Our first day opened with the Dean, Ted Snyder, introducing the school’s values and some of the initiatives he’s got planned. The day was filled with lectures from various administrative departments going over the materials they’d sent out to us over the summer. I guess they assume we didn’t actually read the materials and they may be correct. There was an excited buzz about the brand new building, Hyde Park center, which will open next week.
It was humbling to see over 500 classmates, and then to realize you’ve got two years to get to know all these people! They’ve broken us up into our cohort groups, which are smaller groups of about 55 students whom we will go through orientation with our first term. Theoretically you should know fifty plus people very well come December. The rivalries are already coming out with some cohorts planning on T-shirts and slogans to demonstrate their dominance.
It was stressed early on that you will be busy and that we should really consider our priorities when deciding on activities, given the time constraints. You can only do so much. We learn about registering for courses tomorrow and then get started with orientation and team building programs.