A matcha latte a day…
It’s no secret that students everywhere love their coffee, so when I tell people that I almost never consume the magical beverage, I usually receive an incredulous response. Something along…
I want to be a ballerina when I grow up
It was an average Wednesday. I rolled out of bed at 7:30AM, turned on Spotify’s “Monday Motivation” playlist and tried to let the cheerful pop seep into my bones. Everything’s…
Guidance beyond your advisor
Before starting grad school, whenever I considered the concept of “mentorship,” the first person I envisioned was my future advisor. However, as a PhD student in the middle of my…
The unlikely friends you’ll find
I still remember the feeling of disappointment. This was right in the first week as a grad student and I was still in the social-butterfly phase, meeting the people I…
A week in the life: Food edition
I love to cook. I picked up most of my culinary know-how during my junior year of college, through a combination of YouTube videos and scrappily assembled family recipes. That…
How to cordially interrogate graduate students
This semester, I have had a ton of practice interrogating graduate students. During orientation, I was immediately given the task of rotating in various labs to find my lab home.…
A furry solution to the grad school blues
The summer after finishing undergrad, I thought nervously about spending most of my 20’s as a student. I was starting grad school in a few weeks and wasn’t sure when…
“Deity’s Book Collection” twenty minutes away
Deity’s Book Collection Overseas 「海外嫏嬛」 Façade of the Harvard-Yenching Institute On a bright and crisp morning in late April 2019, when I first set foot into the warm Harvard-Yenching (哈佛燕京)…
Finding UberGirl
I hate Uber. I hate that people love it because it’s convenient. I hate that people think it’s better for the environment than owning a car. I hate that people…
Controlling chaos
“Hey, you ready for the call in five?” The what? With who? Did I have to prep for this? When did we decide to schedule a call? What are we…
Taking engineering too far
This post is part of a special issue: “Mental Health Matters: Asking for Help & Reaching Out”. I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t trying to…
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,…
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…
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…
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)…
