'Work hard, play hard'

Freshman orientation ended with a class trip the aquarium: we all packed into buses and drove over the river into Boston. After visiting with the sea turtles, penguins, sharks, electric eels, et cetera, we went outside to a dance area. Several of the MIT dance troupes performed, culminating in riDONKulous, who put on an awesome show. After the performances, they opened the floor to all the freshmen and let us loose.

Even though orientation was over, there was still time before classes start, and we had to stick to the unofficial motto of "Work hard, play hard." To aid us in that endeavor, rush week and recruitment started as quickly as freshmen orientation ended. Rush is put on by the fraternities; it’s the only time where it's a good thing to be a freshman guy. Similar to REX, the different houses try to convince freshmen to join them by hosting cool events and parties. It kicked off with the Zeta Psi annual Car Bash: they find an old junk car, give teenagers some spray paint and sledgehammers and let them go crazy. Any piece you knock off you can keep, and who wouldn't want a door or trunk for their fresh, undecorated dorm room? I line up and watch the first couple groups go; everyone's working on the driver's side door. This thing is built to last, the hinges stand up to all the sledgehammer hits twenty or so teenage guys (and one girl!) throw at it. My turn comes up and I go for the door too, because at this point it's so close to coming off.. Someone's going to get it! Although I don't have much luck with the door, in an afterthought I take a couple swings at the rear view mirror. Viola, it pops right off! A few good pulls break the wires connecting it to the dashboard and I've got myself some new decor.

While I was in the ring with the car, one of my friends from highschool – currently attending Northeastern – sent a picture of the car bash from the sidewalk to my phone. All those rumors about everyone coming to the MIT parties? Turns out they’re true: he's here with a bunch of NU friends for the first night of Rush. We meet up and hit dorm row in Boston to go party hopping.

The next day, I went indoor skydiving and played trampoline dodgeball with AEPi. It's a Jewish fratertinity but anyone was allowed to come to their first few events. Trampoline dodgeball is played exactly like regular dodgeball except the floors are all trampolines and the walls are at forty five degree angles and are also trampolines. And your wear special shoes that let you run on them. Its fun just jumping and running around, and even more fun playing dodgeball. Indoor skydiving was even cooler than it sounds, we went in a vertical wind tunnel with an instructor and spun and floated around for a few minutes at a time.

Quite the facial expression.. In my defense it's very windy in there

That night we went F1 racing with Kappa Sigma, which is essentially go karting for big people. Although I wasn't too excited - I have a driver's license, some of the thrill has worn off - I really like the brothers at Kappa Sigma so I tagged along. When we got there, it was not what I expected. A huge indoor course, professional looking jumpsuits, and serious go karts met us at the door. Driving around tight turns, hitting close to thirty miles per hour on the straight aways, and even some "unintentional" contact with the other cars made for a great time.

Later in the week, I went to the beach with Kappa Sigma, spend some time at their house for football on Sunday, and eventually received a bid from them. Although I haven't pledged yet I am strongly considering it. I really like all the brothers and they have a great time together, but they know how to buckle down and study as well. The soonest you can move in is sophomore year, so I have plenty of time to decide on that front. The fraternities – just like everything else at MIT – ignore the traditional stereotypes. Instead of the traditional drinking club image, the brothers in each house are very involved in the community, help each other with homework, and are otherwise nice people. The Kappa Sigma chapter at MIT was named the best chapter according to the national KS association. When they want to show a good example of a KS house, they show people the chapter at MIT.

While I'm on the topic of living groups, I should touch on recruitment. The sorority system is much less fun than rush week. It’s pretty much the exact opposite, actually. For rush, the fraternities spend tons of money to supply good food, fun events, transportation, everything. For recruitment, the girls that are interested spend six to eight hours a day meeting the sisters of every sorority and making small talk. And they're only allowed to eat animal crackers and drink water, (in contrast to the steak and lobster dinners at frats) to keep things fair between the big and small houses. This lasts three or four days and at the end culminates in a night of singing, cheering, and happiness when all the girls receive their bid. It's an abysmal process but all the girls that stuck it out and found a sorority seem very happy with it and unanimously report that it was well worth it. 

 

Sadly, the other part of "work hard, play hard" was quickly approaching. With schedules in hand, we set off Wednesday morning for the first day of a long first semester. First class, biology (7.012) with Eric Lander is very interesting; Lander explains introductory concepts very well despite being in charge of the Human Genome Project. Biology in my freshman year of highschool was memorizing power points, but Lander has a different philosophy. He teaches you to make inferences and understand overarching concepts. Of course, you still need to memorize some things, there is no way to interpret what a Golgi apparatus does or the differences between miosis and mitosis without the requisite knowledge. After biology I go straight to Physics (8.01). Physics is taught as a "TEAL" class, which means instead of just lecture, we sit at circular tables of about ten students and work on problems or concept questions together after the lecture. It's very dependent on the students at your table. If you get kids that aren't interested, you'll be struggling by yourself, but otherwise it definitely promotes discussion and helps me understand that material. Today I got to help with an in class demonstration of reference frames. The professor and I walked at a constant rate while we played catch. From my point of reference, it moved backwards, but to the stationary students, the ball seemed to go forward. Fascinating, right? Maybe not, but still useful. My third class is multivariable calculus (18.02), which is lecture style. Freshmen are only allowed to take four classes, and most chose to take a humanities (HASS) class as their fourth. I'm taking Writing about Literature (21L.00J). It's focused on poems and is so far pretty interesting. We've already had to write one paper for it, and another is due in a week.

You can ignore 21L.011, I dropped it.

Occasionally you get a reality check and it feels awesome: I'm in a math/physics class at MIT and I actually understand what the professor is saying! How many people do you know that can say that? So far, that's been the only good part of class - they really didn't pull any punches when it came to the first round of homework (p sets).

As classes started, so did rowing practice. The first day we ran to Harvard stadium in the rain (about two and a half miles), met each of the thirty steps in the thirty seven sections, and ran back. Thursday and Friday were ergometer (erg, think rowing treadmill) sessions on the dock. Erg sessions are not particullarly fun, but being surrounded by other suffering scullers is better than a solitary session. On the next Monday, we finally got on the water. Rowing on the Charles, passing all the landmarks in the Boston skyline, even the fresh set of blisters forming on my hands put a smile on my face for the entire workout. It definitely reminded me why I love rowing and I can't wait to get back out.

Lastly, sorry for the length of this post. I meant to update every week, but as you know, these last weeks have been absolutely crazy busy. This is about two weeks worth of content, and posts in the future will probably be much shorter.