Blogs: By Author

You Got NSF, Now What?

How NSF can change grad school selection

APR 2019
by Mark G.
Chemical Engineering
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...

Finding My Grad School Home

An experiment in communal living

MAY 2019
by Mark G.
Chemical Engineering
When I arrived in the foreboding metropolis of Boston, I sought a group of friends that brings soup when someone is sick, welcomes each other into our homes even at the lowest of times, asks deep questions, and challenges each other to be the best we can be. I struggled adapting to this new place...

Subtle Scandals

Everyday lies incentivized by funding sources

FEB 2019
by Mark G.
Chemical Engineering
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...

Fighting Unfair Rules

Aligning MIT’s actions with its mission

NOV 2018
by Mark G.
Chemical Engineering
When I got an offer to be a Graduate Resident Tutor (GRT),  a graduate student mentor who lives in an undergraduate dorm, I leapt across the hallway to exclaim to my friends that I didn’t just get a GRT position:  I got assigned to Random Hall - the quirkiest, nerdiest dorm filled with murals in...