research July 22, 2011

Revisited

**Note: These opportunities are available to all Caltech students! **

There are many answers to the question “What do Techers do for fun over the summer?” For instance, some of us experience new cuisines and culture in foreign countries. Others don’t travel as far but still travel off campus, perhaps, to the east coast to places such as MIT. So, what do the people on campus do?

That’s right! Some of us choose to develop our natural talents. Shown here is Marvin, a rising junior in Venerable/Avery house. What makes this guy unique is that he has an affinity towards baking, which is not the type of thing you usually see guys do. He also loves whipped cream as you can tell here.

It’s common to see Techers cooking together over the summer. When Caltech Dining Services (CDS) doesn’t serve you food, you have to get it yourself. Of course eating out is easy, but it can’t compare with the fun you can have with friends by cooking together.

Some Techers decide to be productive in other ways. Here are two Rudds who are counselors of the LEAD program:

“Building upon the institute’s mission to benefit society through research integrated with education, Caltech is opening its doors to 23 diverse and gifted high school sophomores and juniors this summer. The LEAD Summer Engineering Institute, held on campus July 6–27, gives students the opportunity to explore Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (or STEM) careers.”

This means they are get to take the high school students to places around Pasadena and other parts of California during the weekends. It’s a one of the few jobs on campus where you get paid to have fun.

Of course you can also be an admissions student tour guide!

Not feeling productive but still want to have fun? Some Techers do that too. For instance, with the recent free release of TF2 (Team Fortress 2), there have been an increase in the TF2 population at Caltech. In fact, I even installed the game myself:

And… haven’t played it since July 1st!

On the other hand, some houses make Rotation videos for the incoming Freshmen and for our time-honored tradition known as Rotation, which you can find more about here: https://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/07/local/me-caltech7

Of course, what’s the fun unless you participate in making the rotation video yourself? In fact, that is exactly what some of our Techers do. Below you will see a sneak preview of what might be on one of the house’s Rotation videos. The prank itself is inspired by this incredibly funny youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoLU6zKaws

We first perform the prank at Caltech! Here is a guy serenading Nina in Avery with a saxophone. Then, we do it elsewhere, but first, let’s meet from left to right, Lucia, Megan, and Elise! All three of them are in my year and all three are Rudds! =D

It turns out that Elise’s parents decided to come visit her over the summer and because they are really nice, they invited the three of us to dinner with them. We went to Newport Seafood Restaurant, which actually serves a lot of Asian food as well as seafood. The food was delicious, which reminds me… we eat mouth-watering treats for fun! =D

Now back to the house video. So, it wouldn’t be fun to prank people just on campus. You have to do it off campus as well because it is much more fun to see the reactions of strangers, so we did just that! Here is a guy serenading random people at Anthroplogie using a saxophone. Awesome but even more so, hilarious! Note that the woman is totally astonished to see this event happen, which makes it even more amusing.

Back to more fun! Another game with an increasing player base at Caltech is League of Legends, which is a free-to-play online massive real time strategy game much like DotA and HoN:

So, there is a vast archive of information still available on the Caltech blogs website. This store of information I am referring to is of course are old blogs written by Techers, who have already graduated or are still at Caltech. Go read them for more information!

So, we all know that playing games tends to be a sedentary recreation. That’s why at Caltech, we have other games to play, which allows us to get in a little bit of exercise. For those not into sports, we have DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and also a DDR room in the SAC (student activity center). This game is super fun to play and you get to exercise and listen to music at the same time. Awesome!

And of course, let’s not forget that picnics can be fun too! Here is the yearly BBQ for summer research students and their mentors at Tournament Park, just south of the track at Caltech!