2011-10 College Visits with Kara, Alyssa and Annie

We headed down to Des Moines with Kara and 2 of her friends, Alyssa and Annie to visit Drake University.  She has been to about 5 different schools already and is interested in graphic design, marketing and business, although she is not sure exactly what she wants to do.  Her 2 friends joined us on this trip in order to check out Drake and Iowa State, where we were going to stop on Saturday

We toured the campus as part of an official tour and met with a professor in the graphic design area.  When you go on a tour, you have one tour guide per family so it is very easy to ask questions and see specific parts of campus.  This is the only school that we have been to that gives everyone a one on one tour.  After the formalities, we met up at lunch with a friend of the girls from Eagan who graduated last year and is attending Drake.  Michael then took us around to show us a few more areas of campus and the Greek street.  The campus is very pretty and although surrounded by busy streets, there are no streets cutting through the campus, so you don't have any problems going from one side of campus to the other.

After spending time with Micheal, we went downtown to tour the area.  There is a large sculpture garden downtown with many interesting works of art.  After taking some photo's there, we went to eat.  During the orientation, the tour leaders were asked where their favorite places to eat were.  A couple mentioned Zombie Burgers, so we decided to try it out.  It was a good recommendation with a large variety of burgers, all named with a Zombie theme.

Since we were close to the capital building, we drove over there just as the sun was setting.  The area was preparing for Des Moines Walk for the Cure which was occurring on Saturday morning.  The banners and tents were up and the water tables were stocked and ready for the finisher to come in.  Coincidentally, the Dallas area Walk for the Cure had been the weekend before when we were down there.

The Drake Bulldog volleyball team was playing a game that night, we went back to the Knapp Center on campus to watch the game.  They were playing against Evansville, and beat them 3-1.  The crowds weren't too big, but it was a beautiful venue for watching and playing volleyball.

On Saturday, we got up and headed up to Ames to revisit Iowa State.  Kara had been there on a visit last winter, and wanted to check it out again.  We met up with a Rachel, a sophomore from Eagan who then took us on a tour of the design center and showed some of her work along with many others who was on display or in process.  The skill level of these students is amazing.



Since it was homecoming, the campus itself was quiet.  We had driven through the sororities and fraternities to look at some of the homecoming displays before meeting up with Rachel.  There is a lot of work that goes into putting the displays together.  We noticed that everyone was bringing their own beer supply in 6 packs, 12 packs and full cases.  It was still 4 hours to game time, and everyone was starting to get together.

Before we headed out, we made a quick stop for Ray at a large boulder that is on campus that was moved from MN by the glaciers and left about 1 mile from campus.  It has some unique granite bands through the rock.  As we headed out of town after spending a couple of hours on campus, we drove past the staduim and saw were everyone was hanging out in the parking lots and having pregame parties.  There were so may pop-up canopies that it was a sea of yellow and red.  The lot was full of RV's and party busses.  It looked like there were a lot more people in the parking lots than would fit in the stadium, so we figured many may hang out in the parking lots and continue the party while others went to the game.

Kara has a big decision ahead of her, and after seeing a handful of schools, realizes that each is unique and has its own set of advantages.  Good luck to her in making her final decision.