West Point

Consider this your advanced warning, but this post has a LOT of pictures! (I did try to help matters by resizing them all to smaller resolution so hopefully the post won't take forever to load, but if you want to see more of the details that are lost on the web, stop in my office next week when we are back at school and I will be more than happy to show them to you.)

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

It is an absolutely GORGEOUS campus and it was a wonderful experience. I am so thankful that I had the chance to visit in person as no pictures can do it justice - including my own. (Not that this is going to stop me from showing you lots of pictures.) If in the future you are ever considering attending the USMA, I strongly encourage you to visit the campus. It is worth it!

For me, the best part of the experience was the interaction I had with the people on campus. This started with Major Will Freds, an Admissions Department Regional Commander for the Great Lakes Region. (I may have messed up his title, but he was very impressive.) Major Freds is also a West Point graduate and has served in a variety of different areas including Kentucky, Germany, and Iraq before returning to West Point in his current admissions department role.

This is a picture of me with Major Freds standing on the balcony of their brand new library overlooking part of campus.

One of the things that I really appreciated from my visit at West Point was the fact that the new "plebe's" or first year cadets are all assigned to an officer to help them with their transition into life at the USMA. The way that I learned about this transition program was as we walked through campus, Major Freds was greeting a variety of different cadets and to several of them he talked about having them up to his house for Easter this weekend.

In keeping with the people I met on campus theme, I also had a chance to briefly visit with Taylor Castelli, a 2007 WKHS Graduate and current West Point Cadet.

The picture on the left is Taylor standing in the Mess Hall. The picture on the right is (obviously) me with Taylor and we are standing in front of their brand new library.

The library is very impressive and was just opened this school year. Below is a picture on one of the floors of the library which shows a back area of books and the front study areas.

Looking out from the library there were some incredible views. The picture above shows a variety of different points of interest. The main large green field is their parade field. This is where the cadets line up and do their parades and the stands that you see would be packed for this type of an event. Then beyond the fields in the background you can see the Hudson River. I learned yesterday that the way the river makes an "S" like curve around the campus is a primary reason why George Washington picked this as the area to build West Point. And, if you look close, you will be able to notice the people on the far right side of the picture - that is part of the USMA Varsity Baseball team - who were preparing for their game. All cadets at West Point are required to participate in athletics on some level - some will play a varsity (Division 1) sport and others will participate in more intramural like levels. In fact, the time that I was able to see Taylor was in between his classes and before his sport. (Taylor told me ahead of time that it was before his wrestling practice, which I found was his way of either not wanting me to worry about him or his best way to describe it without me asking a million questions, but the reality was that he was participating in "Grappling" which is really a more hand to hand combat sport.)

The picture below shows one of the main classroom buildings on campus, but what is deceiving about this picture is that the building is actually 4 stories tall, but it drops down toward the river so you enter on the top floor of the building. And, as you can see, parking is a challenge on their campus (just like every school in the country) and so they use the rooftop of this building for additional parking.)

These next few pictures are inside the classroom building pictured above. The cadets in the halls and then, at the start of class, everyone has disappeared into their classrooms and all that remains in the halls are their coats hanging neatly on the hooks and their bookbags placed on the floor outside of their classroom.

This next picture shows the actual size of the classes at West Point - an average of 17 students! It was definitely a small class setting and it was also interesting to learn that the cadets (and I keep wanting to type "students" or "kids" as I am writing this, but they have earned the title cadets so I am trying to call them by their appropriate title) are given everything that they will need... this includes their uniforms, bedding, computer, etc. And, I also learned that everything has it's place and is supposed to be in a particular area within their room.

The teachers are a combination of civilian professors or military officers. The cadets in this class were taking a quiz and their professor was walking around in the hallway instead of being in the classroom with the kids because of the Honor Code that all the cadets are required to follow and is prominently placed in the middle of campus (as seen below).
The main walkway areas on campus give you a feel for the beauty of West Point...

This is one of several of the logos which are in the ground through the middle of the walkway areas. The buildings are all stone as you can see...

And the cadet chapel (right side above and pictures below) was stunning...

(Picture on left is stained glass in chapel. Picture on right is view from cadet chapel looking back down over part of West Point campus.)

The pictures below show some of the barracks (also known to the rest of us as dorms) where the cadets live.

The cadets are all required to eat breakfast and lunch in the Mess Hall and Thursday night dinners. Other nights they have options on when or where they can eat. The Mess Hall looks like something straight out of the Harry Potter movies. It was very impressive. The cadets are required to be in a particular uniform when eating in the mess hall which is part of why they will elect to eat somewhere else for dinner at times.

(Left is entrance to mess hall and below is the main picture into the mess hall followed by a look back at the mess hall with the stained glass window.)

And finally, my "Oh the Places You'll Go Picture" - since yes, I ask you to take a picture somewhere of you on every campus that you visit, here is a picture of me in front of the Admissions Office. :-) And, it was cold here yesterday, so it is no wonder that the USMA uniforms are made of wool! :-) Hope your break is adventerous and informative as my trip to the USMA was and I am hoping for improved weather for the rest of my trip... :-)