Grad Rat
New Ring Design Unveiled for Graduates
The Grad Rat's bezel features many images representing the graduate experience at MIT, including a slice of free food and light at the end of a tunnel.
The graduate ring committee made a stir this past November with the introduction of a new graduate ring that lives up to the reputation of the older and more renowned Brass Rat. Dubbed the Grad Rat, the new graduate ring captures all the charm of the Brass Rat, by employing some famous MIT problem solving along the way.
"The statistics on graduate ring purchases weren't very impressive," said Justin Werfel* SM '01, a PhD candidate who served on the Grad Rat committee. "Something like 85 percent of MIT undergraduates purchased a class ring, while only 30 percent of graduate students bought rings."
Poor sales were endemic to the graduate community for a number of reasons. "Undergraduates relate to their rings through their class year," says Alvar Saenz-Otero* '98, '00, MNG '00, a PhD student and chair of the Grad Rat committee. "Grad students may enter the Institute during the same year, but we often graduate in different years. We identify with our degree program more than our class year." Since MIT offers 30 different degree programs, creating a ring that appealed to the entire graduate student population was a little daunting.
"Previously, grad students didn't emotionally connect with their ring," said Werfel. "It was a challenge we had to overcome to be successful."
The Grad Rat committee solved that dilemma by creating and offering 30 different course designations along the ring’s shank using a pantograph process.
"Pantographing," said Saenz-Otero, "involved making a hard mold of the ring's major features, while allowing different course icons and class years to be deeply engraved on a flat area of the 'department' shank. Customizing the ring was critical to the committee because we want this ring to appeal to the entire graduate community. Anyone who received a graduate degree from a current degree program should find this ring appealing."
Like the Brass Rat, the Grad Rat gets its charm from the many design elements "hidden" in the ring. As the Grad Rat brochure states, "the bezel features [a beaver] holding a well-earned scroll and a slice of the free food so central to the graduate existence." Other symbols of the graduate experience include a handless clock, a crane, a smattering of tents, and a pile of refuge that bears "an uncanny resemblance to a certain prominent new building." The bezel scene is set at night "as both beavers and grad students are, by necessity, nocturnal creatures."
"The committee had some fun with the design," says Werfel, "but most of all we focused on creating something that would have broad appeal to the graduate community. I hope we succeeded."
The early reviews have been favorable, as the Grad Rat has been deemed a worthy equal to its older sibling, the Brass Rat.
Graduate students, both past and present, can obtain a Grad Rat. Learn more about ordering.
Published February 2004
*Update: Justin Werfel received an SM in 2001 and a PhD in 2006, both in electrical engineering and computer science. Alvar Saenz-Otero received a bachelor's degree in 1998 and a PhD in 2005 in aeronautics and astronautics and a bachelor's and master of engineering degrees in 2000, both in electrical engineering and computer science.
