The Simple Pleasures of Gardening
There are few things in life as satisfying as eating home-grown food. Whether it is flavorful herbs, juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumbers or other delicious produce, it is simply delightful to consume freshly picked fruits and vegetables. This is especially true after the endless supply of greasy pizzas one inevitably ingests as a grad student. Moreover, […]
So… What Do You Two Even Talk About?
When a new acquaintance learns that I am a graduate student at MIT, their first question is often about whether or not my husband is also an MIT student or postdoc. They are usually surprised to hear that he is not an MIT researcher — and further amazed to learn that he is not a […]
First Impressions of the USA
I arrived in New Jersey to attend graduate school two years ago. I was mostly nervous and a little bit excited. This was the first time I had flown internationally and also the first time I had flown in an airplane! Upon arrival I was greeted by the air hostess who apologetically told us that […]
Taking the Lead on Leadership
A surprising portion of my undergraduate education at the United States Military Academy (West Point) was spent getting punched in the face, trying to stay alive in a class called survival swimming, and gasping for fresh air as I ran indoor obstacle courses. My after-school activities included walking in circles around a giant field for […]
Ways of Responding to Accusations of Intelligence
An awkward yet common situation that I’ve witnessed at MIT is one in which someone is accused of being intelligent. While grateful for such charitable perceptions, the accused is often left speechless, befuddled or even reflexively defensive. This post is not about how I feel about said accusations, the veracity of such claims, or my […]
Gambling with Degrees
How many master’s degrees is too many? It’s not a very common problem to have. Yet for some of us that have already completed a couple years of postgraduate education before coming to MIT, the question comes up. I must admit I hadn’t looked much at the course requirements for a PhD before applying. A […]
You Got NSF, Now What?
It’s early April. You wake up and refresh the emails on your phone. There is an email from your professor congratulating you on getting the NSF, a colloquial expression for getting into the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. You excitingly text your friends and call your family. After a later-than-expected breakfast, you rush […]
The Project Management Triangle
Graduate school is a wonderful time to indulge in research, fun side projects, and coursework. This is especially true at MIT, where opportunities are plentiful, whether it be startups, teaching, courses, or working with professors. This is both a blessing and curse, especially for someone like me, for whom saying no to exciting opportunities is […]
Cambridge Tea Party
I might be the only person in the world that looks forward to working on weekends. For most people, weekends are a time to sleep in or to catch up on their favorite TV shows but for me, I use work as an excuse to visit some of my favorite places in Cambridge: coffee shops. […]
Safety First!
As an MIT grad student doing cutting-edge research, have you always keep safety as your first priority? I hope your answer to this question is, “yes”. But in reality, many people feel that paying attention to safety will reduce their productivity. All graduate students coming to MIT are undoubtedly smart and have achieved a lot […]
Dressing for Battlefield Science
My first three years of grad school blur together as a haze of experiments and little else. Doing laundry every other week marked the passage of time. I would wash the same set of Gap Body shirts in every neutral color along with my three identical pairs of NYDJ jeans. At some point, I realized […]
You Can’t Run Before You Walk
After completing my undergraduate studies in 2014, I began a slow-paced government job in India. As part of the job, I got a chance to explore the depth and widths of the country, with temperatures ranging from -10oC to 50oC. Overall it was an enriching experience, it taught me a lot about the practical aspects […]
A Corridor full of Giants
If you told me in high school that I would go to MIT, I definitely wouldn’t have believed you. And if I had, I would have been terrified of the future. Although I certainly was not sheltered from most aspects of life, I would say that I was, to some extent, sheltered academically. I went […]
Bilingualism is a Feature, Not a Bug
If you are a non-native English speaker like me, have you ever felt that your English was not good enough? And worse, did you feel that your English would never be as good as a native speaker’s? I did. My native language is Mandarin Chinese, and while I learned English growing up in China […]
Venturing Into My Comfort Zone
Travelling is one of my favorite things to do, so I’m always excited when I get to travel for work. Since I’m a Ph.D. student in atmospheric chemistry in the environmental engineering department, you might think that my work naturally lends itself to performing research in the field. However, I do most of my work […]
My First Autopsy
As the autopsy technician split the cadaver’s chest open with a scalpel, a part of my identity that I had wrestled with since my undergrad finally settled into focus. I have absolutely no desire to become a doctor. This has not always been the case. Like many of my peers, I had started my undergraduate […]
How can Philosophy Help Policy?
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 […]
The Art of Microwaving Food at MIT
My mom has been in the fertility business for more than ten years, developing solutions to ease the exhausting hormonal treatments required before in vitro fertilization. She introduced me to the concept of EDCs, or endocrine disruptor chemicals, which can interfere with the hormonal response of living beings. These hormone-mimicking chemicals are commonly found in […]
Perfection versus Persistence
A skinny envelope containing a fat “No”: my first rejection. I’d been confident of my eventual acceptance to Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College, and my 17-year-old ego winced at the surprise. “Dear Brandon,” the letter started. “Many qualified applicants this year … Very strong accomplishments … We regret to inform you…”. Despite the writer’s reassuring […]
Weighted Decision Matrices and the Happiness Question
Deciding to pursue a Ph.D. and finding appropriate programs was straightforward for me; choosing where to go was much more tortuous. Even before I had received any acceptance letters, I fretted over the question: “How will I choose?”. Should I choose the most prestigious school? The cheapest city, so my stipend will go further? A […]
Getting FIT at MIT
“I’m going to get in shape this year!” “This time I’m serious about going to the gym.” “New year, new me.” We’ve all said it. The start of a new calendar year — or a new academic year — brings with it sweeping declarations of change and audacious intentions for self-improvement. The first few […]
The Pursuit of Happiness
Happiness is a strange thing. Take one of your glorious moments. Mine would probably be the day I learned I was joining MIT. It felt like I had just received my letter of admission to Hogwarts, from Dumbledore himself. I had worked so hard to get to that point, and for all I knew, it […]
Stress Mechanics for Graduate Students
MIT is a crazy place, there’s no doubt about that. But just because you’re in a crazy place doesn’t mean that you’re crazy. During grad school, everyone has days (or weeks, or months…) where things might not be going so well. Maybe your classes are really intense, or the data you’re collecting doesn’t make any […]
Wasting My Degree
“She’s worried you’ll waste your degree.” My friend (let’s call her Anna) relays this message to me as coming from another friend, but I can tell from her tone of voice that she’s clearly worrying about the same potential waste. That makes the question doubly irritating. As if pretending to be merely the messenger could […]
The Right Choice for the Wrong Reasons
“There’s no wrong choice.” This was an oft-stated sentence from my friends and family when I was deciding between graduate programs. And okay, sure, when you have the option to attend two wonderful institutions for graduate school, there is no “wrong” answer. But there is often a “better” answer. In pursuit of the “better” answer, […]
How Not to Die Alone
This is an account of how three grad students came to befriend a cat at MIT. Year 1 B.C. (Before the Cat) Grad school can be an isolating experience if you allow yourself to be consumed by the lab or classes. Fortunately, I found at least two acceptable individuals in my program named Guillaume […]
A Perfect Campus Tour
I have been at MIT for almost two and a half years, and during this time I have repeatedly been asked to give campus tours to visiting friends and family. Though most of campus is within walking distance, extremely convoluted paths resulting from high building density and weird building numbering make it challenging to navigate […]
Unscrambling a Scrambled Egg
“We are pleased to offer you a spot for the HST MEMP program for Fall 2018….” I freeze while my brain works very hard to process multiple emotions and thoughts. I send a message: “the HST program offered me a spot.” Shortly after, my computer blinks with a response. “Can we talk?” I minimize one […]
At MIT, New York City Is in Your Backyard
It was a Friday at 10:30am, and I was behind schedule to catch my bus to New York City. I rushed from the Red Line T stop at South Station to the bus terminal, annoyed that my rolling suitcase prevented me from running up the escalators. As it turned out, I shouldn’t have worried. The […]
Pottery before P-Sets
I wouldn’t really call myself a pottery guy. Don’t get me wrong… I can appreciate a good bowl every once in a while, and some of those vases can really knock my socks off, but that hardly means I was dreaming of making my own. And yet, there I was in a small pottery painting […]
Embrace rather than Escape
There is a saying in Chinese: “It is better to travel ten thousand miles than to read ten thousand books.” Embracing this old saying, I started my four-year undergrad journey in Minnesota after graduating from my high school in Beijing. I got this stamp on my passport when I first came to the United States […]
Nature and Nurture
My undergraduate research advisor gave me one piece of advice before I came to MIT: join the MIT Outing Club (MITOC). She gave no further explanation, but I figured she knew what she was talking about. She had completed her PhD at MIT in the same group I was about to join; she was also […]
Subtle Scandals
My first experience with academic misinformation occurred during my junior year of college. In my final project for my engineering ethics course, my group found that the EPA’s initial report on the impact of hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as “fracking”) on drinking water lacked sufficient analyses to draw any firm conclusions. However, before we could […]
How My Wife Stole My Car in Massachusetts
When we moved from Arizona to Massachusetts, my wife graciously offered to take care of registering our car, letting me focus on starting classes at MIT. If someone offers to go to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) on your behalf, you say two things, and two things only: 1) ‘Yes’ and 2) ‘THANK […]
The Grad School Cha-Cha
“Nope,” I told the girl I was dating in high school, “I don’t dance.” And I meant it. Or at least I thought I did until she broke up with me. My post-breakup energy simmered over the following months until – awkwardness and fear be damned – I added ballroom dancing to my schedule at […]
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Dear Reader, We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about funny, impactful, and day-to-day graduate life experiences at MIT. However, we are sure that you would like to hear more! If you have a specific question about MIT Graduate Life or think that a certain topic has been undercovered, we’d love to hear from you. We have […]
