When Science Is More Art than Science
Or how I learnt to start worrying and stop loving science
Maybe climate change is a hoax and vaccinations cause autism. Maybe 9/11 was an inside job, the earth is as flat as my grandma’s pancake, pineapple belongs on a pizza, and you should switch to Geico. Just maybe. Being the curious species that we are, we have to entertain all possibilities, even if they sound […]
Making the most of Cambridge’s amazing salsa scene
Plus a story of how I went from ballet to salsa
Thankfully, life at MIT as a grad student is not ALL about research. For me, one of the greatest breaks from lab is dancing. Growing up, classical ballet was part of my daily routine. Classical ballet requires physical resilience, a focused mind, and musicality, but above all, it requires discipline. I soon learned that I […]
The Unofficial Guide Book for the Grad School Applicant
If you have no idea what to do, you’re well on your way!
I made the decision to apply for graduate school in mid-September of my senior year of college. With application deadlines only weeks away and the GRE looming in the distance, I spent one month scrambling to familiarize myself with the application materials that some of my peers had been refining for months. Sounds stressful, right? […]
On Becoming a Professional Student
How I emerged from the chaos of undergrad to embrace professionalism in my graduate career
If you are an academic masochist who constantly enjoys being over-involved and under pressure, then your undergraduate “career” was probably something like mine. My (pre-grad) college years regularly felt like a frenzied, unorganized attempt to accomplish the umpteen items on my mental to-do list. I found myself in constant triage mode when it came to […]
Being Strong in Strong Situations
Having agency even when your choices aren't fully your own
At my undergraduate institution (one of the three big U.S. military academies), every cadet was required to take a class called “The Behavioral Science of Leadership”. In this class we discussed something called strong situations. Strong situations are environments in which a person’s options become limited and there is a lot of external pressure to […]
