Continued community in the era of social distancing
Rainbows among the storm clouds
Coronavirus has drastically changed our daily lives as MIT students. In the span of a week, we have gone from attending regularly scheduled classes and happily discussing spring break plans to an almost vacant campus. My heart goes out in sadness to the senior undergraduate students who never got the joys of senior spring that […]
Fitting into MIT
How imposter syndrome gave me a sense of belonging
When I got my acceptance email from MIT, I actually cried. My childhood dream was coming true, and my emotions were a whirlwind of excitement and disbelief. In a fit of excitement, I called my mom and somehow managed to string together words to convey the good news to her. At the end of the […]
COVID-19 prequel
The outbreak of COVID-19
Unlike a lot of MIT community members, who were only affected by the coronavirus outbreak starting in March 2020, I was paying attention to the outbreak since the very beginning on 12/31/2019. This was because one of my high school classmates – also my best friend – worked in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. […]
Forced to leave home
MIT Grad Housing’s Disorganized Response to COVID-19
A message to MIT grad housing: if your tenant’s best housing option is to haphazardly make a 13-hour interstate drive in the middle of a literal plague after being given only two days’ notice, you are doing something horribly wrong. I live in one of the graduate dorms — Ashdown House — and I absolutely […]
To build a home
The importance of setting a foundation for open communication
When you introduce two people to one another, you often contextualize who that person is to you. The words we use to categorize these people are sometimes simple, but sometimes people fill more than one role in your life. For example, your mother may also be your dental hygienist but you’re probably going to introduce […]
