The Myth About Inbox(0)
Learning to manage my unmanageable email inbox in graduate school
After extolling the logistical heroics of Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Army, my military history instructor turned to the class and declared, “Good generals study tactics; great generals study logistics.” To my fellow graduate students, I offer a customized message: “Good graduate students study research methods; great graduate students study email.” In this digital […]
Biking Diaries of a Graduate Student
Why did I get a bike? I was just two-tired
“I guess I’ll just power through the weekend and get this P-set done,” I said to myself. This was a common refrain during the first year of my PhD program in Chemical Engineering. An endless stream of assignments from courses and self-imposed research deadlines meant that I ended up spending most weekends at home trying […]
A Well-Kept Secret for Finding a Job post-PhD
Reducing graduation stress by putting off your full-time job search with short-term consulting
During my PhD, I performed a lot of exit interviews with graduating students and learned that finding a job is often the most stressful part of graduating, and among the most stressful in the entire PhD. After my own defense, however, I was able to avoid some of that stress by discovering a valuable post-PhD […]
The Craziest Thing I’ve Done during Grad School
My whole lab agreed to run... across New Hampshire
Last year, I started to get really into running, in part due to the fact that it’s a great way of relieving some of the stresses of grad school. I’ve written before about all the different ways my labmates tackle stress and how frequently I can be found trying to talk others into going for […]
A Nature Lover’s Journey in Cambridge
How MIT changed my perspective on little things
Are you a nature lover? I sure am, and I only realized how important it was to me when I moved to Cambridge after being admitted to the PhD program in the MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. I felt nature deprived for quite some time before experiencing a shift in my perspective. Before coming […]
