The Halls are Alive

The Halls are Alive After briefly lamenting the longer lunch lines upon the students return to campus, I reveled in the laughter and greetings heard down the Infinite alongside falling juggling balls, skateboards and scooters that signal the start of the fall term. But, even more than their sounds, I love to see and hear about all the cool things offered to students or started by students that decorate the walls. This year, because Ive been traveling, my eyes were attracted to posts that related to questions Id been asked by prospective students. What kinds of clubs do we have?   Usually, we like to talk about MIT Beef and the Lab for Chocolate Science. I also like to share about the Assassins Guild Patrol Saturdays, but it was nice to see posters advertising blackjacks return to Cambridge. How supportive are MIT faculty in encouraging students ideas? What research opportunities are available? In preparation for a visit program, I made my first real visit to the Edgerton Center.  The atmosphere is lively and a bit chaotic, but several things were happening at once: my meeting with Ed, one of the instructors, a transfer student was getting advice on the best classes for studying Course 2 or Course 6, and the afternoon seminar was arriving. They were encouraged to play with the models in the room and come up with hypotheses for why they worked/were built that way/etc. It also turned out that the transfer student had worked in the lab on a project to make motorized hamster wheels and a few other projects as a high school student. Two things were clear: no one would just be given answers, just more questions, and the lab is the epitome of taking an idea, running with it into several walls, and finally coming up with a product solving an academic inquiry or for your personal satisfaction. Speaking of research, the SENSEable City lab is doing really awesome things. Like, flying robots. Ocean Engineering is getting ready for a robotics competition. Theyre preparing this craft to recognize changing light signals and report the locations of the signals. How often do entreprenurial contests happen on campus? The students Id spoken to were familiar with 100K  and were looking for other options. I couldnt readily think of others, but as soon as I got back, I saw opportunities like this: and evidence of other kinds of challenges which could lead to job opportunities like the Crypto-Challenge sponsored by the NSA, who want you to try to crack their code and submit your resume. It was great to see Doge was still relevant and learning Aikido, to boot. Happy Fall term, everyone!