Week 1 is dominated by the LEGO design challenge, with only a small amount of homework distracting from robot-building. In the beginning I left school around 11:30 in order to make the last (T). As the competition drew closer, I stayed until the wee hours and then gave up and brought in my sleeping bag for an overnighter. Following the competition, I was feeling pretty worn-out and slept for 14 hours straight.
Weeks 2 and 3 are shared between design challenge 2 and a bevy of homework assignments. Classes and lectures were scheduled from 8:30am until 9:30pm. The hardest part was scheduling all of my teams for our group work assignments. Usually the only time everyone could meet was during meals or after our late-night lectures. With some serious frontloading of problem sets onto the weekends, I managed to avoid staying up too late and usually made it home around 11.
Somewhere in here I organized a dim sum run to introduce my colleagues to chinatown. Consider that a small victory that a dozen SDMs were able to take a morning off right before the DC2 presentations were due.
By week 4, we were done with most of our classes and only working on design challenge 3. Again, heavy frontloading saved me from doing much problem set work here. I was able to relax, enjoy the scavenger hunt, and even make dinner for my wife.
3 weeks of nonstop activity is not too bad. I have a theory that a human being can endure just about anything for 6 weeks. This first drink from the firehose in a decade reminded me how to be a MIT student in a way which will make spring term seem like cake.
I hope.
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