Conference
I would have to rate the conference a 5 out of 10. We left a day early so that we could see the city before starting the conference but thanks to a few lazy people and the changing of plans we ended up wasting the entire first day. There was a halloween social the first night and everyone in the group was supposed to dress up in a common theme. Someone had the brilliant idea of dressing up as luchadores. That was ok except two of us wear glasses and glasses and masks don't go well together. Mine fell off in the dark when I went to get a drink and I spent about 10 minutes crawling around on the floor looking for them with people coming and going in my area, no one bothered to help or ask if I needed any, until one of the people I was with showed back up. I left the party after that. There was a contest for best group and it was supposed to be based on the quality of the costumes, how well the group kept to the theme, and originality. There was one group dressed as ancient Egyptians. From what I was told a group dressed as a soccer team and another as characters from Shrek won, wow...how original.
I overslept and missed the first workshop but there were none that I think would have been interesting. We had Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, yumm. The first workshop I attended wasn't that good. The presenter spoke more about the company than the topic. I did learn a couple of things though. The other workshops were much better. There was a "black and white" social that night on board the U.S.S. Iwo Jima I was on the first bus there and we got to see a little of the ship. There were quite a few of those in attendance who didn't seem to understand the concept of "black and white" and when the speaker started speaking half of the people there continued talking. There was also no seating on board. What's worse when we tried to leave people were rushing the buses, even while the buses were still moving. As one of my comrades put it, "It was like the fall of Saigon". There was no order in the crowd and it was like that for the entire conference.
The second day was better with all of the workshops I attended being of at least a good quality. We took off early and saw part of the city. At the dinner that night the crowd was even more rude than before with almost everyone in the room talking during the speaker. A comrade said that perhaps it was a difference in culture but I have never heard of a culture where it was not rude to speak when someone else was. I skipped the social that night to go to bed early.
The last day not much went on for me. That was the day of the career fair and since I already had a job I just kind of hung out and tried to get some work done. We went to see more of the city that afternoon and some of the others went out that night. I tried to get a little sleep but our comrades who went out that night came back drunk and loud. They were constantly coming and going into our room and yelling in the hall. It got worse when we started getting ready to leave at about 3am. We had taken one of the cars back and it took two trips and overall about 2 hours to get everyone to the airport.
The conference overall was well organized but the attendees were not that great. I attribute it mostly to the fact that there were no advisors present and there were not enough mature people present to maintain any sort of order.
I overslept and missed the first workshop but there were none that I think would have been interesting. We had Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, yumm. The first workshop I attended wasn't that good. The presenter spoke more about the company than the topic. I did learn a couple of things though. The other workshops were much better. There was a "black and white" social that night on board the U.S.S. Iwo Jima I was on the first bus there and we got to see a little of the ship. There were quite a few of those in attendance who didn't seem to understand the concept of "black and white" and when the speaker started speaking half of the people there continued talking. There was also no seating on board. What's worse when we tried to leave people were rushing the buses, even while the buses were still moving. As one of my comrades put it, "It was like the fall of Saigon". There was no order in the crowd and it was like that for the entire conference.
The second day was better with all of the workshops I attended being of at least a good quality. We took off early and saw part of the city. At the dinner that night the crowd was even more rude than before with almost everyone in the room talking during the speaker. A comrade said that perhaps it was a difference in culture but I have never heard of a culture where it was not rude to speak when someone else was. I skipped the social that night to go to bed early.
The last day not much went on for me. That was the day of the career fair and since I already had a job I just kind of hung out and tried to get some work done. We went to see more of the city that afternoon and some of the others went out that night. I tried to get a little sleep but our comrades who went out that night came back drunk and loud. They were constantly coming and going into our room and yelling in the hall. It got worse when we started getting ready to leave at about 3am. We had taken one of the cars back and it took two trips and overall about 2 hours to get everyone to the airport.
The conference overall was well organized but the attendees were not that great. I attribute it mostly to the fact that there were no advisors present and there were not enough mature people present to maintain any sort of order.