May 13 2012

Quad Life

Posted in: Life & Culture

I was pretty confused when I was put into a room with three strangers at the beginning of this year. Two I had heard about in a very roundabout way, and the third I approached awkwardly when everyone had already paired up for their room assignments within Baker.

"Want to be my roommate?"
"Yeah, sure."

Liz and I filled out our rooming forms together -- single sided sheets of paper with prompts like "Who do you want to live with?" and "Tell us something funny, we read a lot of these!"

It seemed to go pretty smoothly until she brought up that she would be waking up for crew practice diligently at 6am every day. Crap.

Not my ideal start to the year.

So a lot of people wonder what it's like living in a quad -- four girls in a glorious 500-something square foot room furnished with two sinks, huge windows facing the river, and just enough space to house our joint collection of shoes, sweaters, shampoo and study fuel (AKA our weight in ramen and hello panda) -- and it's not easy... read the post »

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Feb 1 2012

TELETHONNNNN

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Freshman Applicants

After my kickboxing class today I ran to the Bush Room and just finished a three hour shift of the Admissions Telethon, calling to congratulate Early Action students on getting into MIT.

It was... tough. What do you tell a high school senior during a surprise phone call on a balmy January evening?

"HimynameisConnieandI'mafreshmanatMIT... andIwasjustcallingtocongratulateyouonyourearlyadmissionanddoyouhaveanyquestions?"

The first few calls were just as surprising for me as they were for the person I called, but I understand if we caught you off guard or in the middle of homework. We had a team of roughly 25 students calling students on the East Coast, slowly moving across the US into the West Coast by 9pm EST. The best part of my job was calling students who were ecstatic that they were getting a call from MIT, their dream school!

The room, the fuel and the tool!

Luckily after two of my roommates joined me, the process started going a lot smoother. We got a chance... read the post »

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Jan 21 2012

Rebecca Black, the Old Spice Guy, and How to Sell Staplers

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Life & Culture

IAP has been a time of very... well, different learning than I had during my first semester at MIT. The past two weeks have been surprisingly productive, tiring and relaxing at the same time. I've learned that Python is like Java's rebellious younger cousin, you can only eat oatmeal for so long before you want to punch someone, and learned that snow is, despite its fine white appearance, really damn cold.

Deceptive frozen water!

Beyond these valuable life lessons, I've also been lucky enough to take a wide assortment of classes that MIT offers over IAP, both for credit and not for credit. I've been running between kickboxing classes, business seminars, programming classes and even photography workshops and finishing off my day in a breaded chicken induced coma after I crawl under my comforter and reevaluate my dinner choices. (It's not as bad as it sounds.)

Over the past two weeks, I've attended two different business seminar series--the first, "Viral Marketing:... read the post »

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Oct 20 2011

How to MC Hammer

Posted in: Miscellaneous

The Class of 2015 list of 101 things to do before you graduate has challenges of varying degrees--I can proudly say I've already seen a concert in Boston (#37), but I have yet to earn my pirate's license (#64).

I recently got to knock off a task that is surprisingly easy to finish at MIT--participating in a charity event. I got to display the full range of my talents (or lack thereof) and learn more about the sisters in my sorority while smanging it. Hard.

Last weekend two sororities, Sigma Kappa and Kappa Alpha Theta held their signature philanthropy events and I was lucky enough to participate in both in very different ways...

SK Late Night

Sigma Kappa's variety show benefits Sigma Kappa Foundation, which is the 2nd largest contributor to Alzheimer's Disease research in the US. With a Glee themed event, there was little opportunity to go wrong--until I had to dance.

I cannot dance.

And there is video evidence.

Fortunately, the entire show was a success as... read the post »

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Sep 15 2011

Fit

Posted in: Miscellaneous

Nearly nine months after getting into MIT, one question I continue to ask myself is "am I in the right place?"

How do we know when we get there? Exactly a year ago from today, teachers and classmates insisted the right place would be the one with the right "fit". I know by September, college applications have rolled around--this gorgeous month usually comes along with a big helping of the word "fit". At this point, it's a buzzword. Fit is something with a million different meanings, highly subjective and incredibly vague. A good fit is a place where you feel completely natural, where you can focus your efforts on achieving instead of diverting part of it to maintaining something you are not. The idea of fit is something that possibly determines your happiness across multiple facets of your life--how well you fit in at school, at work or at home affects more than we'd like. But when you find that true fit, that perfect place for you, it's much easier to be happy.

So in terms of... read the post »

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