This vacation, Ryan McStudent ‘14, made popular by the generic BlueCard photo, took an alternative to the traditional vacation options.
Without a ski condo in Aspen to elope to, without any sort of island bungalow, and an extreme distaste for not overdoing things, McStudent and his family took a vote, deciding to visit every single institution of higher education in the nation in the condensed two week period formerly known as Spring BreakTM. McStudent actually lost his family’s popular vote 2-1, but his, due to the electoral college, counts as two of his parents votes.
The family began with a traditional Andover look at the mid-Atlantic and southern schools, and, after doing all of those in one day, they decided to go deep and visit every college in the nation.
McStudent elaborated, “My parents wouldn’t stop complaining about how all of their friends’ children aren’t going to college and are going to prison instead. They claimed that these families don’t have to tour prisons, so all the other parents got to go to Daytona Beach for the vacation.”
McStudent soon provided a solution: segwaying to every Florida school. McStudent was forced to use alternative gyroscope-operated transportation because he isn’t licensed to operate heavy machinery, or the white Chevrolet Volt that they rented. McStudent was fortunate enough to get to Florida Gulf Coast University right as they made it to the Sweet Sixteen, and he had just left Lousiville when its players went for broke.
McStudent, an ardent environmentalist who loves granola and would never be caught dead without his teevas, justified his wanton driving: “We drove a Volt, which doesn’t use gas. So it’s totally ok. We actually went off the grid during this trip, besides charging our car. We drove all night to make up time and to get from Four C’s By the Sea [Cape Cod Communitiy College] to UCLA in one night. We also never stopped anywhere to shower, but Stanford encouraged us to play in their abundant fountains, which was nice.”
McStudent thought about visiting the British Universities as well, but he could not figure out how to make up for the time he would lose to airline delays and jetlag. Not even “visiting” the online universities could make up for this time. McStudent actually took advantage of each school that had free wifi by “visiting” the online universities on his Barnes and Noble Nook during the tours.
Surprisingly enough, McStudent didn’t just visit every learning establishment, but he also saw every single one of his classmates on at least one tour. “Seeing every student wasn’t actually that tough. I ran into 57 of them at Yale and another 68 at Wesleyan,” McStudent gloated about his myriad of accomplishments.
