What Is TASP Like?

wombatsoup
Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:56:07 +0000

Alright, I will attempt to answer your last three questions. Again, the response is going to be completely inadequete (I’m in class right now and pressed for time) but I’m sure it will be supplemented by other 2009 TASPers since TASP is still very much on everyone’s mind.

Environment:

So much of this depends on the individual TASP. There are a lot of common threads however, the first is the incredible amount of freedom to plan your own time. Outside of seminar and meals most days are unstructured, so a lot of people go out and explore the city (Austin >>>> Ann Arbor, Ithica btw), nap, go to the gym, or just chill. It is also impossible to decribe the amount of fun that spontaneously happens for little or no reason, such as the water fight/dance party/fight over umbrellas that happened just because it rained or randomly staying up all night listening to music and singing for no reason at all or riding a bus to the end of the line because it sounds cool. I really could go on all day about this. As you may or may not know organized social/community activities are planned in in house communities and agreed on at house meetings, which you will come to have a love/hate relationship with if you end up at TASP. There is also a lot of really substanial conversation going on, but not neccesarily classically intellectual conversation (though there is a lot of that too). The most fulfilling of these usually happen in small groups or one-on-one. It is not unusual at all to have conversations lasting hours or going until four o’clock in the morning. One is considered an early bedtime at TASP.

Workload:
This varies from TASP to TASP and day to day. I know our seminar by its nature didn’t assign a ton of work, but we had a pretty substanial final project that required some field research (Which was awesome, btw). Overall it was never overwhelming but it was certainly enough to make the seminar run well. Expect a few hours a day.

Time for fun:
I kind of answered this already, but there is a lot of time for fun. Fun going to concerts and other organized events, fun playing monopoly, fun dying of laughter multiple times a day. It is an absolutely intense, overloading amount of fun.