Anything but not everything
Managing opportunity overload at MIT
Infinite Corridor, finite student
To walk down the Infinite Corridor at MIT is to be inundated with posters for student organizations and events. In December, flyers advertising IAP activities on just one of the bulletin boards included invitations to “learn Quechua in three weeks,” “study in Japan with MISTI,” and “weld your own bike!” I am always amazed by the creativity in the advertising and by the sheer breadth of options. Sometimes, though, I start to feel overwhelmed and a bit disappointed when I realize that I have never interacted with most of these organizations and probably never will. Unlike our famous corridor, we are finite people. Even without considering offerings from Cambridge, Boston, or the dozens of other universities in the area, there are far too many opportunities for anyone to hope to enjoy them all.
Something for everyone, even me
When I visited MIT as a prospective graduate student, my ideas about the future were vague at best. I had chosen to study materials science years ago because I liked most of the science fields I knew about and wanted to use bits of them all. I had no set plans for what sort of graduate research I might do. A professor I met on my visit weekend assessed my situation, then convinced me that with freedom to join a lab in nearly any department, there was bound to be a great fit somewhere at MIT.
He was right, but the advice was not complete. I did enjoy searching broadly for research to join, and I did meet many amazing faculty doing incredible work that piqued my interest. I also found a research group that fits me well and I am enjoying learning deeply about things I never would have considered a year ago. However, in my process of choosing a research group — and more recently, of proposing a project for the next several years — I found that it is easy to lose focus on the awesome opportunities you are enjoying, in favor of jealously watching what other people are doing.
So many people at MIT and neighboring institutions are pushing the limits in their field, or building boats in their spare time, or directing musicals, or maybe all three at the same time. Because of this, in my first year here I often felt that I was missing out on some good thing that was just beyond my scheduling capacity. I have been tempted to try joining all the clubs, and apply for all the study abroad programs (yes, MISTI accepts graduate students too). But the time I spent looking at other people and being jealous of the opportunities I could be pursuing only took away from enjoying those I already had available.
Something just for me
At MIT, you can do nearly anything, you just can’t do everything. Sure, we might be good at squeezing out every drop of our waking hours, and maybe stealing some time from sleep, but we still all have limits. It may feel like everyone around me is doing everything, but in truth most of my peers excel in a select few areas, and I just get to interact with people across so many fields and from such diverse backgrounds that it can be easy to lose track.
In recent months, as I have begun learning to let go of opportunities more easily (while still embracing my fair share), I have been able to better focus on my own research project, and the one (or two) student orgs I am involved with. In that time, I have found not only greater satisfaction in my present work and my communities, but I have started to understand the true value of an institution with so many open possibilities. MIT is special not for the ways it is like other universities, but for the ways it is different. In the same way, my time here is special not because I am doing what everyone else is doing, but because my journey here — like everyone else’s — will be precisely unique to me.
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