HUNT 2013

So this past Saturday was the annual Imaging Science HUNT! (In case you are not familiar, here are some search results to blog posts from last year, including links telling you what the Hunt actually is. No point in repeating myself...).

I was afraid that an All Stars team would not come together this year, as the weekend was looking to be a very busy one for most of us alumni - three of our main players from last year were definitely out for the day-of. But thanks to a lot of bribing and begging, we were able to assemble an alumni PLUS faculty/staff team! ...Though technically we were still an "alumni" team, since all the faculty/staff participants also happen to be alumni.

We had waaaay too much fun this year for me to be able to fit it all into a blog post, so I'll just make a list of some of the highlights:

• Carl dancing in a platypus suit... and saying he liked it
• David Long dropping a Corelle bowl in the lobby to test its claim of being "Break & Chip Resistant" (I wish we had gotten this on camera!!!)
• Ensuing scolding from kid in auditorium for making so much noise outside their "lecture"
• Taking the Huntmasters out to a Red Wings game (always fun)
• Taking faculty out to a happy hour at MacGregors (always fun)
• Making Tesla playing cards for Phil that featured pictures of Tesla cars, Tesla coils, Tesla cards, and of course, the man himself. And Phil and Kevin as the jokers.
• Seeing a member of a longboard skater gang totally wipe out a guy on a bicycle in the Infinity Quad (totally not cool) (sorry we didn't get it on camera despite having 3 on us)
• Stealing the Huntmasters' boat
• Getting caught by the Huntmasters while stealing their boat
• Matt dancing Gangnam Style in front of the RIT PEP band (why oh why did the camera have to not work for this one?!)
• Students actually thinking our trundle wheel was rolling a person down the Quarter Mile
• Students actually thinking our trundle wheel was cool
• Matt pretending to be stuck in the basement for 6 years
• That "Put your number in my phone" bit with me and Maria after discovering Matt in the basement - It is totally improv and unplanned!!!
• And, of course, the rest of the countless silly things we somehow got faculty to do for our video.

That's enough of me talking about it - how about you actually watch the videos and see for yourself? Oh and by the way - did I mention that WE WON!!!!!!

1st Place:  ALL STARS!★  2nd Place: 2nd years 3rd Place:  3rd years 4th Place:  Freshmen Huntmaster Answer Key

This is by far the best Hunt I have ever been witness to! (And definitely not just because we won, of course.) We had a phenomenal turnout, and every team was really good and the videos were hysterical. We also enjoyed extra amusement when sketchily crossing paths with the other teams throughout the day Saturday, which made things even more fun (especially when we tried to lock the Freshmen in their lab, though they didn't seem to take the joke so well). And the third years did an excellent job egging everyone else on with their Hunt-related memes in the Reading Room. My favorite part (always) is having everyone come out of their shells to do some pretty crazy stuff that we normally don't have any excuse to do, and thereby seeing different sides to people that we are normally used to taking seriously. This year's event captured the very spirit of the Hunt better than I've ever seen, and I'm so proud to have been a part of it. All in all, the Hunt is just one of the many reasons why Imaging Science is the best!

The day I put up a picture of a Mars Rover and someone excitedly yelled, "It's Wall-E!!!"

Today I participated in a college visit for a group of kids from Pennsylvania, whose day also included an admissions overview, tour of campus, and presentations on engineering, liberal arts, and art options here at RIT. Imaging Science was their last stop for a 45 minute demo with the FLIR. Having just done Workforce Innovations a week ago, I was all warmed up and ready to go today. Unfortunately, today was just not destined to be a slam dunk.

First of all, the group was supposed to consist of 50 tenth graders; however, we got an email notice that only 15 showed up. Everything was still to go on as planned, just with a diminished capacity. This didn't really have much of a negative impact on me (in fact 15 students are much easier to handle than 50, although they are not the best ROI effort-wise) other than that presenting the in huge Carlson Auditorium was going to look pretty silly now. The auditorium is exactly what you want for 50 kids, and exactly what you DON'T want for 15. But, no biggie.

I have no idea how the day went for them before getting here, though I can guess that they were pretty tired and worn out by the time I got them. They slowly and reluctantly filed into the auditorium, and were hesitant to sit near the front without some encouragement from who I can only assume was a chaperon. (In fact I couldn't tell who the chaperons or people in charge actually were, which always makes me very uncomfortable. I am happy to give presentations, but I can not fill the role of being the authoritative figure. I do not have the power to control kids when they are misbehaving, which luckily is not usually a problem... [spoiler alert!])

I started out by trying to make some small talk and ask some questions to better understand my audience. Turns out they were from grades 9-12, not just 10th grade. They were from the same school, however. They had ridden in to Rochester on a bus that morning, and were driving back down after my presentation (sounds like a long day). The chaperon-ish guy thought he was really funny by saying they had "walked" when I asked how they got there. Thanks, man.

And with that encouraging start (though I didn't let it get me down!), I went ahead with my presentation. It wasn't long before some girls in the front thought it would be okay to get chatty. The stare down technique didn't work, nor did cleverly hiding the fact that I knew what they were doing within the context of my presentation work. Finally I had to completely stop what I was doing and ask the girls to please stop talking, it's really not cool. The chaperon-ish guy then kind of took note and reminded everyone there to be respectful.

Clearly this was effective, as after a few minutes one of the girls shifted gears to texting on her phone. So, when I needed a volunteer to get in front of the camera, I called up "my texting girl here in the front," to which she replied, "What? Who's texting?", and tried to cleverly slip her phone into her sweatshirt pocket. Seriously? "You, I watched you texting and see you slipping your phone into your pocket right now. Come on, don't try to pull one over on me like that." And she just giggled as if the whole thing were just silly and she wasn't actually guilty of anything. I wasn't angry, but I did want her to feel a little embarrassed about acting rude and childish. I think it worked... Either way, I was able to at least embarrass her (harmlessly) in front of the thermal camera. So, win.

After this the chaperon-ish guy was more vigilant about observing the kids' behavior. He tried to call out another girl for texting but she said she was taking pictures of the thermal camera on her phone. Well.... okay. Some of the kids were interactive and good players, but for the most part I wasn't feeling much interest from them. Still, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their lack of enthusiasm had to do with being tired and it having been a long day. I got through the rest of the presentation cheery as can be, but inside I was struggling. Most of the time my job is an absolute joy, but this time it was more like hard work. I put my heart and soul into every one of these presentations, so it stings a little when I can't get through to a crowd. Am I to blame? Is there something I could have done differently? How much of it is my fault?

The strangest part came at the very end, when it was time for them to leave and I quickly wrapped up. I gave concluding remarks, told them how to get in touch with me, and even announced, "The end!" And they all just sat there... Was I so good that they all wanted to stick around and hear more, or was I so bad that they were all more or less unconscious? Never mind, don't answer that.

Don't get me wrong - I will never give up, and sometimes the toughest audiences are the ones who need this the most, or really appreciate it just without expressing as much. Also, I truly appreciate every opportunity I get to speak with high school students, and I'm still very glad I was invited to participate in this visit. If anything I said today inspires someone, amazes someone, surprises someone, or excites someone about science, then my work was a success. Bring it on.

Boston Strong

So despite a little uncertainty leading up to our Boston Alumni Reception thanks to current events, "The show must go on," and that it did. Thankfully everyone who had planned to get to Boston arrived safely, including Matt and I who planned to drive in on Saturday (thank goodness we didn't try to have a long weekend and include Friday...).

Our strategy was to actually come in from the north through Essex to enjoy a lunch of fresh lobstah at the famous Woodmans, before heading into Ipswich for a very quick Choate heritage tour (island, bridge, etc - ask me about it sometime) and of course a visit to the Choate Bridge Pub (who NEVER ID's me and doesn't accept credit cards!!! How else do I discreetly get them to notice I'm local royalty?). Our pleasant little day went uneventfully and as planned, and we arrived in our hotel just in time for their nightly wine reception they apparently do (score). We spent the evening wandering and exploring Cambridge, again rather uneventfully (which is a good thing).

On the day of the reception, we strolled across the Charles to the Museum of Science (yes, our hotel was seriously RIGHT THERE, and totally by chance since we Pricelined it) and arrived shortly after opening, which after our recent trip to Dallas we have learned is the absolute BEST time to go anywhere because we beat the crowds. There was supposed to be a portion of the alumni event at the Museum, but it got canceled due to lack of interest (seriously?)... but we wanted to go anyways so we just went on our own. One of my favorite things there is actually in the lobby before you even have to pay, and it is a huge mural that you view through rotating polarizers. It is so beautiful and fascinating and simple and complex all at once... I can't even describe it, so here is some random person's picture of it and a delightfully retro video about the making of it. (At this point you ought to be noticing the background of my blog and noting the similarities...) Of course we saw one of the electricity shows, and one of my favorite exhibits was all about the history of the museum - because anyone who knows me knows that I like old, boring, dusty museums that require reading and quiet thought (instead of these new-fangled interactive entertainment museums that are practically just glorified playgrounds with kids running around and screaming). There was a display in there about polarized light that I thought was very interesting, informative, and effective at explaining a complex subject; so I was sad to think that it's one of the "old fashioned" exhibits now relegated to being a relic meant to illustrate past times (but at least it's on display at all). Sigh, museums can make me so emotional.

Anyways, although I can spend my whole life in a museum, we eventually had to cross back across the Charles to Restaurant dante, which was literally directly across the street from our hotel (I did a lot of planning for this trip, but that was one thing I did not plan out... how lucky. Maybe I should put less effort into planning and just hope for more things to serendipitously turn out perfectly?). We had our own little dedicated lounge area, with huge windows overlooking the river, which was beautiful. All in all, we had three imsci alumni attend, as well as one accepted student (who was also one of last year's interns; and, attended our accepted student open house!) and his parents. I spent most of my time with the accepted student and his parents, who are such a great family. I then introduced the recruit to our current imsci student that was in attendance, as well as the alumnus who arranged for the generous sponsorship of the recruit's internship here at CIS last year. I was very excited to have been able to make those connections, and it appeared from afar that the conversations went very well. I really really hope we get this student, because he is a very well-rounded, outgoing, and intelligent young man that would be a fantastic addition to CIS. We would all benefit from his presence here. And, I think the feeling is mutual; one of his parents told me that,

"The internship last summer was such a positive influence. This school year, he seems more mature, has (almost drastically) improved his academics and became more accountable for his actions and decisions. As a parent,  I am very grateful for this opportunity that was given to him."

What wonderful feedback!! We often hear positive reactions from teachers and from interns themselves, but we rarely hear from the parents. I am so glad we were able to provide this opportunity and that this student was able to benefit so much from it. But I digress!

During the reception I did have a chance to slip in some conversations with our alumni. Most of the chats were casual, but one action item that came out of our conversations was to promote alumni involvement in the RIT Alumni Admissions Volunteer program..... Duh! Why did I only just think of this now?! RIT already has a fantastic program set up that involves alumni in college fairs, hometown receptions, and other various recruitment events organized by RIT. Since it is coordinated by the Admissions office, they can leverage all of their nationwide contacts, regional staff, and extensive resources. I've worked with them on this before and have represented CIS at these events on multiple occasions, but for some reason it only just dawned on me to have our alumni from all around get in on the action, too. Plus then I won't have to travel, nor will I have to plan and coordinate events of our own. It seems so painfully obvious now that we should tap into our talented alumni across the US for these admissions programs, rather than me doing everything or reinventing the wheel for events of our own. SMH! So, moving forward, I will include upcoming dates of Alumni Admissions events in the Imaging Connection newsletter, and I will make an addition to the CIS Ambassadors website about how to get involved.

All in all, the reception turned out great! I know we have many more than 3 Boston-area alumni, though - so hopefully the next time we make it out that way, we will have more people join us ;-) Thanks, Boston!

Workforce Innovations 2013

Today was the 7th annual Workforce Innovations conference here at RIT (and my 4th - wait, really?! - time participating). The format was like any other year: upwards of 100 high school students descend upon RIT for a keynote, two workshops, and lunch at Gracie's. This year's Imaging Science workshop had a pretty good number of students signed up, with 16 in my first group and 19 in my second (second greatest numbers of any workshop, only behind Hospitality). I'll take it.

This year I went back to my usual presentation with the FLIR minus the twitter component I introduced last year. Even though it kind of worked, to be honest, I didn't have the energy for it this year; nor did I have a helper to monitor the tweets like I've had in the past. While it is unfortunate that our Twitter account didn't get as much attention this year, I don't think the lack of Twitter negatively influenced the experience had by the audience. Not only that, but I don't think that last year's inclusion of it had any lasting impact beyond the day-of. The students never interacted again, save for the one bright spot we had by way of a student saying he was going to apply for the summer internship - which in the end never panned out.

So, back to the normal routine. And that's pretty much how the whole thing went - entirely normal. Just like in past years, I had a mixed experience. My first group was meh, alright; my second group was fantastic. It is strange how two completely different experiences can be had in the span of one morning. But like I've said before, the makeup of the audience presents a challenge (if you're not sure what I mean, check out some past posts). Although, I did enjoy seeing the niece of a good friend of mine, who had no idea what I do and it was total coincidence that we crossed paths today.

The good news is I didn't have anyone blatantly talking, texting, or sleeping (except for one of the chaperons... way to set an example) during my presentations. And the even better news is I did have one student who said he is already coming to RIT in the fall for Engineering Exploration, and he really liked what he heard today. I strongly encouraged him to ask about the freshmen class and he seemed excited about that, so hopefully we'll see him in the fall!

Looking forward, I think I will make the suggestion that we shorten the length of the workshops. One hour just seems to be too long for these kids... No matter how enthusiastic they start out, they seem to fizzle around 40-45 minutes. This makes sense, considering that most schools have class periods of about that length. I don't blame the kids at all. I wish I could stretch out the interactive portion of my workshop to fill more of the hour, but it too would get boring after a while. So I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but I think shortening up the workshops would be great (for us at least). If you have any ideas, please, leave them in the comments!

All in all, I think the conference went well. (Oh, except for the one student volunteer who didn't show up to guide my first group to me from the keynote...)

Planning and Preparation FTL

Remember that post about our first intern interview and how my careful planning and preparation allowed the day to go smoothly? Too bad the same thing couldn't have been said for basically THIS WHOLE WEEK....

What a crazy week this has been! Why? Because it was intern interview week, of course! Four straight days of 6 interviews each, with a couple of out-of-area phone interviews sprinkled in there to make things extra complicated. I'll give you the brief highlights of the week before finishing with the week's (surprisingly un-)dramatic conclusion:

Monday - One professor requesting a room change hours before interviews are to take place (requiring changes in reservations, assignments, labs). Another professor not present in the assigned interview location and requiring a hunt down.

Tuesday - Now that room locations are all sorted out, things should go smoothly, right? Nope. One applicant never showed (BIIIIIIG no-no!). No working phone jack in room assigned for phone interview, so it is relocated to my office at the last minute. I am locked out of my own office for 45 minutes.

Wednesday - Okay, this day was actually rather uneventful... but TOO uneventful. Lousy weather. Everyone was tired. My 15 minute pre-interview spiel seemed to drag on for centuries. I seem to remember the same thing happening on last year's Wednesday of interview week? Had my first parent stay throughout interviews.

Thursday - Original room change request from Monday had to be reversed and alternative room once again reserved. Two phone interviews this day, one with the same problem as Tuesday so a different room (other than my office this time) was secured, though my phone was used. The other room reserved could not seem to dial out - the number would be dialed and the phone would go right back to dial tone. (We found out later that the room could not dial out long distance). Labs doing the phone interviews somehow got switched such that they were in the opposite locations they were supposed to be, which got complicated when it came time to switch for the 2nd interview. Awkwardness ensued.

"The best laid plans", right? And then finally we conclude with today, Friday, the intern draft. Although judging by the length of the previous 4 paragraphs things got more complicated as the week went on, today defied all expectations and ended up being smooth as can be. All the labs got their first choices for interns, no trading or bargaining needed. On top of that, the selected group just happened to be almost evenly split male-female, and had a nice variety in school districts represented. Perfect!

The only thing not perfect is that we just can't take everyone - all 27 of the kids who interviewed were really great, but we only have the bandwidth to hire 13 interns (unless some extremely generous benefactor comes to our rescue). So while I'm very excited for the 13 who were selected, I really feel for the alternates...

Well, what a great way to end a Friday, especially after such a crazy week! Offers go out on Tuesday!

Extra Extra! Winter Imaging Connection Now Available!

The Winter/Early Spring (December/January/February/March) issue of the CIS newsletter Imaging Connection is now available. While the newsletter is geared towards alumni, there are topics of interest in there for a general audience, as well. This newsletter, as well as previous issues, can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/CISnewsletter

The current issue features: 

• CIS @ the RIT Big Shot
• Summer Short Courses
• Intern Program Update
• Achievements & Recognitions
• Past & Future Alumni Events
• Your Stories

...and more! Including this little gem from the archives:

Recognize someone?

Planning and Preparation FTW

Wow, today was one of those crazy hectic days that really call for a huge sigh of relief when they are over. But thanks to some careful planning, I am happy to blog that everything went smoothly.

The day began with an accepted student coming in. This student has actually visited before at about this same time last year, but wanted to visit again so that he could sit in on some upper-level classes. I planned out a whole day for him that included meeting with students, sitting in on two upper level courses (DIP and radiometry), meeting with someone to discuss military and intelligence applications of imaging science (his particular interest), lunch on campus with a group of students, participating in the Freshmen Imaging Project, and a tour of the dorms with one of our students who happens to be an RA. Phew! It took a bit of coordination but I am happy to report that we showed him a fantastic day. He is a great student with a lot of potential, and his interests and personality are a perfect fit for Imaging Science. I really hope he decides to come here, as he would be a great addition!

Concurrent to this visit, we also had our first intern interview. I had mentioned in a previous post that one of our out-of-state applicants expressed interest in interviewing in person, so I wanted to make sure I planned a day's worth of interesting activities to help make the long drive worth it. After meeting with me for a bit first, this intern applicant met with the first of his two preferred labs. Afterward he too sat in on the freshmen class, and I hear the students put him to work. What better way to get involved than to actually get hands on? Following class he had his second interview, after which I gave him a personal tour of the whole building. After the tour his dad came to pick him up, and as it turns out he is an imaging science alumnus! Roger Easton (with the office across from mine) happened to walk by and was was excited to run into him, so he then took the applicant and his dad down to his lab to talk about what he does. I hear this ended up being a great impromptu meeting and resulted in heightened interest from the applicant in yet a third lab! This is a little extra treatment and attention than most intern applicants get, but then again he put in some extra effort to come here, and we wanted to make sure his day was fulfilling - plus this helped us to reconnect with an alumnus. Although there's no telling yet how this whole thing will fare for the applicant regarding the internship (since he is the very first interview), I hope that overall he enjoyed his visit regardless. And now I will refrain from commenting any further, since I don't want to introduce any possible bias into the intern selection process that I try my absolute best to remain independent from. (Although I will go ahead and independently point out that this potential intern had a totally rockin NASA jacket that was covered in Apollo mission patches. Yeah, I'm way jealous.)

In the end, a great day! I hope to see more of both of these visitors in the future (hopefully as students)!

Good times with the freshmen class.

Even more intern program behind-the-scenes: Interview Prep

As of this afternoon, I have heard back from all of the intern applicants that were invited to interview, fit them all into the complex matrix I mentioned previously, and e-mailed them all their interview schedules and directions. At this point it's time to execute all the preparation that has to happen behind the scenes to make the interviews run smoothly next week (does that make this a behind the-behind the scenes look?).

Before I can email the labs with their interview schedules, I need to assemble and scan all of the interview packages and load them onto a secure server. This may sound easy, but thanks to things like staples (UGGHH), mixtures of single- and double-sided pages, and combinations of portrait and landscape orientations, the process is much more time consuming (not to mention frustrating) than you would think. Not hard, just tiresome. (What was that I said about going paperless next year? Yeah, definitely working on it.)

Once that's finished, I reserve rooms for the interviews to take place in. Lab directors are asked to supply this information, but those who don't are assigned rooms so that there is a guaranteed place to go. Of course this requires shuffling around and careful planning, since there is basically no room in this building available for the same 1.5 hours 4 days in a row. To made things more complicated, I need to find rooms to do phone interviews with non-local applicants in, scheduled immediately after the local interviews. I also need to schedule the Reading Room for my introduction prior to the interviews commencing, and the Fishbowl for the intern "draft" at the end of the week.

With all of that done, I can send the interview schedules including links to the applications to each of the labs. Of course I also have to run around to find out who exactly is doing the interviews on which day so I can make sure all of the interviews are covered. Then all that's left to do to prepare is to print out signs to leave on the doors of the rooms to be reserved so that everyone is aware of when they need to vacate. And with all that, we're ready as can be.