At long last I have arrived at Mines. I had been waiting for this day since my summer vacation had begun. I was already very excited about getting to come to Mines, but didn't think I would fall in love with it as much as I had from my first few days. Just the drive up to Golden was awe inspiring, you see, I am from Dallas so I have never seen such splendors of nature as offered by Colorado. Everyone here had been incredibly kind and helpful which made it easier to be such a long way from home, made even better by the number of people I had met from all over the country and world.

      I got to meet many of these people during Orientation. I thought it would be three days of dull forced meeting people, but it was tremendous amounts of fun (and food). Regardless of what the event was you could just walk up to someone, introduce yourself and make a new friend. I was especially pessimistic about hiking up Mount Zion, being someone who wasn't very active back home which was around sea level, but I was just as wrong about the hike as I was about the rest of orientation. It was amazing to witness all the natural beauty of Colorado while singing the school song and being doused with water guns and later whitewash!

   Of course, I can't forget the reason I'm here: academics. I expected things to be pretty brutal considering the school's reputation as a high ranking engineering school, but the classes aren't that awful. Yes, they are challenging and you will struggle, but with some good friends in those classes to study with it isn't too bad. The struggles aren't even that bad considering how interesting the subjects offered are and the reward of amazing job prospects, something Mines is very well known for.

     I can say with full certainty that I am going to love the next few years here.