The One where I reflect upon Abbey Road

I am now back in France and I am all packed and ready to go. Indeed, I am leaving tomorrow to go to Cannes, French Riviera. I am extremely enthusiastic about my pre-college program at Abbey Road and I strongly recommend it. I will address the following points : Abbey Road staff, academics, activities, living environment and weekend trips.

Let’s start with the Abbey Road staff. In the morning, I had SAT prep with Matt. He was very comprehensive and always made sure that everybody understood the material. In the afternoon, I had Essay Writing with Danae. I absolutely loved that course. It taught me writing skills and Danae is an amazing teacher who really inspired me. Freddie was the other Essay Writing instructor and he was a great RA as well. Damon was the Coordinator and Ellen, the dean of admissions, was incredibly sweet and nice. Overall, I am very satisfied with the staff, everyone was great!

The main goal of this pre-college program is to help us get a feel of the college admission process. We went on field trips to visit colleges in or around Boston. I loved visiting MIT-more on that on my special post about it! Academically speaking, we were all challenged and learned a lot from this experience.

I loved the planned outings such as the duck tour, the baseball game, the college visits… But, I also loved the unplanned activities like shopping with friends, learning how to play poker (yes I did!) or simply hanging out at Dunkin’ Donuts across the street!

The living environment was very similar to a college’s. We got to eat at Emerson’s dining hall and our common room had a great view of the Boston Common. I loved living in the Theater District especially. Newbury street is very close and there are many stores there. Faneuil Hall is very pretty in the evening. =)

Well, well, well, I think I said it all! Abbey Road Pre-college Program was a fabulous experience and I absolutely loved being a part of such a strong community. I couldn’t recommend it more. Thank you for reading my blog; it has been a pleasure on my part. =)

The One with the Last Night

It was our last night here, which is pretty sad =( Fortunately, our last evening was awesome. We had our farewell dinner at Fire and Ice. It's a restaurant where you choose what you want to eat and they grill it in frotn of you! I had a cheesecake for dessert and it was so good... Yummy!
Then, we headed to the cinema to watch The Dark Knight Rises on Opening Night. It was a great movie, especially Anne Hathaway's performance.
After drinking a high dose of caffeine, I started packing. It was sad and emotional. We almost all left on Saturday. Every time someone left, we went in the hall to hug them goodbye. Parting was difficult. I boarded the plane and took off! Direction = France. I am now back in Lyon.

Such a great adventure with Abbey Road =)

The One with the Aero Astro Department

This morning, I had the incredible opportunity to tour the Aero Astro department at MIT. It was very fascinating, I'd love to study or work there. There are so many research opportunities in this field, no need to say I was very interested. And Ellen said I was beaming, well I guess I was =)

The One where I toured MIT

MIT is such a beautiful campus, the architecture is nice too. Today, I went back to Cambridge to hang out at MIT and walk around the campus. It took pictures of the Charles River and there were MIT boats on the river too =) I love sailing so I watched for a while before going to Kilian Court. It was so impressive. Back at the dorm, we had a surprise party! I don't think anyone expected it. Anyhow, it was very fun, we all had ice cream with root beer. Last evening before our farewell dinner.

The one with the baseball game

Tonight, we went to a baseball game at Fenway Park, it was awesome! :) All of the students thought it was an incredible experience, especially the students from overseas, it was a true american experience for sure! Even though it was raining in the afternoon, we could go to the game : Red Sox won! Yeah, Let's Go!

The one with MIT

Today was probably the best day of the session so far : we went to an information session at MIT! It was absolutely great and I loved the info session. Seeing MIT for the first time when I knew so much about it already felt like completeling the puzzle of a long journey that brought me there.
Comparing to other colleges, I felt like the students there are actually passionate about what they do. I admire this passion and this sense of community at MIT. We went to the Coop store afterwards where I bought a beaver (nature's engineer) and MIT shirts. Yay! :-)

We had some free time around Harvard Square before heading back the dorm. We had a nightly outing at a fast food shop and I am now all set to go to sleep after this day that has been the greatest so far.

The One where we shop

I am so tired after this gorgeous day in Boston. After shopping in the morning, we all had lunch at JJ Foley's, where I had a tomato and mozarella sandwich. In the afternoon, I did my homework before going to Abercrombie, Forever 21 and whatnot. We just came back from a delicious dinner at an italian restaurant. I'm writing an essay for my elective class tonight and afterwards we have another leadership activity called Cross the line! Wish me luck :)

The One with the Duck Tour

Tonight concludes a beautiful saturday in Boston. Unfortunately, I woke up rather early but at least I had time for a good breakfast : pancakes with maple syrup! We had an elective class in the morning followed by a picnic in the 7th floor common room. We all left to go to the duck tour : it was rather impressive. We had a lot of free time to shop on Newbury Street, which was pretty awesome :) We ended up at the Boston Common. What a beautiful day in Boston! All I can say is that I really like the atmosphere and I could definetely live here!

The One with a great weekend coming up

We just finished the first week of class, 2 SAT practice tests, elective courses about essay writing. It’s still very cool. On Thursday evening, we went to Newbury Street to eat and shop. I bought an MIT Sweatshirt J Tomorrow’s Saturday and we have a duck tour planned : it should be fun!

The One with The Museum of Fine Arts

Today is Wednesday and I just got back from our elective class. Let me go back to where we left off.  Yesterday was another awesome day at Emerson College! We had our usual routine: breakfast-SAT practice-Lunch-Elective-Dinner. After lunch, we played cards and had a great time in the dorms. After dinner, we all went to the North End, the Italian district where we had free time to hang out in coffee and ice cream shops. It was a great place to do our homework. When we got back, we played a leadership game called “High, Medium, Low” where we answered questions of different intensity level. I stayed up with my suitemates listening to music. This evening, I am going to the Museum Of Fine Arts of Boston and I’m really excited because I love art.

The One with a beautiful night in Boston

We had our first SAT Practice Test and I personally thought it was tricky since I am really not used to those kinds of standarized tests...We had lunch at Emerson Dining Hall. There's a variety of choices so you can definetely find something good to eat. There's even ice cream! I didn't try it today but I'll make sure to have one tomorrow... We then had a general presentation by our two counselors about college application. We were then parted into two groups. I am in Danae's class and I'm really excited about this elective! We're going to learn so much about the college application process and we're going to visit MIT! :) I honestly can't wait... We had dinner at Emerson before departing for the Freedom Trail. We had a very funny but yet comlpete tour of the historical landmarks of Boston. We then hung out at Quincy Market, it was gorgeous! We went shopping at Urban Outfitters before heading back to the dorm to relax.

The one with the very first day

I am all unpacked and settled in my dorm at Emerson College (Piano Row). After a six-hour flight all the way from France, Damon and Freddie (our two awesome counselors) picked me up from the airport. I checked in and met Danae (another awesome counselor!). After meeting everyone, it was very clear that we come from all over the world, which is very exciting! We had our welcome dinner at PF Chang's and we all ate chinese food. It was so good. We went to bed fairly early because we were exhausted. My roommate is Sonika and she's really cool! (and no, she did not ask me to say that... :)) Seriously though, she's great and everyone in the program seems great although I did not get a chance to talk with everyone yet since there are 21 people in our group. I woke up early because of the jetlag and I'll be heading to breakfast and SAT Diagnostic real soon! Wish us luck :)