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Policy Debate vs. Research

Policy Debate vs. Research

Applying high school debate skills to PhD research

June 20, 2018 | Helen X.

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

My First Desk on Campus

The good and bad of moving into a student office

June 20, 2018 | Sherry C.

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

Shaping Another Person’s Decision

Navigating the interview process

June 11, 2018 | Shannon J.

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 […]

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Bridging the gap between theory and practice

June 11, 2018 | Rounaq B.

How often have you stared at a blackboard wondering whether the formulae you’re seeing will ever be useful in a practical real-life setting? Ever wondered what’s the use of welding and workshop classes if you’re a computer science engineer? Well, to my astonishment, I found out that everything we learn does help us!   I […]

Do What You’re (Not) Good At

Do What You’re (Not) Good At

Avoiding the tendency to over-specialize in science

June 4, 2018 | Sarah B.

“What do you want to work on?”   This is one of the most expected–and sometimes dreaded–questions that prospective graduate students encounter during the interview process. Because, as they say, “it’s a trap!”   It’s not an innocent way to determine your area of interest. Rather, it’s a means to evaluate your degree of specialization. […]