The Pod Leader Experience
Mentoring for the MIT Summer Research Program
Every year, the Office of Graduate Education (OGE) hosts around 40 undergraduate students from around the country to engage in meaningful research at MIT during the summer. This effort, called the MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP), aims to provide underrepresented minorities an opportunity to conduct research at world-renowned labs on campus. The cohort consists of […]
When Science Is More Art than Science
Or how I learnt to start worrying and stop loving science
Maybe climate change is a hoax and vaccinations cause autism. Maybe 9/11 was an inside job, the earth is as flat as my grandma’s pancake, pineapple belongs on a pizza, and you should switch to Geico. Just maybe. Being the curious species that we are, we have to entertain all possibilities, even if they sound […]
Graduate Student becomes Chickpea Master Masher
Finding new skills in unfamiliar places
I am sitting at my desk, debugging some code that does not seem to work. The week has been tiring, to say the least. But next week is Brunch Week! When I first joined MIT, I was plagued by the usual imposter syndrome. This fear of not fitting in not only impacted my work, but […]
The Dizzying Cost of Life Science Research
If sticker shock is freaking you out, you’re not alone
Where were you when you bought the most expensive thing you’ve ever purchased? I was definitely in lab. In life science, you can spend a staggering amount of the lab’s money on tiny tubes of liquid. As a small, delicate, expensive thing, purchasing a tiny tube of liquid feels a bit like buying jewelry. For […]
Learning to Sail
A unique recreation activity offered at MIT
As mentioned in one of my previous blogs, the trio-factors of inability to swim, belonging to a country where sailing is not common, and the presence of the Charles River, always full of sailing boats right next to the campus, instilled a desire to learn sailing in me ever since I joined MIT. But the […]
