Overcoming anxiety
This post is part of a special issue: “Mental Health Matters: Asking for Help & Reaching Out”. Hey there! I’m Jessica, a current 3rd year graduate student and PhD candidate, and…
Surviving grad school for the strong of mind
This post is part of a special issue: “Mental Health Matters: Asking for Help & Reaching Out”. It was New Year’s Day ’17 when I first set foot at MIT…
If something feels wrong, speak up
This post is part of a special issue: “Mental Health Matters: Asking for Help & Reaching Out”. My first year of grad school at MIT was no piece of cake.…
Mental Health Matters
Encountering setbacks while gaining crucial research skills, struggling to keep up in that one class where you have no prior background, fumbling your way around a new campus during a…
The Myth About Inbox(0)
After extolling the logistical heroics of Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Army, my military history instructor turned to the class and declared, “Good generals study tactics; great generals study…
Iñupiuraallaniptigun Uqausiptigun Maŋŋuqaqtugut
Aullaqisaaqta! Let’s begin! Iġñiġa Daał miluguuruq. My son Daał nurses often. I once read somewhere that Karl Marx had to chain himself to a library desk in order to finish…
Where Computing Meets Brain Research
Three years ago, I first came to the U.S. for an international conference in Boston. As I passed through the MIT campus during a morning jog, I saw the beautiful…
The Craziest Thing I’ve Done during Grad School
Last year, I started to get really into running, in part due to the fact that it’s a great way of relieving some of the stresses of grad school. I’ve…
A Well-Kept Secret for Finding a Job post-PhD
During my PhD, I performed a lot of exit interviews with graduating students and learned that finding a job is often the most stressful part of graduating, and among the…
Biking Diaries of a Graduate Student
“I guess I’ll just power through the weekend and get this P-set done,” I said to myself. This was a common refrain during the first year of my PhD program…
The Pod Leader Experience
Every year, the Office of Graduate Education (OGE) hosts around 40 undergraduate students from around the country to engage in meaningful research at MIT during the summer. This effort, called…
The Vicious Cycle of Boston Leases
Raise your hand if you hate moving! The Greater Boston Area, especially lovely places such as Allston, Cambridge, and Somerville, can be quite a painful place August 31st when most…
A Nature Lover’s Journey in Cambridge
Are you a nature lover? I sure am, and I only realized how important it was to me when I moved to Cambridge after being admitted to the PhD program…
Learning to Sail
As mentioned in one of my previous blogs, the trio-factors of inability to swim, belonging to a country where sailing is not common, and the presence of the Charles River,…
The Dizzying Cost of Life Science Research
Where were you when you bought the most expensive thing you’ve ever purchased? I was definitely in lab. In life science, you can spend a staggering amount of the lab’s…
Graduate Student becomes Chickpea Master Masher
I am sitting at my desk, debugging some code that does not seem to work. The week has been tiring, to say the least. But next week is Brunch Week!…
When Science Is More Art than Science
Maybe climate change is a hoax and vaccinations cause autism. Maybe 9/11 was an inside job, the earth is as flat as my grandma’s pancake, pineapple belongs on a pizza,…
Taking the Plunge
Applying to grad school can feel like climbing a mountain. We’ve all heard the analogy, but I’ve found that there’s very little advice on what to do once you’re at…
How I became an engineer overnight
Applying to graduate school is a nerve-wracking process. It’s a blanket of excitement that, when uncovered, reveals a flood of conflicting emotions–from wondering whether you are rushing and have no…
Realizing running is awesome
This is a story about me transitioning from occasional running to try and get fit, to becoming super into running. Only two years ago, I was struggling with the boredom…
When Your Hobby Is Your YouTube Channel
It was two months before I was set to move to Boston for my PhD, and I had decided that there would never be a better time to create a…
A Home Away from Home
Prologue When I first came to MIT, I planned to work, but not much else. Certainly no time to play Gu-zheng – the Chinese zither. There are simply too…
The Paradox of Choice:
I am a brand-new Ph.D. student and I have already figured out my least favorite part about MIT: the overwhelming number of choices. As I am enrolled as a student…
Full Send
What if I told you that the most fun thing that I do regularly since moving to Boston is running up and down a lot of tall steps (technically, seats)…
Discovering the multiverse at MIT
I still remember that chill running up my spine seeing the MIT dome for the first time from the Harvard Bridge, a chill that was indicative of the bounty of…
Creating my niche in grad school
Imagine being in a roller coaster that’s on fire, adrift, going full speed. That was my first year at MIT. Coming straight from an undergraduate institution in Puerto Rico, it…
Eating my way through Cambridge’s cultural heritage
“What’s for lunch?” is one of the more universal questions of the human experience, though the presence of two large universities in Cambridge affects the range of choices available to…
Dynamic equilibrium through Classical dance
Stepping away from India into the US led me to a stage where I was frantically searching for some semblance of my culture to hold on to. It was at…
Making the most of Cambridge’s amazing salsa scene
Thankfully, life at MIT as a grad student is not ALL about research. For me, one of the greatest breaks from lab is dancing. Growing up, classical ballet was part…
B-list Superpower – Food Edition
What is “meal prep”? First things first, what does “meal prep” mean? Is it the newest fad in age of fitness and health fanatics? Is it a euphemism for being…
The Most Important Change in My Life
I was an anxious child, an anxious teenager and an anxious young adult. So much so that the concept of anxiety didn’t make much sense. “You’re telling me it’s possible…
Starting Graduate School on the Right Foot
On the snowy February morning before my MIT graduate school interview, I rolled out of bed, bundled up and went for a run along the Charles River path. As a…
When You’re Up for an Exercise Adventure!
Feeling sluggish after indulging in one too many conference happy hours? Your normal gym workout not really doing it for you (or you not really doing the workout)? Try something…
A Techless Path To MIT
When people hear that I’ll be spending the next half decade at MIT, many seem to think I’ll be spending my days huddled over an intelligent robot plotting for the…
Diving into The Deep
Ever since high school, I have been a maker to my core. I spent almost all my free time in an art room and my evenings were often spent wrenching…
