Ayşe, Ali, and Oya
Three types of students- from the eyes of a procrastinator
After seventeen years of being a student at three different schools, in three different countries. I have come to the resounding conclusion that students can more or less be placed into three categories based on how they procrastinate: the always-overachiever, the workaholic socialite, and the surprisingly competent bare-minimalist. While being taught to read and […]
Build Bridges, not Walls
Celebrating linguistic diversity at MIT
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 […]
Exploring Options
Navigating "big science" as a trainee
After arriving at MIT in September, I was excited to begin rotating in labs. I did my research, so I knew what professors I wanted to work with. I was ready to meet labmates, do some projects, and find a lab I matched with. Little did I know that some professors not only ran their […]
Evolution of the MIT Grad Blog
The blog helped her regain a voice, and she didn't want it to end
Understanding what graduate student life is like at MIT is challenging for an outsider. Before I arrived, I had preconceived notions about what the student body would be like: ultra-nerdy kids that participated in hackathons on the weekend and probably couldn’t chug a beer. While admittedly some of these stereotypes are true, I now embody […]
Where Are All the Women?
Experiences in computer science from visit weekend and beyond
This may sound crazy, but for a brief time, I pictured MIT’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department as only women. Yes, this happened. Due to a weirdly warped golden recall of MIT’s Visit Weekend, I somehow only remember the Saturday Pancake Breakfast for women in EECS: A hundred women crammed in a conference […]
