The buddy system
How checking in weekly can keep your goals on track
Graduate school is overwhelming and lonely at times. In addition to producing good research, graduate students have to balance networking, taking classes, staying updated on advances in their field by reading papers, and managing personal life goals. Everyone has a research advisor and, usually, labmates with whom they can discuss research concerns, but it’s not […]
Is grad school harder than a headstand?
How practicing my headstand turned into a metaphor for my PhD
Editor Note: This post was originally written before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. The first semester of graduate school is pretty hard. You’re surrounded by new people from all over the world, you’re taking challenging classes, and in many departments, you’re also required to teach and do research right off the […]
Loafing around at MIT
Why baking bread should be your next hobby
I started baking not too long ago, mostly at the advice of acquaintances who were already proficient bakers. My first few attempts weren’t great; I once managed to omit an entire cup of water from a naan recipe, resulting in a hard puck-shaped mass with the texture of stale Ritz crackers. But I kept at […]
The bright side of isolation
A few positive aspects of social distancing
Being a graduate student whose work mostly takes place on a PC, the changes in MIT policies related to COVID-19 have not impacted my academic work by a large amount so far. On the other hand, the social impact of it has been much more profound. From an exponential increase in the discussions (mostly about […]
COVID-26.2
Running from your problems
I’m a big fan of running, to the point where one of my labmates described me as being known among her friends as “a running and cider fiend”. I’ve written before about my lab’s crazy adventure in running across New Hampshire together and about using running as a form of stress relief, but I never […]
