The last days been pretty easy. We’ve had program for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. However, none of it lasted more than 2 hours. I’d say that’s a slow adjustment to the student life.
Meeting the Professor: We met up with the head of our program, Professor Utterback, over a lunch at MIT sloan Faculty Club. It was sort of formal but the MIT staff made it a bit more mellow. It was nice to finally meet up with the head of the program and get an insight of what they expected from us and what we could expect from them. All in all I really look forward to get started with my program. Utterbacks main point was that Classes are of course important, but most important of all is the ability to socialize and participate with the unique position MIT offers: there are several start-ups in the shadow of MIT, the school has directly lead to an economy larger than Belgium, and some of the research being done within the field of artificial intelligence, biotechnology and robotics are second to nothing in the world. That got me excited about what a great institution I’m now a part of.
Computer setup: Wednesday was dedicated to get access to the MIT computer network. We had a 2 hour class in order to do so. Pretty straight forward. More fun was that Øystein came up with a delightful taco dinner for the two of us later on. First day with home cooked meal. Awesome!
Hanging out with MIT Engineerds: Thursday was the day to register for classes. We’ve already been through a bidding round where we “bid” for what classes we want. This bidding serves as pre-registration. Today we signed up the form that makes us formally eligible to the classes. I think I have a very nice mix of classes. I’m especially excited about the class “creating business value from IT”. Later that day we attended an open jazznight for all MIT students. Free food and drinks tend to gather people, even MIT Engineerds. Part of the point of being here is socializing. We met up with people doing PHD in Space Engineering, Astrophysics, Chemistry leading to organic LCD screens. People from Russia, Korea, Italy and the US. I guess at that point I kind of wondered: how on earth did I end up in company with these people? Many of these guys in this room will influence the future for all of us, both in terms of technology, innovation or simply management. And yet, here I am for some reason, walking around like I’m one of them. Weird.