Campouts, Counterfeits, and Avoiding the Night Watchman
By: Donald C. Huff, BCE 67 | Categories: Tech History
Before the internet and even before the computer labs set up for registration in the basement of the A. French Building, Yellow Jackets marched to the Old Gym on the north end of Grant Field to sign up for classes in person. To avoid a mad rush on registration day, students received a timecard with a time slot for when they could enter the gym. Timecards with earlier time slots were in high demand because they offered the best chance of securing your spot in a popular class and avoiding a notoriously tough professor, or worse—a Saturday morning lab. For those unfortunate souls (usually first-year students) who received late-afternoon timecards, they were all but doomed to choose picked-over course offerings left behind by the early birds, er, in this case, Yellow Jackets. Need an in-demand class to graduate? Good luck with a 2 p.m. timecard. In this way, the timecard could set your destiny at Georgia Tech. And the 8 a.m. timecard—the earliest time slot available—was your golden ticket to a bright quarter.
Growing up in Atlanta, I always wanted to attend Georgia Tech. The Institute, however, wasn’t sure it wanted me to attend. My high school grades were good enough to make me salutatorian of my 1962 graduating class of 70 at Mount Berry School for Boys.
However, our principal advised me not to attend Georgia Tech because he thought my SAT scores were too low for me to be successful at a place like the Institute. Likewise, Tech evaluated my application and told me my record was not as strong as the average student they accepted. They agreed, however, to place my name on a waiting list and requested that I attend evening school in the summer. The deal was if I made a grade of “C” or better in a math and English course, then I would be accepted as a day school student the Fall Quarter, space permitting.
After making a “C” in English and “B” in math, I ended up working full-time and attending night school the fall quarter to save money for tuition, which at the time was $103 per quarter plus the cost of books. By 1963, I became a full-time day student and worked part-time.
After struggling through two quarters in day school and barely making the grades to remain a full-time student and maintain my student deferment from the draft, I quickly learned the value and importance of having a good class schedule.
The Good Schedule
For me there were three important reasons to have a “good” class schedule. First, it meant having professors who were excellent teachers. Second, it meant better classes and a better chance at a sufficient grade point average to remain in school and avoid being drafted. And third, a “good” class schedule meant no classes or labs on Saturdays, and no late classes on Friday afternoons, which for me meant I could work part-time, but more importantly, on the weekends I could visit the love of my life who lived 260 miles away in Nashville, Tennessee. Being able to leave for Nashville on Friday afternoon when I did not have an exam the following week was especially close to my heart.
It was all these reasons, but mostly the last, that gave me the courage to brave the cold, to face down the night watchman, and to tackle anything else that tried to get in my way as I pursued an 8 a.m. timecard.
Early Bird Gets The Class
What’s an 8:00 a.m. timecard and what does it have to do with a good class schedule? Near the end of every quarter, the Technique would include course offerings for the next quarter with the course’s schedule and professor’s name. Each quarter on registration day, we signed up for courses at the Old Gym on the south end of Grant Field by going from table to table to pick up IBM cards for our desired courses and classes. There was a limited number of IBM cards for each course, so the earlier you could get in the gym to register, the more likely you could get your preferred class schedule. Students with an 8:00 a.m. timecard entered the gym first. Timecards were distributed by your School to manage the flow of students entering the gym throughout the day. I thought that the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the unit that provided my timecard, distributed these on an arbitrary basis. The best timecard I received for my first three quarters of day school was a 2:00 p.m. timecard, and that late in the day, it was impossible to pick your preferred schedule and courses.
But then I learned I could get an 8:00 a.m. timecard if I was first in line when the School office opened on the day they gave out timecards. The best way to be first in line was to camp out on the front porch of the building the night before. I started that quarterly ritual by coming as early as 6:00 p.m. the night before, equipped with cot, sleeping bag, drinks, and snacks. Other students with the same purpose joined me throughout the night, hoping to secure one of the few early timecards available. On one very cold January night before winter quarter, I noticed a partially opened window to a restroom. Crawling through the window, I opened the front door from the inside and pulled my gear inside. Later that night, the night watchman came by and asked me what I was doing in the building. I tried to quickly explain the importance of the timecard—kind professors, draft-proof GPAs, my Nashville sweetheart—but he ran me out. Later, another student had a key to one of the back doors and let us in the warm building to wait the rest of the night. On another stake-out, a person claiming to be a student came by trying to sell us counterfeit 8:00 a.m. timecards for $10. We knew better, so we refused.
The extra efforts to acquire 8:00 a.m. timecards were successful. I was able to work enough in the summer and part-time the rest of my quarters to pay my way through school. Despite dropping a six-hour physics course and failing a five-hour math course as well as a six-hour physics course, even with good professors, I made the grade in enough courses to remain on student deferment 2-S draft status. I avoided the military until after I had finished my degree requirements in December 1966 with a 2.3 GPA, which was high enough to be in the top half of the class. And most importantly, with no late classes or labs on most Fridays, I made 65 trips during my four undergraduate years at Tech, most by hitchhiking, to Nashville to visit my then-girlfriend, Malia, now my wife of 56 years.
Between 1962 when I enrolled at Tech until we were married in June 1966, we wrote each other a total of 2,263 letters—many of which include tales of my campouts at the CE Building in pursuit of an 8 a.m. timecard.
