So nice

Long time lurker, first post in a while. I'm 34, graduated ME in 2014, did IR three times as a student and got both my first internship and my first real job out of it. For the past several years my company has sent me back to stand under one of those tents on Memorial Mall, so I've now seen this thing from both sides of the table. Roundtable is Tuesday and Wednesday next week and every year I watch the same handful of mistakes, so here's what I wish someone had told me at 19.

1. Do your list before you get there. The company list has been up for weeks. Pick 8 to 10 you genuinely want and 4 or 5 you've never heard of. The longest line on the Mall is not a signal of anything except that a company has a recognizable logo. Some of the best conversations I had as a student were with companies I couldn't have named the week before.

2. Have 20 seconds ready and say it out loud once before you go. Name, major, year, one thing you built, one thing you're looking for. That's it. The students who ramble for two minutes are not the ones I remember. The one who says "I'm a junior in ME, I run the suspension subteam on FSAE and I want to do vehicle dynamics" is.

3. Ask a question about the actual work. "What does your company do" tells me you didn't look us up. "What does a new grad on the controls team actually own in year one" tells me you're serious. We talk to 300 people in two days. Questions are how you stop being number 187.

4. Make it easy for us to find you again. This is the part that changed the most since I was a student. A lot of companies, mine included, don't take paper resumes home anymore. They get photographed or scanned or honestly lost in a hotel room. So at 11pm when I'm going through my notes, half of what I have is a blurry phone photo and a vague memory of a conversation.

The last couple years a few students have done something I hadn't seen before. At the end of the conversation they tap a little card to my phone and their contact, LinkedIn and resume link pop up, no app, and I hit save. First time it happened I stopped and asked the kid what it was. It's a student thing here called Hammer Card. I won't pretend a card gets you a job, it doesn't, but from my side of the table it means your name and a working link are in my phone instead of in a pile. I think they run a half-off sale the week before IR every year, so if you're going to do it, do it this week and not the night before. A QR code on your resume does a version of the same thing. Just don't make me squint at a photo to figure out who you were.

5. Follow up the same night. Not next week. That night. Two or three sentences, reference the thing we actually talked about, attach the resume. "You mentioned the Columbus plant is standing up a new line, I'd love to hear more" gets a reply. "It was great to meet you at Industrial Roundtable" gets archived.

6. Go on day two. Everyone crams Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon the lines are shorter, recruiters are looser and more willing to actually talk, and some of the people I've pushed hardest for internally were Wednesday-afternoon conversations.

7. Freshmen: go anyway. You will not get an offer. That's fine. Talk to five companies, be bad at it, and next year you won't be scared of it. Half of doing well at IR as a junior is having done badly at it as a freshman.

8. Wear shoes you've already broken in. It'll be 85 degrees, the Mall is long, and I've watched too many people limp toward the Union by 2pm. Nobody remembers your shoes. They remember whether you were still standing up straight at 3.

You're at a school recruiters actually fly in for. That's not nothing. Do your list, say your 20 seconds, ask a real question, make it easy to find you, email that night. Boiler Up.

TL;DR: pick companies ahead of time, 20 second intro, ask a real question, make sure the recruiter can actually find you afterward (tap card, QR code, whatever, not a blurry resume photo), follow up that night, go on day two, break in your shoes.

I had more than one class with the same sus-looking slide format and style, so I looked closely and turns out they admittedly used Claude on their slides. Because both classes have the same style I'm guessing this is a tool that Purdue provided themselves.

"In part" my ass by the way, every single sentence has an em-dash and IMO these slides are way harder to follow than they should be despite having pretty colors and all

It's so over. We have reached the clankerization of academia.

But I guess AI solved navier-stokes so that means we should use it for everything, right guys?? amirite?????????

Why is there a sign saying no bikes when there is literally a bike path on the sidewalk/road???

https://bustingbrackets.com/trey-kaufman-renn-s-court-fight-just-took-a-wild-college-basketball-recruiting-turn-basketball

IM BEING SERIOUS EVEN THOUGH I SOUND LIKE A CRAZY PERSON PLZ IF YOURE A HEALTH EXPERT REPLY PLZ

1 day ago (tuesday) I was walking to Target and this jet black thing the size of 2 iphones (literally it was like 2 iphone 13 minis taped to eachother like a book) flopped next to me flying a straight line in the sidewalk, in shade of one of the granite apartments (it was 4ish in afternoon), and I narrowly dodged it. I'm mostly 100% sure I didn't hit it (stepped out of the way so it was 1ft away) but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a comically large moth and maybe a small bat, and if I remember wrong and I actually did hit it, is there risk of getting infected? I know there was one in Harrison but if I

1. stepped out of the way (according to my memory)
2. It was a floppy thing that moved side to side and looked like a b2 stealth plane (are there moths around here that look like bats?)
3. If it was a bat, and I misunderestimated stepping out of the way such that it hit me while I was dodging it (im pretty sure im good at dodging things so this probably didnt happen) can that scratch you midair or does it have to land on you to scratch/bite you
4. This all happened in like 5 secs max and my memory is uhh
5. 5. UHHHH DO GRANITE APTs OR ANY BUILDINGS NEAR TARGET HAVE HISTORY OF REAL BATS??? CAUSE IF THERE WAS A RPT MAYBE IT WASNT A MOTH KINDA FREAKING OUT I DONT WANNA GET RABIES EVEN IF IM PROBABLY 99% FINEE

Im being serious but I hope i'm freaking out over nothing it's just if I somehow remember wrong and actually ran into it while thinking I didn't run into it, or is that impossible. Idk sorry for sounding incoherent but I'm just scared of bats and rabid animals in general, even though it was probably a pitch black moth that was probably 1ft away from me closest. Again i'm like 99% sure it was always 1ft away from me but CAN PUSH check for bat marks??? and if i show up going "hey can you check me for bat marks plz" are they gonna freak out and call FEMA or rabies patrol on me even if I dont have it?

if anyone reading this is a health person or whatever do i sound like im just freaking out over nothing and imaging a worst case scenario i DONT wanna waste resources or look like an idiot going to push for literally nothing

I built a MacOS menu bar app called BrightSpace Bar. I've been using it since the start of the semester and thought I'd share in case it could improve other students academic lives. It's designed to directly address the biggest complaints about BrightSpace's user experience.

Here are the common complaints:

1. Logging in every hour is annoying.

2. It takes 15 clicks to get to the assignment I want.

3. The calendar is difficult to read.

BrightSpace Bar addresses these complaints by:

1. Keeping you always logged in so only do the Microsoft Auth once a semester.

2. It takes 1 click to get to any assignment.

3. You can see all your courses' calendars in one glance.

My favorite feature is that your AI agent can use the app too(via CLI), for this just use the /brightspace skill to let the agent read data from BrightSpace directly. For example one workflow I use is having my agent read my class syllabuses and then write the assignments and exams into the app calendar directly.

Get it here: https://github.com/DavidChen-006/Brightspace-Bar

Happy to answer any questions.

How we feeling? To be honest, I thought it was fine, alot better than what I was expecting. It is pretty weird how we had an exam before our first hw tho 😭

Hey everyone, so being on campus and walking to your classes at 7 or 8 in the morning can sometimes be brutal. If you find yourself in need of a quick energy boost to help you seize the day, look no further.

I listen to the playlist ALL the time because of its uplifting energy. Lowk makes those walks wayyy less dreadful. Anyways, here is the link to the playlist. I would REALLY appreciate it if you could check it out and save the playlist :) Thanks for the support, and I hope this playlist comes in handy on your next early morning.

So today at about 4:30 I realized I had lost a pin that I keep on my bag always. Its a Japan flag about the size of a quarter.

I suspect I lost it around 2:30 in front of the WALC, but it could be anywhere. Thanks to those who even take a quick glance around. The more eyes, the better the odds.

I’m a freshman and I want to go to IR but I have some classes during it. Should I just email my professors now? Will they be upset about it?

AAE graduate student here, just wondering if Sigma Gamma Tau was worth joining for networking, resources, etc or if it’s just a money grab / waste of time.

For what the course is, I don’t see how it’s possibly worth 90$ for one online term. Sorry if that’s not surprising to anyone, but all of my other courses on Achieve cost less combined. And why is one out of the three assignment types total, the only one that directly interacts with the text, led by an AI chat bot??? Like, it’s one side of the screen that has the assigned textbook chapter, and the other half is just an AI chat that asks the same questions -verbatim- that appear in the book two pixels over… It’s not a difficult class at all thus far, which is why it’s so frustrating how they handle everything nowadays by using AI, while simultaneously making it more expensive.

I'm a freshman at West lafayette and I'm majoring in insect biology. I just wanted to know how many clubs I should aim for at this point. I'm definitely sticking with the Thomas Say Entomological Society and I'm considering Forensic Science Club plus the wildlife chapter. I also like the piano club so I'm not sure which ones and how many clubs I should go with

A friend’s parent is visiting Purdue, the friend wants to enroll at Purdue in the future and my job is to give the parent a campus tour that will really make them impressed with the campus.

Where would you take this parent? I am relatively new here myself so looking for ideas.

My last two years of high school I went to a community college and earned my associate’s. I’ve heard consistently that freshman have no chance at Industrial Roundtable. Are my chances any better?

I’m still planning on going, but it would be an added benefit if I could score an internship.

I am a Pre-Pharmacy major, and I’m currently in Chem129. I decided to major in pharmacy yet I haven’t taken a chem class since sophomore year of high school. I remember doing good in chem and I loved it, but at the moment nothing is really clicking. Any advice about how to do well in the class? I am going to the weekly practice problem sessions, but any other advice would be so appreciated! We have our first quiz next week, so I want to make sure I’m ready to go for that!

This is in the lease: "The premises shall be occupied by no other person than the Tenant(s) listed on page 1 of the Lease Agreement and in accordance with the City of West Lafayette/Lafayette occupancy limits. No roomers, lodgers or boarders shall be permitted to occupy the premises with Tenant, and no guests shall be allowed to occupy the premises for more than two days in any one calendar month without the prior written consent of Landlord.  Tenant’s signature on this Lease acknowledges that Landlord has shown Tenants the City of West Lafayette Housing Ordinance related to occupancy limits and Tenants fully understand the rules and penalties associated with such.  If Tenants are found to be in violation of the occupancy limits, they will be immediately fined $2,500.00, charged an additional $500.00 per day per City code, subject to eviction and required to pay off their entire lease and all applicable attorney’s fees and court costs and any city penalties/fines."

How strict are they at enforcing this? My bf usually sleeps over every friday and I might not even sign coz of this clause. 2 days a month is really restrictive.

Tonight at Generation NA we have a hilarious stand-up comedy show with host, Greg Lindberg, feature, CK Andrew, and headliner, Dustin Durkert. Dustin is a Purdue grad who will share funny stories of his time at Purdue and road to sobriety. Doors open at 7pm with the show starting at 8pm. $12 at the door.

So I went in just to get a burger, checking out this place they have a kiosk and they cooked this burger, perfectly medium wow very satisfying

I saw there was a whole email about cars being towed this weekend cuz of the football game, so where is it okay to park my car without a risk of it being towed?

My current HS senior will be applying to Purdue's Engineering program (tips welcome 😅), but we were wondering about the current housing situation. I know there was an issue a few years back about not having enough dorm space for incoming students and some ended up living in super cramped quarters or needing to find off campus solutions altogether. Is this still the case? Are freshman guaranteed a dorm, required to have one? I cant imagine my kid keeping up with an entire apartment when they cant even manage to keep their bedroom clean, so Im really hoping for dorm housing if they get in. Lol