My Ivy League experience

This past weekend, I took part in Dartmouth College, School of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, PhD recruitment/interview weekend. It was a pretty good experience, but let me run the entire weekend for you.

Thursday: Lunch at Skyline chili with Dad, then to the airport. Flew out of Indy (about 1 hour late) to Chicago O'Hare (unload to reload time was about 15 min. for me). Landed in Manchester NH. Caught a Greyhound bus for 1.5 hour drive to Hanover, NH (home of Dartmouth Colloge). Checked in, watched some TV, and went to sleep.

Friday: Breakfast at the Hanover Inn with the other recruits and some current students. Then off to the Dartmouth Medical Center (a huge hospital). Given an overview of the department and some introductions to faculty. A tour of the facilities, some nice new labs in the open design (similar to the lab space at UC). Then a bus ride back to the School of Medicine building on campus. A bit of lunch (cold cuts/chips), then some more faculty introductions and a quick tour of the labs in that building (older, more reclusive). Free time for several hours - walked around the town and the bookstore. Still had multiple hours of free time left, so had a cup of coffee (I got hot chocolate) with a couple of the other recruits. Then dinner with the current students (some catered lasagna...it was so-so).

Saturday: Continental breakfast, then interviews with faculty. 2 interviews were very promising and peaked my interest, 1 interview was good, and 1 was a bit odd (the guy was a little crazy). Then a big group went off to a Japanese Hibachi (or something like that...where they cook the food in front of you) restaurant. The food was ok, but really expensive and not someplace I will ever go to again. A quick driving tour of the area (read on for more). The some more free time, I strolled campus and wandered through the bookstore again, then took a nap.

Gotta run, someone is stealing this room for a meeting...more later.