Advising Advice
What should you look for when choosing an advisor?
At the end of my second year at MIT, I chose to switch to a different advisor, based on our overlapping interests in a specific research area. This turned out to be a great decision, but for many reasons that I hadn’t even remotely thought about when I made the choice. I’m very conscious now […]
You Got NSF, Now What?
How NSF can change grad school selection
It’s early April. You wake up and refresh the emails on your phone. There is an email from your professor congratulating you on getting the NSF, a colloquial expression for getting into the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. You excitingly text your friends and call your family. After a later-than-expected breakfast, you rush […]
Gambling with Degrees
Coming to MIT with a master’s
How many master’s degrees is too many? It’s not a very common problem to have. Yet for some of us that have already completed a couple years of postgraduate education before coming to MIT, the question comes up. I must admit I hadn’t looked much at the course requirements for a PhD before applying. A […]
A Corridor full of Giants
My transition from a tiny college to MIT
If you told me in high school that I would go to MIT, I definitely wouldn’t have believed you. And if I had, I would have been terrified of the future. Although I certainly was not sheltered from most aspects of life, I would say that I was, to some extent, sheltered academically. I went […]
Perfection versus Persistence
How I got into grad school
A skinny envelope containing a fat “No”: my first rejection. I’d been confident of my eventual acceptance to Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College, and my 17-year-old ego winced at the surprise. “Dear Brandon,” the letter started. “Many qualified applicants this year … Very strong accomplishments … We regret to inform you…”. Despite the writer’s reassuring […]
