The right roomie for you
How asking the right questions can help you find your people
My freshman year of college, I lived in a dorm with five other girls and one bathroom. It could have been a disaster, but by a stroke of luck we lived together incredibly well. Not everyone had such a fortunate random draw—one friend from down the hall still talks about the “mold farm” her roommate […]
Routine in chaos
Discovering opportunity to hack your own personal productivity habits
About a month into my first semester at MIT, I found myself sitting on my couch at 4pm, still in my pajamas I’d been wearing all day, working on a math Problem Set (PSET), with a bag of pretzels as my only meal of the day beside me when I thought: What the heck am […]
Mayan, what else?
Take the time to breathe and do what you like
I was tired. My first semester at MIT was tougher than I had expected. I still have vivid memories of that defining evening of November. I was making my way back home with research ideas spinning in my head and started to feel anxious about the three p-sets I had to finish by week’s end. […]
When is the best time to start graduate school?
Pros and cons of fresh-out-of-undergraduate and post-young professional paths
I’ve technically had two “first days” of graduate school. The first one was in September 2012. Fresh out of undergraduate, I arrived that fall semester at MIT – completely burned out. After graduate school applications and a grueling final senior semester, I was running on fumes. I joined a lab that semester in a field […]
Join today, plan for tomorrow
Why you should join your professional society
Whether it’s IEEE, ASME, AIChE, APS, or a different acronym, you are probably familiar with your field’s specific professional society. I became a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) as a college freshman in 2013. Eight years later, serving on the ANS board of directors and working toward a PhD, I credit ANS with […]
