From Professional to PhD
The costs and benefits of a substantial career change
A 70 percent cut in pay — that’s what my next career move would cost me. And yet it was an opportunity I knew I couldn’t pass up, and it was possibly the best thing I could for my career. Still, a 70% pay cut would definitely change my idea of a vacation for the […]
Living the Journey
Five ways to enrich your life in grad school
In undergrad, I lost the journey for the destination. I came to college with blinders on. I was determined to focus 100% of my energy on academics and not let anything distract me from good grades. And, for better or worse, that is exactly what happened. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I fell naturally onto the graduate school […]
Being a Muslim Woman at MIT
Why I choose to wear a hijab and how it has affected my graduate school experience
On a sunny day last fall, I wanted to try cooking a typical Indonesian food called ‘rendang,’ a delicious spicy beef curry. Figure 1. Rendang is best served with warm jasmine rice, shrimp crackers, and fresh cucumber. I left my apartment to go grocery shopping while catching Pokemon at the same time. Then, suddenly, a […]
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 […]
The Many Flavors of Theoretical Computer Scientists
An explanation of my field for non-experts
Sometimes I tell people that I’m a theoretical computer scientist. If they haven’t yet found some sort of excuse to go to the bathroom before I take my next breath, the next question is often an exasperated, “What does that even mean?” I tell them that it’s sort of like math except that instead […]
