Alternate stable states
I am an adventurer at heart. I have never embraced routine or normalcy and I consider that a piece of my identity, so when I started getting tired of my…In defense of quitting
If a hacker were to break into my phone at the beginning of September and read through my notes, this is the first one they would find: I think MIT…My adventures with MIT Sailing!
I was always drawn to bodies of water like rivers and seas. I had visions of sailing on boats and riding on ferries, but I never imagined that I would…MIT is the Hollywood of academia
I always dreamed of doing great things and having a positive impact on the world. In my naivety, I believed that only celebrities have this kind of world-reaching influence. With…Learning from the magic bean
It all started when COVID hit. I had all this newfound time while attending classes on Zoom and found an outlet – specialty coffee. Before I knew it, I had…How NOT to be a good TA
It was my first ever trip to Cambridge and to the MIT campus and, more importantly, the start of my graduate program in the chemistry department. My fall semester schedule…Writer’s block? Experiencing isolation as a researcher or writer? WTO has got you covered!
In 2019, I was in my second year of PhD when my PhD advisor told me that we had all the results we needed to write up a journal article…Practicing imperfection
A screenshot of the author’s faulty Java code from one of her first attempts at coding When I TA’d for a quantitative methods class in college, I always kept this…Have something to say or share? Then blog about it!
Hi MIT grad students! The MIT Graduate Admissions Blog is excited to announce its upcoming IAP workshop on blog writing. In brief, Attend a 2-day blogging workshop: Wednesday, January 18 (in person)…Stop sprinting towards your future
I always knew I would come back to academia. It didn’t matter that I would be taking at least one year off to work a flashy new job in Seattle…The scientific method behind burnt mozzarella sticks
How many of you know how an oven works? I mean, like, reallllyyy know? Personally, I do not, and yet here I am, a graduate student at MIT. I am…Crying in C-Mart
I can’t survive for a week without eating Asian food. Honestly, a big reason why I chose to come to MIT was because H-Mart was down the street from campus.…First-year reflection
More than once in our career, most of us will find ourselves asking whether we made the right decision. Often, this questioning is triggered by setbacks, “less-than-ideal” circumstances or a…From B1G to little
My undergraduate university couldn’t be much more different from MIT. Penn State is a school of 50,000 students in a small town surrounded by farmland. The campus culture centers around…Non-sense or non-science?
Imagine a group of people falling into a deep ditch. Some make ladders to climb their way out. Others wait for floods to fill the ditch and then swim their…Artsy at thirty
When I turned 30 on August 6th, I had a feeling that this is my decade. I don’t know why, but I was quite excited, unlike many who might feel…Do it now. Seek help now.
Mental illness is not unfamiliar to many MIT graduate students. People as smart as typical MIT students, when placed under that much pressure, are bound to have it. Look beyond…Give me a break!
“Congratulations! We are pleased to offer you admission to the Graduate Program of the Department of Biology at MIT,” was probably one of the most awesome starts to an email ever.…Color my life with the chaos of trouble
Cracking open the trailer door and peeking out, I checked to see if the storm had subsided. Who knew it could rain so much in the desert? Water had begun…Flying far from the hive
I’ve always enjoyed collaborating with people. You have fun, you make friends, and in the case of academic collaboration, it opens the door to addressing questions from diverse perspectives. When…Survive? No, let’s thrive
“You’re going to MIT? Pfft, have fun getting a social life – nobody has one there.” “I’ve heard that people only eat, sleep and work at MIT. Sometimes they have…A guide to museums in Cambridge and Boston
I come from a tropical country, which means that every December to March, I go to extraordinary lengths to minimize my outdoor time in an effort to escape the Boston…Relearning how to learn
As I sat down at my desk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean waiting for an Internet connection, I wondered if the long-awaited response would be sitting in my…An ode to Kenji’s Cooking Show
At the start of the pandemic, my cooking skills were in top form. I had mastered scrambled eggs and had honed my selection criteria for one pot pastas (the simpler,…The roller coaster ride of research life is no less scarier than those at Six Flags!
While I remember most events from my past with an extremely high level of detail thanks to my photographic memory, there is more to why I remember what happened on…Working out my body… and my mind
You’ve probably seen countless exercise videos promising to help you drop 10 pounds in a month and copious articles telling you why you should start a new fitness regimen, but…Be water, MIT friend
I just finished my third year of graduate school in the Mathematics Department. I work in Fourier analysis, a part of math that studies qualitative and quantitative questions about the…MIT can work for couples
Do you believe that keeping up with a romantic relationship and completing a graduate degree abroad at a top university are incompatible? This is the story about how I was…The evermore squares
During quarantine, and especially during the era of Zoom classes, I became re-obsessed with crochet. I noticed that crocheting while listening to Zoom lectures helped me stay focused on the…The breaking point
I got off the escalator and stepped onto the platform. Three minutes until the train, eighteen minutes until I get to MIT, twenty minutes until my meeting. My breath was…An experimental study of the Holy Cannoli
Introduction The Cannoli is a form of dessert, which, in its most basic form, includes a pastry shell wrapped around a sweet ricotta filling. Historians have long debated the origin…Getting back to reading for pleasure
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t read Harry Potter, Catch-22, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Count of Monte Cristo – there are a few references here that you may want…
How a tree decided where I live
It was a hot summer day in India, and I was holding my dad’s arms and standing in front of this old tree. My young mind was fascinated by the…
Tomatoes, parmesan, bread… oh, my!
Focaccia – Your favorite (or soon to be favorite) dimpled bread that seems to have taken the world by storm recently. For those who haven’t heard of it, focaccia is…
Wait, there’s a fun scale?
As a statistics-loving graduate student, I am prone to quantifying everything. I have a tracking app for my running mileage, a separate one for my sleeping hours, and even a…