Orientation
This past week has been just orientation and a few other meetings. There are 1000 new graduate students, and about 2/3 of them have been attending the functions, which have been surprisingly fun. There are, of course, information sessions, but many of the activities have been mostly social.During one session the administrators showed statistics about the perception MIT students have of themselves. The majority of the students believe that they are below average MIT intelligence but above average on social skills and physical fitness. They also talked about a common syndrome where many students here feel they aren't smart and enough and don't belong. It was reassuring to know that not all MIT students think they are super smart, and it's funny how many of us really do feel the way the survey suggested.
With all the social activities, I have been very busy without any work to do because of all the activities - pub crawls, karaoke, BBQs, wine and cheese socials, a boat tours, an island tour, etc. There isn't too much free alcohol, but every once in a while they bust out the free wine. mmmm... There are a few of us aerospace girls that have found fun hanging out with the Mechanical Engineers (they have had a lot more social activities than Aero/Astro this week), and we are now proud semi-members of the Graduate Association of Mechanical Engineers (GAME). And yes, they do joke about how they have GAME.
Many of the people I've met here are a lot like the people at Georgia Tech - fun to hang with, a little nerdy, and hard workers. There are a lot more people that we haven't hung out with that are probably the stereotypical MIT student, but it's been a great week with the friends we've been making.
I have some pictures from the trips we've been taking, but now I'm off to watch someone drop a large block of sodium in a fountain because apparently it makes fireworks. Oh, and one more difference between GT and MIT. While at GT we knew we were nerds, we didn't share the fact too often. Here, it's openly talked about and appreciated. :-)
posted by Biff @ 8:36 PM
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