The visit to Virginia Tech today went quite nicely. Blacksburg seems like a pleasant town. Much of it is very rural, which surprised me. I’d worried that I would need to live some miles out of town in order to have a nice house in the country, but it turns out that I can do that right in the town. Amber, Jill (my sister, a VT student) and I spotted a couple of studio apartments right downtown on or near Main Street that are for rent. I’ll call about those tomorrow — those would be fine, too. I am, I think it’s reasonable to say, pretty picky about where I’ll live, but I feel much better about the area now.
I also visited with the political science department, spending about a half hour with Professor Charles Walcott. Up until today, I really knew nothing about the political science department, so I wasn’t sure that I wanted to commit to it as my major. I feel quite a bit better now. It’s a very small department, with just a dozen professors, but they sound like an varied, interesting, and knowledgable bunch. There are a few hundred political science majors at Tech, which is more than I thought, but still quite few. I’ll be a (relatively) big fish in a small pond. I know that’s a good thing at college, but it’s plain to me that I need to spend some time as a small fish in a big pond at some point. I suppose that I can put myself into a bigger pond, if I want to — Tech looks quite favorably upon independent study, rather than classroom work, which will suit me very well.
Anyhow, lots more visits ahead, but things look good.