Carving Nature at Its Joints
Last January. A friend recommends a scientific paper. At this time I am a computer science student thinking of quitting computer science, because I live in California, and love computers…
A Structured Approach to Course Planning
Whether you attend MIT or another school, one of the things you may find challenging is planning the courses you will take over the entirety of your graduate career. As…
Practicing Good Hygge-ne
It is hard to make time for all the things you want to do at MIT. There was one week my Google calendar had so many overlapping events, meetings and…
On Rooftops in Cambridge and That Elusive Feeling of Hereness
A long time ago, I climbed a roof here. Though I should clarify and revise; this is, after all, an institute built on precision. Recently, a professor returned a response…
Finding My Grad School Home
When I arrived in the foreboding metropolis of Boston, I sought a group of friends that brings soup when someone is sick, welcomes each other into our homes even at…
An Ode to My Slow Cooker
The special appliance: my slow cooker I want to thank one special appliance Whose dedication and trusty alliance Have been a time saver for a busy grad mom. You…
Trains, Buses, and Feet
On Tuesday mornings, I catch a 7:30 bus to get to an 8:30 class. This class is roughly 2.5 miles from my apartment. Why so far? Well, I’m a PhD…
Educating Myself Out of Education
I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t always tell the truth. When people ask me about MIT, I tend to oversell it. After all, it is one of…
Advising Advice
At the end of my second year at MIT, I chose to switch to a different advisor, based on our overlapping interests in a specific research area. This turned out…
A Primer for Understanding ‘Merica
This blog is the continuation of my first blog where I wrote about my first few days in the USA. When I came to the USA from India to attend grad school,…
A Minor Change for A Major Reward
I should start a new hobby. I came to this conclusion when my answer to the question, “research + sleep = 24 hours?” was “yes, but not always”. Although finding…
Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Some people choose their PhD projects based on raw scientific curiosity. Some seek buzz words, industry partners, or flashy technology to jumpstart profitable future careers. Some find their projects based…
What the Puck?
In my first year of graduate school, I fell on my butt a lot. It’s as if I would forget about my feet. I would be gliding along smoothly, comfortably…
BYOB or… Bring Your Own Bowl
I don’t know about you, but I like to take a break at lunchtime. When, two years ago, I started my PhD, I used to walk everyday out of building…
How to Pass a Harvard Class
Shopping Day is like speed dating for courses at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Herds of students filter in and out of classrooms. Nervous chatter splinters out across the…
MIT in a Year
Nine months. The length of a human pregnancy. Also the length of my time at MIT. To clarify, this is not a story about pregnancy. Ask most MIT graduate students…
Back to Square One
I just came back from Shanghai a week ago. It was my first trip home since I came to MIT in the summer of 2017. It’s been over a year…
Grief
My dead dad emailed me today. I was sitting in a shared office along with a postdoc when I saw my dad’s name pop into my inbox. My breath caught…
The Simple Pleasures of Gardening
There are few things in life as satisfying as eating home-grown food. Whether it is flavorful herbs, juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumbers or other delicious produce, it is simply delightful to…
So… What Do You Two Even Talk About?
When a new acquaintance learns that I am a graduate student at MIT, their first question is often about whether or not my husband is also an MIT student or…
First Impressions of the USA
I arrived in New Jersey to attend graduate school two years ago. I was mostly nervous and a little bit excited. This was the first time I had flown internationally…
Taking the Lead on Leadership
A surprising portion of my undergraduate education at the United States Military Academy (West Point) was spent getting punched in the face, trying to stay alive in a class called…
Ways of Responding to Accusations of Intelligence
An awkward yet common situation that I’ve witnessed at MIT is one in which someone is accused of being intelligent. While grateful for such charitable perceptions, the accused is often…
Gambling with Degrees
How many master’s degrees is too many? It’s not a very common problem to have. Yet for some of us that have already completed a couple years of postgraduate education…
You Got NSF, Now What?
It’s early April. You wake up and refresh the emails on your phone. There is an email from your professor congratulating you on getting the NSF, a colloquial expression for…
The Project Management Triangle
Graduate school is a wonderful time to indulge in research, fun side projects, and coursework. This is especially true at MIT, where opportunities are plentiful, whether it be startups, teaching,…
Cambridge Tea Party
I might be the only person in the world that looks forward to working on weekends. For most people, weekends are a time to sleep in or to catch up…
Safety First!
As an MIT grad student doing cutting-edge research, have you always keep safety as your first priority? I hope your answer to this question is, “yes”. But in reality, many…
Dressing for Battlefield Science
My first three years of grad school blur together as a haze of experiments and little else. Doing laundry every other week marked the passage of time. I would wash…
You Can’t Run Before You Walk
After completing my undergraduate studies in 2014, I began a slow-paced government job in India. As part of the job, I got a chance to explore the depth and widths…
A Corridor full of Giants
If you told me in high school that I would go to MIT, I definitely wouldn’t have believed you. And if I had, I would have been terrified of the…
Bilingualism is a Feature, Not a Bug
If you are a non-native English speaker like me, have you ever felt that your English was not good enough? And worse, did you feel that your English would never…
Venturing Into My Comfort Zone
Travelling is one of my favorite things to do, so I’m always excited when I get to travel for work. Since I’m a Ph.D. student in atmospheric chemistry in the…
My First Autopsy
As the autopsy technician split the cadaver’s chest open with a scalpel, a part of my identity that I had wrestled with since my undergrad finally settled into focus. I…
How can Philosophy Help Policy?
Before coming to MIT, I had no idea how much courses outside my field could influence my research and shape my intellectual beliefs. I had earned a bachelor’s in Mechanical…
