It has been another series of busy weeks here in Cambridge. We reached the mid-point of the Fall semester a couple weeks ago, which meant it was time for our first Sloan Innovation Period (SIP). SIP is a program unique to Sloan that was developed to get students out of the traditional classroom environment and into more experiential learning environments. Instead of regular classes, we get to choose between workshops in ethics, leadership, and other topics. For the first-year LGO's, we were required to take two seminars in ethics and I found both of the ones I took to be very interesting and engaging. One was on common pitfalls that we can fall into when dealing with ethical issue in business, and the other involved live-action (i.e. we all had to act) performances of situations when we faced an ethical issue.
SIP is also viewed as the mid-way breather in the semester. Unfortunately for LGOs we still have our regular engineering classes, which for me meant a mid-term and and a major homework assignment was due. Oh well, that doesn't mean that we didn't still find time for a lot of fun! I was able to strategically schedule my SIP workshops so that I was done with everything by Wednesday afternoon, which meant a 4-day weekend for adventures. Here are the highlights:
Sailing on the X-Dimension
It turns out that MIT has a 42' sailboat sitting out in Boston Harbor, and our captain extraordinaire Adam is fully qualified to sail it. So on Thursday morning, 7 of us headed out for an overnight adventure on the X-Dimension. The weather was definitely chilly (picture mid-40's and windy), but we had a great time. Even when we realized that the stove didn't work (out of propane!), we still had a great evening playing card games by flashlight!
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| Getting ready to head out on the X-Dimension (non pictured) |
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| All geared up for the frigid (but clear!) weather |
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| Our Mighty Vessel |
I finally had a chance to get some outdoor climbing in, with the help of Cynthia's climbing network. She found an MIT student who was heading out to Crow Hill and we were able to tag along. This was my first time climbing outdoors in about 10 years and it was definitely a challenge, even on the "easy" pitches that Cynthia was leading. Still a lot of work to do if I want to stand any chance of keeping up!
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| Making it look easy! |
Blacklight Run
After climbing, we checked out a Zipcar and headed up to Andover for the "Boston" Blacklight Run. I say "Boston" in quotes since it was actually about 45 minutes outside of town (a fact that they neglect to mention on the website!). Oh well, we recruited some other Sloanies and had a great time running trough stations of powdered die that glowed under the blacklights.
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| Hard to tell, but we were really glowing! |
Intramural Hockey
Last week marked the start of MIT Intramural Hockey. It has become a tradition to field an LGO team for the D-league and this year is no exception. Now keep in mind that I've only been on ice skates two or three times in my life (it turns out that skating experience is not a prerequisite!) so you can just imagine what happens out there. I've made it to two games so far and they have both been pretty epic, including our first 2014/2015 inter-class LGO rumble!
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| LGO 2014s and 2015s after the Rumble |
Red Sox Win the World Series
Last week was a great week with the Red Sox winning the World Series in Game 6 right here in Boston!!! I went downtown right as the game was ending and witnesses the huge celebration on Boylston Street. Then on Saturday the city threw a parade, with all the players (and the trophy) riding in the Boston Ducks. The weather was absolutely amazing and the whole city seemed to be having a giant party. Great way to wrap up the week!
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| World Series champions and nice fall colors! |
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| Sweet Trophy |
