Kate R. '14

Hi! (Incidentally, this is how I begin all emails I write to people I’ve never met in person. I mean, sure, I could Google the person and find out how to address them, but how would I know whether to call them Ms. or Mrs.? or Dr. or Professor? etc. “Hi!” is just so much safer. Anyways…)

My name is Kate Rudolph, which is a pretty awesome last name if I do say so myself. After I got used to people teasing me by singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” at all times of year, I learned to embrace the awesome feeling of telling people my last name is spelled “like the reindeer.” That is, when they even get my last name right. People have legitimately convinced themselves that my last name was Randolph, or Hudson (okay, I can see that, my name is Kate), or even Holland. Holland? Really?

Here at MIT, I’m living at East Campus, a dorm which is on the east side of the MIT campus (surprising, no?). I live on the third floor in the east parallel, which is called Tetazoo. I love hanging out with all of my hall-mates (my room is right by a lounge), and playing with the hall kitty, Minnie. Tetazoo holds the distinction of having the most fire extinguishers per capita of any hall on campus, and though there’s no such thing as quiet hours, loud hours are from 10PM until 2AM every night. (As far as I can tell, this is mostly a joke. Mostly.) They’ve also decided to start calling me Rudolph full time. Apparently there are too many Kate’s here already?

I’m planning to major in math. (MIT lingo: “I’m doing course 18,” “I’m course 18,” or simply, “I’m 18”—which will be confusing when my birthday comes around this December…) I’ve loved math my entire life and spent either far too much or not nearly enough of my high school years doing math, depending on your perspective. My favorite xkcd sums my feelings up nicely. But the more I meet people here at MIT who are doing awesome science, the more I realize that physics, engineering, chemistry, and biology (yes, even biology) are really cool in their own ways.

I originally hail from Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, IL. It’s really surreal living in Boston, where people call it soda when clearly, the right word is pop. Last Sunday I went to a Red Sox game and they were playing the Chicago White Sox, so it was a win-win for me: no matter which team was doing well, I was happy. As it turned out, the Sox won.

I’m looking forward to sharing my MIT journey with you through this blog. MIT may not be right for everyone, but I know it’s perfect for me: I fell in love when I stayed here for six weeks last summer. But we’re not all lucky enough to spend a summer here while still in high school, so my goal for this blog is to give you a chance to fall in love with MIT just like I have.