For many Georgetown Law professors, orientation activities are an easy way to introduce law students to D.C. These activities probably seem familiar to anyone who remembers New Student Orientation: trips to the monuments, visiting Capitol Hill, and those painfully-awkward icebreakers.

But, Associate Professor Pete Wales bucked the trend, leading his class on a scenic bicycle tour of the city.

“Bicycling just seemed like a fun alternative,” Wales said in a YouTube video that chronicled the ride. “It’s not obvious when you first come here that bicycling could be a way to get around.”

During the tour, Wales encourages his students to recognize the bike-ability of D.C. And after watching the well-cut, picturesque scenes in the video, we’re inclined to agree.

(After all, the video shows off the classiest views in D.C., including the GU Law Center, the Capitol, the monuments, various museums and government buildings, the Tidal Basin and the Memorial Bridge, “modeled after Pont Neuf in Paris.”)

Maybe it’s the background music, maybe it’s the production quality of the video, or maybe it’s just his mustache, but when Wales gathers up his students to tell them, “This is it. Thanks for coming. Welcome to Law School,” he makes us tingle in ways Jack DeGioia never has.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 11:00 am and is filed under Leisure, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.