed back south to Rhode Island and Brown University (my wife’s alma mater). Providence is a quirky small city and is the capital of a state the size of South Florida’s tri-county area. The university is up on a hill and somewhat separated from the rest of the city.

At the start of each semester Brown has a "shopping week." Students are encouraged to attend as many diff erent classes as they would like so that at the end of the week they are able to choose which classes they want to take that semester.

We also attended a hockey game and watched Brown beat Clarkson. At the end of the game, the school band gets on the ice and skates in formation while playing their instruments. You defi nitely can’t fi nd that kind of talent at any other major institution.

Before we knew it the week was over and we needed to head back to sunny South Florida. Without much persuasion, I personally would have stayed at any of those schools. The opportunities are endless and the experiences are priceless. Where ever my son chooses to go to school, he is going to have an unbelievable experience. Of course he doesn’t see being able to go to these type of schools as any big deal. As George Bernard Shaw so aptly put it, "Youth is wasted on the young."