Should you receive an EMAIL from an MIT Civil Engineering class, you may see a strange name in the EMAIL moniker.  For example, I was cc’d on a message to whoatethegoldfish@mit.edu.  MIT may have invited some eccentric students to attend in the past, but I was assuming that there was no student named, “Whoatethe Goldfish”.  So I asked Professor Eric Adams where these EMAIL addresses came from.  He commented that each incoming civil engineering class is invited to pick an EMAIL moniker for their overall class at an MIT retreat.  Should you be contacted via EMAIL by an MIT class and wonder where the name came from, here is a list from 1996 with discussion provided by Professor Adams: 


Class of 1996 - Team-croquet
(Professor Adams comments:  game played at Talbot House, an MIT-owned facility and location of the retreat at the time) 

1997 - Team-macarena
(dance done at Talbot House) 

1998- GoingforChickens
(still don’t know)

1999 - 6canoes
(number of canoes we had paddling down CT River; there were also some kayaks) 

2000- Missingbeer  
(we left our beer out overnight and some locals took it, leaving a handwritten note in the cooler questioning why MIT students weren’t smart enough to know they shouldn’t leave beer out in VT) 

2001- Ohmyliver
(you can guess) 

2002- MissionImpossibleThree
(abbreviation is MIT) 

2003 - Nomorecanoes
(outfitter ran out of canoes) 

2004 - HurryUpandWait
(I accidentally forgot to pick up some students when they finished canoeing and they had to wait a loooooong time) 

2005 - Bigmama
(name of a large rapid on the Kennebec River) 

2006 - Mooseheads
(name of the beer we were drinking) 

2007 - TheMafia
(late night card game) 

2008 - Moxie
(name of the highest waterfall in ME; also little-known but highly loved root beer taste-alike)  

2009 - Flamingcow
(over a campfire late at night, a student who grew up in a ranching family out West related a story about how his family treated newly acquired cattle: spraying their bodies with a volatile vaccine, and then branding them.  Apparently they did not wait long enough between the two activities and, swear to God, one of the  ows caught on fire.  S/he was apparently OK.)

2010 - Beavercall
(up to your imagination)

2011 - Whoatethegoldfish
(some crackers went missing)

2012 - Highsociety (not really sure) 

2013 - FistofGod (not really sure)