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
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, the image illustrated an important lesson: our biggest failures can be little victories in disguise. Just […]
Stop sprinting towards your future
What my time in industry taught me
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 biotech. It didn’t matter that the position would be a lot less stressful, and have a lot more benefits, than graduate student life. My mentor […]
First-year reflection
Is a PhD really for me?
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 mediocre environment. Without a doubt, the majority of graduate students will probably face this kind of uncertainty during our journey (especially for PhDs, as 5 […]
