Blog

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 […]

From Portugal to MIT

From Portugal to MIT

Learning to adapt to new time management challenges

May 23, 2018 | Cátia B

I have been a visiting PhD student at MIT since February, coming from a PhD program called MIT Portugal. This is a collaboration between several Portuguese universities and MIT. Some of the courses back home were taught by MIT faculty, so that is how I met my current advisor here. From interacting with other students, […]

Learning to Engage in Deep Conversations

Learning to Engage in Deep Conversations

How a conflict management class awoke my interest in interfaith dialogue

May 15, 2018 | Claire D.

In the third year of my PhD, two things happened that dramatically changed the way I see the world: I took MIT’s 40-hour conflict management course in my training to become an MIT REF, and Donald Trump was elected president. In their own ways, both opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing […]

Addir

Addir

Where scientists talk religion

April 13, 2018 | Alex T.

Every Monday night, I shuffle down Mass Ave, past the towering columns of MIT’s entrance to a small unassuming building almost directly across the street. Inside I meet with a group of about ten students. We continue our discussion of something that can make people uncomfortable, something that isn’t commonly associated with MIT: religion. We […]

Build Bridges, not Walls

Build Bridges, not Walls

Celebrating linguistic diversity at MIT

March 9, 2018 | Sherry C.

When the movie Arrival came out in 2016, I was overjoyed: for the first time, a woman linguist was the main character in a Hollywood movie, not to mention the fact that the linguistic consultant of this film – Jessica Coon – is an MIT Linguistics alumna herself. But I was more excited about the public […]