Chapter Fourteen, The Mother Son College Odyssey

Today, we went to two schools that are very different than the ones we’ve seen so far. Northeastern is located right in Boston. It’s a huge school that focuses on learning by doing. Classroom time is balanced by work in the real world.

After saying good-bye and bidding a fond thank you to Mindy and Andy, Eli and I made our way through thick Boston traffic to Northeastern, where we had definitive proof that GPS systems can fail. Gladys (that’s what we call her) guided us to the Northeastern admissions office by instructing us to turn on to one tiny alleyway after another, until I unwittingly found myself on a sidewalk parked in front of the admissions office with stanchions in from of me, students walking all around the car, pointing and gesturing at us, a clear indication that we were in the wrong place. I dropped Eli off and patiently waited until it was safe to turn around without killing anyone. I retraced my steps, driving slowly on the sidewalk until I got back to the alley, and then the street, drove up one more block and then found the real, rather than the virtual parking garage.

This little incident was not the worst or most embarrassing driving faux pas I’ve ever committed. There was another time, thirty years ago, when I drove down a flight of steps at UCSC while attending “Women’s Voices,” an annual writing conference there. I was 23 years old and so smitten with one of my fellow writers, Aurora Levins Morales, who was riding shotgun, that I drove my car down a flight of steps on campus. Today’s incident paled in comparison to that one.

Chapter Thirteen, The Mother Son College Odyssey

Eli and I are sitting in a big lecture hall at MIT, waiting for the official information session. We’ve been reading through the orange brochure they hand out: “The Exploration Equation,” and have gleaned all kinds of fun facts about MIT. There’s a glass blowing studio here (something Eli’s wanted to do forever if only he had the time), a world-class nanotechnology lab, one long hallway that connects many of the campus buildings—called the Infinite Corridor. There’s a science fiction library with 90% of the science fiction titles ever published in English. And a corridor in Building 56 spotlights the greatest hacks—or pranks—engineered by MIT students—including disassembling and reassembling a police car on top of a very high dome at the top of a campus building—all in one night.

There are more than 300 clubs on campus, including of course, the origami club, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Club, the Lindy Hop society and the juggling club. Clearly the people at MIT work hard and like to have fun. The words in the brochure stress things like, “irrepressible creativity,” “quirkiness,” “off-beat” and “ingenious.”

The info session is about to start. Eli is sitting beside me folding a piece of silver foil paper. There are a few hundred parents and kids in this room—parents with high hopes, kids with top test scores and a legacy of achievement. I can feel the stress and tension in the room—racheted up more here than at any other place we’ve visited. Its palpable. I can feel it. I’m sure many of the kids in this room have had their whole lives orchestrated to get them into this school. That’s scary.

Andy drove us over this morning and dropped us off, and on the way, he told us that there are no class rankings at MIT—just graduating from MIT is enough.

Chapter Twelve, The Mother Son College Odyssey

8:30 AM: Eli has now been sleeping for more than 12 hours. Remarkable! I’ve been up for an hour, editing the manuscript I brought with me. I, too, have fallen behind in my homework. Since I got off the airplane, I’ve barely looked at any of the work I hoped to do here.

Today, Eli has a date to meet Thomas Lipoma, an MIT junior from Santa Cruz. We were given Thomas’s contact info by Eli’s college counselor in Santa Cruz, and Thomas has generously offered to meet Eli at 1:00 on Easter Sunday.

Eli has wanted to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since he was 13 when we attended an international origami conference in New York City. Another of the world’s foremost folders, Erik Demaine, is a brilliant, young math professor at MIT. Around him, there is a cluster of top folders affiliated with the institution—students, grad students and professors. They were the group of young men signing up to learn to make--or to teach--all the super complex models at the New York conference. Eli sat side by side with them, folding his heart out and he’s dreamed of going to MIT ever since.

It will be interesting to see if Eli's interest holds when he actually visits the place. MIT is a completely urban institution—right in the center of Cambridge. It doesn’t have a lovely campus like Swarthmore, it isn’t a small liberal arts institution; it’s a world-renowned school of technology. It’s big. It’s intense. It’s demanding. And it’s very, very hard to get in to. Even if he falls in love with it after our two days visiting, applying to MIT is like taking a lottery number—there’s only a slim chance that he’ll get in. A crap shoot.

Chapter Eleven, The Mother Son College Odyssey

Eli hit a wall last night. It was after midnight. He’d been sitting in the bathroom, talking with his girlfriend, Ashley, on the phone for an hour or so. I’d been catching up on episodes of Grey’s Anatomy on Hulu on my laptop. Our hosts had long since gone to bed. I’d been nagging Eli to get off the phone. I could hear his side of the conversation through the walls and it was keeping me awake. I wanted to go to sleep, but I also wanted the two of them to be able to talk—this will be the longest the two of them have been separated since they started dating, a year and a half ago.

When Eli finally came to bed, he was in a panic over the homework that was piling up during this trip. “I’ll never get into all these colleges we’re visiting if I flunk all my APs. Do you realize my APs are three weeks after I get home from this trip?”

In addition to his spring break, Eli will have missed a whole week of school by the time we get home next Friday. Missing a week of school as a junior with AP Bio, AP Physics, Calc BC, AP US History and English on your plate means missing a lot. Until last night, the undone work was out of sight, out of mind. But Ashley, who shares A-Push (AP US History) with him, reminded him of everything they’ve been covering in his absence. Reminded him of all the the fun his friends are having at home that he is missing. Reminded him that he is here touring colleges, instead of enjoying spring break at home.