Team 7

Earlier I had meant to write more about our first days of the program after The Universe Within, but there were almost so many things to say, I didn't know where to start.  Now I'll try and get back to that a little...

Besides our classes, quite soon after arriving we all got into business attire and had our group and individual photos taken.  These will be used in promotional materials, will be hung on the wall of our program office and will also be printed along with our resumes in a class photo/info book available to staff as well as partner companies.  We had to look good.  So, while we all were so snazzy looking, I had someone snap a couple of our team.  Here they are:

Team Seven looking like we're the group you'd like to hire...

And Team 7 being Goofy (we're all doing a 7 with our hands in some way or another...at least we're trying to)

We stayed in this and other intermediate business attire (business casual, not suits) our first full week when we met with partner companies.  We've already had a workshop with Cisco, some people went to a presentation by Dell, we've been given a case study by Caterpillar and we met many different company reps at the LGO Governing Board reception.  I still find it amazing how all these high-powered capable people show up and want to talk to us.  Eventually, though, I think we'll either get used to it and or accept it and take on the role that they'd like us to grow and join them someday.  You can't sit around saying other people are awesome all the time.  You need to step up and command some awesome-ness yourself.

On our way to being awesome, we've got to do some work though, so today I got a candid of us working on some of our problem sets (I think we're just wrapping up).  Assignments have finally started to come due this week so now we're getting more into the swing of things.  The LGO office is great in that they have small breakout/group study rooms with big monitors (if you want to share what's on your computer) and whiteboards to scribble on.  This is a photo of us in one of those rooms.

Working together on 15.066 HW (Optimization, here done with spreadsheets)

Speaking of working together, on Monday night, the hockey/probability party exceeded my expectations and, despite odds to the contrary, we both got work done and enjoyed the hockey game.  Yay!

Tonight, after some of us stuck around the office to do work individually, we had a spontaneous dinner outing with half the team tonight (Team 1/2? Team 3/6?).  We went to explore a few places close to but not right at campus.  We had Middle Eastern food for dinner and then grabbed bubble tea at a place next door.  Bubble tea is an Asian drink often served cold (milk and tea or just tea, often flavored) with tapioca balls (bubbles) in it.  You drink it through a giant straw so you can suck up the bubbles at the same time.  It's kind of odd, but rather tasty and fun to do every once in a while.  These were two places I had not been to when I was at MIT before, so it was fun to continue exploring.