rodzik@www

I've been meaning to write this for a long time, and as such, this could turn into a long post. Last year I began my career at Georgia Tech, and having grown up a Tech fan but having decided not to pursue my B.S. at Tech, I was looking forward to enjoying my time as a student fan. As such, I joined "The Swarm," a student fan club located right behind the North Endzone, in the first section against the field and next to the band (and also located on the floor behind each basket at basketball games). I thought this was great fun, and as a member I received a copy of a "T-Book," which I thought was a great read about GT traditions and history, and served as an excellent primer for Ani to learn many of the traditions as well.

Although The Swarm was full of people committed to Tech, it didn't come close to living up to what I expected. Many of its members didn't even know the words to the fight song! While reading the T-Book in my spare time, although I was familiar with many of the traditions already, I learned of an organization called The Ramblin' Reck Club, whose charter was the promotion of Georgia Tech traditions and spirit, and the maintenance and driving of The Ramblin' Reck. It mentioned that the membership drive was in the spring, and as this sounded like what I had hoped for when I joined The Swarm, I eagerly awaited my chance to join the club.

Finally, after an awesome football season and midway through an awfully mediocre basketball season, Reck Club recruitment began:

Then come out and apply for Ramblin' Reck Club! The Ramblin' Reck Club was established in 1930 to uphold Georgia Tech spirit and tradition. Most visibly, we are the sole caretakers of the Ramblin' Reck, which has led our football team onto the field for every home game since 1961. However, we also have great responsibilities at athletic events and during Homecoming, such as managing SWARM and organizing the Mini-500, Cake Race, and Parade. Most recently, we were responsible for reviving the "T-Book" freshman guide to GT Traditions and History.

Additionally, the Ramblin' Reck Club is a very social organization. Among other things, we participate in intramurals and travel on road trips throughout the Southeast to cheer on our Yellow Jackets!

I furiously completed my application and brought it with me to the first recruitment event, a simple social with the club and all of the prospective new members. At this point I reflected on how much this felt like Greek recruitment at Rose-Hulman (my undergrad), and despite having been through it all, having gone through rush, pledgeship, membership, serving as President, and then being an old-fart alumnus, I was more nervous than ever. For a hardcore Tech fan, being given the opportunity to join a club with people just as dedicated as me, if not moreso, as well as being given the chance to help take care of the one and only Ramblin' Reck, was more than enough to make me a little nervous.

Partly by drawing on my rush experience, but mostly by just being my Tech-loving, Mutt-hating self, I managed to get myself invited to the second week of recruiting and ultimately was extended an invitation to join the club as a probationary member. You could say I was just a bit excited.

In the time since then I have washed and waxed The Reck a handful of times. I've ridden shotgun, on the running boards, and in the rumble seat. I've polished unfortunate scratches off her fender until my arm almost couldn't polish anymore. I've helped load, transport, and unload it to and from weddings. I've gotten to see the smiles it brings to people's faces as we drive around campus. I've written and edited parts of this year's T-Book, handed tons of copies out to this year's freshman class, and watched them learn about all the Tech traditions I hold so dear. I've attended sporting events and cheered our team on (or jeered U[sicGA]) surrounded by people doing the same thing just as passionately. That's only a part of the experience so far, football season hasn't even started yet, I've loved every minute of it.

When I explain Reck Club to friends of mine from outside Tech, I'll normally describe it as a sort of co-ed fraternity whose primary focus isn't on brotherhood, scholarship, leadership, etc., but is on Ma Tech, her traditions, and having fun. It's amazing what you can do when you focus on having fun and promoting the things that you enjoy throughout campus so others may enjoy them as well. You find that things such as leadership and friendship follow, but without anywhere close to the same amount of politics getting in the way.

I meant to write this about mid-way through last semester, and then at the end of last semester, but I've really been slacking on my blog lately. It's been interesting switching from undergrad to grad school, from quarters to semesters, from a private school in the middle of nowhere to a state school in the heart of Atlanta. Here's some of my observations:

• Class Length - Holy crap this is rough. At Rose classes were typically 50 minutes long. What this meant was that about 30 minutes into class you'd get bored and look at the clock, and there was only 20 minutes left. At Tech they're typically 80 minutes long - an hour and 20 minutes. That means that about 30 minutes into class I get bored and look at the clock, and there's still 50 minutes left. Ouch. At least I'm starting to get used to it (and my classes can be more interesting) so now I usually look at the clock 50-60 minutes into it, when there's still 20-30 minutes left.
• Classes Per Week - This makes up for class length, sort of. All of my classes so far have only met twice a week at the most. When compared with Rose's typical four times a week class, it's pretty nice. Especially since classes here are structured around weekend-Fridays (i.e. 3 day weekends) as opposed to weekend-Wednesdays (i.e. homework days). It's a nice feeling being done with class at 2:55 PM on Thursday and not having class again until 3:05 PM on Mondays.
• Classes Per Semester - This one is rather annoying. At both Rose and Georgia Tech it takes 12 credit hours in a term to be a full-time student. Unfortunately, at Rose-Hulman each class is 4 credit hours, meaning that 3 classes is a full-time load, while at Tech each class is 3 credit hours, meaning that 4 classes is a full-time load. This wouldn't be too bad except that to get my Masters in 2 years I only need to take 3 classes a semester, so it'd be nice if that's all I had to take so I could devote more time to them. Oh well, I'm learning more this way!
• Class Selection - One thing that I somehow didn't even think about when selecting my undergraduate college was how size affects class selection/variety. I don't regret going to Rose in the least, but I do wish there were more classes that were more in-depth in what I was interested in (all Rose had was Computer Networks, Computer Security, and Cryptography). Last semester I took a class that looked at how routers do everything necessary to route a packet in 40ns or less. That was the entire class! Talk about more than I ever thought possible to know about your little linksys router, or it's bigger $40 million version. This semester I'm taking a course where part of one homework assignment was to crack 5 passwords taken from a computer, and the next morning I get up and go learn about Management in a Technological Firm. It's great!
• Professors and TAs - I went to Rose because the professors there are there to teach and not to do research. I'm so glad I did, because if I had to deal with what I'm dealing with now as an undergrad, I would have gone insane (and probably not learned nearly as much). Example: TA in one of my classes assigns a project to the class, and then leaves the country for 2 weeks. He returns the day the project is due, having not checked email at all before then. The project he sent out DIDN'T WORK. We couldn't do the project, period, until he got back and fixed it. He ended up giving us a 5 day extension, but seriously? Some professors spend all their time on their research and only show up to class because they have to, and it's obvious. However, it's not as bad as I just made it sound; I have learned a lot and I continue to learn a lot. I don't feel that it's negatively impacting my learning experience (but it probably would have at the undergrad level) but it does make things a bit more frustrating/challenging.
• Socializing - Apparently my 1 year in a freshman dorm (Speed rules!) and 4 years in a Fraternity made me completely forget that a lot of people, especially at Engineering schools, especially graduate students, do not socialize. It's driving me nuts. I decided I'd live in the Graduate Living Center my first year so I could more easily meet more people. Instead I feel like I'm living in a hotel. My 4 bedroom apartment only has 1 door left open (mine). And to make it worse, one of my roommates turns the heat off when it's 20 degrees outside. HELLO IT IS 20 DEGREES OUTSIDE OPEN YOUR WINDOW IF YOU'RE TOO HOT, IT'S ONLY 65 IN MY ROOM. I suppose it doesn't help that my fellowship means I don't rely on doing research for the school, and therefore don't have a research group (i.e. people I regularly work with) either. I suppose it would be worse if I wasn't so busy with classes and sporting events (where there's regularly the same groups), and it's also nice to be able to see some friends from high school that I barely saw before due to moving to a college 500 miles away.
• Family - After moving away for 4 years, it's nice to be near home again now that my parents have had to deal with me being gone for 4 years and have (mostly) relaxed. I will most likely be working 700 miles away from home when I graduate, possibly including trips much farther away than that, so it was important to me to be able to be able to spend more time with my family than I was able to during undergrad, when I would probably only come home once every 3 months on average, and was never home for the summers either.
• Sports! - If you spent much time around me at all, or caught me on a game day, you know I've been a huge GT fan since long before I ended up as a student here. I skipped my first chapter meeting because a GT game was on (and Hassler dutifully yelled at me for it). I could be heard screaming at the TV on the first floor from the other side of the house...on the 3rd floor...during chapter. I went to the GT @ IU basketball game in full GT garb, with my GT wig on, and didn't care if I was surrounded by IU fans that may have killed me. Yes, I supported Rose athletics also (I faithfully waved the RHIT flag at many-a-game, and painted up for football, basketball, VOLLEYBALL), but division 3 Terre Haute, IN engineering athletics are a far cry from division 1 Atlanta, GA 4-time national football champion athletics. The only home football or basketball games I've missed all season were ones I was out of town for. I attended our victories over U[sic]GA in volleyball (in Athens), football (in Athens), women's basketball (in Atlanta), and men's basketball (in Atlanta). I was shooting a perfect 1.000 until I missed our two wins over them in Hockey (sorry, I don't go to GT hockey games...maybe I should though). I was in the front row of the endzone and one of the first to rush the field when we beat F$U (and have some of the grass from Grant Field from that night, enclosed with my ticket). I wept with joy when we beat U[sic]GA in the first year under a brand new system, coach, players, etc, and have some hedge enclosed with my ticket. I have screamed at opposing teams' basketball players from literally 2 feet away, right behind them as they inbound the ball. And I'm in some pretty sweet pictures too, like the one where Michael Johnson (about to make $8 gazillion a year in the NFL) leaped right into the front row where I was at the Miami game (4 in a row!).

Feel free to share your experiences as well, even if you're working at the same time as getting your M.S. or PhD (which I'm sure is a completely different experience, and one I'm glad I'm not doing).

Coming to a Congress near you!

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

Here's my get rich quick scheme, let me know if you want a piece of the pie!

1. Start a company that competes with other companies
2. Pay our employees 4x more than our competitors pay their companies
3. When we can't compete because of (2), get $10 billion from the government
4. Profit!

I'm watching a recording of Thursday night's game against Miami, and amidst the awesomeness all I can think is TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!

GO JACKETS!