I’m part of a group of second year graduate students in charge of running my department’s recruitment weekend. Basically a gaggle of prospective graduate students fly in for the weekend and are shuffled around between interviews, food, and fun. Our duty is to answer any questions they have about the department, make them feel welcome, and make sure the shuffling occurs without anyone being left behind.
I’m less concerned with someone getting stranded during our scavenger hunt in Pike Place – the real labyrinth is the Health Sciences building, which is the world’s single largest university building. The floors of wings don’t match up – sometimes you spontaneously go from floor 3 to 4 without going up a flight of stairs. Some floors are only accessable via elevator if you happen to be in a particular wing. And the lettering system of the wings is nonsensical – you think something using letters would be vaguely alphabetical. I’m always expecting to turn a corner and see a graduate student who’s been trapped in its maze for years, with the stereotypical long hair, long beard, and worn clothes of a shipwreck survivor. Except that would be kind of hard to differentiate them from the regular graduate students.
Anyway, this all means that I’m going to be spending every minute of my day from now until Monday 11pm losing my mind. So, consider this an open thread!