Who doesn't love free Stuff?

Like a lot of other schools, my school is a haven for free stuff. There is always some kind of an event going on, and there is always something you can grab for free. Recruiting events, Information sessions, you name it! Each gathering has something free to offer. Two of the most popular free items are Pizza and T-Shirts. You can get those everywhere, every night. You just need to know where to look. Having a good distribution of friends in different departments around campus definitely helps. Between us friends (some who code in the dungeons of the CS department, some who play with wires in engineering, and us who frequent the business school), we manage to cover most of our campus. Whenever somebody knows about something going on, they put their cell phone skills to action and everyone is there.

The big events (like the ones organized by Microsoft, Disney or the big 4) are cool because you usually don’t need to RSVP. They always have good food, great goodies, and fun games. The events looking for sales people (for security systems, fertilizers, satellites etc.) are a bit of a drag because they try to convince you to go to weird places to sell their stuff. I don't understand why they can't see that most of the people there are only interested in the free food. Nonetheless, they have pretty good food and we usually don’t hang around for their presentations anyway so it is not too bad. The department events on the other hand are the ones that I hate the most. Although, the food is always very good and there is a lot less people, you have to stay for their presentations. You just can’t leave. They are boring and time consuming. I should be ashamed to say that I have attended more Information Systems events than accounting events. They always have the better pizza and it is easy for me to leave because no one really knows me.

I was looking at my closet yesterday and realized that 80% of the T-Shirts that I have are free ones. In fact, I am wearing a free one right now. This one says Price Waterhouse Coopers on it. It’s not just the T-Shirts though; I also have a Deloitte laptop bag, numerous pens, a PWC water bottle that I use, a KPMG planner and the list just goes on. It isn’t any different with my roommates. They are probably better off than I am with regards to the free stuff that they have. Seriously, the volume of free stuff that has accumulated at our apartment is preposterous. We probably have everything that has been given out for free on campus in the past couple of years. No, really. From a Microsoft puzzle to a football that reads enterprise-rent-a-car to E&Y Frisbees, we have everything. It is in fact hard to find junk that we have actually paid for.

I love college!