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…
The Art of Microwaving Food at MIT
My mom has been in the fertility business for more than ten years, developing solutions to ease the exhausting hormonal treatments required before in vitro fertilization. She introduced me to…
Perfection versus Persistence
A skinny envelope containing a fat “No”: my first rejection. I’d been confident of my eventual acceptance to Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College, and my 17-year-old ego winced at the…
Weighted Decision Matrices and the Happiness Question
Deciding to pursue a Ph.D. and finding appropriate programs was straightforward for me; choosing where to go was much more tortuous. Even before I had received any acceptance letters, I…
Getting FIT at MIT
“I’m going to get in shape this year!” “This time I’m serious about going to the gym.” “New year, new me.” We’ve all said it. The start of a…
The Pursuit of Happiness
Happiness is a strange thing. Take one of your glorious moments. Mine would probably be the day I learned I was joining MIT. It felt like I had just received…
Stress Mechanics for Graduate Students
MIT is a crazy place, there’s no doubt about that. But just because you’re in a crazy place doesn’t mean that you’re crazy. During grad school, everyone has days (or…
Wasting My Degree
“She’s worried you’ll waste your degree.” My friend (let’s call her Anna) relays this message to me as coming from another friend, but I can tell from her tone of…
The Right Choice for the Wrong Reasons
“There’s no wrong choice.” This was an oft-stated sentence from my friends and family when I was deciding between graduate programs. And okay, sure, when you have the option to…
How Not to Die Alone
This is an account of how three grad students came to befriend a cat at MIT. Year 1 B.C. (Before the Cat) Grad school can be an isolating experience…
A Perfect Campus Tour
I have been at MIT for almost two and a half years, and during this time I have repeatedly been asked to give campus tours to visiting friends and family.…
Unscrambling a Scrambled Egg
“We are pleased to offer you a spot for the HST MEMP program for Fall 2018….” I freeze while my brain works very hard to process multiple emotions and thoughts.…
At MIT, New York City Is in Your Backyard
It was a Friday at 10:30am, and I was behind schedule to catch my bus to New York City. I rushed from the Red Line T stop at South Station…
Pottery before P-Sets
I wouldn’t really call myself a pottery guy. Don’t get me wrong… I can appreciate a good bowl every once in a while, and some of those vases can really…
Embrace rather than Escape
There is a saying in Chinese: “It is better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books.” Embracing this old saying, I started my four-year undergrad journey…
Nature and Nurture
My undergraduate research advisor gave me one piece of advice before I came to MIT: join the MIT Outing Club (MITOC). She gave no further explanation, but I figured she…
Subtle Scandals
My first experience with academic misinformation occurred during my junior year of college. In my final project for my engineering ethics course, my group found that the EPA’s initial report…
How My Wife Stole My Car in Massachusetts
When we moved from Arizona to Massachusetts, my wife graciously offered to take care of registering our car, letting me focus on starting classes at MIT. If someone offers to…
The Grad School Cha-Cha
“Nope,” I told the girl I was dating in high school, “I don’t dance.” And I meant it. Or at least I thought I did until she broke up with…
Tell Us What to Blog About!
Dear Reader, We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about funny, impactful, and day-to-day graduate life experiences at MIT. However, we are sure that you would like to hear more! If you…
Downsizing Our Footprint
You may have seen the recent film Downsizing, reveling in the antics of Matt Damon as he navigates life as a shrunken 5-inch man. Despite the humor of the film’s…
Midnight Showers
In undergrad, I had what my friends called an “absolutely insane” schedule. I followed it because I felt like there was not enough time in the day to get everything…
Have something to say or share? Then blog about it!
Hi MIT Grads! The MIT Graduate Admissions Blog is excited to announce its third IAP workshop on blog writing. In brief, Attend a 3-day blogging workshop: January 15, 17, and 22 from…
How to Combat Homesickness
It’s a small thing, ordering a coffee. Most of us do it, in some cases several times a day (or more likely several times an hour if you’re a grad…
Celebrating Science Outside the Lab
The cult of contagious scientific curiosity is something I’ve totally loved about MIT ever since I’ve stepped on campus as a starry-eyed prospective undergrad during Campus Preview Weekend (CPW). My…
Curiouser and Curiouser…
On my first day of grad school. I drank a magic potion from the firehose! And there I went, down the rabbit hole… “Now, here, you see, it takes all…
You Are Not Alone OR I Am Here
At this time two years ago, I was considering not applying to graduate school. That is not to say I did not want to go to graduate school. On…
Tuning out the Noise
Have you ever looked at an instrument that a senior labmate is using – one of those behemoth installations that has a million glowing buttons and wires sticking out everywhere…
Boston Left?
During my first experience driving in Boston I was waiting at an intersection on campus (Vassar and Mass Ave), my co-pilot, a fellow grad student, turned and said to me:…
Finding Belonging through Community
There’s a common feeling that many incoming graduate students can attest to: I don’t belong here. MIT seems designed to keep us feeling this way, perhaps as motivation to work…
Moving to Boston with a Dog
When I was first considering accepting MIT’s offer of admission to a PhD program, one of my main concerns was finding housing for my family. I had heard that Boston’s…
Fighting Unfair Rules
When I got an offer to be a Graduate Resident Tutor (GRT), a graduate student mentor who lives in an undergraduate dorm, I leapt across the hallway to exclaim to…
