My job. My job my job my job.
Well well well. I've been doing a great job of not writing anything here.
Just about finishing up with week two of "US Fall 2011" recruiting. Some things come to mind:
College fairs are really, really bizarre. Somebody definitely should look into making a documentary about them. My dad thinks its the sort of thing that would be ripe for the "mock"umentary style as well, a la "Best in Show".
While I'm waiting to talk to prospective students at fairs, I do my best to maintain an "interested, interesting, and harmless" look about myself. I think this is best accomplished by thinking about something interesting. Last weekend, I was musing about how high-school-me would have felt at a college fair:
I remember going to only one when I was in high school- it was at Brown and I went with my mom. The most memorable element of it was the long line, and the fact that we had pitas from East Side Pockets while we waited. I don't remember being in a very good mood. In fact, I think I remember being in a bad mood.
Now that I'm on the other side of things, I can't help but find it absolutely astounding that fairs are ever effective (and let me tell you, they definitely are- I've met some really wonderful and interesting students and parents at fairs). There are hundreds of schools there sometimes, and it feels like an utter crap shoot. I think when I was in high school, I would have been one of those kids reluctantly being dragged around by her parent. Until I had this realization, I often was frustrated with these students- why weren't they absolutely thrilled to be plopped into a room with hundreds of people, all who have the implicit goal of Figuring Out The Future. Its a bit daunting, and now that I think about it, I don't blame anybody for shutting down when faced with it all. The bizarreness of it is complicated by the fact that some fairs bus students in from high schools in the area...
I realized the other day that this amounted to a really crazy scenario. You have hundreds of kids milling about, and only a handful of teachers. They're supposed to be thinking about their future, but really they're thinking about how cool they or other people looked. You can see social hierarchies playing out before your eyes. BUT! The CRAZIER thing is that when you have multiple schools there at once, you have MULTIPLE HIERARCHIES playing out to try to sort out the ULTIMATE COLLEGE FAIR SOCIAL HIERARCHY. Very complicated.
But even with all this invisible social negotiation happening all the time, the thing that always gets me at fairs is genetics. Its such a great place to reliably dozens or hundreds of family units all strolling around together. Genes are some wild and crazy things. One of my other favorite ways to appear "interested, interesting and harmless" is to look at groups of friends chaperoned by only one parent with the goal of figuring out which kid belongs to the parent.
Well, I think I will unceremoniously end here.
Just about finishing up with week two of "US Fall 2011" recruiting. Some things come to mind:
College fairs are really, really bizarre. Somebody definitely should look into making a documentary about them. My dad thinks its the sort of thing that would be ripe for the "mock"umentary style as well, a la "Best in Show".
While I'm waiting to talk to prospective students at fairs, I do my best to maintain an "interested, interesting, and harmless" look about myself. I think this is best accomplished by thinking about something interesting. Last weekend, I was musing about how high-school-me would have felt at a college fair:
I remember going to only one when I was in high school- it was at Brown and I went with my mom. The most memorable element of it was the long line, and the fact that we had pitas from East Side Pockets while we waited. I don't remember being in a very good mood. In fact, I think I remember being in a bad mood.
Now that I'm on the other side of things, I can't help but find it absolutely astounding that fairs are ever effective (and let me tell you, they definitely are- I've met some really wonderful and interesting students and parents at fairs). There are hundreds of schools there sometimes, and it feels like an utter crap shoot. I think when I was in high school, I would have been one of those kids reluctantly being dragged around by her parent. Until I had this realization, I often was frustrated with these students- why weren't they absolutely thrilled to be plopped into a room with hundreds of people, all who have the implicit goal of Figuring Out The Future. Its a bit daunting, and now that I think about it, I don't blame anybody for shutting down when faced with it all. The bizarreness of it is complicated by the fact that some fairs bus students in from high schools in the area...
I realized the other day that this amounted to a really crazy scenario. You have hundreds of kids milling about, and only a handful of teachers. They're supposed to be thinking about their future, but really they're thinking about how cool they or other people looked. You can see social hierarchies playing out before your eyes. BUT! The CRAZIER thing is that when you have multiple schools there at once, you have MULTIPLE HIERARCHIES playing out to try to sort out the ULTIMATE COLLEGE FAIR SOCIAL HIERARCHY. Very complicated.
But even with all this invisible social negotiation happening all the time, the thing that always gets me at fairs is genetics. Its such a great place to reliably dozens or hundreds of family units all strolling around together. Genes are some wild and crazy things. One of my other favorite ways to appear "interested, interesting and harmless" is to look at groups of friends chaperoned by only one parent with the goal of figuring out which kid belongs to the parent.
Well, I think I will unceremoniously end here.