Kat Malone, CAM

It's a Tuesday night. You're bored and it's Blacksburg. Where do you go?

TOTS of course! (Top of the Staris, but no one calls it that- dead giveaway that you're not from the area) Around here, Tuesdays are known as TOTS Tuesdays. Karaoke night is a great night to go watch people make idiots of themselves trying to remember all the steps to NSync's Bye Bye Bye or something random like that. And you can't leave without having a rail. Trust me, one is all you need.

You might be thinking -ok, TOTS is obviously a bar, that means they have crummy food right? Wrong! Their food is actually pretty darn good. My personal favorite is their pulled pork bbq. Yum!

They have both outdoor and indoor seating up on the deck and down in the patio. It's usually full when it's warm out, so get there early!

I've been talking to my mom lately about student housing, particularly since I went to the Student Housing Conference in Vegas and visited my CAM project property this semester. I'm pretty sure she had in mind my apartment when I kept takling about student housing. Needless to say it was as typical as it could get. It seems like every other large school, except us, has such cool housing as what I saw up in Cincinnati.

We're using The Village at Stetson Square (located by the University of Cincinnati) as our project property. Buckingham Property Management does a lot with the RPM program at Tech through Alex Jackiw. We met up with her at the conference in Vegas and got to meet quite a few people form her company, one of them being the property manager of Stetson Square. When we heard he is a fellow Hokie and RPM graduate, we asked if we could use his property for our project. A couple weekends ago three of us took a trip up there to check it all out.

Our first question was- Why isn't there anything like this at Tech?? With amenities like its own pub, massive pool/Jacuzzi, exceptional theater, wicked nice fitness center, internet cafe, propery wide wireless internet, it was like stepping into a resort. If the amenities were cool, the floor plans were fabulous. There's at least a good 20 to choose from. Seriously. If something like that came around here they couldn't hire enough leasing agents to handle the mass of students wanting to live there.

When I was showing mom these pictures she asked why I wasn't living in something like that. I told her when I say I want to work in student housing, this is what I mean.

Burruss Hall is named after our 8th school president- Julian Burruss. He was the first alumni to become president and his claim to fame is convincing the board of visitors to allow white women to attend the college.

Much of the money to build this came from the New Deal. Several other buildings were finished around this time including Eggleston (now dorms and offices), Owens (built to replace the aging mess hall, now an a la carte food court) and Squires (now includes classrooms, diversity offices, SGA, Breakzone- bowling and pool, Au Bon Pain, Sbarro, two ballrooms... known as the hang out place on campus) to name a few. The main part of Burruss was finished in 1936. By the 70s both the east and west wing had been completed. there is a 3000 person aditorium on the lower level. The rest of the building is mainly offices (including the President Steger's office) and some classrooms (mainly for architecture). Anytime someone visits the college with their kids, they start off with an info session in Burruss Auditorium. I'd have to say even before Lane Stadium, this one building is what our campus is identified by. That's clearly shown by the placement of the April 16 Memorial right in front of Burruss.

I remember my first week of classes I had to go to the horrid pits of hell- otherwise known as the Math Emporium. Buses run from Burruss straight to the empo. One of the girls on my hall told me to just wait in front of Burruss and the right bus would come. I got there half an hour early just to make sure I wouldn't miss it, I was so nervous!

At different times throughout the day Burruss plays music from its tower. My roommate and I sophomore year would always make jokes about it walking across the drillfield to our 8am. I've never been able to figure out exactly what it is, but I think it has something to do with the cadets.

Torgersen Hall and Bridge were named after recent President Paul Torgersen. Both the hall and bridge were built in 2000 to accomdate the growing number of students and add a high tech space for students to study. Administrators were skeptical at first of the bridge going over Alumni Mall because it would block the view of War Memorial and the drillfield from Main Street (War Memorial is directly behind me, Main Street is the street that houses the white buildings with red/green awnings). Esocoff and Associates did a fabulous job of making it blend right in with the rest of the campus, using Hokie Stone to blend it in. Along the arch reads Virginia Polytechnic Institue and StateUniversity (see why we call it Virginia Tech now?). On this side of the bridge, on either end reads 1872 and 2000- above our name is our motto Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).

The bridge is one of my favorite places to study. Inside is filled with plush chairs and comfy desks to study either individually or with a group. There are a mixture of both PCs and Macs to use if you don't want to bring your computer. The ceiling is an arched wooden ceiling- it's really pretty. I wanted to take a picture to post, but there were too many student studying the day I went in. It's never empty, that's for sure! Our software distribution office is also located right outside the bridge- you can access it from either Torgersen Hall or Newman Library. It's a good class if it's located in "Torg", no matter what the class is. It has won the AIA DC Chapter Award of Merit, the Interior Design Award, and the APA's Award for Design Excellence.

Your kid is a junior in high school. This summer you'll be college shopping if you haven't already started. You know nothing about Virginia Tech but it should be on your list. Why?

We've got history. We were founded in Blacksburg, VA as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, a land-grant military school, in 1872. Aside from Texas A&M, we're the only other non-military school in the country that has all four branches of the military still represented. When we received accredidation in 1923, we droppped the four year Corps of Cadets requirement to two years. Today it is no longer a requirement, but it is still a big part of Virginia Tech. Over the years we had the name change to Virginia Polytechnic Insitute, then added "and State University", and it's now known as Virginia Tech or VT. (Our official name is Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) Women were admitted in the 1920's and in 1973 we were the first school to allow women to join the Corps of Cadets program.

We have diversity. Currently we have about 27,000 undergraduate students (with a 16:1 student-faculty ratio). We have about 7% Asian population, 7.4% Indian population, and about 4.3% African-American population. We have students from all over the country and the wold- PA, NJ, MA, CT, FA, AL, TN, NC, SC, GA, and OH are some of our most represented states and Austrailia, China, Korea, India, Nepal, and the Carribeans are just a few of the respresented countries. We're pretty evenly split gender wise.

We've got options. With a little over 70 majors in 9 different colleges, chances are we have what your son or daugher is looking for. From Mechnical and Chemical Engineering, to Finance and Marketing, to Food Science & Technology and Biological Systems Engineering, to Residential Property Management and Urban Affairs & Planning... I would probably run out of space on my blog listing everything that we have. Our advisors here are awesome- if you're in something you don't like they'll do whatever it takes to help you find what's right for you.

We're reasonably priced. Total yearly cost living off campus is around $16,300. Total yearly cost living on campus is around $21,700. Apartments in the area range from $700 for a one bedroom to about $1500 for a 4 bedroom.

We're centrally located. A 12 hour drive can have you in Boston, Orlando, St Louis or New Orleans (I've made the Orlando and Boston drives myself). Two hour drive has you at Greensboro or Charlotte airports. There's a smaller airport in Roanoke, Va about 30 minutes away, but most students fly out of the larger NC airports.

We're a sports school. We're known for our awesome football team and our basketball team is really coming into its own these past few years. We have everything from soccer (our women's soccer team is really good), to lacrosse, to volleyball in our ACC division. We also have numerous club sports for those not wanting to be as competitive.

We've got awesome Greek life! We're have a pretty diverse Greek community: 13 NPC sororities, 36 IFC fraternities, at least 20 different co-ed fraternities ranging from professional to academic to service. We also have 8 NPHC (African-American) fraternities and sororities. As part of a sorority myself, I feel Greek life is so important to a college experience- not only do you meet some really awesome people, you make great contacts, your gpa goes up (Greeks on our campus always have higher gpa rankings than non-Greek students), and you get a chance to be really involved on your campus. The average Greek student has a leadership position within their organization, is involved in at least two other organizations, does more community service than the average student and has better job offers leaving college.

We have every type of student group you could ever imagine. Just a few of the organizations I've been involved in: Baptist College Ministries, Residential Property Management Club, New Life Christian Fellowship, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, College Republicans, Pistol and Rifle Club. We have over 600 registered student organizations- everything from academic, sports, music, gaming.... you name it we have a group for it. It's easy to get involved in this campus!

We're number 3 in the country for dining. People never consider on-campus food in their college shopping but it's so important. I work in dining services and I can say our food really is good. We were number 1, but two smaller private colleges beat us. We like to think that doesn't count here, haha. We're still the number 1 public school and that says something. There is nothing you can't eat here- we have EVERYTHING. And we do speical dinners throught the year- one around each major holiday of course, but also things like ice cream sundae nights, Pirate Night, Mardi-Gras, Southern Classics Night, Favorites Night (everyone votes throught the week for what they like)... a lot of others that I'm forgetting.

So. When you're out college shopping, make a trip down to VT. If you come anytime between October and March bring warm clothes- we're in the mountains so it's usually cold and there's some type of wind advisory. It's a great place to live and go to school. I've heard it time and again, "Tech was just on my list, didn't really know anything about it, but as soon as I visited I fell in love." If you visit anytime before May, give me a call. I'd be happy to give you a tour around the place.