Hi, I was just wondering if some DID Alumni could share some experiences from the forum. I understand what goes on but as far as what you actually do the info has been a little vauge. Like, do you have any down time during the forum, and whats a day at the forum generally like. Thanks.

You'll have very little downtime, unless you include the social hour at the end of every day. The meal times are pretty long too, so you could eat and do other things. A few times you'll have like 20 minutes to change or just relax between activities. Generally it's pretty hectic though.

As far as the days go, there's a lecture or similar most every day. You'll have at least one group meeting every day, you're assigned a group when you get there, where you discuss many things. You'll travel in coach busses everyday, a lot of the time to visit places (e.g. capitol hill, monuments, etc).

Good luck and enjoy your time at the forum! It was a lot of fun for me.

Thanks a lot, how about in the early morning? what time do we have to be ready? Would there be time for me to go down to the hotels fitness room and get on the treadmill so I don't lose a week's worth of work-outs?

I have the same concern! I am on the cross-country team at school and losing a week of practices will be really bad!!!! I think that maybe we can get up an hour early and use the fitness room; at night, the events end too late to get in a practical workout!

- Courtney (attending DID 11/1/05-11/6/05)

Sorry guys, they aren't going to let you use the fitness room. It's just one of those rules. Maybe you can get a response from email before you go or talk to your faculty advisor when you get there as to what you can do (maybe a jog outside?). But yeah, the fitness room is off limits.

Breakfast times vary slightly, but 6:45-8:00 is about average. Shortly after that you start getting busy. Evening activites are done before 10:00 pm and from then until 10:45 is the evening social time.

What do we do at the evening socials? Is it like a dance, or just a party or what?

The evening socials are just basically hang out time. There are different snacks available each night along with beverages. So you get to eat, talk, and whatever. The last night you're there is a dance that for my forum at least lasted much longer than it was supposed to. I think it ended at midnight rather than 10:45.

I just got out of one of those live chats with an associate director of admissions. They say we can arange to jog around the perimeter of the hotel with a staff member when we arrrive at the forum.

Hi! I have a wardrobe question to a past attendee. Besides the formal clothes required most of the time, what do you suggest for the casula clothes? Do people wear jeans and tank tops? Or nicer than that? Is the dance at the end the place to wear like formal dance clothes or just a cute top and a skirt??

For casual clothes just bring whatever you want. Jeans and a tank top would be fine, although it might be too cold for a tank top...then again you're in Massachusetts and I'm in Texas. I was expecting cold weather so I took jeans and long sleeve shirts. It turned out that jeans and short sleeves would've been fine most of the time.

Everyone wore casual clothes to the dance at the end, it's basically whatever you want to wear. I'm sure they there is a certain dress code to uphold, but there were no issues with that at my forum.

Hi. This is Rich. Question. I'll attend the NOv 1-6 forum. How is this nat. security sim? Second, when and how are the roles assigned. Thanx 4 reading.

quote:

Originally posted by xXRomanRepublicXx:
How is this nat. security sim?

It was a lot of fun. When it got down to the actual simulation part it was really hectic and sometimes frustrating, but still a lot of fun. It was definately one of my favorite parts, if not my favorite part, of the forum.

So it's crazy, fun, hectic, frustrating... yeah, good times.

quote:

Originally posted by xXRomanRepublicXx: Second, when and how are the roles assigned.

At some point within the first day or two your faculty advisor will ask who is interested in being president. Hopefully there will be more than one person (there was only 1 person at first in my group, but a second person decided to give it a shot), and those people will have to right a speech explaining why they think they should be president. They then get to read this to the group and the group votes. Most votes gets president and the second most gets vice president.

The remaining group members will go to a different area of the room based upon what area they're interested in (defense, intelligence, press, etc) and debate who gets what position within that area (you get a book with descriptions of the available positions, among other things). If more than one person is dead set to get a certain position, then the president and/or faculty advisor makes the decision. It wasn't really a problem in my group, but another vote could probably be set up for a contested position.