Brain Dump

Brain Dump This is going to be ~14 entries in one my fault for being too busy to blog much lately. If you get through it all in one sitting, youre a rockstar. Hawk Cam Have you guys seen the hawk-cam yet? Funny story I was attending a seminar on podcasting a few weeks ago when they announced that the hawks had returned. There were a few hundred people in the audience, all of us mentally picturing images of cute, fuzzy baby birds. So I had to laugh out loud when the presenter hit the button and put the live hawk-cam up on the big screen just as Daddy Hawk brought Mommy Hawk half a squirrel (and not the pretty half, let me tell you). ~300 people simultaneously commented ew. So if you choose to keep the live hawk-cam open on your desktop, as many folks here do, remember that you have been warned. :-) Reason #261 That I Would Live In EC If Theyd Let Me Because they build stuff like this. Zack and RJ (both MIT 09) have completely transformed their EC room by developing MIDAS (Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System), which features everything from web control, voice activation, and a security system, to large continuously running information displays, electric blinds, and one-touch parties My favorite quote from the site: When the [party] button is hit, all the lights shut off, the blinds close, the displays show FEEL THE ENERGY and a deep voice says this over the speakers with a deep bass beat in the background. Then intense music turns on along with the sound activated strobe light, laser light show, fog machine, black lights, revolving disco light, LCD visualization projector projected onto the blackout-screen, neon colored lights, computer screen Winamp visualization, oscilloscope showing the waveform of the music, and surveillance camera monitors. Yeah, try that at home. (Actually, you can. They tell you how.) Facebook I see that many of the 10s have set up their MIT email addresses, judging by the number of friend requests Ive been getting on facebook. (Big thanks to everyone who has friended me!) Im glad you guys are getting that out of the way now when I first discovered facebook, I lost three days of my life. Ah, facebook. I have added some photos of my past there, for your amusement. Consider it an excuse to friend me. The Last Couple Of Weeks In my last entry, I promised to answer the popular question: So now that RA selection and CPW have come and gone, do you guys get to just relax until fall travel starts up again? Not exactly. May August = the months in which we actually accomplish things with some momentum, because were not consumed by travel, application-reading, selection committee, and CPW planning. In the last few weeks, Ive attempted to: Process a bunch of correspondence from applicants who have been waitlisted and prepare it for the waitlist committee. And bug committee members about my kids who are on the waitlist. Plan September central meetings in PA, DE, NJ Revise next years application, both print and web versions Meet with music art faculty to revise portfolio submission process Edit a bunch of Nances stuff Entertain Nance Design an online survey to solicit feedback on the MyMIT blogs (look for this in a few weeks, and please participate when it comes out!) Return all the phone calls Ive been blowing off for months from external vendors; test vendor products for possible use in MyMIT Write design new invitations for next falls central meetings Design new admissions post cards Design end-of-year presents for my bloggers (theyre SO cool, I must say will post pics after theyve been distributed) Brainstorm with Matt on how we hope to evolve the blogs program next cycle Plan high-level messaging for the coming year investigate the holes in what applicants know about us (or think they know about us) Develop annual communications plan a critical look at all of our publications and the web site content Write my self-evaluation we have to do this every year and submit it to HR (it always takes me forever Im not good at writing about myself) Research podcasting one of many new initiatives we hope to implement next cycle Theres more, but I cant think of it all at the moment. So Im hammering away at communications-related stuff. My colleagues all have similar workloads, relevant to their specific foci (foci? focuses? Whats the plural of focus again?). To answer the original question: we never relax! :-) Ivy Plus Next week will be a nice change of pace, however: well all be at the Ivy Plus Conference. This is similar to the NACAC Conference in that its a bunch of admissions people discussing common issues in their field, however IP differs in that its limited to admissions folks from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, and Yale. It will be my first Ivy Plus conference Ill give you a report when I get back. When The Cat Is Away, The Mice Will Play If youve seen Matts blog recently, you know hes in Indianapolis for the Intel International Science Engineering Fair (ISEF). Q: Whats wrong with this picture? A: Thats Matts office, but that isnt Matt sitting at Matts desk. Because Matt is far, far away. Look how Nance has trashed the place but thats not half as bad as the fact that hes answering the phone by saying Yo yo yo, youve reached McGanns Summer Home! Summer home and some are not! hahahahahaha before slamming the phone down. He looks guilty, no? And hed better clean that place up before Matt gets back. Television Idol | CHRIS GOT VOTED OFF??? Are you kidding me? Discuss. LOST | Jess: MICHAEL, I know, I know. But I have this weeks tivoed so dont discuss yet. Because Its Friday And Im Feeling Silly K-Ro 10 thinks Brandon Boyd is hot. Agree or disagree? Discuss. Brain Dump Sorry for the massive blog entry this should have probably been split into two or three, but I didnt want to dominate the homepage. :-) - Campus Preview Weekend Registration Deadline The deadline to register for CPW is Monday, April 2, 2007. Thats in five days! I know youre all second-semester seniors, but procrastination is not your friend in this case. ;-) - Shameless CPW Plug #1: Meet The Bloggers Want to meet these guys in real life? Make sure to show up to our annual party at CPW on Friday The 13th (bwahahahahaha) at 8:30PM in the Mezzanine Lounge (Student Center, 3rd Floor). - Shameless CPW Plug #2: Marilee Jones = Rockstar She admits you to MIT and writes you nice letters, but can she ROCK you? Oh yes she can. Come see Marilee perform with my band at ZBTs fifth annual Battle Of The Bands on Saturday night (4/14). - Facebook Group For Admitted Students The facebook group for admitted students is lots of fun with a variety of interesting threads (this is my personal favorite). If youve been admitted to MIT and havent joined yet, you should! Note that youll need to sign the MyMIT Guestbook before requesting to join its how Emma and Michael (the admins for the facebook group) confirm that youre actually a member of the class. - The Waitlist Ive gotten a bunch of correspondence asking about the validity of the Tech articles suggestion that well be taking 10 people from the waitlist this year. From the horses mouth: at this juncture, that number is entirely speculative. We dont have any idea yet, because yield (i.e. how many admitted students will accept our offer of admission) is affected by so many different factors. (Note to self: take Weather Machine out of storage for CPW.) When I know more, Ill definitely let you know but right now your guess is as good as mine. - Affirmative Action Each year I hear countless stories of admitted students having to suffer through others saying you only got into MIT because youre a [insert gender or ethnicity of your choice] and this year has been no different, unfortunately. I posted the following in the 11 facebook group, but I realize that many of you arent members yet, so I thought Id share it here: Im so sorry that some of you have been on the receiving end of the various negative affirmative action comments that seem to pop up every year. I can tell you, having been through 12,500 applications over the last 4 months (and many more over the last 3 years), that no one gets into MIT the easy way. There arent different standards for different genders or ethnicities. I dont care what you look like if you arent the sh*t, youre not going to get into MIT. Having said that, as an admissions committee we do believe strongly in admitting a class that is diverse in every way (gender and ethnicity are just scratching the surface). I guarantee that you will learn more in college from your peers than you will from your classes and for that to happen, you must celebrate the differences between you, and we must ensure that there are differences to celebrate. (Its the fundamental pulse of the process through which we build the class each year.) What fun would MIT be if everyone looked and thought the same? How can we change the world with only one perspective at our disposal? So from the many thousands of qualified applicants who apply to MIT each year, we try to build a class that represents as much of society as possible. People will always cry affirmative action in response to the fact that certain groups are underrepresented in our applicant pool, and thus appear to enjoy a higher admit rate than other groups. But please do not misunderstand what affirmative action means. It definitively does not mean that we lower the bar for anyone. But your actions will speak louder than my words. And I cant wait to watch you change the world together and show the naysayers that each of you is an integral part of that mission. - Your Personal Mikey So the lovely and talented Mari sent the following email to the staff yesterday: As you are probably aware, we have an unprecedented number of CPW events happening this year.  Im concerned that the events wont fit into the booklet considering its current size and saddle-stitch binding.  Which of these options would you prefer? 1) Print the academic class schedule separately from the general program schedule 2) Use a spiral-bound booklet instead of a saddle-stitch booklet 3) Increase the size of the booklet to 8.5 x 11 Thoughts? The resulting email thread quickly descended into chaos, with each member of the staff weighing the pros and cons of each option and arriving at different conclusions. With no resolution in sight, I sent the following at the end of the day: I think we should clone Mikey 1000 times after hes memorized the whole booklet. Then each prefrosh can have a personal Mikey and, at any given time, the prefrosh can say yo Mikey whats going on right now and his or her personal Mikey will be like there are actually 29847596 things going on right now, but personally Id recommend (and the recommendation would be based on the prefroshs preferences, which would be established with his or her personal Mikey early on. Perhaps we could even frontload the Mikeys prior to CPW with each prefroshs preferences? Oh, and also each Mikey would sing its prefrosh to sleep at night with his or her favorite song (Mikey was a Log). This option is clearly superior to #s 1-3. The reason Im sharing all of this with you is to hopefully inspire you to take your CPW registration seriously. Some folks think that we ask you about your preferences and interests so that we can match you with the best possible student host for the weekend, but the truth is that we ask you these things so that we can properly program your Mikey. - In Conclusion I feel like theres more stuff I wanted to tell you but I have to run off to a meeting Ill add it later if I can remember it. ;-)