Convocation 2011: Your thoughts?

<p>*I usually find these kinds of events uninteresting, but this Convocation was something different. I'd seen our Chancellor Mary Anne Fox in a YouTube video in the past, where she was much more monotonous and sleep-inducing. Not tonight.</p>

<p>*The Student President/introductions' announcer on stage was kind of embarrassing to me; as soon as she began I began thinking "wow this is going to be lame, there goes all my already-deficient UCSD Triton pride (and I say this with all due respect if she ends up reading this, she may be and probably is a great person). </p>

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<li>The last speaker who flew in from Indiana (Former Congressman & Indian Ambassador from Indiana -- ha how ironic is that! -- and serendipitously a UCSD alum) was spectacular. Everything he said and how he said it, he really captured the crowd. In fact I thought he could have been shown more appreciation by the students. I wasn't rolling my eyes at all, he really got me. Wow @ his story, the examples he provided of famous people failing (I didn't know that about JK Rowling/Walt Disney!) And then how he told the tale of the September 11th Flight 93 heroes and heroines, with such powerful sincerity and plaintiveness. When he was finished, many of the students seated in the back aisles rushed frantically to the dinner tables. This offended me -- I mean, after being celebrated by the Chancellors and Faculty and welcomed to their new University, they couldn't have at least some respect/show maturity? (Would this same ocurrence happen at other schools? You tell me.)</li>
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<p>*Food was eh, but what can you expect when the order is for ~7,000 people and funded with a crippled budget.</p>

<p>*Meeting the professors afterward: Interesting and appreciated, if only I could ask them any interesting questions.</p>

<p>I absolutely agree with almost everything you said. I thought the speakers were fantastic. And I was definitely APPALLED by the attitude of the crowd. I was sitting towards the back and everybody was talking really loud about random crap the entire thing. I could barely hear the speakers at points. It was very very childish and the fact that everybody rushed off to dinner early was also very childish and very unprofessional all around. I’m sure the crappy food and the $5 they were going to save at Target that night was WAY MORE IMPORTANT then the life stories of these amazing speakers. Hopefully these students grow up fast because I think UCSD is an amazing university with amazing opportunities and people are just acting “2 kewl 4 skewl” at this point. Whatever though. It happens.</p>

<p>I was sitting in the front, right behind the professors so I didn’t see or notice what was happening in the back. Besides freezing my butt off because I didn’t have a jacket I thought it was nice. I agree that the ex congressman speech was very well done, I know I definitely took something from it.</p>