Learning from the magic bean
How becoming a coffee snob taught me about scientific experiments
It all started when COVID hit. I had all this newfound time while attending classes on Zoom and found an outlet – specialty coffee. Before I knew it, I had become a full-blown coffee aficionado who knew all about the full coffee production process and cared about flavors in coffee. I found that the best […]
Crying in C-Mart
My Asian grocery adventure in the Boston area
I can’t survive for a week without eating Asian food. Honestly, a big reason why I chose to come to MIT was because H-Mart was down the street from campus. However, after looking at my H-Mart grocery receipts from my first couple months here, I was crying (in front of) H-Mart. I realized that H-Mart […]
From B1G to little
My transition from a Big 10 school to MIT
My undergraduate university couldn’t be much more different from MIT. Penn State is a school of 50,000 students in a small town surrounded by farmland. The campus culture centers around varsity sports, and grad students make up a small minority of the student population. MIT is home to approximately 12,000 students, a majority of whom […]
Relearning how to learn
Returning to school after years on a boat
As I sat down at my desk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean waiting for an Internet connection, I wondered if the long-awaited response would be sitting in my inbox. I kept hitting F5, hoping that the page would refresh faster. Internet on a naval vessel isn’t as instantaneous as the luxury Internet speeds […]
Working out my body… and my mind
How my fitness routine helped me establish healthy new research habits
You’ve probably seen countless exercise videos promising to help you drop 10 pounds in a month and copious articles telling you why you should start a new fitness regimen, but I’m not here to convince you to start one. I’m here to share how having a fitness routine has helped me learn and grow as […]