Good Ideas
They don't grow on trees, so where do you get them?
Even at MIT, good ideas don’t grow on trees. Instead, I’ve found that good ideas have two ingredients: preparation and practice. 1. Preparation. The act of acquiring new knowledge and ideas. The foundation on which my good ideas will be built. 2. Practice. Generate lots of ideas. Engage with ideas in new ways. […]
From Portugal to MIT
Learning to adapt to new time management challenges
I have been a visiting PhD student at MIT since February, coming from a PhD program called MIT Portugal. This is a collaboration between several Portuguese universities and MIT. Some of the courses back home were taught by MIT faculty, so that is how I met my current advisor here. From interacting with other students, […]
In Pursuit of Riches
Publications as the currency of academia
I am a poor grad student. And I don’t mean in the classic, monetary sense. (Although, let’s be real, what grad student isn’t poor?) I am ‘poor’ in the currency of academia- publications. If you’ve never experienced academia for yourself, you might not be aware of how profound and accurate that comparison is. Some people […]
Why Would You Want to Do a PhD?
Student perspectives on the value of a graduate degree
If you are reading this blog post, there is a good chance that you are thinking about a PhD, possibly at MIT. But MIT or not, almost every doctoral program would ask you why you are interested in their program and how it fits into your career goal. A typical answer would be: I am […]
Learning to Engage in Deep Conversations
How a conflict management class awoke my interest in interfaith dialogue
In the third year of my PhD, two things happened that dramatically changed the way I see the world: I took MIT’s 40-hour conflict management course in my training to become an MIT REF, and Donald Trump was elected president. In their own ways, both opened my eyes to a whole new way of seeing […]
