Brian Pilchik

Visualizing in Degrees

Students at Tufts University are happy to know that the old SIS (Student Information Systems) is being updated, scheduled to be operable by my senior year (2013-2014). It is certainly a much-needed improvement; the current system, aside from being incredibly slow during course registration and simply looking text-based and ugly, has an interesting sleep schedule. For example, the entire system goes down between 6pm-8pm every night, and "may be unavailable on Sundays from 6AM to 10AM EST/EDT for scheduled maintenance." I'm sorry, your database needs 18 hours of down-time per week? Yikes. So wonderful; SIS is getting an upgrade. It took a whole new building on campus, but it's going to happen. But what if SIS wasn't the only thing changing? I propose a makeover for our Degree Audit Reporting System, DARS. And it would look something like this:

Okay, you got me. I just wanted to show off this gorgeous graphic I've been working on....

Paint it Blue

During reading period, Tufts Mock Trial set out on our third attempt to paint the cannon. Our first attempt was undercut by Tufts Wilderness, which got there a few hours earlier to guard. Our second attempt was rained out. But the third time's the charm, they say! Here's a recap of our season, and some great shots from out painting expedition.

Mock Trial 2011-2012 Season Recap: In September, we were thrilled in add 14 new members to our team. Our invitational season included first place wins at Tufts, Yale, and UMass Amherst, along with second place at UMass Amherst and third place at UNH.

In the spring, Tufts took two bids out of Regionals (Manchester and Boston), earning Tufts A and Tufts B shots at the New York Opening Round Championship Series. The Tufts teams tied for a qualifier to Nationals, with Tufts A pulling ahead in a statistical tie-breaker.

Tufts sent ten students to compete in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the National Championship Tournament (NCT), where Tufts...

Middle East Timeline

Since my first semester here at Tufts, I've been studying with the help of technology. And every college student knows there's no technology more intriguing during finals than Facebook. That's probably why I used examples from Facebook to study for Psychology the fall of my freshman year. But with the new Facebook timeline, it only seems fitting that this technology be used for a history course. After all, I've already written about ideas for an historical Facebook of sorts, so this exploration of middle eastern politics is simply the next logical step. Presenting a brief compilation of Facebook-timeline screencaps for important figures of the middle east. Disclaimer: Without having taken the class, you might not find these as hilarious as I do.

If any of that doesn't make sense, try Wikipedia. Back to studying: the final for this course begins in 1 hour.

On Pesach, Don't Pass Over Tufts Dining

One might imagine that the Jewish holiday of Passover is a bad time to be eating in the university dining halls. After all, the most observant of Jews will be seriously restricting their diets, so what good would it be to swipe into Dewick, only to be tempted by endless cereal displays, fresh-baked pizza, or piles of pasta? But every year during Pesach, Tufts Dining whips out the fine china (or rather, the paper plates) and prepares a small Passover buffet. Sure, it gets old after a few days of the same options, but if you pace yourself and focus on a few items at a time, you'll be set for the week.

Where would we be without the Passover staple, Matzah?

Let's take a look at the strictly Kosher-Le-Pesach options, photographed below. If you're up for eating off of the regular plates and stations, there's plenty more fruits, veggies, and protein options than just this. But even the most strict observers should be content with the following:

Gefilte...

15 Best Courses at Tufts

Thanks to the magic of Facebook questions, I've been conducting a university-wide poll over the past few weeks. Students in the Tufts Facebook network were asked to respond to a poll, asking: "Which were your favorite Tufts courses (Course Title, Professor)?" The sample is, admittedly, biased; I invited all of my Tufts friends on Facebook, and they perhaps invited theirs, but that makes me some kind of focal point. To try and balance this, I advertisements to vote were distributed to all of the on-campus dormitories, and Tufts Admissions encouraged students, via Twitter, to vote. At the time I wrote this post, the poll had 328 votes, allowing multiple votes per respondent. The results give us the top classes at Tufts University, as voted upon by (a portion of) the students.
 

Peacelight Suggests

My favorite courses so far would be Intro to Computer Science (Hescott), Rational Choice (Forber), and Intro to Acting (Lueger). All three courses ranked below, and I would suggest taking a good...