Passing on the Fountain of Knowledge
Knowing when to say no
As soon as I officially started as a grad student in the Media Arts & Sciences program, I was paired with a more experienced graduate student in the lab to learn protein engineering and molecular cloning techniques for the first time in my life, though my undergrad studies had covered some of the theory. My […]
Finding Work-Life Balance Through Sport
Extracurricular activities can help keep you sane
After a long day of class or research in lab, there is no better feeling than walking across campus to soccer practice. The stress of the day melts away as I step onto the field. Finally, I am able to clear my head and to connect to the present. We pull on our cleats and […]
Policy Debate vs. Research
Applying high school debate skills to PhD research
Unlike many of my fellow graduate students in computer science who have been doing programming and math competitions since high school (or potentially earlier), I spent six years in middle and high school in policy debate. This usually meant I was traveling around the country almost every weekend to argue about the government and international […]
My First Desk on Campus
The good and bad of moving into a student office
The key to my new student office finally arrived in the mailbox. On my first day as a graduate student of the linguistics program, I found my way to the office, and stood outside the door for a minute before opening it. I had never had an office of my own before. What would the […]
Shaping Another Person’s Decision
Navigating the interview process
After just 30 days of officially starting grad school in the Synthetic Neurobiology group at the Media Lab, my advisor asked me to help interview a couple of rotation students and prospective post-docs. It made sense—those that I was asked to interview were interested the projects similar to mine, so it would be helpful to […]
