Natnael G. '15
May 4 2013
HT@MIT: Cantab Lounge Poetry Slam
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Hidden Treasures At MIT: Cantab Lounge Poetry Slam
Every Wednesday night the Cantab Lounge hosts an Open Mic followed by a Featured Poet and wrapping up the night with a Poetry Slam where poets compete for a few bucks and a potential spot on the Boston Poetry Slam Team that will compete at the National Poetry Slam! While it's generally difficult to get off campus during the week due to the general hustle and bussle of psets, I take every chance I can to drop by Central Square and listen to a few hours of wonderful original content.
But before I continue you may be asking, Nat?! What's a Poetry Slam?! How do you competitively read poetry?! To which I provide the next section!
Poetry Slams
Poetry Slams had their humble beginnings at a music venue in Chicago in 1986. The structure was and has stayed simple, each poet has around 3 minutes to perform their poem to the best of their ability. After they've finished a few designated audience members give them a score from 0-10... read the post »
Apr 4 2013
Hidden Treasures @ MIT: Pistol
Posted in: Miscellaneous
First thing I want to do is apologize for not blogging in a while. Life has been... interesting the last few months and I'll blog about everything I learned from it in a bit. For now I want to start a series a blogs called "Hidden Treasures at MIT"(HT@MIT) that take some of the hidden treasures at and around MIT and puts them in the limelight.
The first hidden treasure is the pistol classes at MIT. Now you may be saying, Nat, everyone and their cousin knows about the pistol classes and the Pirate's License. To which I'd reply, yes, but it's not the actual class that makes Pistol a HT@MIT, it's the instructor Mike Conti.
Background
I took beginner pistol first quarter of my freshman year because I wanted to start strong on my quest to get the Pirate's License. While I came for the license and to shoot guns, I stayed for the instructor. Every week was better than the last and it turned out that those Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were the highlight of every week. But why I... read the post »
Jan 22 2013
Picking A Southwest Flight Seat
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Entering college has meant I fly at least 6-7 times a year and I sketched up this guide on one of my flights after 4 hours of intense analysis. Or maybe 20 minutes of doodling on napkins, you can decide.
Step 1 - CHECK-IN EARLY
Before you can do anything else with this guide you will need to be able to pick your seat. I warn you that all of the good seats are extremely coveted and the only way you can guarantee maximum comfort is checking in as soon as humanly possible. This is actually pretty easy, set an alarm for 24 hours before your flight and make sure you know what it's for.
Step 2 - Understanding Your Options and Weighing the Pros/Cons
I'm going to use a couple of initialisms here so that my life will be a little easier.
EER- Emergency Exit Row
FR- Front Row
SSS- Super Special Seat (To be explained later, there is only 1 on any given flight)
Case 1- Middle Seat (Not EER, or FR)
NEVER TAKE THIS SEAT. I promise you the person in front of you... read the post »
Oct 6 2012
A Frosh No More
Posted in: Best of the Blogs, Miscellaneous, MIT Facts
With another add date passing and classes in full swing, I thought I'd take a moment to tell you guys what I'm up to for the semester.
This semester is going to be class heavy because I'm doubling up on HASS classes to make up for a humanities free freshman spring semester. Finishing 6.01 and 6.042 (both intro classes to course 6-3 that I absolutely despised) last semester I'm finally able to jump into a couple of the CS classes that interest me. The report is in after 4 weeks and I absolutely love all of my classes. After genuinely considering changing my major at the end of last semester, it's a nice change of pace.
6.006 Introduction To Algorithms - 12 Unit
This has to be my favorite class so far. Professor Rivest (the R in RSA encryption and CLRS) and Professor Indyk (a leader in the field of Computational Geometry) are both wonderful lecturers and the material is not only relevant but extremely useful in everyday coding life. A staple course for anyone hoping to have... read the post »
Aug 25 2012
[Guest Blog] CourseRoad!
Posted in: Miscellaneous
Danny B. '15 is an 8-Flex/6-3 major with aspirations in both fields. An inhabitant of East Campus(5W) and an active member of the class of 2015, Danny always has his hands full with class work and outside projects. One day a new challenge caught his eye and CourseRoad was created, this is the story of that project.
[Disclaimer: What follows is going to be part shameless plug for my website CourseRoad, and part unsolicited advice/storytelling. If that’s not your cup of tea, maybe this will make you feel better :D]
Let me start with a piece of advice: you know the thousands of fliers that are posted over MIT bulletin boards? Whenever you get a chance, try to read as many of those as possible. You never know what kind of crazy adventures will follow. This past IAP, I was strolling through the Infinite when I came across a poster for something called “The iCampus Student Prize”. This blue piece of paper stapled to a corkboard at knee height let me know about a competition to build... read the post »