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 […]
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 […]
Non-sense or non-science?
How non-scientific tools helped my studies at MIT
Imagine a group of people falling into a deep ditch. Some make ladders to climb their way out. Others wait for floods to fill the ditch and then swim their way out. Many others mimic these survivors, but fail to escape the ditch. Instead, they complain about why they don’t have that luck to escape, […]
Artsy at thirty
I do, thus I become.
When I turned 30 on August 6th, I had a feeling that this is my decade. I don’t know why, but I was quite excited, unlike many who might feel daunted by this age milestone. I, however, had a feeling that this is THE decade; the one in which I will discover myself and figure […]
Do it now. Seek help now.
Finding treatment for mental illness can be challenging. Don’t wait for things to get really bad. Seek treatment on a good day.
Mental illness is not unfamiliar to many MIT graduate students. People as smart as typical MIT students, when placed under that much pressure, are bound to have it. Look beyond three feet in front of you, and you’ll find evidence of it: that friend you haven’t seen in two weeks, long lines at MIT Mental […]
