How to train your robot
Cool research is built on a series of rather uncool moments.
It’s late on a Monday night, and as usual, I’m standing in the middle of a large playroom filled with a bunch of pretend tools. There are toy hammers, plastic wrenches, and even a pretend drill, all strewn across racks, tables, and bins. I walk around the room, running a final check to make sure […]
Positive Procrastination
Why taking breaks can be good for productivity
I think procrastination gets a bad rep. It’s something you’re meant to grow out of and certainly, as a busy graduate student, there’s no time to procrastinate. Well, I think procrastination is really misunderstood and should not have an immediate negative connotation. When you don’t feel like doing something, there is often a reason why. […]
My adventures with MIT Sailing!
From channeling my inner Moana to almost drowning in the Charles
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 learn how to sail myself! When I first arrived at MIT, I heard about the MIT Sailing program, but an obstacle stood in my way: […]
Writer’s block? Experiencing isolation as a researcher or writer? WTO has got you covered!
How the Writing and Communication Center’s ‘Writing Together Online’ program helped me overcome writer’s block
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 related to my very first research project. After our meeting that day, I was so excited for two reasons: first, because this was my first […]
Practicing imperfection
The art of turning big failures into little victories
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 image of one of my first attempts at coding handy to show to struggling students. Besides providing some light comedic relief during stressful office hours, […]
