All-weather outings/innings in the Northeast
Year-round climbing around New England (outings) and MIT (innings)
Moving to Boston from the Bay Area to start school at MIT, I had already mentally prepared to reduce my outdoor climbing and indoor climbing train time. Paradoxically, while being in the Bay Area, while I had access to world-class climbing destinations within a 4 hour drive, distance was a barrier that made those destinations […]
Rethinking orientation in the COVID-19 era
How the MIT graduate orientation is reforming itself this year
Orientation is the stepping stone of the graduate student life experience at MIT. Every year, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) Orientation Committee (OC) organizes a series of orientation events for incoming graduate students. Unlike many other American universities, the MIT graduate orientation is not a one-day or one-week event. For instance, orientation lasted over four […]
It’s not just about the degree
Grad school is also about becoming the person you want to
The beginning of grad school coincided with a lot of life changes. Grad school was one of them. Moving from Europe to the US was certainly another. However, the biggest life change operated silently, gradually and almost took me by surprise: I became an adult. But importantly, I learned, not without difficulties, how to become […]
So… you were accidentally admitted to MIT
Here’s how to fool everyone for five years
I’m going to let you in on a secret: I’m a total imposter. I was admitted to MIT even though I’m not nearly as smart, driven, or successful as any of my peers. I can only tell you this now because I’ve passed my qualifying exams, so they can’t kick me out now. Although I […]
Pass the class — get a tat
The process of making permanent decisions
Of all the injustices committed by well-intentioned cartographers, the one dealt to Antarctica is one of the most common and, from the point of view of this glaciologist, the worst. Picture Antarctica: do you see a wide, skinny strip at the bottom of the map, like this? The Robinson projection, which was used by National […]
