Responses to comments! by Laura N. '09

Responses to comments:
Edward: Hey, thank you for answering my question…though you kinda took your time but all in all I really appreciate your answer.
You play field hockey at MIT right?
Did you contact a coach before you were admitted? If so, please advice me on how to do that (and what to say).
Have a lovely day.
I really am sorry about the delay with the answers. I used to save up questions and answer a bunch of them at once, but then the plan always got messed up by my actual entries. See, now I’m answering right away. I’m improving!
Yes I do play field hockey but unfortunately I think I’m going to be awful at answering your question. I believe that some time I received in the mail a postcard asking about varsity athletics. I filled it out and mailed it in on the day of the early action deadline, I believe. I’m not even sure if it was in my file when it came time for selection that I was interested in playing for MIT. (Although I had clearly documented the MASSIVE amount of time that I dedicated to the sport in high school.) Anyway, I don’t think I received any more information about it after that. During CPW, I visited the Athletics Fair and introduced myself to the field hockey coach and added my name to her list. Then during the summer, she sent out emails about our summer training program and schedule. (We had to communicate with her so she could arrange for us to be able to arrive on campus early.) Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s how it all happened, but I honestly don’t even remember it all that clearly. Read on for more concrete information.

Shannon: My question’s almost identical to Edward’s- Did the coach contact you or did you contact the coach and (this is going to sound stupid) how good were you? Just interested… I’d love to play lacrosse for MIT.
I like to think I’m pretty good at field hockey, but I probably wasn’t going to be recruited to a DI school or anything. I definitely initiated conversation with the coach and not the other way around. Also, I had a pretty lousy high school athletics experience, so I have NO idea how the whole recruiting thing works anyway. I know for a fact that plenty of MIT lacrosse players have never played before. I know this because the field hockey coach and the lacrosse coach are the same person- her name is Cheryl Silva and she’s really nice. Here’s what I would suggest to both of you: if you’ve gotten a recruitment form in the mail, fill it out and send it back. I’m pretty sure that filling out this form will accomplish the same thing. Then, just for good measure, you might want to send an email to the coach (you can find the DAPER Staff Directory here) and simply explain that you’re a prospective freshman who is interested in the particular sport and you’d like more information as well as advice on how to proceed with involving yourself with the team. Good luck and let me know if this works out for you!

Anonymous: is caltech better than MIT? I hope not
Well that’s really quite subjective, isn’t it? I personally do truly and honestly believe that neither school is better…necessarily. Of course I have MIT pride and will take any chance to participate in a good old-fashioned rivalry, but in all honesty I think that MIT and Caltech are just different places for different people.

Matt: how is burton connected or different than/to conner? I hear people say BurtonConner like its one word, and i know people who talk about burton… so is it like adjacent dorms or something?
The story of Burton Conner goes like this: It was originally just Burton House. Then it was expanded and “Conner side” was added. The two sides of the dorm are inconveniently not connected by any actual hallway except on the ground floor. So someone who lives on Conner 5 and wants to visit a friend on Burton 5 would have to go all the way downstairs, across, and back up again. It’s rather annoying, actually. Anyway, the two sides are part of the same building and are considered to be part of one dorm. For example, there’s only one front desk. At the same time, Conner 2 and Burton 2 are not the same floor, even though they are physically located at the same vertical position. It’s a bit like East Campus only without the courtyard in between. (EC consists of 2 parallels, east and west, so that 3rd East and 3rd West are quite separate places.) I hope this answers your question. If not, just let me know and I’ll try to clarify some more.

James: Were the people who built the snowman in Killian Court random people or Random people? (random being non-deterministic, Random being residents of Random Hall)
No worries James, I’ve already learned to make the distinction. I have actually said out loud, “capital R Random people” and/or “lowercase r random people” as the case specified. In this case the random people were of the lowercase variety.