I began Friday by “practicing my networking skills” with corporate visitors at the IST Building Future Forum (otherwise known as the how-many-free-corporate-trinkets-can-you-gather-in-three-hours contest).
After returning to my dorm victorious, armed with a hand-sanitizer spray pen, a key chain flashlight, a highlighter with built-in paper flags and a glowing fake ice cube, it was soon time to head off to the Collegian formal.
For those who haven’t been following this blog since its inception, the Collegian formal is the once-a-semester event where all of us newspaper folk leave the office and party it up.
At the winter formal, there’s a little more drama, with a few high-achieving reporters anxious to see who will win the coveted Reporter of the Semester award. But in the spring, all that work-related drama is pushed off to an end of the semester picnic. The formal consists only of what it was meant for: breaking it down.
Breaking it down from 8-11 is not an easy task — but I came prepared. With a few new moves that I picked up from the honors students last week, old standbys like the shopping cart, the fisherman and, of course, the robot, I had enough material to last the night.
When the Collegian’s news adviser stopped by midway through the formal and complimented my moves, my earlier in the day corporate experience sparked a thought in my head: Is this marketable?
Think about it — awesome dancing assures at least some fitness, rudimentary literacy (G…l…a…m…or…ous) and basic social skills. The human resources people call it “work-life balance.”
There’s plenty of geeks in the computer field. But if I can geek out AND groove at the company party, how can I loose? XML, Java, wireless networking, and ‘the robot’ – that works, right?
