Tech Reflection: Killian Court, 1997

Mark Springfield MBA ’97: “It was a warm day in June for the Sloan graduation ceremony and we had just heard Kofi Annan SM ’72 speak. When we stood up at the end of the ceremony and I heard my name, I turned around to see my friend, Katie Wojciehowski MBA ’97, who snapped this picture. At the time, the cohorts at Sloan were organized by ship name and sea—I was in the Bering Xebecs, Bering being the sea and the Xebec being the sailing vessel. After the ceremony, we all walked up Memorial Drive to the Sloan building after the ceremony and introduced our parents to the friends we had made over the last two years.

“Sloan was a blur and when I think back on those years I remember only snapshots: Studying in the library under the Great Dome. Record snowfall in Boston in 1996 and 1997. I’m from Ypsilanti, Michigan, and it was the first time I’d seen the fall colors on the East Coast. And I remember poker nights with people who would eventually become lifelong friends. Funny, how I don’t remember much of my time in class. Or the tests.”

Mark Springfield is the founder and CEO at Hot 4 Solar and lives in San Francisco.

Tech Reflection is a new Slice of MIT series that tells the first-person stories behind MIT photos.