A good chunk of the first day is reserved for portfolio reviews. The setup, shown above, is pretty straightforward: students sign up on a Very Large Schedule Sheet, then direct themselves to the appropriate professor or industry professional, identified by one of those little desktop number plaques reminiscent of Carl's Jr. restaurants.

While I (and probably you, if you're reading this), are familiar with the process of portfolio review, the scale of it is something new. Covering 20+ tables in two rooms, reviewers and reviewees from as far off as Virginia and Massachusetts are randomly paired to spend 15 minutes evaluating their Life's Work Thus Far. An organizer explained that they did their best to put students in front of reviewers not from their own school, but the preponderence of Prattsters leads to the inevitable: one reviewee strolled in to the room and looked up to discover she was to show her work to a favorite teacher from 2 years ago.

Other schools are out in heavy force though. A Virginia Tech student stopped to mention that somewhere over 30 students came up from her school for the conference -- no school requirement, just interest and a desire to see how the other folks do it. She and a friend were looking for the model shop and evaluating student work pinned on the walls as they went.