Flashes of Panic

Orientation this afternoon was largely content-free, though at least a bit amusing. The main purpose seemed to be mostly symbolic, having all the entering graduate students in one place for one afternoon, but once they had us there they didn’t have too much to tell us. Most of the useful information was on sheets of paper in the packets we got on walking in; five or six of us who had met at a Davis Square meet-up Monday night (arranged through the incoming-grad-student message boards) took one of the sheets and skipped out at the first available moment to the Police office, where we picked up our student IDs, the most substantiative progress of the day.

We’re a mixed bunch. As you’d expect, most of us are 22, with still-drying BAs, but there’s a pretty high percentage of older folks like myself. I met one guy my age (we actually have mutual acquaintances, high school friends of his who I knew in college,) who has spent the nine years since graduation accumulating post-graduate baccalaureates through his first college, others in its consortium, and finally Tufts. He claims to have seven BAs or equivalents, if I heard him correctly, and I imagine it’s possible. He’s planning on a biology MS this year before going to med school next year.

From department to department, the level of handling we’re getting varies. In CS, I have a full day of department orientation tomorrow (including an hour for the entire Engineering School,) plus a good deal of TA orientation on Friday. On the other end of the scale, our German student doesn’t know who her advisor is, nor if she has an orientation; she’s heard nothing from her department since being accepted, and isn’t sure when or how to register for classes.

Now Playing: Man On The Mountain from Still Burning by Mike Scott