School’s… in by Mollie B. '06

Today was the first day of academic year 2005-2006 at old Tech! (I don’t know why that deserved an exclamation point. Probably because I don’t have any problem sets due until next Friday.) My entry spent most of this afternoon and evening sitting around the lounge, eating pizza, watching DVDs, and generally bemoaning the fact that school has, in fact, begun.

Some of the freshmen even started doing problem sets. They’re so precious. The upperclassmen started a pool about when they’d start to put off the problem sets until the night before they’re due; the general consensus is that this behavior will begin at least by the two-day student holiday in October.

To celebrate the year’s start (and because I’m lazy), I took an informal survey of people sitting around the lounge to see what classes they’re most excited about taking this term.

• • Mark “Dog” B. ’07: 24.02, Moral Problems and the Good Life. Mark claims he wants to take this class “to argue with feminists”, which I do not doubt — Mark may be a liberal from the OC, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to argue. (Mark’s second choice for most exciting was his PE class, Archery, but I don’t think that counts.)

• • Adam “Angry” W. ’07: 16.100, Aerodynamics. Although this class is going to be a time sink (Adam walked in tonight after class and said, “See you guys in December”), Adam is deliriously excited about it because he loves airplanes (possibly even more than he loves his poor forlorn girlfriend).

• • Dave “Less than Jake” L. ’07: 2.671, Measurement and Instrumentation, because “they’re going to teach us how to use rulers.”

• • Joseph “Jomar” M. ’06: 9.15, Biochemistry and Pharmacology of Synaptic Transmission (which prompted me to say, “You’re taking 9.15? Me too!” Yessss, pset buddy). Jomar just switched to Course 9 from Course 5, which in my humble opinion was a Very Good Choice.

• • Jay “Jay” T. ’08: 6.041, Probabilistic Systems Analysis. I am required to say here that Jay actually refused to give me a course that he’s excited about, but I picked 6.041 because it was the only class I could remember that Jay was taking this term. But I’m sure he should be excited about taking 6.041 — I gave him Adam’s old textbook, so he didn’t even have to pay for a book!

• • Warren “Woody” H. ’08: Unified*. Woody says he is excited about Unified, “although I probably won’t be in a few weeks.” (Unified is a legendary class at MIT — it takes up about as much time per week as a full-time job, and if you think I’m messing with you… I assure you, I’m not.)

• • Chris “Dr. Glade Plug-In” P. ’09: 18.023, Calculus with Applications. Although I suspect he may be excited about 18.023 because he hasn’t been there yet, Chris swears he hearts math and wants to be a math major. As he is an RSI alum, I am inclined to believe him.

*Note: Most technical classes at MIT are referred to by their course numbers. Those that aren’t — Unified, Junior Lab, Project Lab, Digital Death, etc — are generally considered to be Very, Very, Hard/Time-Consuming/Impossible/All of the Above. (And yes, the capital letters were critical for emphasis in this case. Just make sure you read them in a very dramatic voice in your head.)