Awe yes, the ides of April hath arrived, and passed. In the Adult world this day is associated taxes. In the college world, April 15^th is the middle of a transitional period in which your focus and workload kicks into high gear as your end of semester projects and studying for final exams loom before you. Such is the reason I didn’t have this blog finished by April 15^th. As a senior in high school, April 15^th represents a period in time when you have only a half month left before you make your final decision on which college to attend and have all of your paperwork submitted.

This decision is far from easy, because in addition to choosing an academic program, you are choosing where you are going to live for the next several years. I looked at going to schools in a variety of ways to narrow it down to my top three. Some of the reasons were even a little silly. For example, I noticed that many of the girls featured in the engineering programs I received were the type of female engineers that don’t do their hair, wear no makeup, and generally don’t care about their physical appearance. Looking at these brochures I thought to myself, “I’m not going to be able to relate to any of these girls.” I weeded out schools I felt would be too uptight and places where I felt I couldn’t be myself.

At this point in my senior year of high school, I had narrowed it down to three colleges: Texas A&M at College Station, Purdue University, and Embry-Riddle.

I did all of the research on these universities and rated them based on their academic programs. Embry-Riddle, of course came in first in that aspect, but there really is so much more involved in choosing the final university. I’m pretty sure a pro-con list was involved.

Most of the people that I went to high school with were going to the big state schools like Texas A&M and it certainly had its advantages. Culturally, the people that went to Texas A&M would have similar viewpoint and backgrounds, and the unique Texas Pride that only Texans understand. I could go to the big football games and eat Texas Barbeque and go to one of the best schools in the country for my major. The school was also only about one and a half hours from my home, so it presented the possibility of going home to see my parents more than Thanksgiving, Christmas and Summer Breaks. Purdue would also have been an excellent choice. It has an outstanding Engineering Program as well as a huge Society of Women Engineers.

For me, what it came down to was where I felt the most comfortable after campus visits. I even visited both Embry-Riddle campuses before I made my final decision. When it came to walking around the huge campuses, I felt kind of lost in the hustle of people. There are some people who like to be in huge classrooms with hundreds of students where they can fade into the background and not participate in the lecture. I, however, want to be able to ask questions of my professor and attend classes where my professor knows who I am. In that respect, Embry-Riddle’s small size and high faculty to student ratio really appealed to me.

In the end, I felt the most at home at Embry-Riddle’s Prescott Campus. I don’t really know how to describe it. Driving into Prescott and seeing the trees and the granite dells and the mountains surrounding the campus instantly began to draw me in.

I’m one of those obnoxious people who likes to be super early to events and my campus tour was no exception. Before the tour began I remember walking around the campus with my dad and feeling like, “This is it. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

In my family, we call this a gut feeling, and when it came to choosing where I went to school, I went with my gut.

Embry-Riddle had such a personal feeling for me. At the end of my campus tour I had a meeting with my Admissions counselor and we talked about the road trip I’d taken out to see the school, some of the activities I was involved in and what I was looking for in my University. About a month later, Embry-Riddle came to Houston for a recruiting/information event. When I walked into the conference room where the meeting was held, my admissions counselor greeted me saying “hi Kerianne,” and then proceeded to ask me how the rest of my trip had gone. Not only did she remember my name, she remembered who I was and details about me. It was the kind of personal feeling I was looking for. If my decision hadn’t been made on the visit, it certainly was at that point.

There are actually psychological studies out there that show that going with your gut feeling can make you happier. It’s kind of like buying a car. Before you go to buy the car you do all of your research and narrow it down to your pick. You do test drives to get the feel and imagine yourself driving the car for years into the future. When it comes down to making the final decision, many people are going to pick the red one, rather than the beige one because despite all the research and practical reasons for getting the car you choose, in the end it comes down to an emotional decision. Often times, making that emotional decision will actually make you happier.

So my best advice when it comes to picking your school is to visit the schools you’re choosing between. Try them out. See if the shoe fits. And in the end, once you’ve made your logical assessment of the choices, and narrowed it down to a few top contenders, pick the one that feels best to you. Coming to Embry-Riddle was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

When we last left our heroine, she was making her way from Grandma’s house to meet up with her friends in Vegas. We now return for part two!

Me and Josh in front of Vegas Sign

I didn’t know if I was going to like Vegas. It’s Sin City, and I kind of saw it as this trashy place where people lose all of their money: Lost Wages, if you will. Now part of that assessment is true, but for the most part I really enjoyed Vegas. I think what I liked the most was the freedom of it. Nobody cared what you did. It was sort of a general “F-it, it’s Vegas” anything goes attitude. The chill atmosphere was a complete departure from the uptight world I normally resided in, so I excitedly joined the party (although, I did so conservatively). It was basically a giant theme park for grownups.

Cigarette Vending Machine

I don’t know if there is a more epic place to spend St. Patrick’s Day than Las Vegas, NV. The entire city is one huge party, with Irish Music blasting from restaurants all down the strip, tons of bad drunken attempts at Irish accents, and lots and lots of green. My friends invited one of the German exchange students to come with us and forgot to tell him about St. Patrick’s Day.

“Dude where’s your green shirt?”

“What green shirt? I don’t have a green shirt.”

“It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Why don’t you bring anything green?”

“What is St. Patrick’s Day?” asked the German.

It never occurred to us that he wouldn’t know about St. Patrick’s day, but when you think about it, it’s an Irish American holiday, so why would he? After a swarm of drunken people engaged in a massive pinching attack, our German friend purchased a green necklace and Dr. Seuss style hat.

Our German friend Markus learns about the Irish American holiday of St. Patrick's Day

Markus, Me and Josh at the America Restaurant in the New York New York Casino

My St. Patrick’s Day shirt was a green shirt with shamrocks and white and pink lettering that read “Blondes have all the luck.” I figured it was perfect for Vegas. “We’ll have to see if it’s a sincere or sarcastic statement during this trip,” I told my friend as they read my shirt.

We stayed at the Tropicana where we got a really good deal because my boyfriend’s aunt works there. My share of the room was only $90 total for three nights during spring break when the rates are really high, which was an Awesome Deal!

This was our hotel on the strip

For meals, we usually looked for awesome deals. On the first night we got crab, steak, or crab and steak specials for $14.99 at the America Restaurant in the New York, New York Casino. Our German friend asked “Yes, could you please give me crabs?” and after a massive fit of giggles, we explained what he had said to him.

The second day we got all you can eat all day buffet tickets in the Excalibur Casino for $29.99, and the third day we got steak and lobster tail specials on Fremont street for $11.99. I consumed so much food during the trip that the after effects are probably worse than the holidays, but it was so worth it!!!

Buffets are such an awesome concept, aren’t they? You can get as much as you want of whatever you want. And I did!

Kerianne's buffet fun!!! See if you can spot all of these foods in the image above: Pizza, Rotisserie Chicken, Barbecue Beans, Macaroni and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Hush puppies, Lemon, Catfish, Cranberry Sauce, Crab Wonton, Black-eyed peas, Steak Fries...I think that's all of them...

What would a trip to Vegas be without gambling? At first I thought I wouldn’t gamble, because I’m a penny pinching college student, and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing money. Then I decided that it was worth the life experience and free drinks, and determined that $50 would be my limit for a loss. It was an entertainment expense.

I couldn’t bring myself to seriously gamble in the slot machines because every time I watched a person sitting in their chair pushing a button repeatedly on the machine in front of them, it reminded me of B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning experiments where he trained his pigeons to peck metal disks in their cages for little food pellets.

I decided that if I were to gamble, it would have to in something that involves a little strategy and thought processes, so I chose blackjack.

My boyfriend and I practiced a little blackjack before the trip so I knew all the rules and basic strategy. I sat down at the first table, a $5 minimum table, exchanged$ 40 for some chips, and started to play. At this point my shirt was proving to be pretty correct, when I walked away a hour and a half later with a $75 profit.

Later that afternoon all of the tables on the strip were pretty much at $10-100 minimums, so we went off the strip to the Silverton Casino and found another table. It was pretty awesome because we filled the table so we knew everyone and we could cheer for each other. I was up about $50 when most of my friends were down. So we kept playing. One of my friends was on their last chip twice before he made a huge comeback. We stopped when we were all in the black again. I finished $15 up bringing my running total to $90. We used our winnings to justify ordering room service for breakfast the next day.

Room Service Breakfast

Me eating room service breakfast

I spent hours during the week playing blackjack. At the end of the trip, I was $30 up and decided that gambling was a ton of fun if you weren’t stupid about it. For me, it meant hours upon hours of entertainment, a payoff in the end, and tons of free drinks at the tables. When drinks are going for about $10 each, free drinks are awesome!

The only drinks I actually bought in Vegas were two giant daiquiris from Fat Tuesday, which ran me about $20.

Source of awesome, huge, cheap, strawberry daiquiris

An appropriately blurry picture of our group and our daiquiris

When you are drinking a decent amount, you have to drink a ton of water to keep from getting dehydrated and to avoid the infamous hangover. Most places are required by law to give you a free cup of water if you ask for it, and when I didn’t have a bottle of water, I occasionally did ask for cups of water. The most memorable account of this was when we went to McDonalds on the strip and I asked for a McCup of water. The lady behind the counter was not at all impressed, but I didn’t take it personally because I realized that I probably wasn’t the only slightly inebriated person to make a smart comment that evening.

Look, water has it's own dispenser and not just one of those tab thingys under the lemonade.

How McDonald's on the strip looks to most of it's patrons....

The giant theme park aspect of Vegas is exceptionally evident in its themed casinos in varying levels of cheesiness. Don’t get me wrong, many of the casinos are very elegant inside, but they are not without their cheesy themes.

New York New York Casino

The last night that we were there we traveled down to Fremont Street, also sometimes called Old Vegas. Now this we expected to be exceptionally cheesy, but it was actually a ton of fun! Freemont Street didn’t share the same kind of stuck up feeling that some of the casinos on the strip had in the evenings. It was pretty happening on a Friday night, with live music in the streets, and most of the people down there were pretty real people. $5 tables were plentiful and so were dinner specials. We had a blast.

Fremont Street

One of the really exciting things for me about Fremont Street was that some of the casinos still had the old coin operated slot machines. I had to throw five dollars in one and play till it was gone, not because I had hopes of winning the jackpot, but because I considered it an investment in keeping the novelty of those machines around for years to come. I did at one point cash out just so I could hear and see all the nickels dropping out into the tray, but I ended up putting them all back in the machine.

Nickel collector on old slot machine

Me at real coin machine

All in all it was an awesome Spring Break! It was fun and relaxing and rejuvenating to a certain extent. It was more fun than I’d had in a long time. Now back to school…