<p>yeah! that's the one :)</p>
<p>Though I can't say mine typifies the prefreshman experience, it's the only one with which I'm intimately familiar. As inevitable of eager high school seniors with something big, bright, and common in their futures, some 2009 EA admits found each other in the alternate universe known as the world wide web. MIT09 was a chatroom on aim kept open 24-hours a day by a program (or rather, an entire species) known as sexynerdbot, and the prefrosh came and went as their schedules commanded. From December to April, we shared our life experiences, our programming expertise, welcomed the wave of RA admits as they rolled in; we counted down the days until our eventual earth-shattering meeting as the class of 2009. All in all, some two or three hundred of the total 1400 admitted students passed through our little online world at one point or other, and of course we who became friends ended up in all the right places during CPW and traveled as an amorphous mass of happy little prefrosh wherever we went. </p>
<p>I was placed in East Campus for CPW (fifth east to be exact), so was pretty extensively involved in all of EC's rush activities. There were technically 3 other prefrosh on my hall but the lounge became the unofficial home of a 4th whose misfortune had landed him in a frat across the river to which he did not wish to return for the necessary bit of nightly shut-eye. My roommate was placed in Senior House and several other friends were stacked on the west side of campus. We, as a cohesive unit, hopping from place to place, had a pretty full view of on campus housing, and, with the exception of a few, found East Campus to be the place of dreams. We went home with one of the more exciting experiences of our lives tucked under our belts and waited for the housing lottery.</p>
<p>Now here is where things got a little <em>tricky</em>. Those of us who'd found a compatible friend or two stapled (metaphorically at this point since the whole process was online) for our temp assignments. East Campus, being one of the most popular first choice dormitories, was nearly impossible to get into via readjustment lottery, so with grave severity, we knew that this was our one shot. We clenched our teeth and prepared for our now or never. Now, the <insert anything=""> assignment method of choice on the MIT campus is the greatest happiness algorithm, which requires you to rank all available choices (dorms in this case) from most happiest to least happiest (1-15), and the assignments for the most part will maximize the number of happy people on campus. Sounds great, right? One loophole of said algorithm is that it groups your top X choices in such a way as to make them almost indistinguishable in preference. Our first choice dorm was so far ahead of any of our other choices that the system would work somewhat to our disadvantage. So we started doing research. </insert></p>
<p>Roomie and I found that our actual second choice dorm, Senior House, for one reason or another, despite its shiny new facilities, was actually one of the least popular dorms on campus whereas our third choice, Random, was the hardest to get into because of its just absolutely tiny size (90 students). With our brows furrowed, we decided that this simply won't do. By the algorithm (which touted a 70% success rate at assigning prefrosh to a top 3 ranked dorm and 90% for top 5) we're almost guaranteed Senior House, when we preferred EC by a mile. Now, what I'm about to describe is a stunt performed by professional housing lottery ninjas and should NOT be tried at home unless you are willing to deal with the (possibly horrifically gruesome) consequences. The Ninjas R Us foundation is stripped of all liability for damages that may result from irresponsible use of what you're about to hear. So we started our word-by-mouth search of the most 'selective' dorms. They were EC, Baker, Simmons (surprisingly enough), and Random. When they're all equally popular, we assumed preference would take precedence, and Senior House would sit safely in the #5 spot. We went, EC, Random, Baker, Simmons, Senior. And figured if anything went wrong, we'd re-adjust ourselves into Senior House which isn't quite so difficult. There were sleepless nights. There were raw nerves. There were bloodshot eyes and forehead veins and stomach ulcers and time that seemed to stand still. </p>
<p>Then there was celebration.</p>
<p>Oh horrors, you mean there might be gaming of the system occurring during the housing lottery?! I am speechless. Shocked, I say.</p>
<p>(I am also the parent of said "4th" mentioned above, I do believe... ;) )</p>
<p>Keep 'em coming, pebbles, you're a good read.</p>
<p>At CPW this year, as I was roomed in a galaxy far, far away, (Next House) I contemplated spending the night in the lounge in Tetazoo one night, but as I had a somewhat morning flight home the next day I just decided that sleep wasn't worth missing what little time I had left to spend in East Campus.</p>
<p>tee hee hee</p>
<p>One frustrating thing about college is that professors don't concern themselves with what may or may not be going on in other classes at the same time, and can't be made to. Thus, some freshmen with the most unfortunate combination of classes have upcoming four tests in two days. Not partaking in economics, I myself only have three*. All I ask is that you remember us when you are enjoying the post-war peace so dearly fought for and dearly won. We'll lose a lot of good men out there.</p>
<ul>
<li>8.022 6.001 18.03</li>
</ul>
<p>Rule Number 47: No excuses. Play like a champion.</p>
<p>...and the sun rises.</p>
<p>You're going to college, not on vacation. Just because you've left that hellhole of a high school behind does not mean you get to do the same with the reality that is life. It's not relaxing, the weather is not always beautiful, the people aren't always friendly, sometimes your labs won't work, sometimes you'll pull all-nighters just to fail anyways, you will run into things that you just aren't good at and they just won't get out of your way, you will be disappointed, you will have bad days, you will be angry, you might cry.</p>
<p>All this at your dream college? Yeah. Because life goes on there. It just happens. You can't stop it.</p>
<p>So then what does it matter where we go, right? Since we're going to be miserable at some point or other anyways? Well, since the downs are all inevitable and pretty much evenly distributed throughout, it's the ups that make a difference. This is where the whole 'go with your gut' thing comes into play. If you're really comfortable at a school and you really loved it at first impression, pick it. Because when the down times roll around as they inevitably do, the 6:1 student-faculty ratio will not help to cheer you up, nor will the research opportunities, the number of times your school has won the Putnam, its truckload of nobel laureates, its international reputation its ivy league status its incredible network of alumni. Those things will not make you feel better. Take my word for it.</p>
<p>What might make you feel better is the atmosphere and the people. Pick your school for the highs. For the great times you had on your visit and you know you will have again. For the water fights and the slumber parties and the all-night moviethons and the intensity and the godsend chinese food truck parked outside the main gates. They don't have to happen every day, just once in a while. And it's enough. It might sound ridiculous and childish but it's the little things that matter. The little highs that turn a miserable experience into the time of your life. I mean, you're a little thing yourself. How much are the big things really going to impact you? You really think you can't find a good education at a university if you look hard enough? You really think you can't find research to do or sports to participate in if that's what you're really after? If knowledge is what you desire make sure the students agree at your college of choice. If you're looking to devote your life to art surround yourself with that kind of people. Don't go LOOKING for diversity. Diversity will come to you. You think all chemistry majors are alike? You'd be surprised. You think all science and engineering majors are alike? You're a fool. Go home.</p>
<p>More than anything we want people we can relate to, people that have similar goals, similar dreams, that push us to succeed, among which it is COOL to like what you like, do what you do. Go out and find those people, and don't let them go just because they don't belong to a 'big name school' or they don't fit your mental image of what 'college life' should be. Because sitting in your dorm room with the windows open and the music going on that Wednesday night in April after three dreadfully big tests, all those things don't matter to you. Because, right now, you're happy. You're just happy.</p>
<p>I finished up my homework early that night and we headed out around 12:30am. Really, we weren't expecting to stay more than an hour: get a tour of the lab, look at some stars, chat with the professor, lose interest, leave. Still, I saw no cause to turn down the invitation. This was still first semester freshman year before the reign of the all-nighters when I thought I was bad-ass staying up past three and 9am was a reasonable time for a class. It was raining so we navigated the tunnels. </p>
<p>We found ourselves in a dimly-lit room with a doorway on one end and floor-to-ceiling windows on the other. The walls were lined with books, notebooks, equipment, personal pictures, and from the far corner came the glow of a row of three, maybe four, monitors. Our eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. We could see someone's silhouette shifting between the fluorescent screens. He was sitting at a desk. The shuffling of papers. One of the monitors laughed. </p>
<p>I introduced myself as one of the kids from the freshman seminar he visited that afternoon ("Oh, the New Haven one!" "Yeah, that's me.") and my friend as an astronomy nut who got really excited about the prospect of tagging along. The EAPS professor showed us around the controls for the telescope in Hawaii and introduced his friend who was on site at the island observatory smiling at us through video conference. I waved to myself on the monitor. It was a beautiful clear night (in Hawaii...) and he had a full-night's remote access to the telescope as he did about once every few months. Bits of news drifted in to us through the video feed.</p>
<p>"Yeah, we're going to have to go offline for about half an hour, there was a supernova and another team wants to do some imaging..."</p>
<p>As there was a bit of time to kill, I started poking around the room. There were wall-clocks from maybe 10 time-zones, all reading some whole hour differential from 1:30am. The sun had just set in Hawaii. I came upon a picture tacked to the wall under a NASA sticker. A bunch of scientist-looking men and women were gathered under what appeared to be a space craft under construction.</p>
<p>"Oh, New Horizons. We're going to Pluto. That's the team of scientists. And that's... me."</p>
<p>His fingertip covered momentarily one of the smiling faces in the photograph. We heard a drawer slide open behind us and turned to see the professor snap a light blue baseball cap onto his head. </p>
<p>"We even got matching hats."</p>
<p>He pointed to the video feed.</p>
<p>"He's got one, too."
"I don't know where it is..."
"Shame!"</p>
<p>Upon closer inspection it sported an understated New Horizons logo. But my mind was still stuck on the word "Pluto". No way.</p>
<p>"When do you launch?"
"Soon."</p>
<p>Very soon. Just a couple of weeks, in fact. </p>
<p>We regained possession of the main telescope some 45 minutes later, but not before being seriously trained in the art of cheap-magic-trick-with-pencil. I proceeded to learn the importance of experience in astronomy. What appeared to me very obviously to be several blurry white spots on a black background was in fact "the asteroid <abunchofletterabunchofnumbers>, the one we're tracking, a star, and look here those are a couple of background galaxies, that one there is a faint cluster of some sort, don't mind that that's just noise... and whoa... what's that?!" I got very close to the screen and squinted my eyes... oh hm... yeah... maybe... -nope. Still just a bunch of dots.</abunchofletterabunchofnumbers></p>
<p>"See that streak there, I do believe we've just discovered a new asteroid. Wanna track it?" He points casually to the keypad that controls a dome and telescope in Hawaii.</p>
<p>The time was 4:00am. My young mind was blown.</p>
<p>"Do we get to name it?"</p>
<p>He laughed.</p>
<p>Ooh which telescope?</p>
<p>I forget the name. :/ </p>
<p>It had a K in it. This one sounds familiar though...</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/%5B/url%5D">http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/</a></p>
<p>heh.. okay. I ask because a bunch of the observatories in that picture have their headquarters near my school.</p>
<p>Unfortunately Mauna Kea Observatories is quite plural.. Mauna Kea is the name of the mountain (Mauna = Mountain, Kea = White; White Mountain, the only place in Hawaii that it snows and is hence high altitude enough for good astronomy).</p>
<p>Maybe you mean Keck observatories?</p>
<p>Also pictured, Subaru, Canada-France-Hawaii, UH's telescope, Gemini, UK Infrared, NASA infrared.. I don't know the rest. If this helps..? I'm just curious, sorry.</p>
<p>It was one that wasn't on the main island. On a smaller island... is that consistent with Mauna Kea? I'm terrible with names of things, esp non-english :/</p>
<p>MIT, outside looking in...</p>
<p>MIT is engineering and engineering is MIT</p>
<p>hmm.. main island is kind of debatable. O'ahu is the capitol, but it's relatively a small island. The best observatories are on Mauna Kea, on Hawaii (a.k.a, "The Big Island"), which is the largest island in land mass, but also one of the lesser populated 'outer islands'.</p>
<p>If you don't remember, don't trouble yourself.</p>
<p>I am troubled :|</p>
<p>Guess who it is OHMIGOD GUESS.</p>
<p>ME!!!</p>
<p>It's true.</p>
<p>Having an uninterrupted conversation with my mom on my cingular plan requires me to lay flat on my stomach in the southeast corner of my room about three feet from the ceiling as near to the window as possible. Sometimes I hang precariously over the railing of my loft as her distant voice comes and goes. It could have something to do with the fact that my dorm is one unrelenting bastion of metal and concrete and a surprisingly effective model of a faraday cage... but why bother yourself with that?</p>
<p>You have enough to worry about. I'm switching services this summer.</p>