High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! George P. Burdell is a fictitious student officially enrolled at Georgia Tech in 1927 as a practical joke. Since then, he has supposedly received several degrees, served in the military, gotten married, and served on Mad magazine`s Board of Directors, among other accomplishments. Burdell at one point even led the online poll for Time`s 2001 Person of the Year award. He has evolved into an important and notorious campus tradition; all Georgia Tech students learn about him at orientation.