A (rest)room of one’s own
Experiencing MIT through all-gender bathrooms
In the COVID-19 research ramp-up, one return-to-work guideline was hotly contested. Community members should remain seated while flushing to limit viral transmission. For a moment, my department was as obsessed with toilets as I was, although for different reasons. As a non-binary trans person, I’m familiar with non-ideal bathroom situations. The year I started at […]
An unconventional path to MIT
From Industry, to MicroMaster’s, to Master’s
For many of us, MIT has been our dream school since childhood. My personal journey leading to MIT took four years. It was a long time, but worth the wait. Let’s start at the beginning, in the summer of 2013. I had recently obtained my bachelor’s degree, and had decided to take some time off […]
Between three worlds
There are more things in science and engineering, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your departmental curricula
“So are you an aerospace engineer or a mathematician?” asked my interviewer. I grinned. I was applying for a job in an applied math department, and with two degrees (bachelor’s and master’s) in aerospace engineering, I was expecting some form of this question. “I’m a computational engineer,” I replied. What’s a computational engineer? You might […]
Art of comfort
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls
What’s your deepest impression of Boston? Lobster, or the Charles River maybe? For me, it’s the rich art atmosphere. It’s not just about how good museums are, but more about how convenient it is for us students to visit them. The Harvard art museum is by far my preferred destination. It’s right next to the […]
Prospects of a prospective international student in a pandemic era
Hey, it’s 2020 everyone!
The first six months of 2020 have been an emotional rollercoaster. The initial highs included receiving my acceptance letter from MIT; the lows — the COVID-19 outbreak and everything that followed from it, a canceled flight travel nightmare, the MIT campus closing, changing policies for international students which led to denied visa appointments at US […]
