Remember That Undergraduate Internship?
How an unhappy internship experience helped me discover my passion for research
I did not know I was considering graduate school until the beginning of my senior year. During undergrad, I felt like a squirrel in a nut factory jumping at every opportunity that came my way. In the summer of my sophomore year, I began working for a traditional chemical engineering company called Air Products and […]
Drawing the Lines of Work-Life Balance
How my time-management skills are crucial to my productivity, and more importantly, to my happiness
Most mornings, I don’t set an alarm. As a student in cognitive science, when I’m not working with participants, almost all of my work is done on the computer and can be done from anywhere at any time. This is both a blessing and a curse, but it translates to the fact that I am […]
PhD and a Baby
Debugging code and changing diapers
I wasn’t married when I got to MIT, but I had a boyfriend named Randy who moved up to Boston with me. Two years in, we discover that it is, in fact, possible to simultaneously plan a wedding and write a master’s thesis! Two years after that? I’m sitting uncomfortably in a floppy hospital gown […]
To stay in academia or not, that is the question
Weighing the costs versus the benefits of pursuing an academic career
Should I stay in academia or not after I graduate? It’s a question that most PhD students find themselves asking at some point in their graduate careers. Some have unequivocal answers from the beginning, while others struggle with the decision even towards the end of their studies. Some just don’t want to think about it […]
What Do I Do with My Spare Change?
Learning to be proactive with my money and financial habits
I am now at that age (25!) where I have become too old not A) to be fully aware of my financial situation and its grim reality, and B) to realize that I need to begin investing what I have if I plan on retiring. Now this thought scares me terribly, as I’m sure it […]
