Join today, plan for tomorrow
Why you should join your professional society
Whether it’s IEEE, ASME, AIChE, APS, or a different acronym, you are probably familiar with your field’s specific professional society. I became a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) as a college freshman in 2013. Eight years later, serving on the ANS board of directors and working toward a PhD, I credit ANS with […]
A food scientist’s views on instant foods
How to consciously generate instant happiness!
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “instant”? How about “instant foods”? When it comes to food, people tend to relate instantaneity with unhealthy, “bad for you”, or processed. All those associations were also on my mind as a consumer. However, other questions were: Why do people still consume instant foods regularly? What benefits does […]
New England-themed reading list
Weathering this Winter with Literary Escapes
First Impressions I grew up in southwestern China and Singapore, two sweltering hot places on Earth. In 2015, when I graduated from a college in Connecticut not too far from here, I decided that never again would I venture back to the New England climate and promptly moved to California. Well, fast forward to 2020, […]
Packing for MIT: Laptop, winter coat, math phobia
How I survived MIT classes without a math background - and you can too!
When I put my pencil down after muddling through the last particularly hairy integration-by-substitution puzzler on the 2013 AB Calculus AP exam, I felt relieved – both that I had survived the exam, and, more fundamentally, that I’d never have to take a calculus class again. Seven years later, picking up a different pencil to […]
Lost hobbies and how to find them
Finding time for hobbies during graduate school
“Someday I’ll have more time for _______(insert your lost hobby here).” For years, this statement has been my approach to hobbies. I’ll have more time when this project is completed, or when the semester is over, or when I graduate from college. By constantly pushing these activities into the future, I’ve accumulated a jumbled collection […]
