Texas Anonymous

As the spectacles of this new city whizzed by the grimy windows, we came to a gradual stop at an intersection. I looked out into a stunningly vast field of greenery, speckled with pink-bricked Byzantine buildings and majestic archways. After imploring my cousins, whom I was in Houston to visit, I learned that this peaceful, aesthetic splendor, encapsulated by a thriving city, was Rice University. Soon after, I eagerly exhausted Google with questions about Rice, and found that its visual grandeur was rivaled only by its academic versatility.

Rice’s curriculum understands that the world’s problems aren’t packaged neatly into categories, but instead require a breadth of multidisciplinary thought. Intrigued by the intersection of molecular biology and computational analysis, I could take advanced classes like ‘Computation with Biological Data’ and ‘Cancer Biology,’ which integrate molecular biology with mathematical analysis. Studying at all six of Weiss’s academic departments means that I can strive to become an apt problem-solver, not just an expert in an isolated field.

I was also taken by Rice’s focus on undergraduate research. I spent my past summer conducting research on mutation patterns in mitochondrial DNA, and learned the...