I had never considered a PhD until late in my undergraduate degree. Most students in my program were either grabbing one-year master's degrees or becoming entry-level grunts at consumer goods or biomedical device companies. I remember a career fair where I talked to a recent graduate who was...

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 next few years…  When I started my...

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...

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...

The people that get into MIT and places like it are used to being the best of the best. The people who come here are used to success. In particular, they’re used to success being easy. The easy success you may have experienced in undergrad is not going to continue at MIT. (Okay, it might continue...

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. No! Thank you but no. I will not be going. Your magic and professors and creatures are wondrous, sure. But your stairs?...

Is there going to be food? If the answer is yes, I’m there. On my lab group’s Slack messaging channel, the description below my name is always where the food’s @. As a student at MIT, you begin to notice that nearly all events provide free food. The usual choices are bagels and pastries for...

I still remember when I was about 5 years old, it was my first day at kindergarten and I was scared to meet so many new kids. But I recall it being less scary for me than for most of them because I knew how to tie my shoes. Spending my first few weeks helping others learn how to tie their shoes was...

My dear family and friends, I am so delighted to learn of your intention to visit! It would be wonderful to see you again and show you around this beautiful city that I’ve come to call home. Although I’ve lived here for a few years, it often takes the special occasion of visitors to create a...

The saying, “a way to a man's heart is through his stomach," rings true to me. I inherited the joy I get from food and the importance I put on it from my late grandfather. On family trips he would pick out amazing restaurants that brought back memories of when he was young, and where the food was...

When I first took my parents to my lab, my father was appalled. “This place is worse than my shop.” To truly understand this insult, consider that my father is a farmer who works in a 40-year-old shop with concrete floors and metal walls. Seed is sometimes stored in the back, the machining...

Every November, I join a planning team of graduate students, postdocs, and the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education to offer a two-day workshop called Path of Professorship (PoP) for MIT’s graduate and postdoctoral women considering careers in academia... Read more at the Slice of MIT.  

Only three weeks into my time at MIT, I was so busy that I was barely getting any sleep. I slept with my laptop and dorm room lights on; the sole reason to catch some sleep was to wake up and get going on things for the next day. I grabbed food for survival at odd times, and only when I was not...

I’m a graduate student at MIT, but my experience here is not the norm. I state that with confidence because I… am a historian. As of writing this post, I’m a fourth-year doctoral candidate in an interdisciplinary PhD program shared among the History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology &...

I spent my childhood in Shanghai, the largest city in China. However, as a child, I never had the chance to explore this big city. After I graduated from high school and moved to Pasadena with my family for my undergraduate studies, I became accustomed to life in the suburbs, a place where people...

Dear Alicia (circa 2015), Hi! It’s me. Or you, from the future. I’m writing you from the fourth semester of our grad school experience (the one you’re about to embark on!). I know you’re simultaneously thrilled  and terrified to start a PhD program at MIT! Let me tell you, it’s going to be one of...

“You win some, you lose some. Well… you lose most,” Sunny said, reacting to our latest unsuccessful experiment. We frown at the lab bench briefly before laughing at the silliness of the situation. Sunny shrugs, standing by his statement and commenting on the nature of grad school as he reminds me...

In March 2016, world champion Go player Lee Sedol was defeated by the computer program AlphaGo in a five-game match. As someone who doesn’t play Go, follow professional Go, or study computer science, this shouldn't have been a big...

I came back to MIT as a graduate student more in spite of my time as an undergraduate here than because of it. And I’m so glad that I did. Now, don’t get me wrong. My hesitation wasn’t because my undergraduate experience wasn’t amazing. It was. I loved my first time at MIT, and would definitely...

Graduate student life is very busy, especially at MIT. No two days in the lab are the same. In my opinion, this is what makes science and being a student at MIT so exciting. There’s never a shortage of people making strides in their research. Some days I might be in the lab for 16 hours doing...

Fact: The quickest way to attract students (and usually professors) is to promise food of any kind. Whereas I should be asking, "Interpretable natural language models talk vs. a mentorship lunch for women in computer science?" ... I find myself asking, instead, "Do I want free Brazilian BBQ or free...

I should start by saying that everything that I'm about to write may or may not be completely bogus. Still, I haven't convinced myself that it's not bogus, so I guess I'll share it anyway.   I want to make the claim that our understanding of physics should influence our ethical decisions. To ease...

What if you could be a fly on the wall in the place where some of the most important things were invented? Arriving to MIT Sloan as an MBA student, I was determined to be involved as much as I could in the MIT ecosystem and the Boston entrepreneurship scene. This enabled me to hear some magnificent...

I’ve made a HUGE mistake… It’s Wednesday afternoon, and I’m standing in my kitchen staring at a pile of vegetables meant to feed a family of 5. One problem: I’m a family of one. How will I eat all of this spinach? Is it even healthy to eat this many beets? This one looks like a UFO. It’s the first...

When asked the entitled question ("Why Choose MIT?"), especially by prospective students whom I haven’t gotten to know well personally, I’m often at loss as to how to respond. The follow-up question that I’ve always secretly wanted to ask back is this: When your initial reasons for going to MIT are...

I saw the police car just a little too late. I looked at the speedometer, and unlike the rest of the morning when I’d been sticking to the speed limit, I’d somehow drifted up to over 80 mph. Sally, my friend and hiking buddy, murmurs, “Oh no,” as she sees the red and blue lights come on. I was...

The 10-day orientation boot camp for my degree program was over. My future classmates and I were wrapping up the camp with a barbeque party on the MIT sailing pavilion alongside the beautiful Charles River on a windy evening. The sight was magnificent – in the west I could see the sunset amid the...

“… you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future…” It was a rainy monsoon evening of August, almost a year after my first visit as a tourist to MIT. I had decided to finally go meet (read as: go on blind date) with the guy chosen by my parents. In India, turning 26 is a...

For me there is nothing more sublime than sharing one’s voice with fellow singers and creating beautiful chords and melodies. Singing has been among my favorite activities to take my mind off engineering and sequential thinking, and to explore my emotional and creative sides. I have been singing...