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All-weather outings/innings in the Northeast

All-weather outings/innings in the Northeast

Year-round climbing around New England (outings) and MIT (innings)

July 30, 2020 | Carlos S.

Moving to Boston from the Bay Area to start school at MIT, I had already mentally prepared to reduce my outdoor climbing and indoor climbing train time. Paradoxically, while being in the Bay Area, while I had access to world-class climbing destinations within a 4 hour drive, distance was a barrier that made those destinations […]

Letters to a not-so-young-anymore grad school applicant

Letters to a not-so-young-anymore grad school applicant

Reflections during critical moments

May 4, 2020 | Agustín C.

Now that I am close to graduating with a masters degree in City Planning, I’m reflecting on how I’ve grown in the past two years. It was a year before that, in the summer of 2017, when I decided to apply to grad school. By that time I had worked for five years at several […]

How can Philosophy Help Policy?

How can Philosophy Help Policy?

How I stepped outside my comfort zone and attended courses outside my research area

March 25, 2019 | Shekhar C.

Before coming to MIT, I had no idea how much courses outside my field could influence my research and shape my intellectual beliefs. I had earned a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences with a minor in public policy. I had also worked with the Government of India on […]

Exploring Scientific Boundaries

Exploring Scientific Boundaries

Musings of a scholar in progress

August 9, 2018 | Ricardo A.

I was recently asked by a colleague of mine here at MIT whether I thought that urban planning and design could be considered true science. His point was that the discipline lacked the precision of the natural and exact sciences. Whatever findings we get from our research couldn’t really be labeled as measurable, replicable, or […]

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Getting Your Hands Dirty

Bridging the gap between theory and practice

June 11, 2018 | Rounaq B.

How often have you stared at a blackboard wondering whether the formulae you’re seeing will ever be useful in a practical real-life setting? Ever wondered what’s the use of welding and workshop classes if you’re a computer science engineer? Well, to my astonishment, I found out that everything we learn does help us!   I […]