Lawrence Barriner '11 (Course 6, of Skullhouse, formerly of Senior Haus): "This summer I will be an intern at the Love At Work (LAW) missions camp. The camp, founded in 1993 by Killearn United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, began as an effort to provide repairs and basic necessities to homes of impoverished families in Gretna, Florida. Over time the project evolved into a multi-dimensional effort to help the residents of Gretna in all areas of life, not just housing. LAW's core mission is now the encouragement of spiritual growth in youth through service to others. The people of Gretna have repeatedly expressed their undying gratitude to the 'kids who roll in every summer to help us out.'

As I stated earlier, I will be staffing as an intern at LAW this summer. More specifically, I will be the multimedia specialist. I will be responsible for filming the work being done on each job site and the participants of the camp interacting with the local families and children. I will also be responsible for managing the technological aspects of the fellowship session each night (slide show, video editing, sound equipment, etc) and managing the camp website. On a more personal note, this camp means a lot to me (and that is an understatement if I've ever seen one), as I've attended LAW as a camper since I was able to and it has changed my life each and every time I've gone. I am ecstatic to come back to LAW as an intern to glorify God and to show children that mission work doesn't have to be done across the world because there are areas in our own country that need help too."

Harrison Bralower '11 (Course 2, of Putz): "I'm working in the Media Lab's Tangible Media Group on a new version of their flagship musicBottles demo. It's pretty much an art piece...you have these glass bottles sitting on a pretty glass plate and they're RFID-tagged (and there's an antenna sitting in a pan that holds up the glass plate). When you take out the stopper from the bottle music plays, which 'releases' the music trapped inside the bottles. Apparently this demo has been constructed several thousand times so officially it's musicBottles 3.0 but it's more like version 9 or 10. Eventually I'll probably be done with that and will work on other Tangible stuff, or so I hear."

Emily Conn '11 (Course 2, of Simmons): "I'm off to be a girl scout camp counselor in Plymouth, MA - I've always wanted to go to summer camp. I'm excited to work with the girls and besides all the traditional camp activities, I'm particularly looking forward to a program on roller coasters: campers learn about the engineering behind them, ride them, and build a model of one themselves. Little do my campers suspect that they may actually be in for a crash course on some of 8.01...yay!"

Caroline Figgatt '11 (Course 8, of Senior Haus): "I'm spending the summer UROPing on campus, working in a lab in the Center for Ultracold Atoms (a part of MIT's RLE). The CUA is headed up by 2001 Physics Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, whose office and lab are just down the hall from my lab. My UROP advisor is Prof. Martin Zwierlein, an assistant professor who was my TA for 8.012 during the fall semester. Over IAP, I attended a number of lectures put on by the Physics Department. One of them was given by Martin; afterwards, I asked him if he'd be interested in a UROP student for the summer, and a few days later I got an email from him confirming that yes, he would love to have me and had stuff for me to do. Lo and behold, I had a summer job.

So far, that "stuff" has consisted of building components, mostly boxes containing electronics of various sorts. I've only been working for a week and already I've built a 15V power supply, an integrated power supply with three different voltage options, a light sensor, and started working on a temperature controller for a laser. It's pretty fun; I'm getting a lot of experience soldering and cutting holes of various sizes in metal sheets. Martin (yes, we're on a first-name basis :D) and my grad students have been feeding me theory along the way, too. The ultimate goal of my UROP is to help construct these components so that they can be put together to form a laser array that will cool atoms to mere millionths of a Kelvin; after that, evaporative cooling takes over and reduces the temperature further to only a few billionths of a Kelvin, hopefully inducing the atoms to form a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Logistically speaking, I'm working full-time (40 hours a week), and hours are flexible; when you're working in a lab where the grad students and prof tend to work from about 10am to 12am or later, they really aren't too inclined to be especially strict about timing. I've elected to work a pretty regular schedule of 10am to 6pm, Mon-Fri. This works nicely because I can go straight from lab to Z-Center to do the day's weightlifting workout for varsity track, and then go home and have dinner afterwards. I also elected to get paid for this UROP by the UROP office (as opposed to receiving credit), so they're giving me $9/hour, which is campus minimum wage.

The people in my lab are all fantastic; Martin is good-natured to the bone and genuinely passionate about his work, and both characteristics are quite contagious. His graduate students - Andre, Christoph, Cheng, and a few others - are all very nice people. Besides the interesting mix of hands-on components engineering and physics theory, the summer is also proving to be an interesting experience because not only am I the only woman in my lab, I'm also the only American and the only
native English speaker (Martin, Andre and Chris are all German, and Cheng is Chinese). So I've also been helping Cheng learn the grammatical difference between "work" and "job," and explaining to Martin and Chris that although that plastic-y stuff around a wire does indeed isolate it from electrical charge, the word they really want is 'insulation.'

Also, I'm cat-sitting for the world's most adorable little tabby. I shall miss Kiki dearly when I must return her to her proper human at the end of the summer, a fellow Senior Haus resident and '11 who is out of town for the summer. But till then, I shall enjoy having a cute, friendly, snuggly kitty. =)"

Laurie Hakes '11 (Courses 5 and 8, of Senior Haus): "This summer I am being awesome. Luckily, in addition to this full-time job, my powers of awesomeness allow me to also:

• play frisbee with my dog;
  
• go rafting;
  
• work at my hometown's local observatory part-time (We have one 16-inch scope that we use
  to take pictures of interesting objects, like globular clusters, nebulae, galaxies, and other Messier objects. My job is to run the imaging software, operate the telescope, process photos (learning how tomorrow), and keep people company (who wants to be alone at 2 am in the middle of nowhere?). I'll be sending you some processed photos soon; they are the shiznit);
  
• see movies with my peeps (I've seen Prince Caspian and Iron Man already, and I've only been home for a week. Next stop: Indiana Jones);
  
• buy glasses (OMG MY NEW FRAMES ARE SUPA-FLY);
  
• read (HP7 today, but I'm planning on getting through Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd and Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach before going back to Beantown, and hopefully The Feynman Lectures before the summer is out);
  
• live at Fenway House for the summer;
  
• work full-time in Dr. Field's lab when I return to Boston in mid-June (They're studying metastable triplet species of acetylene, which are really cool because their lifetime is long enough to allow them to undergo collisions/energy transfers, unlike their singlet species counterparts which fluoresce before
  they can do anything interesting. Basically, there are LASERS and VACUUMS involved, so I was on board);
  
• hang with my peeps in Boston.
  

Angel Irizarry '09 (Course 6, of Skullhouse): "I'll be doing a software engineering internship at Intuit in Boston."

Grace Kane '11 (Course 2, of Fenway House, formerly of Tetazoo): "Unfortunately, nothing more exciting than Being In Scotland. Which would I suppose be exciting and awesome if I didn't, y'know, live there. Hope you're having a good summer. Try not to spend all of it blogging. :P"

Liz Maroon '10 (Course 12, of Burton Two): "I recently went to an orientation for my NOAA Hollings scholarship in Silver Spring, Maryland, last week. It was fun; I met with the other scholarship recipients (mostly majors in meteorology, atmospheric science, environmental science, and related fields) from all across the country. We listened to NOAA officials discuss various work that NOAA does in anticipation of the NOAA internship we'll receive in summer 2009. (I could be working anywhere from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to Norman, Oklahoma, to Hawaii in any NOAA site. :D) I'm home this week chilling and finally catching up on sleep. In a week I'm heading to Dayton, Ohio, where I've got an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates - think of it as an NSFt-funded UROP) at Wright State University. As for exactly what I'm doing...well...I'll find out soon!"

Louis Perna '09 (Course 16, of Skullhouse): "I'm in Pasadena, CA (just outside LA) working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. My job is to take flight hardware for Mars Science Laboratory (the next rover being sent to Mars) and test it to make sure it will hold up in space and on the Red Planet. I spend most of my day in a clean room with the actual rover parts and with exact duplicates (for testing). I really like it!"

Shawn Westerdale '11 (Course 8 and 22, of Random Hall): "I'll be working on a UROP with Peter Fisher and Jocelyn Monroe. The group I'm working with goes by "The MIT Dark Matter Group." Basically, we're working to detect dark matter. The part that I am specifically working on is related to finding the z-axis projection of the dark matter through the detector. I will be programming part of the detector to reconstruct the tracks, and I will putting the different parts together so that they can all communicate properly (basically getting the data acquisition set up and running). This should help us weed out background noise in the detector and also give us a good understanding of the path of the dark matter wind through the detector (along with where it might be coming from)."

Hey everyone,

As you may know, I am not-so-secretly a blogger for MIT Admissions. I want to put up an entry highlighting the various awesome things that MIT students (being, ourselves, awesome) do for the summer. So if you want to (a) be famous, (b) brag about your awesome summer, (c) help show prospective students why MIT is amazing, or (d) all of the above - I'd appreciate a quick line explaining what you're up to this summer!

Thanks a lot,
Paul

Happily, it turns out that I have a lot of friends who like to be famous - so many, in fact, that all of their responses wouldn't fit in this one entry. Over the next few days, I'll be sharing all of the 30-plus responses I received with you all. I hope you enjoy this cross-section of what MIT students do during their summer "off"!

Annelise Beck '09 (Courses 5 and 8, of Simmons): "I'll be UROPing in Prof. Field's lab (in the chemistry department) again. Unlike last summer, when I was relatively inexperienced and mostly did experimental work, it looks like I'm going to start my own theoretical project...which means improving my programming skills as well.

In August, I'm going to the ACS meeting in Philadelphia as part of a special program for undergraduates in physical chemistry - there are special talks and dinners with featured speakers and various professors for the students selected for this program. It's the first year that this program has occurred, so I don't really know what it will be like, but I'm really looking forward to attending talks and physical chemistry poster sessions, both because physical chemistry is great and because I need to start deciding what grad school I want to attend, so scoping out research at various places will be helpful. (Oh my god, grad school...panic!)"

Mike Bennie '10 (Course 6, of Phi Sig, formerly of Burton-Conner): "I am working at Capital IQ in NYC this summer. We write software that can be used by almost anyone involved in the financial industry from universities to investment bankers to recruiters. It is kind of cool because I get to write code in jeans and a T-shirt on Wall Street. I am writing internal software for the company using some of Microsoft's newest development tools such as Avalon and ASP.NET. Maybe I will just copy and paste this paragraph into my resume now. :D"

Jonathan Chapman '11 (Course 15, of Simmons): "I'm working Simmons front desk for 40 hours a week, which gives me free housing; browsing for UROPs; and having a good time. Right now I'm also writing a game for the Assassins' Guild. Finally, I'm 'tagging' DVDs at Hayden Library. It's like YouTube, but for DVDs that Hayden has. We're using del.icio.us, and the project is about halfway complete."

Erik Fogg '09 (Course 17, of Senior Haus and Phi Delts): "I'm spending 10 weeks in Beijing, starting on the 29th of May, as an intern for the Horizon Research and Consultancy Group, a consulting firm for many large Chinese companies, including CNOOC. I will be spending my evenings and weekends wandering around the city, trying to improve my Chinese and learn the culture enough to be comfortable. I'll be blogging, including political commentary and analysis, from foggofwar.com; I'll also be keeping another blog, The People's Daily, to catalog my day-to-day experiences. In my last two weeks, I will be traveling throughout China, probably to Xi'an, Dalian, Qingdao, Guilin, and Shanghai."

Jason Forte '09 (Course 15, of Chocolate City): "I am performing investment banking equity research for Credit Suisse in New York City. I'll be researching companies in the machinery, engineering, construction and environmental sciences sector."

Teresa Giblin '11 (Course 9, of Senior Haus): "I'll be doing a UROP in the TedLab (MIT Language Lab) with Professor Ted Gibson. I'm running an experiment that will test whether or not the parts of the brain used for language processing are shared with other tasks by examining if there is correlation between people's processing times for different, unrelated tasks. I will also test to see if presupposition - the use of a definite article in language - causes problems in language processing (i.e. if it takes a few milliseconds longer for the brain to process the concept). Finally, I'll be testing if the type of modifier used in the object position of a sentence significantly affects processing time."

Keone Hon '11 (Course 18, of Phi Delts, formerly of Next House): "I'll be doing a UROP in the Broad Institute - specifically, the Imaging Platform - to do some programming for a software package called CellProfiler Analyst that analyzes cell images, identifying cells and automating the process of counting or measuring various phenotypes. After work, I'll be serving as a counselor for Research Science Institute (RSI), a summer program for rising high school seniors that's hosted at MIT. For that, I'll be living in Simmons with the students and will be organizing lots of fun activities (for example, I'm planning on playing frisbee every night)."

Jeremy James '09 (Course 2, of Skullhouse): "Working at ARES Corporation with a few Skullhouse alums in Washington, D.C."

Ekaterina Kuznetsova '09 (Course 18, of Random Hall): "I'm working at Akamai, which is not all that exciting. :)"

Nathan Lachenmyer '10 (Courses 3 and/or 8, of Tetazoo): "I could write >1 page about everything I'm doing this summer. For a start, I'm UROPing with the Nanostructures and Computations Group (Collaborators with Ab-Initio, which is part of the Center for Theoretical Physics), doing Solar Car Team, self-studying 18.06 this summer, Shotokan Karate and Kokikai Aikido, and practicing my various trades (including juggling clubs, meteor-hammer, and throwing knives).

Michael Lin '11 (Course 3, of Next House, formerly of Simmons): "Summer internship at NASA-Langley Research Center in southeast Virginia, Advanced Materials and Processing Branch. Mwahaha." (Paul's Note: Yes, he included the evil laughter in his email.)

Samantha Marquart '11 (Course 9/Pre-Med, of Conner 2): "I am taking this summer to reflect on what I've done in the past year and on my journey towards MIT. I'm spending time catching up with friends and family. Getting to MIT was truly an adventure, and I love everything about being at MIT, but sometimes it's nice to sit back and reflect on the good things in life. Additionally, I am the director of my community's vacation bible school program. The week-long camp held in Dallas, Pennsylvania, is for kids in kindergarten through fifth grade. It's my third year in charge of the program and the theme this year is Rainforest Adventure. I'm also working at my local hospital and baking a lot of cookies this summer too!"

Vrajesh Modi '11 (Course 15, of East Campus, formerly of Burton-Conner): "I'm working as a GE-Infrastructure Engineering Intern for General Electric's Energy business. I'm a member of the Logistics and Trade Services team, which figures out how to transport abnormal objects (e.g. wind blades) from the place where they are manufactured to their final destination. The second day on the job, I visited the Port of Albany, where I observed the arrival of a ship much like this one."

Cody Rebholz '10 (Course 2, of Skullhouse): "I am the swim beach manager at the Boy Scout Camp that I went to when I was growing up. I'm also playing as much Ultimate Frisbee as possible with a summer league team."

I don't know about you, but I think that's a lot to take in all at once. I still haven't even read all of them. Which is my loss, really. Maybe someday I will.

With over 2,500 blog entries, you might think that finding the information you're looking for is like searching for magnetic monopoles. Fortunately, the blogs also come prepackaged with a convenient way of navigating to just the topic you want. You know that bright, rainbow-colored bar a the top of every page? It's not just for decoration - it's your key to the rest of the site.

Each page of the site contains, first and foremost, the wise words of the MIT Admissions staff, explaining the facts about MIT: the majors available, student organizations, the tradition of hacking, the near-infinite research opportunities, MIT's mission in the world, and so on. Pretty much all admissions sites I've seen have this sort of structure.

The awesome thing about MIT's admissions site, though, is that you'll also find a bunch of related blog entries hanging out on the left side of each page. So if you're checking out the page on student life and culture, for example, you have almost instant access to real stories from real students about what being a student at MIT really means to them.

All the entries on these blogs are good. But time is precious, and no one really does have time to read 2,500-plus entries (especially if you're new to the site - hi, new people!). So I've spent the past few hours going through the blogs and pulling out some of the entries I enjoyed the most when I was a prospective student (back when, you know, Pluto was a planet). I've also tried to include some entries to help you out a little bit in the application process, as well as to provide a basic introduction to life and academics at MIT.

And for the record, this entry is mainly aimed at the prospective Class of 2013 - yes, the Admissions Office is already getting ready for you! But rest assured, 2012ers, that I have not forgotten you. And, who knows, you may find a few of these entries interesting as well. ;)

Enjoy!

Applying
Ben: It's More Than A Job
One of the most touching, meaningful things I've ever read. (It's first for a reason.)

Matt: Supplemental Materials
Everything you needed to know but didn't know how to ask.

Paul: Top Ten Common-Sense Application Tips
Some advice from me.

Snively: Discovering Yourself
Some advice from Snively. (Plus a spreadsheet!)

Anthony: We Wear Matching Hats
This entry is worth it solely for the photo at the bottom.

Nance: "I've Got 99 Problems... Admissions Is Not One"
52 things not to do.

Chris: Notes on the Interview
It's a long one, but a good one.

Ben: Many Ways to Define the Best
Ben offers a reflection on AP classes.

Meet the Admissions Office
Stu: Reflections
Words of wisdom from MIT's very own Dean of Admissions, Stu Schmill '86.

Paul: Birthday Boy Ben
Some friends and I invade Ben's office.

Ben: I Am Not As Lame As I Appear
This entry still makes me laugh.

Daniel: MIT's Financial Aid Enhancements are Released!
Sweet.

Academics
Melis: A Day in the Life
Semi-charmed life. :)

Bryan: A Tale of Two Majors
You can't do everything at MIT. But you can do enough.

Laura: Tests @ MIT
Rule number one: DON'T PANIC.

Keri: Well, at least you didn't fail, right?
A blow-by-blow look at being a second-semester freshman.

Chris: Mini-Guide to the GIRs
An introduction to MIT's core curriculum for freshmen.

Paul: What Though the Odds
My experiences with MIT's freshman physics.

Lulu:
Advice you've heard before and a story you haven't
"Instead of saying, 'go to class,' my advice will be as follows: pick classes that you'll want to go to."

Sam: It's bigger than you, and you are not me
Sam was quoting song lyrics before I was even reading these blogs.

Student Life and Culture
Mollie: Who we are
This is the best place in the world. And it's been worth every second."

Ben: Welcome Susan Hockfield
MIT celebrates the inauguration of its sixteenth president, Dr. Susan Hockfield.

Derrick: Sometimes we have fun
No, really. =)

Lulu: Desired things
This is, really, one of the most beautiful things I've read.

Mitra: Nightmarket
A delicious tradition.

Melis: 10 things I love about MIT
Reason #11: MIT students make awesome lists.

Bryan: Making the Switch
Bryan talks about making friends at MIT.

Laura: Knife fight with a biker gang
Just what it sounds like. ;)

Jessie: I?TFP
"The people who hate it the most, love it the most, and it's not contradictory."

Mollie: Choice and the MIT Lifestyle
Why yes, we do have parties at MIT.

Karen: Bread at Desk
Late-night reflections are the best kind.

Lulu: Come Together
The power of people.

Campus
Anthony: Avoiding moonlight on an empty stomach
An introduction to MIT's famous tunnels.

Ben: Driving on the Infinite
A guide to MIT's equally famous Infinite Corridor.

Paul: All these days I spend away
Making MIT my home.

Snively: The Coop
MIT's very own bookstore. (It rhymes with "hoop.")

Sam: I don't know where we're going
Getting lost on MIT is easier than you'd think. It's also kind of enjoyable.

Residential Life
Jessie: "Why does my kid have to move again?"
An introduction to MIT's uniquely amazing housing system.

Paul: Simply Brothers
A reflection on being initiated into my fraternity.

Melis: Sororities @ MIT
A very thorough introduction to sorority recruitment.

Jessie: Beyond the Iron Cur...I mean, Mass Ave
Thoughts on the two sides of MIT's campus.

Jess: College Shopping List
A slightly unconventional but totally awesome guide to moving into MIT.

Technology
Karen: Inbox Insanity
This entry is so true. And kind of sad.

Snively: Laptops!
Some thoughts and advice on personal computing.

Evan: The Zone Cell Challenge
Evan has fun hacking other peoples servers - with permission!

Snively: ROFLCON!
The internetz come to Boston.

Traditions
Matt: The Years of the Rat
An introduction to the lore of MIT's famous class ring, the Brass Rat.

Matt: The MIT Spring Concert
Famous bands rock out at MIT.

Keri: Steer Roast 2008
'Nuff said.

Paul: Takin' My Time
Piano Drop. It's kind of a big deal...

Humor
Laura: Mechanical Sense of Humor
Sometimes engineering can be fun. ;)

Ben: LOLZ CATS
Seriously, just read it. (KTHNXBAI!)

Jess: Benzene Back
"Being aromatic is where it's at..."

Sam: Love, organically
"Cyclobutene is NOT FLAT."

Keri: Trans-Consciousness Messaging Protocol!
xkcd is almost required reading for MIT students. (By the way, I lost the game...again.)

Jess: For love of Baxter
Catnapped!?

A Little Advice
Ben: 50 Things
Ben's advice to Class of 2010 when they were prefrosh, this post is still relevant today.

Mitra: The most important blog entry ever
More helpful links you could have ever wanted.

Jess: Our mother shoulda just named you Laika!"
No really, there is some advice in here.

Jessie: It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
"Keep MIT special."

***

Any other awesome entries I accidentally overlooked?

Perhaps even more importantly, any questions we can help with? That's part of why we're here, after all.

Let me back up. As you may already know, this summer, I'm working with Professor Angelika Amon of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Today was my first day and I decided to come in at 8:00 - which, in turn, meant waking up at 6:30 in the morning.

Let me repeat that. Six-thirty in the morning. If you haven't been to college yet, that might seem like a quite reasonable time to wake up - and, really, it wasn't that bad. But compared to my usual wake up time of 9:00 last semester, in order to make it to my first class at 10:00, that's a pretty big switch. Just pointing that out.

As I was saying, though, I showed up my lab at 8:00, rather proud of myself for making it on time - only to find that I wasn't even the first one there! I suppose there's a lesson in here somewhere: no matter how dedicated you think you are, at MIT, odds are someone else is just as committed than you are. I think this is actually a good thing, in the long run.

Anyway, almost soon as I walked into the Amon Lab, I felt surrounded by friendly and helpful faces. The first person I met, a grad student named Ilana, was all too happy to help me find Eduardo - a post-doc and my primary mentor for the summer. After introducing me to a number of other grad students, post-docs, and technicians, Eduardo taught me a few basic but important techniques: pouring agar plates (growth media) and dissecting yeast spores.

Pouring agar plates is about as exciting as it sounds, but dissection is actually really important. In the Amon Lab, dissection doesn't mean cutting apart a yeast cell and examining the organelles; rather, it refers to separating different genotypes of yeast from one another under a microscope using a needle...which is a lot easier said than done. As everyone in the lab keeps telling me, becoming skilled at dissection requires a bit of patience and lots of practice, practice, practice. Which is why I'll be working on my dissection technique even more tomorrow.

I'm not sure what Eduardo would think if he knew I considered this "playing with yeast cells," but I certainly enjoy it.

Heading home to my fraternity, as I was walking through Lobby 7, I happened to glance up at the famous inscription, and discovered that the words "Established for the Advancement of Science" suddenly held an entirely new meaning for me.

This is one of those reflective entries. Other bloggers have already talked about the discoveries they've made the past year, about how things change. And if there's sometimes a little bitterness mixed in - well, that's college. More precisely: that's MIT, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Actually, though, this entry isn't about me. Apart from this introduction, I didn't even write it. If the admissions blogs have one flaw, it's that a dozen or so students simply can't represent all aspects of MIT. We try, of course. And for the most part I'd like to think we do a pretty good job. But I really do believe that, fundamentally, even though it's my name and my picture at the top of this page, this blog isn't about me.

It's about MIT as a whole.

There are many things that make MIT what it is. But when you get right down to it, I believe the most important part of MIT - the reason I feel in love with this place, over any other school - is the students who go here. And I think there are many students who have stories that deserve to be told.

Piper Hunt is one of those people, and this is her story. Or, I should say, a chapter of it, because in a very real sense her story is only just beginning. It is not, necessarily, a happy chapter. But it is a true one. And that, I think, is what really matters.

***

Piper Speaks:

Lesson One: You gotta work for it.

As a freshman in the Class of 2011, I came to MIT full of dreams - with absolutely no plans of how to obtain them. I thought, for some reason, that everything would just fall together. I was certain that after a month or so here, I'd be acing hard classes, have kickass study groups and friends, and be über active in tons of the really amazing clubs that exist here.

Well, it didn't happen. And I got depressed.

Lesson Two: Know yourself.

So according to the admissions gods, I’m just as brilliant as everyone else here. But I started to seriously doubt that a couple weeks into classes. Already down from how everything didn’t happen like in the movies, I pretty much stopped working altogether. It wasn’t until this semester that I realized why I struggled so much - why I’m still struggling. My background was vastly different from most people's. Many kids here have parents with PhD's (it still seems like a very strange thought to me, parents with PhD's) - only one of my parents went to college at all. Many had been pushed hard since childhood in the best schools, while I fluffed around, serious about my riding and flying, loving community service, getting A's and B's, but never really thinking of going to a prestigious school. I wasn't one of those kids dreaming of MIT since 2nd grade - I was the one who hadn't heard of the school until junior year.

Then there was my schooling itself. Instead of the state's top science high school, I went to a small humanities-centric school. I didn’t take any science classes my freshman year but got my fill in religion, English, and history - 6 AP exams' worth. The only other AP's I took were Biology and Calculus (AB). I never learned anything remotely theoretical, parametrics, or even chemistry (long story). Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored my high school - like MIT, we didn't have a valedictorian. People just got along without all this backstabbing I hear about. But it wasn't the ideal background for an MIT student - so while I struggled in the most basic classes, others were skipping out of calculus in its entirety and taking organic chemistry for a second time.

Lesson Three: Get help.

Still, I'm not the only one at MIT who doesn’t have a stellar background. I would've been fine at MIT - if I hadn't been some combination of prideful and lazy. I didn't get the help I needed. Oh, it was all there - office hours, tutors, if I had just reached out I would've been fine. But it got to the point where I was too scared by how behind I was to go to office hours. Instead, I switched from 18.01A/18.02A to 18.01, and dropped 8.01 completely.

But I survived first semester - down, but not out. I had a great Christmas break, a good IAP, and then it was back to work.

Second semester began with some really bad family stuff that I’d prefer not to get into here, and now I have my own medical problems to deal with. Overall, it’s not been a fun ride, and all throughout I was thinking, "I'll get help next week, I'll go to office hours later," etc. etc. I did nothing in any clubs, didn’t get involved - sunk into the same trap as last semester.

But this time, I got up. And things are going right.

Lesson Four: Learn what works for you.

We all have our Achilles' heel. So what did I learn was my trap? The thing is, I don’t get help until it's way too late - and then I'm too afraid to go and get it. Now I know, in the future, to just go to office hours and take other help right from the beginning, so as not to fall behind. (Also, I've learned that evening classes are NOT for me, and that I actually do prefer my non-HASS courses to have finals.) Unlike last semester, I know that I CAN do it. I won't try to just breeze through it.

Lesson Five: Who I am, who I’ll be.

Finally, it's true what they say - college is a time where you learn about yourself. In this first quarter of my college experience (oh god, already?), I’ve learned that my initial response is to shut down (something I should watch out for) but that I always bounce back; I am a survivor. I've learned to just stop caring what people think of me - this is my life, I’ll live it my way, and there are things I need to do.

At the same time, college is changing me, and it’ll continue to do so. Of course, MIT's on hold for now. As many current friends and future 2012 friends already know, I had to go on medical leave for this spring term and next fall. (Don't worry, you can't get rid of me - I'll be coming back next spring as Class of 2012. =D)

But do I still like MIT?

It’s funny, 'cause I know some people (very few, but they exist) who have been disillusioned by this year. Nope, not me. MIT is still the dream school it always was for me. I've had some really great experiences here, and I just know this place is right for me, this place is amazing, this place is different - and like many, I feel the connection here. Sure, I'm going to have to work for it in ways other people didn’t have to.

But I know that, when MIT throws me out into the real world, I won't fall again.

Now, MIT has hosted a pretty impressive slate of visitors over the past year - Melis recently blogged about Julie Gerberding and Compton lecturer Tom Brokaw, for example. We've also hosted the infamous Ollie Smoot '62 (for a lecture about Smoot's Ear, written by MIT Professor Robert Tavernor), Hayden Christensen, and even Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

In terms of my personal excitement level, I still think Neil wins. (No offense to the guv'nor, of course.) Of course, it also helps that this particular lecture is being given after my finals are done and not during the actual term, but that's just the way it goes.

Originally, I just planned on showing up to the lecture and maybe taking some pictures. About fifteen minutes ago, though, I realized that I also happened to have my laptop with me...and there was wireless in the auditorium...and, well, you see where it's going. Now it's 6:55, and I'm currently sitting in Kresge, ready to liveblog! There's just five minutes to go until Neil arrives, so stay tuned!

7:00 exactly - The lights darken! An expectant hush fills Kresge, then people quickly start whispering. I contemplate yelling "LSC!" but realize that would be kind of rude at this juncture, and refrain.

7:01 - The darkness continues. I think people were expecting Neil to be here by now. There is A few people start clapping (widely known throughout the world as a surefire method to summon missing speakers) but are quickly hushed and shamed by the rest of the audience, who are much more respectful. (I am glad I did not yell.)

7:02 - Apparently no flash photography is permitted. This rule is stated at almost the exact moment I was about to take a flash photo. (Woah, that was close.)

7:03 - NEIL'S HERE! The applause is thunderous.

7:04 - Professor Henry Jenkins, the Director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies (CMS) Program, begins giving his lecture about Julius "Julie" Schwartz, and his role helping shape the perception of fantasy and science fiction in popular culture. (Incidentally, Prof. Jenkins is also the Senior Haus housemaster.)

7:10 - The Flash, Hawkman, Green Lantern - the Justice League! "Superheroes hang out together." Prof. Jenkins talks about how he used to be the Green Lantern when he was re-enacting these superhero comics with his childhood friends. (All together now: "Aw.")

7:16 - More discussion about the Justice League, and the profound impact Schwartz had on the comic industry (and beyond). "It seems appropriate that here at MIT, we honor his legacy."

7:18 - "If ever there is a speaker at MIT, who needs no introduction, it is Neil Gaiman....I think you've heard enough from this stuff old guy, and I think it's time to turn the floor over to Neil Gaiman." GIGANTIC APPLAUSE.

7:20 - Neil speaks. "Thank you all for coming. I thought I would begin by reading something...by somebody else! Which is not something I get to do very often." It's a speech written on the occasion of Schwartz's death: "We loved Julie the way we loved anyone we've known since we were small."

7:24 - I find the speech Neil's reading - where else? - on his own blog.

7:26 - Neil wraps up the speech, there is an interlude.

"Right. So this is the lecture. There about 1200 of us here. And at least one of us was still sitting in his hotel room at 4:45, still scribbling this."

"It's the job of the creator to explode. It's the job of the academic to walk around the bomb site. As a writer, I am much more comfortable talking about exploding - than talking about explosions." He explains he's going to be talking about other people, not just him, "so it'll look like I'm less like an egotistical maniac when videos of this end up on YouTube." Or the MIT Admissions blogs. Either one.

7:27 - The actual topic, or sort of: we're discussing genre.

7:30 - Minor crisis, my camera keeps beeping when I take photos. I try to turn this off, and though I succeed, the process itself creates a lot of beeping. This annoys the person in front of me, who decides to turn around and give me a nasty look. =/ Whoever you are, sorry dude, and please realize I wasn't actually trying to be inconsiderate, I would like a beep-free lecture just as much as you.

7:31 - "Many books have been unjustly forgotten. Very few have been unjustly remembered."

7:34 - I am repeatedly astounded by the amount of stuff Neil is cramming into this lecture. It's very hard to process, especially since everyone (myself included) keeps taking breaks to applaud.

7:35 - ...um. I really don't think I should blog exactly what this part is about. Oh my this is awkward. And hilarious. And utterly Neil.

7:39 - Okay. This is family friendly again. Genre is defined, according to Neil, by the events whose absence would make you feel cheated - and I think this is the fundamental point that he's been driving at this entire time. In his own words, genre "gives you something to play to, and to play against."

(If I am doing a bad job at making this sound interesting, the fault is all mine. This is actually pretty fascinating, and the audience - myself included - loves it.

7:45 - Talking about transcending genre. (Briefly.)

7:46 - Discussing prose - how the reader and the writer, in a sense, collaborate with each other, in the sense that a novel is only words: and because they are only words, "no readers will ever read the same book, because you guys, as readers, are building...giving the characters voices, painting the sky."

7:49 - Comics, on the other hand, give both pictures and words; "the places that the reader does all the work is between the panels."

7:50 - We're talking about media now, as well as genre. "These are all different ways of getting ideas from one head to another." Comics and graphic novels are media, not genres, despite consistent confusion.

7:54 - Okay, I have about 6% battery power left and there's not an AC outlet in sight - where's wireless power when you need it?

7:56 - "Books, or comics, change mind - and they do it because they make you imagine, and the act of imagining is the most powerful thing there is." Everything had to be imagined at some point - everything, from powers, as Neil demonstrated with his own water, "What if? It doesn't have to be like this. It can be different. Julie Schwartz helped make the world where it is today. And one way he did it is by encouraging us to daydream. Thank you."

Once again, applause - Neil looks slightly embarrassed - and now we're moving into the Q&A session between Neil and Prof. Jenkins. My computer's about to run out of juice, but I'll come back later and clean this entry up with photos, more thoughts, and all the rest. Until then!

What now, indeed. As I mentioned before, this Saturday I'm heading home to South Bend for a week to recover and recharge before starting my summer UROP. Family, friends, my "real" bed...yes, even though MIT feels like home, I'm definitely looking forward to going back.

Before I take off on Saturday, though, I have to deal with what I think has to be the least glamorous and least enjoyable part of the overall college experience: packing. I view packing as one of life's necessary evils: it can be tedious and time-consuming, but you've gotta do it. And in the long run, I know it's not only necessary but definitely worth it, since I'm finally moving into my fraternity's house in Boston. Of course, I've had a great time in Simmons this past year (and there are more than a few Greek guys who choose to live in the dorms - like Alan '09, who lives down the hall from me), but I'm really excited to try living somewhere new this summer. Besides, it's Boston.

That being said, the actual process packing still makes me sad inside. Right now, I'm sorting all the detritus I've accumulated in my room over the past year into three basic piles : Bring Home, Keep, and Junk. (If it helps, you can think of the piles as the fundamental solutions of the system of my room. Or I could stop trying to make jokes about 18.03.)

Basically, everything in the Bring Home pile will eventually end up in one of my big red suitcases (clothes, toiletries, super-secret gift for my parents and sisters) or my backpack (laptop, Starship Troopers, iPod), with a little space leftover in case I want to bring anything back from South Bend. Everything in the Keep pile, meanwhile, is destined for - surprise! - a box of some sort. I'll be leaving most of these boxes (old textbooks, the majority of my personal book collection) in storage over the summer, but of course some (more clothes, my poker chips, some books I've been meaning to read) will eventually be unpacked as I get settled into my summer room in Skullhouse.

As for Junk? Well, most of it is headed for the trash can. I don't really want to bore you with the details of things I throw away, except that - due to my extreme packrat nature, which I'm trying to fight - it's a lot. ;) Some things, though, I'll be donating to StuffFest. What's StuffFest? Well, here's a picture of StuffFest going on in Simmons:

Basically, StuffFest consists of students putting all the old stuff they no longer want - clothes, books, food, and so on - in some central location in the dorm. For about a week, the pile is a free-for-all; any student can take anything they want from it, for free. After everyone's moved out of the dorms (or into their summer dorm assignments, same difference), a few volunteers from each dorm sort and bag all the leftover "stuff" so it can be donated to charity. In addition to the student volunteers I mentioned, StuffFest is organized by MIT SAVE (Share A Vital Earth), one of the many student groups on campus, with additional support from the Environment, Health, and Safety Office. I'm not a member of SAVE or anything, but I really like how StuffFest takes advantage of the end-of-term rush to achieve a genuinely positive result for the community, so I felt it was definitely worth blogging.

Before I get back to packing, I have two last last tidbits. First off, Neil Gaiman is coming to MIT Friday! I've loved Neil's work ever since a friend recommended Neverwhere to me back in high school - it's still a toss-up as to whether I like that novel or American Gods more - and I'm incredibly excited to actually meet him in person. Keep an eye out for pictures!)

Finally, according to the upperclassmen, even though I'm finished with my finals for freshman year, I'm not actually a sophomore. Apparently, MIT observes a principle known as the Conservation of Freshmen, which basically states that "there must always be frosh." Accordingly, although sophomores become juniors and juniors become seniors immediately upon completing their finals, the freshmen are stuck as freshmen until the next class comes on campus for Orientation. So apparently, there just aren't sophomores between June and August.

Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Enough about finals, though! As I said in the tagline, the fight's begun but not yet won, and I'd rather blog about something a little happier than MIT final exams. And the happiest thing I can think of right now is what comes immediately after final exams...the summer!

Why am I so happy about the summer? Apart from the fact that I get to head back home for a week ago and see my family (Boston is amazing but a break is nice sometimes, and besides my mommy misses me), the summer means I get to do research! About a week ago, I officially confirmed what lab I'll be in: I'll be working in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research! Oncology has been a major research interest of mine since I was in high school, so I was incredibly excited when MIT announced that they would be erecting a new building dedicated solely to cancer research. Possibly even more exciting than the building itself, though (not to mention the $100 million gift that made it possible!), is that the Koch Institute's express mission is to bring together scientists and engineers, so that they can mutually benefit from each other's ideas, insights, and skills.

As a bioengineer-in-training, nothing could thrill me more - and I'm incredibly excited to be a part (however small) of the new Institute.

To get into the specifics, I'll be working with Professor of Biology Angelika Amon to investigate the effects of aneuploidy on tumorigenesis in yeast cells. To translate from Biology-ese, I'll be researching how having an abnormal number of chromosomes affects the proliferation rate of yeast. Basically, we're trying to guess what gene or genes cause cancer, which I personally think is Pretty Darn Cool.

Of course, I still don't understand everything about the project - which is to be expected, considering I haven't even started working yet. I'll be working primarily with a post-doctoral fellow named Eduardo, who's going to show me the ropes of the project - particularly in regards to working with yeast culture - and I'm sure he'll explain the finer details as we go along.

As for what else is going to be on my plate this summer, I hope to pick up my first "real" programming language (it's looking like Java or Python at this point) and get a jump start on some of my coursework for next semester. Apart from that, I'll be living in my fraternity, which I'm really looking forward to (about 15 brothers, out of 41 total, are staying). Quite a few of my other friends are also staying on-campus in dorms or some of the fraternities, so I expect I'll always be able to find something to keep me occupied.

What are your plans for the summer?

In other news, the last full week of spring classes has come and gone. I spent last night finishing up the last problem sets I will ever do as a freshman, which is a pretty awesome feeling. All that's left to finish up this semester is the final paper for my humanities classes (remember Arrowsmith? yeah, it's on that novel) and, of course, finals.

Easier said than done? Yeah, just a little. But this is MIT - what were you expecting? ;)

I'm actually looking forward to this weekend. Earlier tonight, a handful of friends and I went to a performance of four student-written one-act plays put on Dramashop (the same group that put on Suburbia last year). They were pretty good, especially considering they were all written by actual MIT students. Of course, Dramashop wasn't the only club putting on a show tonight - Dance Troupe, MIT Symphony Orchestra, and the Chorallaries were also out in full force. I wish I'd been able to go to all of these awesome events - but, alas, I haven't perfected the art of being in multiple places at once. (Yet.)

After Dramashop, the aforementioned friends and I headed over to the student center to grab some snacks from LaVerde's, the campus convenience store, and sat around swapping stories and other random humor - including a very fun story about various "giant confectioneries" our group had baked or otherwise encountered recently. Around ten, I met up with another friend Samantha '11 and headed towards Central Square to Toscanini's, everyone's favorite local ice cream store (yes, it was a junk food-filled night and it was DELICIOUS). Sam and I have been friends since we were prefrosh, but for the past few weeks we've both pretty busy with our own lives (and problem sets!), so it was awesome to catch up again.

Finally, I headed across the river into Boston to meet up with Teresa '11, who was hanging out with a bunch of mutual friends at Theta Xi, yet another of MIT's 27 fraternities. And that was also fun. ;)

Now, it's about four o'clock in the morning Boston time and I'm currently sitting in my own fraternity's TV lounge, splitting my attention between blogging, the 2012 Facebook group, and reruns of Scrubs. I should get to bed (and I will, soon), but somehow I couldn't resist the urge to write an entry.

This weekend is shaping up to be, I think, relatively relaxing. Skullhouse is throwing our Spring Formal this Saturday night, and Teresa and I are going together (draw your own conclusions :D), so it should be a pretty awesome night. We also are going to have our house elections (drum roll please) on Sunday morning, but otherwise I'm mostly free - and when I say free, I mean free to keep plugging away at my homework. Ah, the joys of MIT.

In actuality, I have much, much more to say - but for now, I'm off to bed. To the incoming prefrosh, have fun with the Next Big Mailing, which I believe many of you have already received and the rest of you will no doubt be getting shortly. Best of luck, in particular, with choosing your Athena names. Basically, do your best to pick a name you'll still be happy with using four years down the road, and you should be fine.

All right, I'm out. Best of luck to you all with finals, APs, IBs, or whatever it is you crazy kids are up to these days.

Sorry, world.

But as awesome as blogging is, sometimes academics comes first - specifically, I'm referring to my 8.022 pset, my 18.03 pset, my big humanities paper, my 20.020 group final project...and so on. Not to mention, the next issue of MURJ is almost ready to hit the presses, which means the chief editors and production staff - Melis, Dawn '08, Hannah '09, Ivana '11, and me - have been hard at work getting the magazine, which is entirely student-produced, ready to send to the publishers. It's so hosing but so awesome at the same time, and I can't wait to see the issue come out in just a few weeks!

But anyway. As you may already know, last Thursday was Drop Date, which refers to the final day that MIT students can "drop" a class (remove it from their registration) with no penalty. At MIT, Drop Date occurs around the tenth or eleventh week of each academic term...which, as I understand it, is much later than pretty much every other school in the country. Kind of cool.

And with Drop Date, comes Piano Drop!

Piano Drop is a longstanding tradition where Baker House residents drop a piano off the roof of their dorm onto the "testing site" below. According to Matt - who, as a former Bakerite, ought to know - the Drop was first conceived of in 1972 by Charles Bruno '74, "who wanted to bring back the grand old hacks of the past." The drop was performed annually until 1984, followed by sporadic recurrences, including 2005, 2006, 2007, and - of course - this year!

So last Thursday, after my classes were done for the day, I grabbed a few friends and headed over to Baker House to witness my very first Piano Drop. Unfortunately, my camera's currently out of commission, but Ken '11 (one of the ARTalk bloggers and a fellow Simmons resident) was kind enough to let me borrow his rather professional photographs to use instead. You can also check out his coverage of Piano Drop in this entry.

Ken, Teresa '11, and me. ("Don't masquerade with the guy in shades oh no...")

Oops, who let the sun into this photo?

Piano Drop is kind of a big deal. You can read more about it here, as well as a pretty harsh article by the Boston Globe here.

The final result. I do feel sort of bad for the piano...

I think Ken looks a little too happy here....

Ooh, what could be underneath? A different Teresa '11 investigates.

In closing: A glamor shot of the Green Building, with one of the stately Pyramids of Killian Court in the foreground.

Before I get back to work, one last thought for those of you still working on your final decision about where to enroll next year: remember, when it comes to colleges, there are no wrong choices. Only good ones and better ones.