gateway

An overly politicized, required course of all engineers at Columbia University. Initially a brilliant idea to introduce freshmen engineers to real world engineering, eventually a tool of power players at the school to advertise to the surrounding Harlem community and students looking to apply (not to mention donors). Gateway involves team projects oriented around community projects. Though there are exceptions, many of the projects require some sort of highly technical expertise not known by freshmen, or are so open ended that it could take a team of industrial designers two years to come up with an idea.

Bill: Hey, want to do something sometime in the next fourteen weeks?
Ted: Nope. I've got to do busywork for gateway.