PhD Student vs. PhD Candidate
How I use gentle, digital nudges to stay current in the post-exams world
Do you know the difference between a PhD student and a Ph.D. candidate? A candidate is someone who has fulfilled all the requirements for the degree except the dissertation. I’m a historian (see my earlier post about being a humanist at MIT), so my path to candidacy differs a bit from other doctoral tracks at […]
Living the Journey
Five ways to enrich your life in grad school
In undergrad, I lost the journey for the destination. I came to college with blinders on. I was determined to focus 100% of my energy on academics and not let anything distract me from good grades. And, for better or worse, that is exactly what happened. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I fell naturally onto the graduate school […]
Being a Muslim Woman at MIT
Why I choose to wear a hijab and how it has affected my graduate school experience
On a sunny day last fall, I wanted to try cooking a typical Indonesian food called ‘rendang,’ a delicious spicy beef curry. Figure 1. Rendang is best served with warm jasmine rice, shrimp crackers, and fresh cucumber. I left my apartment to go grocery shopping while catching Pokemon at the same time. Then, suddenly, a […]
Get Beyond the Bubble
The importance of interacting with non-MIT people during graduate school
Last Saturday night I was in my living room surrounded by a dozen people, but there was only one topic of conversation: the joys and sorrows of working at a hospital. My girlfriend Jaimie is a psychiatry resident, and we had invited her co-residents over for dinner. Doctor-talk monopolizing the night wasn’t a surprise; I’ve come […]
Rebooting Your PhD
Switching labs partway through your graduate studies
In July of 2013, I was abruptly told to leave lab. No warning, no chance to explain myself. The fact is, a sizable fraction of students do end up changing labs. Sometimes the cause is relatively benign — a professor gets a job offer elsewhere, or you realize you don’t like working with mice after […]
