Author Archives: Frankly Speaking

How to plan an event

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Planning sucks. Events don’t. At Olin, it’s remarkably easy to do things, but also remarkably hard to make them happen. We know this from experience, so we’ve collected an encyclopedia of advice. Now, from the two guys on campus that talk the loudest and think the least, here’s what we’ve learned from our mistakes. And if your attention span is really that cooked, we’ve bolded the best tips.

POINT 1: Plan in advance. Easier said than done, we know, but really, the more time you give yourself, the less stress you’ll have. Unless you procrastinate it all until the last night anyway (not that we’d know anything about that, of course). 

Get the things you need, and plan on having them for the time leading up to your event. If it’s food, figure out what fridge(s) it’s going into. Don’t forget the plates, utensils and napkins. For that matter, any event should have a detailed budget—just make a simple spreadsheet with everything you need to buy, how much it costs, and where you’re getting it. You might be getting your food from Costco , your decorations from Amazon, and your prizes from Lovehoney. You have to keep track of it all, stay within budget, and make sure you don’t forget anything when you go shopping (which is the worst).

But you can’t just have the things. You need the people there to enjoy them. That is why you’re throwing an event, isn’t it? Surely, it’s not to embezzle school funds… Get the event in front of your audience. In multiple forms. Send an email. Attach an iCal (but not like Lindy Hop did…). Make a poster. Make lots of posters. Bump the email. Get word of mouth going. Be annoyingly present. And present yourself early. If it’s a big event, you might want your poster and email out as much as a month before the big day, an RSVP form 2 weeks beforehand, and bumps at one week and the three days before. (Try not to be too annoying… Remember you can always get a friend to bump your email, so you don’t look like the bad guy.) And if you can, don’t plan over the big clubs. Talk to your local Formula, BAJA, FWOP, and other reps. 

And finally, plan, plan, plan. At the end of the day, the average attendee might will not know the difference between a well-planned and poorly-planned event, but the burden on you will be less if it is planned out well. Here’s an attempted summary of tips: Set up always takes longer than you expect. Really. Move your stuff early. Know where it’s going before, during, and after the event. Does your space have enough tables? What are you doing about leftovers? That sort of thing. If you’re working with vendors outside of Olin or catering (which must be done through Rebecca’s), these people are going to need a plan well in advance. Call them (so they can’t ignore you), and do it early. Same as vendors, people on campus will be willing to help, but they need advance. You can’t just ask someone to help with no notice and expect them to be able to.

POINT 2: With that said, you should still ask many of your friends, if not all of them, for help (just with plenty of advance notice). The amount of help you can source from any single person is not the most important factor to consider. Rather, it’s the fact that you should be begging so many people that surely some of them will feel bad enough to help out. So, shower your friends with  event iCals and make your shift spreadsheets, because you are going to need them. Make sure to stress to them the importance of this event to both you and the community, guilt trip, peer pressure, learn the Voice from the Bene Gesserit sisters, and use whatever that’s at your disposal to make sure your friends are as committed to this event as you are, because, again, you are going to need them when time comes. 

Once you’ve secured a good batch of samaritans to perform your deeds, it’s time to put your Project Manager hat on. Unfortunately, planning an event is not unlike managing a complex project. Divide up your tasks, and don’t be afraid to delegate to people—this is presumably what you wore out your knee pads for. And once you have them in your grasp, be sure to check in with them on their progress periodically, and never let an important part of the event hinge on one single person, unless you truly, truly trust them.

Some common themes of help include finding a friend who has a car (book them early), or one who commands the ever elusive, yet highly coveted Costco membership (though the school can now Instacart from Costco—email Nichole). And sometimes, they’re just some plain old muscles that will help you move event supplies, clean up, and be there to support. The cleaning crew is important, because you’re going to be tired from setting up and running the actual thing. You will NOT want to clean up. Make sure you get help with this because no one else is going to want to do the dirty work unless you look them in the eye and ask them as they consider how saying no would make your face contort into a facade of indifference masking your disappointment.

POINT 3: Coming back to the Olin-ness of it all, it is (relatively) easy to do stuff on campus! But, there’s a lot of idiosyncrasies about our campus that are also easy to forget, especially since quite a few things have changed in the last few years. We like to think about it in terms of spaces, bureaucracy, and students.
As for spaces, it is crucial that, for any space you would like to use, you reserve the space and check in with the people that run that space. Sometimes, it’s just inviting the space via iCal, but other times, you should do a little more due diligence. If it’s the library, email the librarians. The dining hall? Talk to the kitchen staff and facilities. Above all, reach out to the people in charge of the spaces so you can stay in good standing with them for your four years here. Some other quick tips: Don’t use the workroom sink for dishes—there’s a nice little kitchenette on the first floor of Milas Hall for you to use! (Or for your cleanup crew, which I’m sure you’ve so diligently assembled after reading the prior tips.) Also, there are unimaginable wonders closeted on this campus. Wait. There are unimaginable wonders in the closets on campus. There’s the SAC closet, the clubs closet, the crafts closet, the closet full of large scale cooking supplies. The list goes on. Like I said, unimaginable wonders await. Ask the SAC representatives if they have speakers, lighting, poker sets, a chocolate fountain, or five unopened clothing irons for you to use. (Hint: they have all of this and more!) Ask around, and you’ll find there is a never ending supply of random crap on this campus. And as for asking, luckily, everyone at this school really is just an email away.

Those people just an email away? That’s your ticket. They hold the red tape. Get ready to limbo. The tips here don’t have much of a narrative, unfortunately, so this paragraph is a little bit of a word vomit. Getting a p-card should have at least a day in advance, and requested online purchases need two weeks to get bought, not even to mention waiting for shipping. Purchases over 1000 dollars need to be approved by the Dean of Students. (In writing, that is… having a dean of students to approve them is another thing… for now, check in with Ciara.) A single purchase that large may very likely have a contract associated. Contracts need at least two weeks notice to the Dean of Students. Their recommendation on the vendor side is to start getting the contract at least 1, if not 3 months in advance. It all comes back to planning well and planning early. Some other advance you have to give: party forms should be submitted at least a week prior to the event. You can get things from facilities (tables, chairs, desks, moving things, …), but in our experience, you should give them at least two weeks notice, and you should be hyperspecific in your request. Generally, when it comes to vendors, admin, or any other sort of bureaucracy, you should just plan on everything taking longer than you expect. 

That being said, these people support you each and every day in ways you don’t even know. Be kind, respectful, and flexible—facilities is helping you, not the other way around. Say good morning, hold the door for them, and offer them extra food/drink if you have some. It helps to be on good terms with the people doing you a favor. And on the flexibility side, they’ve been doing this longer than you have and might know something you don’t—instead of statements like “I need you to do this very specific thing,” it can be helpful to allow them to do it how they feel is right: “Hey, would it be okay to do this?” or “I just need XYZ to happen, do whatever is the easiest!” Having good email etiquette can go a long way. And speaking of which, emails are your friend!! Get things in writing. Genuinely. If facilities agreed to something, you want a record of it. If admin agreed to something, you want a record of it. If a vendor agreed to something, you want a record of it. Email them early, and keep the receipts. And one last thing on emails: Send summary emails. I know it’s annoying and you could just forward the whole email chain, but think about how lazy you are. That laziness is probably typical of any other person on Olin campus, including the full grown adults that work here. If you figure something out that seems important, it can be helpful to send a summary email to everyone involved that says everything in one place to get everyone on the same page.

We know that’s a lot. Luckily, there are people to help you. If you’re doing this through a club, check in with your club advisor! (The default club advisor is Ciara, but you may have a different one.) If you’re not, check in with Ciara or Nichole (the StAR assistants). We are lucky to have these people that want us to have a good time. And if all else fails, you always have our lovely student body to help you out. 

That same lovely student body is the one you’re planning for, too. So figure them out, and plan around them. Don’t freak out when no one shows up to your event right away. Plan on them being a little bit late. It’s just Olin nature. And if you want people to show up a little quicker, say the words “free food.” Trust me. At Olin, food sells, not sex. Same with music (especially live music).. Make a playlist, get a band, hire a DJ—the world is your oyster. Remember that SAC has speakers. (and remember that you should give them notice if you want them…) If all that fails, DM Roger on Instagram, and you can get Babson’s cutest public safety officers at your event. (No, really. It’s that easy.)

POINT 4: Planning an event is never easy, even less so at a school so damn small. After washing over you with this deluge of information—though hopefully not so much that you’ve decided to be done with this piece once and for all—we want to tell you that it will always be alright. 

Once you’ve advertised a time and a place for your event (we sure hope you remembered to put those on your poster…), you’ve irrevocably set in stone something larger than you. This event is happening no matter what now, so find peace in the finitude. Stop stressing over your event. It won’t be pretty. There will be plenty of times when you stare into either the bottomless void or distant sky and wonder why on God’s green earth you would ever choose to throw yourself into this whirlpool of mess. But the event is happening now. You’ve solicited help. That one friend who said he was busy will somehow find himself by your side. And once everything has left the bounds of your human capabilities, accept the outcome in tranquility, and know that you aren’t alone.

At the end of the day, if you commit to host something, you’ve joined a small cadre of Oliners who have enough drive and care to do anything for the community. Oliners enjoy any and all occasions to hang out with each other, and you help make it happen. The inseverable pact we signed as we became a part of Olin is ultimately what matters. You, as an event host, are providing yarn for Oliners to spin ourselves in a tighter web. Enjoy the ride. 

On Taking the LOA

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Mantas, beach sunsets, and random side-quests are what anyone who opened my insta story would’ve seen last year. Many friends and peers have confused my time away traveling with a study abroad, but alas it was a LOA (Leave of Absence). I’ve been back on campus since last spring, and I am so incredibly happy to be back. Now I want to reflect on my experience and offer pieces of advice from my adventure.

I learned that you’re allowed to step away from Olin for a semester, and what you do doesn’t have to be career or academic focused. Have you ever wanted to try something random? Wanted to spend a few months doing something new? Or just needed to get away from engineering for a little bit? Those are all valid reasons to take an LOA – and the beauty of it is that Olin is still waiting for you when you come back. (Small side-note: if it’s more than a semester it’s considered a withdrawal.)

Why did I do it? Two reasons: 1.) I needed a break from Olin. While I’ve never regretted coming here, I knew that being awaythat being away would allow me to come back a lot happier. 2.) I’ve always wanted to solo travel and dive a lot, and that is exactly what I did. I primarily traveled around Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore, but also visited Hong Kong and Malaysia.

How well was this planned? Well, I decided on my LOA in the middle of sophomore fall, which was early, but the plans themselves were very loose. I locked in my divemaster (professional scuba certification that allows you to lead certified divers and work in the industry) for a specific timeframe, but everything afterwards was up to the wind. This truthfully was a little scary, however that flexibility is how I spent two weeks at a resort for free, hitched a ride on a liveaboard boat, met fellow Germans that I stuck with for a few days, and many other little adventures. My only real anchor was my flight home on December 24th and that flexibility was incredibly freeing.

We are all chasing insane timelines and employability – I am guilty of it too – and yet, taking a break may actually be helpful. I spent two months in Indonesia completing my divemaster, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean, learning to drive a moped on the wrong side of the road, sharing meals with strangers, getting small second degree burns (yes, really and yes, it was a stupid reason), and tearing up when Country Roads played. Stepping back didn’t set me behind; it reconnected me with my curiosity.

We all chose Olin – a nontraditional school where we chart our own paths. Once here, you don’t have to stop choosing that nontraditional path. We are all well-rounded people with interests beyond engineering, and I encourage you to keep exploring them.

An LOA is not an exit; it is a temporary pause. This article is not to encourage you to take one, but to remind you of a non-traditional path.of a non-traditional path. You can learn to farm, or hike the PCT, or travel, or pursue some other side-quest or or or or… the options are endless. There are financial and logistical hurdles of taking an LOA – it is not a path everyone can take without careful planning. But if it’s something you yearn for, check in with campus resources early to see what’s possible for you and your situation. I’m also always happy to talk about my experience :)

Make the Project Worth the Portfolio

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As part of a class on portfolios and learning, I looked into Hampshire College, which, before its recent closure, built its educational model around student-directed learning, reflection, and portfolios. While not perfect, they’re a great lesson on alternative assessment methods.

If Olin were to take inspiration from Hampshire, I would use their learning model as a set of learnings about how portfolios can support student ownership, reflection, and demonstration of learning, while still building something uniquely Olin.

Our project-based curriculum creates a strong foundation for portfolios. Projects give students a meaningful problem to encourage learning, while the portfolio demonstrates their competency.

We already use portfolios to showcase our work for applications, but class projects often don’t make the cut. Many students instead favor large-scale personal work and project teams, which seem to provide more opportunity for deep learning, integrating disciplines, and developing an engineering mindset. 

Bearing this in mind, I think we should use a small number of large, intentional projects for learning, assessment, and portfolios. We then use small projects as opportunities to practice and validate critical skills.

I would follow this path to design a successful education using portfolios:

1. Define competency. Decide what skills students need to earn their degree. Ensure this meets ABET requirements and Olin’s educational philosophy.

2. Define evidence. Decide what portfolios must demonstrate to prove successful learning and competency to internal and external audiences.

3. Design the projects. Identify project-portfolio pairings for each degree that require students to learn and demonstrate the desired competencies. Size projects to give students enough time to deeply engage with the problem, bridge disciplines, iterate, and produce something substantial.

4a. Provide direction. Give students a project goal, constraints, recommended resources, and a mix of group and individual support, while leaving freedom in how they approach the problem.

4b. Use just-in-time instruction. As students encounter a technical problem, provide the necessary mini-lecture, example, or resource and then have them apply it. 

4c. Allow ownership. Encourage self-directed pacing and learning, with guardrails to ensure necessary technical competencies are still developed.

4d. Track individual learning. For group projects, require students to document their own design decisions, analysis, implementation, testing, failures, and contributions. Pairing students with different majors could also encourage interdisciplinary work and natural delegation.

5a. Assess competence. A portfolio entry should demonstrate skills through clear design choices, research, and (maybe) calculations. A clean final product isn’t enough to demonstrate learning.

5b. Preserve external legibility. Use the portfolio assessments to create subject-specific grades (Linear Algebra, Statics, Design Thinking, etc). This would make easy to understand transcripts for applications.

6. Iterate projects and requirements. Ask whether students developed the intended competencies, whether their portfolios provide convincing evidence of those competencies, and whether employers or graduate schools can understand and use that evidence. Update the projects as needed.

Instead of just another assignment, portfolio entries can be a tool we use to demonstrate the depth of our skills and the extent of our capabilities.

The opportunity isn’t to make portfolios work. It’s to make the work worth a portfolio.

A PSA On Laser Safety

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You may know me as the person who likes lasers a little bit! Given my reputation, it may come as a shock to many of you that I don’t own any high powered laser pointers! Yes, I own high powered laser diodes, but turning those on requires reconstructing the power supply from scratch every time. None of the lasers I own that can be turned on at the drop of a hat are particularly eye-unsafe. The main reason for this is because I’m not STUPID.

If you are lucky and introduced to hobbyist lasers through proper channels, the first thing you will learn is how easily lasers will cause you permanent and irrecoverable eye damage. Human eyes are amazing and intricate machines, but they too have their limits. They are meant for things like daylight and the occasional glance at the sun, not beams of light that are focused down into spots far more intense than direct sunlight.

Sunlight has an intensity of roughly 1,000W/m2. Staring into the sun directly is dangerous, and can cause all manner of eye conditions, including burns if you keep looking too long. As a point of comparison, I was working with a 20mW fiber laser over the summer. One day I got curious and pulled out a calculator to do some back of the napkin math. At the beam focus point, the intensity of the laser pointer was roughly 77,000,000W/m2. Seventy. Seven. Million. Watts. To be fair, this was a fairly high-quality laser that had a small focal point, but your eyes do their best to focus down any laser that enters them. 

So, for all of you reading this article, please stick to the low powered lasers. Your eyes, and the eyes of everyone around you, will thank you. 

P.S. Especially avoid cheap green laser pointers. They sometimes use IR diodes upconverted into green light, but cheap ones often don’t have IR filters and leak many times more (invisible!) IR light than the green output you can see.

Who Are The PAs Fall 2026

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The PAs, or the Peer Advocates for Sexual Respect, aim to have a diverse set of student volunteers who are committed to being a support network for other students struggling with sexual misconduct, having a healthy relationship, or for students who are concerned for others. 

For some brief history, the PAs began as an AHS Capstone in 2014. Motivation to start the PAs stemmed the campus climate survey and a Frankly Speaking article from 2013 that confirmed that sexual assault does happen at Olin and affects the same percentage of students as other colleges around the country.

The PA program is here to advocate for and work towards making Olin a place where people feel safe and respected. As a completely independent, student-led group, we aim to be a resource and response to the evolving situation of sexual respect at Olin.

We also recognize that it can be very tough to approach anyone with personal and sensitive issues so we hope to connect with the community and break the social barriers when it comes to topics like consent, sexual health, and relationships as a whole. Be on the lookout for PA Jeopardy, “It Happens Here”, PA Wellness events, and community wide trainings!

An event run this past month was our relationship panel where we invite non first-years onto a panel to discuss their advice with first years. This spans not just romantic relationships on- and off-campus, but also those with our friends and families.

So to finally answer the burning question, here are the PAs. Please come talk to us!

  • Anika Kale
  • Brandon Spiller
  • Wynona Brinkmann
  • Lex Gerlack
  • Rami Burdette

Greg

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Every Saturday, I work 7AM to 7PM as an EMT doing inter-facility transports. These Saturdays have taught me something: the moment people stop walking, they start dying.

Because once most people stop walking, they give up taking care of themselves. And in modern American society, once someone who doesn’t have money stops taking care of themselves, they get sent somewhere like “Garden Grove Skilled Nursing” where they are kept alive, but just barely, by techs making ten cents above minimum wage and nurses assigned three times the legally mandated maximum number of patients. 

And living at Garden Grove* is a life worse than death. You lie in your bed and watch your TV and eat your gruel and digest it and then soil yourself and lie in your filth and call out for help but none comes until two hours later when a manager yells to “fix that smell” and they find you and clean you up. And you watch your mind unravel and degenerate and slowly come apart because nobody with a normal, functioning brain could ever last at Garden Grove. And then, after a few weeks or months or years or decades of life without living, you eventually die. 

Unless you’re Greg*. Greg is a white man in his early 40s with tattoos on both shoulder caps wearing a sleeveless tee and lying on a gurney in the emergency room hallway near the corner they usually put the drunks. He’s got a barrel chest, thick arms, and skinny, atrophied legs—he was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident that broke his neck about five years ago. That was the second time he’s broken his neck, and this time, the doctors and physical therapists couldn’t fix it. Greg’s about 250 pounds and was probably a little under six feet tall when he could still stand. In other words: he’s built like a tank. 

Greg came to the hospital because he was moving himself to his manual wheelchair since his powered one was broken and felt a sudden recoil and a sharp pain in his shoulder. He tried to push through the pain for a few days, and then went to physical therapy and got told that they would not do any normal PT because he obviously needed to go to the damn hospital. And so now here he is, and they scanned his shoulder and told him that he did indeed injure it, and now he’s going to need to make an appointment with orthopedics so that they can get him started on getting all fixed up. He’s pissed off about it—now his shoulder is fucked and he’s going to have to go through months of rehab before he gets it back to full function, and he needs his shoulders working so that he can be properly independent because Greg doesn’t live at a place like Garden Grove—Greg lives at home. 

Actually, that statement is far too passive. Greg fights to live at home. Aggressively. Voraciously. Constantly. He keeps up the strength to move his 250 pounds of bulk from the wheelchair to the commode and back. He refuses to allow anyone else to clean him. He showers himself and cooks for himself and feeds himself and goes to the bathroom without assistance. He asserts his own dignity and independence in a situation where such an assertion is a radical act. 

The system is not built to support someone like Greg; it is built to funnel people into Garden Grove because Garden Grove is a much simpler, neater way of “handling” the Gregs of the world. But Greg has pushed back against the pressures of this system. He’s pushed for referrals, resources, tools, and people who can help him to live his life with dignity. He has to fight tooth and nail for these things! People don’t want to help him do this because figuring out how to help this man maintain his dignity and independence while still living in his own home is a lot harder and more legally risky than just shipping him off to Garden Grove like they do with all the others. Because as Greg told me, if you’re paralyzed “they treat you like you’re intellectually disabled”—like you are someone who is not capable of adding a relevant, meaningful voice to the conversation. 

But Greg keeps fighting. He demands to be taught how to give himself the enema he needs to have a bowel movement. He wears down his insurance until they give him the powered wheelchair which enables him to reach high shelves. He goes to physical therapy most days of the week and keeps up his strength because he will be independent and he will maintain his dignity and nobody is going to make that happen but him. 

I learned all of this about Greg in the back of the ambulance, taking him home from the hospital. As we worked our way back to his apartment, he was brainstorming how he’d handle the new challenge of only having one usable shoulder—he was pretty pissed about it all, but he was thinking out how it could work. He talked through how physical therapy would be different now with one working arm, and complained that it would probably take him weeks to find an opening for an appointment about his shoulder. He also mentioned his job search—he’s trying to find a 9-to-5 where he can work remotely, and he was recently talking with one of his doctors about becoming a patient advocate; the work appealed to him. 

Maybe if Greg’s powered wheelchair wasn’t broken, or if it had gotten fixed faster, he wouldn’t have overtired his shoulders and gotten injured. Maybe if the healthcare system was designed to support people in living independently instead of consigning them to a life of dependence, he wouldn’t have to fight as much as he does for every inch. Lots of maybes, but Greg doesn’t seem to dwell in them—he just does whatever needs to be done. 

On my Saturday night drives home from my EMT job, I typically call my mom; that night, I told her about Greg. She was as impressed as I was—the sentiment was colored by the fact that my younger sister has Down Syndrome, and so my parents have been fighting for the last eighteen years so that my sister can have that same self-determination that Greg is striving for. 

After hearing about Greg and his battles, my mom asked me something which stuck with me. She asked me if I’d asked Greg what tools he was missing—tools he thought could be useful for him in the future to continue maintaining his independence. And I realized that I never did. 

I am twenty-one years old, and I don’t know what my career will look like in the future. All I know is that I want to give people the tools to help themselves—to give themselves agency, dignity, and independence. I don’t want to “fix” them—people are not problems to be solved. I want to work with the people who will never be all-the-way “normal,” and I want to help them take and keep control of their lives. 

I want to design for Greg. 

*pseudonyms

My Only Important Reflection On Olin

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Over my time at Olin, I have loved the honest, community-focused criticisms, praises, ideas, jokes, and everything else that Frankly Speaking has contained. I also enjoy writing and reflecting, and through my four years, I have made it a practice to use the Frankly format to write out my reflections specifically pertinent to Olin. My Google Drive is littered with documents named “Potential Frankly:…” followed by titles of almost a dozen half-finished thoughts. Some I wrote in one-night rages and never revisited, others were thoroughly edited and peer-reviewed only to not be submitted at the last moment. 

I knew I wanted to write one more Frankly Speaking, but I didn’t know what would be actually valuable to focus upon in this “last shot.” I considered revisiting my reflections on creating change at Olin, maybe one about our approach to community building and buy-in. Finally, I thought I was honing into writing about the many reflections I have on the tensions created by Olin’s apoliticalness. 

But in looking through all of my reflections, it became clear that only one was actually important: where the best spots on campus are to birdwatch.

Okay, so it obviously depends what you’re trying to see and when you’re trying to see it, but just gonna go over a generalist tour:

  • Right out the gates, I’m going to lead with a hot take: the maintenance area right inside Parcel B by the soccer fields. You wouldn’t think it, but honestly, great-ass spot to see birds. Not only do you got the open area, a mix of coniferous and deciduous and dead and live trees, BUT you also are sat up on a bit of a hill so you get a better view of the whole tree.
  • Going off this idea, a good climbing tree…Get up there and sit a bit! You’ll see so much cool stuff around ya! Best climbing tree in Parcel B is yours to find, but as a hint, if you walk in a straight line from East Hall to the pond, you’ll walk right by it.
  • Shoot, I didn’t mean to put the cart before the horse here, ‘cause I know some of y’all don’t have a pair of binoculars/bird identification stuff. That’s a-okay! You can check out binoculars from the library (common Olin Library W), and Merlin Bird ID is a great free app for bird identification! If you don’t want all the hassle of identification, I respect though.
  • The whole pond area is just the absolute best. Y’all, I have seen Solitary Sandpipers out there cozy-as-can-be once the native wildflowers grow up over the summer. Isn’t that crazy at Olin?? Also, it’s just great seeing the swallows there along with larger water birds like ducks and herons! 
  • For rarer finds, deeper in the woods is always a good bet. There’s a roughly-beaten path back past the prairie and, for a special treat right now, there’s a pair of nesting Pileated Woodpeckers right along the path!
  • Lastly, the marsh area you pass when driving in is just a classic. There are always Red Tailed Hawks hanging around and the Red Winged Blackbirds make for an amazing sunset experience!

Reach out to me if you got any questions, but otherwise, happy birding and happy time at Olin! Make sure to reflect on the important things. And write your own Franklys too—the more we share as a community, the more we understand each other and grow together, and most importantly, the more birds we see.

My total Olin bird count (as of 4/30): 65 unique species. (Absolutely ROOKIE numbers by the way, other past Olin students have cracked 100 on campus before. Could be you!)

The Dying Art of Mental Masturbation

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I am currently mentally masturbating. As I begin to write this piece, it is 10:31AM and I am at Wellesley—I’m planning to go to office hours for my chemistry class, and I got here a half-hour early to have a meeting which ended about ten minutes ago. This week is going to be crazy busy with Passover, a CD design review, biology catch-up, and other silliness—I should be using this time to work! But instead, I am doing none of those things because I saw Maddy’s email about Frankly Speaking submissions being due and decided to write this piece—it’s an indulgence, and a fun one, too.

 I initially heard this concept from my father. In his first year of residency, the attending surgeons kept telling him to “stop mentally masturbating and just start cutting people up.” The concept can be summarized as the practice of doing indulgent, meandering intellectual tasks when more direct action could be taken. 

At Olin, this seemingly meaningless exploration and indulgence often is the real work; mental masturbation is an essential part of the Olin experience. Being a student at Olin means getting sidetracked. It often involves horrendously overscoping your QEA project because you think it would be cool, or staying up until the sun rises to get your Mech Proto automata working. 

Olin’s pedagogy heavily promotes a unique combination of whimsy, grit, and intellectual indulgence, and provides a beautiful example of how this exploration can be used to develop highly effective engineers. At its core, Olin is a college of mental masturbators, and I am proud to be one of them.

However, this culture of intellectual exploration is breaking down into preprofessionalism, and it’s not a pretty sight. Take the rise of 20-crediting. The social pressure to take 20 credits a semester is a new concept—according to professors, even a few years back, an Oliner taking more than 4 classes was a rare exception. Now, it is commonplace.

This is absurd, and entirely against the values of Olin. Instead of spending their time diving deep into concepts, overscoping and gaining the application-based intellectual flexibility which helps Oliners distinguish themselves, many students taking 20 credits end up shoving in content through a firehose without having enough space to truly understand or dive deep, much less actually breathe. 

I learned this lesson from experience—last semester, I was taking 22 credits including PIE, QEA 3, Mech Solids, Organic Chemistry 1, Wellesley poetry, and an ISR. The sheer volume of work prevented me from diving deep into any one particular concept, diluting the value of the courses I was taking. Without unstructured time to recover, breathe, and develop deeper intellectual curiosity in my coursework, I simply did the minimum to achieve a good grade for each class. I cheated myself of the curiosity, learning, and intellectual indulgence which a proper Olin semester should entail. 

Overcommitting yourself gives you the academic equivalent of erectile dysfunction—you become so constantly stressed that you just can’t get it up; you lose all interest in the kind of unstructured learning and growth which is so central to Olin’s curriculum.

As I finish (re)writing this article, it is currently 9:08PM. The official fall course schedule came out a few days ago, and people are beginning to pick out their classes for their fall semesters. 

Inevitably, many rising sophomores will try and take 20 credits, or set themselves up for Mech-E Hell Semester, or plan to do some other ridiculous set of commitments which will make it substantially more difficult to have a good overall learning experience. They’ll get through it—Oliners are aggressively competent, and we know how to check the boxes to achieve outward-facing success. 

So I urge you to consider, if you will, make the time to actually learn—to indulge yourself in self-exploration, curiosity, and joy.

*If you want help planning out your course schedule, please feel free to reach out. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have spent more time planning out my courses than literally any other student at Olin, and I find great joy in helping other people figure out their own path for classes.

Spankley Freaking: This Month’s Rejected Headlines

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Rising Sophomore Lured Into A Suite Double Like Odysseus To The Sirens

“Triplessssssss,” hissed the junior, beckoning them towards East Hall

Carpediem Used For Yet Another Survey

I’m going to seize the day by punching the next P&M student I see in the face

“OK. Now for SURE It’s Spring,” Says First Year In A T-Shirt Right Before Getting Hit In The Face With Another Inch And A Half Of Snow

“Olonion’s Half-Assed Name A Shameless, Blatant Attempt To Ride Off The Coattails Of A Respectable, Established Organization”

Writes Spankly Freaking Editor

“Ahhh, What A Nice Break” Says Student Who Did Not Relax At All Over Break

They are now buried in work. Student is me.

Tour Guide Happens To Have 15th Birthday This Month On The Day Of Their Tour

Root Source of Mistrust Within Olin Community Finally Identified

It was those damn IT phishing emails all along

Lost, Confused Student Doesn’t Know What To Go-To Complain About With Dining Hall Being Undeniably Cracked

“What will I have to talk about??” cries Junior as they dip their freshly grilled flank steak into a fine chimichurri sauce

Spankly March ’26

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Brave people of Olin, we know you have gone with a drought of truth… That, in such a famine as this, you have been unduly forced to bear the wicked cup of lies to your lips and drink the plebeian humours of “Frankly Speaking,” believing the fictitious and malevolent have won.

“Nay!” we say! Though our voices here at Spankly Freaking have yet once more been silenced these past months (we’ve been too lazy to get something together), we brave through this desert to once again provide the oasis of cool water that will soothe your throat, and quench your thirst for truth and justice. 

Without further ado, here are this month’s rejected headlines…

Half-Finished Great Lawn Igloo Serves As Comforting Reminder To Students That They, Too, Will Never Fully Achieve Their Life Goals

“February is depressing enough, but walking back to the dorms each day and getting to see a clear monument to the plight of those who dream too big really just pounds it in,” said senior shortly before looking out of a dark window, sighing

Miller Academic Center Proposes New Strategic Vision: “Olin As A Slowly Decaying Lab”

Exposé Brilliantly, Fearlessly Exposes Urgent Olin Need: Writing Tutors

“Initially, I was hesitant, but when I saw the unattributed quote immediately backed up with a foggy to unclear call to action, I was knocked off my seat. I thought ‘Wow, now this is well-focused, succinct piece of evidence on why Oliners should have someone who isn’t an engineer proofread’”

Par- I Mean Social Gatherings Are Back!

Students prepare to raucously cram 7 people (Fire Safe Occupancy Limit™) into a room for a whole night of unbridled raving that goes until the 12am quiet hours

Olin Drops To #3 In Best Engineering College For Undergraduates 

Pivoting from impact centered education, Olin focuses on military grade, long-range airstrike engineering to finally beat Rose-Hulman “The Hard Way”

Rare Sighting Of A Junior On Campus Made Feb 12th, 4:34PM

“I thought they had all abandoned us!” cried a First-Year before snapping a blurry photo of the lone Junior not on study abroad wistfully roaming through EH 1NN

All Of These Ten Couches Sitting Unused In The EH 3 And 4 Lounge Are Really Just Asking For Someone To Take Them

I mean, who even leaves eight couches just around when no one is using them? It’s not like the lounge will ever need all the five couches that are left in the space. 

R. May Lee Sits All Olin Family Around The Dinner Table To Assure Them That She Is “Not Mad, Just Disappointed”

Report Finds That That One Person On Your CD Team “Coordinating With The People Group” Is, In Fact, Just Playing Clash Royale 

Even worse, they’re playing a Mega Knight deck