Personal Narrative: Millikan Reflecting Pool

When I peered over the edge of the Millikan Reflecting Pool, I had expected to be greeted with the image of a teenage girl. Instead, I found myself staring into a layer of stones and cement. A sign stood in place of the water, explaining that in light of the current drought, the pool had been drained so that Caltech could cut back on its water usage. Having exhausted every picture of Caltech I could get online and in viewbooks, I had been excited to see the beautiful Millikan Library and reflecting pool in person, but I was even more excited when I saw the dried-up pool—as an aspiring green engineer, I loved that Caltech was willing to sacrifice some of the campus's beauty to contribute to the statewide effort to conserve water. I knew then