Joint Program Summer Picnic

The Annual Joint Program Summer Picnic took place on Saturday, July 10 on the Quissett ball field. This year’s picnic was organized by JP student representatives Claire Pontbriand (G&G) and Maya Yamato (Biology). Maya reports that the event was a smashing success:

This year’s picnic was nothing like the ones that the Joint Program has ever seen before. In an effort to raise awareness about WHOI on the MIT campus, meet new people, and show off our beautiful campus to non-JP MIT students, we chartered 2 buses to provide round-trip transportation from MIT to the Quissett ball field. We got a tremendous response, with the 106 event tickets selling out two weeks in advance and more MIT graduate students emailing us constantly asking us if they could come crash the event. (Unfortunately, we had to turn them down). 

Despite the ominous weather forecast, it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day. We fired up the grills, had lunch, and had a MIT vs. Joint Program kickball match. This was followed by soccer, Frisbee, basketball, and a trip to the beach across the street. The MIT students were excited to see our other campus, get to know more about the Joint Program, and, needless to say, incredibly jealous. The picnic was a huge success and we definitely accomplished our mission to increase awareness about our great institution. The next time we meet fellow graduate students at MIT, they might not need an explanation about WHOI or the Joint Program! 

Participants included Joint Program students and MIT students from the following groups: EECS, MechE, EAPS, Biology, Biological Engineering, MIT-SRP, MTL-summership, Physics, PAOC, Aero/Astro, Technology and Policy, Nuclear Science and Engineering, and CSAIL. Funding was generously provided by the MIT Student Activities Office, MIT Graduate Student Council Funding Board, the MIT Biology Department, the MIT Graduate Association of Mechanical Engineers, the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Students Association, the MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Graduate Student Advisory Council, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.