Blog

How NOT to be a good TA

How NOT to be a good TA

Lessons from a first year of graduate student TA

January 6, 2023 | Brittany L.

It was my first ever trip to Cambridge and to the MIT campus and, more importantly, the start of my graduate program in the chemistry department. My fall semester schedule was a balance of courses, lab rotations and my teaching assignment. Needless to say, it was a lot to juggle.  I felt confident that the […]

Crafting is engineering, music is math

Crafting is engineering, music is math

What I learned from teaching design and engineering to elementary schoolers

September 27, 2021 | Rima D.

I am a serial maker: as a child, I dove deep into a new creative obsession each year. With each medium I explored, my passion for making grew, and projects flooded my house: a giant model of the Parthenon made from recyclables graced our front hallway, a crochet stuffed dragon perched in our kitchen, and […]

Pandemic pupils

Pandemic pupils

How Covid-19 has transformed my perspective on outreach and education

April 15, 2021 | Arianna K.

Going to graduate school anywhere can be a form of culture shock. Often, the transition is from cosmopolitan to erudite and razor-focused, or team-based and casual to more isolated. But moving to do graduate school in a northeastern city in the U.S. from somewhere more rural, such as southwestern Virginia (where I came from), can […]

Between three worlds

Between three worlds

There are more things in science and engineering, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your departmental curricula

December 29, 2020 | Elizabeth Q.

“So are you an aerospace engineer or a mathematician?” asked my interviewer. I grinned. I was applying for a job in an applied math department, and with two degrees (bachelor’s and master’s) in aerospace engineering, I was expecting some form of this question. “I’m a computational engineer,” I replied. What’s a computational engineer? You might […]

How I passed my 1st-year classes

How I passed my 1st-year classes

...by skipping them (please don’t tell anyone)

August 25, 2020 | Suzane C.

That’s right, I confess: I am a serial class skipper. It all started in high school, when I discovered it was possible to learn a lot more about a subject if I studied the material during class instead of paying attention to the teacher. Of course, I couldn’t physically skip classes back then without getting […]