Senior Awards Dinner

Last Friday was the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department's Senior and Annual Awards Dinner. It was a really nice dinner. Probably one of the nicest senior dinners ever. First, it was held at the Endicott House, which is a house own by MIT used for conferences and retreats. This place is a really fancy place and is pretty expensive to rent out. The department also rented one big bus and 2 small shuttles to take students and faculty there. There were a few faculty who took the buses since it was at the end of the work day. There were also quite a few non-seniors who attended. I think more than half the department went.

We got there at around 6:30pm and it was still really light outside. We had some time to go outside and enjoy the gardens. I've been to the Endicott House a couple of times before for the department Christmas party. But since it was for the Christmas party, it was held in the winter so it was dark when we got there. The gardens were so nice that we even had dinner outside in the patio. It was pretty warm out.

The dinner was pretty good. We had a starter of clam chowder and then we had the senior recognition. All the seniors got a graduation diploma frame. The ones that sell for $160 at the Coop. So that was really nice of them. The actual dinner was buffet style. Xiumin and I tried to get people to sit at our table. We started a new table because by the time we got back to the patio area from the garden (we went to take pictures, of course) the other tables didn't have two seats next to each other. I tried to wave Mahalia and Stella over but they didn't see us. Anyhow, we ended up having 2 environmental engineering professors and 2 env eng. PhD students at our table. One of the PhDs is from Singapore and the other is from the Philippines. We chatted a little about MIT and differences in undergrad experiences.

After dessert, there was the annual awards. The TA award went to our 1.060 TA (Tanvir). He must've been nominated by the current sophomores and probably with help from the juniors. The seniors didn't do anything. Last year our class nominated the 1.035 TA and he got the award. Anyway, I think we all agreed that Tanvir was a good choice for the award. I saw him when we got off the bus and we chatted. It was nice to see him again. He was very surprised to get the award. He said there was no warning. His professor just causally asked if he was going. The other graduate student award went to a grad student who apparently played guitar and such for departmental events. He sang La Bamba for us. He was pretty good.

I went on the big coach bus both ways. The ride back was sooo loud since everyone had wine and beer. Yes, there was alcohol at this event, even though there were sophomores and freshmen (we got wristbanded). Anyway, a bunch of us decided to go out afterwards. On the way to Central Square, we bumped into our 1.041 TA who was going to Boston with his girlfriend. We totally kidnapped him and made him come with us. I think they had fun though. I left when they decided to go to a different place. I was too tired. It was a lot of fun though. I don't think we've ever done such a social event.