As you may know, virtually all MIT freshmen are required to live in on-campus dormitories, even though they can technically join MIT-recognized fraternities, sororities, or independent living groups (FSILGs) during their first year. (Some freshmen keep paying for their dorm room while unofficially living elsewhere, thereby satisfying MIT's housing requirement, but I don't think it's especially common or encouraged.) When freshmen become sophomores, a significant percentage ends up moving into FSILGs, with nearly all of the remaining students remaining on campus in dorms. Unlike most other universities, it's rare for students to move off campus and seek their own housing. MIT's housing options provide cost-effective, convenient boarding with a strong sense of community, such that people stay in the same building, or even the same room, for nearly all of their time as an undergraduate. Seniors and freshmen often share the same space, and there are no "freshmen-only" dorms. Plus, housing in Boston and Cambridge is very expensive, with studio apartment rates near MIT in the neighborhood of $1500/month. Some folks have their dorm expenses covered by financial aid, as well.

It is true that most FSILGs are, in fact, off campus, so their residents get the feeling of being away from school at night and on weekends. However, I argue that it's still a long shot from really living on your own. MIT has a frequent shuttle (called the SafeRide) that goes to nearly all of these houses, connecting them with each other and with MIT. And instead of having your own place, or sharing it with only a couple other people, you have 20 or 30 housemates. Granted, they're usually pretty tight-knit, but it's still very much a shared living situation. Each individual in a dorm or FSILG has far less control over who comes to visit, spends time hanging out, and even who ends up deciding to move in. Messes are often made between the times janitors come to clean, and it's not always easy to determine who made them. And, face it - in any living arrangement with 30 people (even a floor of a dorm), consensus is not easy. I think living in the dorm fostered a certain sense of anonymity and lack of accountability over shared space, such that folks might not pick up after themselves or be as tidy as they might with their parents watching over them. If they know a custodian will clean something up the next morning, they are less inclined to take care of it.

That said, the MIT dorms, houses and living groups are very much the right solution for most people. They allow students to focus primarily on their academic lives by handling many of the mundane details of building management and maintenance to which one would otherwise attend. I stumbled upon the opportunity to try something different, and it's worked very well for me. I wanted to choose who I'd be living with, I wanted a place I could have a bigger stake in calling "mine," and I think most of all, I just wanted a change of pace. Living on campus is incredibly convenient, but I sometimes found myself really wanting to put the title of "student" aside for a moment or two. I didn't always want to look out my window and see academic buildings -- I wanted something that felt more like what I'd be dealing with once I graduate, on a residential street with neighbors who weren't all my age. I wanted a little bit less energy at night, a place where I could unwind and enjoy my own brand of the MIT ethos on my own terms.

I didn't want to move too far away, because it would be too hard to get to those 9am classes, so we mainly looked at places that were easily accessible by bus or subway. I thought I might want to bring my car from home and have it here in Boston, so we also looked for places with parking. (Parking for resident students on campus is something like $700/year, and it's not necessarily in the most convenient lot. Some people try bringing their cars and parking on nearby streets, but it always becomes too much of a hassle, with parking tickets and street cleaning to contend with.) We ended up settling on a charming old house two or three miles from MIT, with nearby bus and subway links... it takes me about 20 minutes to get to campus by bus, or about half that if I decide to drive. The bus literally leaves from the end of my street and goes to Kendall Square, the transportation hub on the east side of campus. We have a backyard, a basement, our own kitchen, hardwood floors, everything... and per person, it's pretty close to what we were paying in the dorm. And our cable internet connection is actually faster than that of many MIT housing options. :) [Some places still have 10Mbit connections!]

Life off campus isn't perfect, but it's a positive change, a step in the right direction, and I definitely made the right decision. I still live with four other people, and while we're all friends, we don't necessarily share the same views on everything. Some of us are very proactive about taking out the trash, and others aren't. Some are vexed by stray recyclables in the kitchen, and others aren't. Some leave dishes in the sink longer than others, and some have personal habits that don't exactly mirror others'. Some are louder than others, and we sometimes have different sleep schedules, which leads to making noise at hours that aren't mutually convenient. But it's all minor stuff. On the whole, we get along well, we share a lot of the same interests, and we all pay the rent when it needs to be paid. Most importantly, we all trust and look out for each other! :)

Yeah, I sometimes miss the bus and have to wait another twenty minutes on the sidewalk. Yeah, I'll occasionally forget something at home and not be able to retrieve it easily. And it was a lot more convenient to just throw my garbage down a trash chute, instead of having to worry about trash bags and cans and carts and them being impossible to dig out from feet of snow in the backyard. Did I mention that shoveling snow is a pain? Being able to have my car entirely outweighs those drawbacks, though. I look at the city so much differently than I did when I was bound to public transit -- and I'm a huge mass transit advocate, too! I know that MIT's official position is that cars are not a good idea to bring to campus, and I tend to agree (given the lack of space and general driving mayhem in Boston), but don't entirely discount the thought. I think MIT won't give parking permits to freshmen, but perhaps other arrangements could be made if you had your heart set on it. And while there's always Zipcar, you have to be 21+. Just FYI, MIT subsidizes public transit passes by up to 50%. An unlimited one-month pass for all Boston-area buses and subways will only set you back $29.50, instead of the list price of $59.

I think I'll close this entry by saying that living off campus has made me a more responsible person. It actually takes some advance planning to go to class, so I make a point to be up earlier each day and create a schedule. I started using Google Calendar, and I love it. Plus, when I lived in the dorm, I'd go back during breaks between classes and kill the time socializing and hanging out with friends. Now, it's not worth going home if I have only an hour or two to spare in the middle of the day, so I head to a library or coffee shop and catch up on work. You'd be surprised how much time during the day I used to waste! I've become a better student, a better employee, and a better citizen.

What am I hoping to impart with this message? Live in a dorm your first year, see what you think about living on campus, check out all of the other dorms and FSILGs, and make an informed decision about where you want to be. If nothing really strikes your fancy, consider rounding up some friends and getting your own place. You just might find that it will help you in ways you could never have expected. :)

Today was "Bring Your Audience to Work Day," definitely one of the more obscure occasions of note. Created by a leading young visionary in the online blogosphere, this special day aims to shed light on the professional lives of bloggers, authors, and even stage professionals who have unusual day jobs.

This summer, as in January, I've perched myself atop the flat terrain of Fort Worth, Texas, as I continue to explore the complex field of freight railroading. I'm not out working in a rail yard -- I've actually got a desk job at the BNSF Railway's national operations center, working in the area of Service Design. (Basically, figuring out how to make trains move more quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively along BNSF's 25,000-mile railroad.)

I thought that, as part of today's underappreciated holiday festivities, I would bring you a window into my daily commute (sadly, by automobile - but at least it's not too long) and into my work surroundings.

This morning, I woke up late, thanks to two conflicting alarm clocks, one of which somehow reset itself to Eastern Time when I hooked it up via Bluetooth to my GPS. I had to get out of bed and look at the microwave clock to realize that I got up a whole hour early, so I went back to bed and woke up 45 minutes late. No matter - this is the first time it's happened since my arrival, and I stayed late today to compensate. :) (Despite being a performance-oriented shop, work's a very laid back atmosphere, with fun projects, personable supervisors, and pleasant co-interns. Most of them attend universities within a 200-mile radius.)

Good morning, I'm so happy to be awake at 8-in-the-moooorning!





Yeah, it's trash day.



This attractive housing tract in North Fort Worth provides a predictable, neighborly base for my summer lodging.






Well, it looks like I've been stymied by a recycle bin. I had to throw the e-brake and move the darned thing!






Yeah, there is a full-fledged elementary school within the housing subdivision. I couldn't believe it, either.












A tad agrarian, no?



























That's a Starbucks. Never seen one before, honest.



A Whataburger and a Waffle House.







































Beep! The gate opens and I am granted entry to the automobile kingdom.











































































I sit right between Jacob (junior at Texas A&M) and Sarah (junior at Texas Tech).









Sodexho calls this the "Smoke House Club." It was pretty good.

We have pretty cool courtyards with rail cars, fountains, landscaping, the works!

Sorry guys, no pictures of my messy bedroom.

It's Director of Financial Aid Daniel Barkowitz, holding up some fondue!

As his associate advisor for a group of six freshmen, I got to tag along to the end-of-year dinner at the Wine Cellar Restaurant, just across the Harvard Bridge from MIT. We had an exquisite dinner of cheese, meat, and chocolate fondue... paid for by the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming. It was about $50/person!

(There were three types of fondue -- this one had cheddar in it, and there was another that had artichoke hearts and emmenthal.)

Kim Brink '10 is all dressed up for the occasion

The main course -- three or four different meats here ... lamb, shrimp, all raw... you cook it yourself on a skewer in a marinade, fondue-style. The sauces were excellent!

And then for dessert, we had hot chocolate fondue -- this one had caramel and almonds in it. Yeah, it was really good. Those fruits were skewered, dipped, and consumed in short order.

Back at East Campus, Cameron Lewis '07, an electrical engineering and computer science major, was preparing his final project for 6.115, the Microcomputer Project Laboratory. He's been building a spinning, multi-colored LED "sphere" from scratch -- that means designing the circuit board, machining the parts, drilling and threading the screw holes, and programming the controllers. It's been a huge part of his life for a month or two now!

The term's almost over! While I'm excited for the summer, with a continuation of my January internship at the BNSF Railway in Texas, I'll also be missing some of the great experiences I've enjoyed this semester. I'll tell you about one of them here.

For the past four months, I've been working with the MIT Design Lab to propose improvements to and new ideas for the metropolitan Paris subway system. (I introduced this to you sometime in February.) Our effort is directly sponsored by RATP, Paris' public transit authority, and we met at their corporate offices over Spring Break to present research we had done so far. Technically it's a grad class, and yeah the class is about half master's, half PhD students (and then me), but age doesn't matter so much in these things.

RATP headquarters (Maison de la RATP/House of RATP) near Gare de Lyon, Paris

For the first three weeks or so, we developed ideas independently... we urban planners, architects, designers, and MBA students, that is! As you can imagine, we all came up with wildly different stuff, though very interesting in all of its own ways. The workshop began very open-ended: our weekly assignments were literally things like "think about the Paris subway system, do a little research, and come up with some ideas about useful improvements" and "now that you've learned some more about [x], extend your ideas to reflect that new insight." It was really refreshing to just sit back and see what everyone brought to class, and how they were inspired by your previous thoughts, or vice versa. One bright concept could change the direction of the entire term!

The professor and instructors took our ideas and split them into four big groups -- cultural, commercial, learning, and social connection -- and assigned three to four people from the class to work on each of these four project areas. I had suggested education as a possible use of subway station and train space, so not surprisingly, I was assigned to the learning group. :)

Each group then met with Marco Susani, a design director at Motorola whose team developed the RAZR phone. He had some good initial insight about what it means to "be mobile," in the sense of exchange of information in a mobile environment like the Metro. The next week, Madame Furstenberg, my French teacher from last semester, came to the class with the director of the MIT-France program to give a crash course on Parisian culture. She pointed out a neat site called Objectif Respect, which RATP created to promote more friendly interactions on Paris buses and subways. :-P (I hadn't seen it, and it's worth a click -- check out the "Top 10"!) And then in true French style, a wine and cheese reception followed.

We arrived in Paris on a Saturday, and our first assignment was to perform an "ethnography" of the subway during the weekend. We toured the various lines and spent a good two days underground examining everything from the advertising on the walls to poorly designed staircases that disrupt crowd flow. Yeah, they paid for our subway fares.

(those red boxes show where on the platform the camera is pointing)

We took thousands of pictures of station entrances, train interiors, chairs, vending machines, posters, placards, people walking, and even overflowing trash cans. We sorted through all of this stuff and picked out the 20 or 30 shots that best represented things we wanted to demonstrate. The hotel wasn't too happy with our expropriation of the breakfast room as daily workspace ... we moved the cups and plates around on the tables to accommodate our laptops, and they made us put them back perfectly as we had found them!

For each photo that we selected, we added a caption that explained the phenomenon of interest.

(This was a slide explaining something about social interaction and the indirect means we currently use to express ourselves to strangers on the train.)

These ethnography images formed the basis of further inquiry for the rest of the semester. We also incorporated many of them in our formal presentations to RATP (which I'll get to shortly).

A photo of Madeleine station, under construction

On Monday, we enjoyed a tour of the new driverless Line 14, with a visit to its Bercy operations control center at the end. I've visited operations centers for Amtrak, MBTA, and BNSF, and I can pretty much say that they all look pretty similar. :-P Line 14's was like a mini version, comprising a single room and a few personnel.

We broke for a few hours and reconvened at 6pm for a tour of Chatelet-Les Halles, the central hub of the Paris subway network. This involved a tour of not only the station itself, but also the surrounding Les Halles shopping complex and outdoor areas. We spent a fair amount of time underground just walking around, taking pictures, and observing the unique crowd behavior that forms at rush hour.

Our midterm presentation to RATP was the next morning, so everyone worked feverishly into the night to incorporate all of the things we had experienced in the preceding days with the research we had done prior to arriving in Paris. Again, we commandeered the hotel breakfast room, though some of us who were still working past 1am were kicked out (!) since the lobby manager was leaving for the night. My group ended up on the stairs!

The next day saw us rising early. We didn't expect so many people to be there -- managers of entire subway lines (1 and 14), directors of entire departments, project managers (like one lady who manages all of the information kiosks in the stations), and even a few graduate students who are interning at the agency. We talked about what we had seen, problem areas to consider, and defined a trajectory for our work going forward. Examples include new navigation systems, ways to make existing signage less confusing, methods to teach history and culture to Metro riders, a system like Craigslist's "missed connections" forum, social "games" to play with other passengers (like scavenger hunts), and more effective business models for transactions of goods/services within the Metro.

Yeah, we're intently watching. :P

Feedback was given by RATP after each group’s presentation. We were reminded to consider the less technologically savvy customers, and to cater to their needs as well. Additionally, challenges of physical security often limit potential uses of the Metro space. The balance of creativity and security is an especially important one -- you've got to be able to evacuate tons of people quickly in case of emergency.

Many of our ideas focused on platform and residual spaces, without giving enough thought to the spaces within the trains themselves. Also, many slides talked about events or activities involving lots of people – but while more people means more potential revenue, the higher traffic also results in services becoming harder to deliver. We gathered some great direction for our future work.

After an excellent lunch, we had an "ideation session" in which the personnel split up between our four project groups for some rapid-fire idea generation. This involved large sheets of butcher paper and hundreds of brightly-colored Post-it notes! (I'm not kidding.)

When we came back to Cambridge, we began some serious work on refining our proposals, culminating with this past Monday's final review. I'll blog about that soon!

So you got into one of the best, most stimulating and resource-rich universities in the world. Welcome – MIT’s an amazing place (no matter what you’re here to study), and I bet you’re really eager to come – not just for Campus Preview Weekend, but to start your academic and life voyage as a freshman this fall semester. You’re probably already planning your summer, the changes from home to college ... what to bring, how you’ll spend those last days with friends and family, perhaps visiting your favorite childhood haunts in a last bid to say goodbye. But what if you held off on all that?

Sounds crazy, right? – because you want to get away from your parents as soon as possible, start your own life, and not be told when to go to bed and what not to eat... well, whatever the reason, college is a way to leave home that’s accepted by both your friends and your folks (no matter how conservative), and you’re all ready to GO. It feels like the "right thing to do," because after high school, don’t all good students go to college? And besides, what else would you do to prepare for that promising future you’ve always dreamed of (and, no doubt, the one everyone *expects* you to have)?

Let me ask you something else: if you had an entire year to do anything you want, with unlimited time, no expectations, no SATs or class ranks or gossip or student club presidencies to get in the way... what would you do? Let’s just pretend that after you graduate, instead of just returning to school in the fall, you finally get to work on that dream project, tinker in that lab, or spend a year overseas (all expenses paid) teaching something you know and learning everything you never knew all at the very same time. And you’d wake up every day knowing that MIT’s just down the road.

Maybe you just want to spend time working to have some cash during your college years. Or maybe you just want to decompress after the rigorous academic program that got you into MIT in the first place. The sky is the limit, and odds are, you’ll never have the chance to be so free ever again in your life. So what’s the rush? It’s not like you wouldn’t be going to MIT. You’d just be hanging out for a few more months to get a better handle on what you’re really coming here for.

This might sound just a bit surprising, but I’m willing to bet that in that year off, you’ll learn more than you ever would as a college freshman. No, perhaps you wouldn’t be sitting in a classroom, but you’d be doing a ton of that "other" kind of learning – the learning that helps you figure out where you’re going, who you are as a person, and what you were put on this earth to do. It’s a fact that a lot of people here change their majors – heck, maybe several times – because they just aren’t sure what they want to do. Taking time away from school can help you be better prepared for these kinds of decisions – you’ll likely arrive on campus a more confident and prepared individual, with some time away from HS to really think about what you want out of life. Are you really sure that you want to be a doctor, or an engineer, or whatever it is that you’ve got your heart set on right now? Do parents, family or friends suggest that you be one thing, yet you’d really prefer to be something else? (Why not take some time to sort it out, spending time in hospitals, labs, or perhaps as an intern at a nearby firm?)

No, taking a breather after high school isn’t necessarily for everyone. If you qualify for full financial aid (your family’s tuition contribution is zero) at MIT, it may well cost you less to come straight away and get a head start on your degree. (For the vast majority, that’s not the case, and your year off would likely be far less of a financial undertaking than a year of college.) In my case, I took two years off and arrived on campus with a lot of perspective, but had to spend time getting back into the student mindset so I could put in the kind of effort it takes to succeed in classes here. Things are great now that I’ve had some time to adjust – I’m very glad I took the time I did, and I don’t have any regrets. I’m a far more directed, focused person than I would have been, and I’ve got a better idea of what I want from MIT than (dare I say) a whole lot of my classmates. I came from a rural area where education wasn’t especially valued, and I never gave a passing thought to university admissions as a high school student. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I really began to investigate anything about college!

MIT endorses the taking of "gap years" because of the unique opportunity to gain purpose and personal enrichment like you’ll never be able to during a full-time academic term. Sure, college is an amazing place to be, and lots of exciting things happen here, but there’s far more to life and the world than your university campus. It has always been helpful for me to keep that in mind, especially when things get rough, because I just bounce back and march on. And I feel like I’m getting a lot more out of this place because of it!

Come talk to me and fellow students, as well as a MIT professor, during CPW – we’ll be having a Gap Year Panel on Friday at 12 noon in the Student Center, 3rd floor, Private Dining Rooms 1 & 2. Parents are warmly welcomed and encouraged to come too!

RATP has asked us to consider new uses and features for the Paris metro (subway) system -- ways to make it not just a simple means of transport, but an integral part of community and leisure. Everything's becoming automated -- ticket sales, even the operation of the trains -- and new space is opening up where those tasks were previously performed manually. What can be done with a ticket booth now that people buy from machines? Who is taking the metro, what kinds of things appeal to them, and how do they interact with their fellow passengers and the surroundings? Plus, once staff members are no longer needed for newly automated tasks, how can they be put to use in new and innovative ways?

Yeah, that was an intro slide I put together...

Anyway, once we identify potential new services and prepare our recommendations, the authority's research and development staff will be hosting us in Paris. The trip will allow us to validate what we've found and also do some on-site research, exploring the metro and its integration into Parisian life.

RATP is known for experimenting with new and innovative concepts, including a "faster" moving sidewalk (no joke...):

This thing is called the TRR, or trottoir roulant rapide, and is being tested at Paris' Gare Montparnasse as a possible time saver in that long tunnel. Apparently you stand on a slower portion for a few seconds, keep your feet straight, and it glides you onto the fast section so you don't fall. Wikipedia says, "At first it operated at 12km/h but too many people were falling over so the speed was reduced to 9km/h. It has been estimated that commuters using a walkway such as this twice a day would save 11.5 hours a year."

11.5 hours a year saved? But what happens when you get to the end of the trottoir and have to wait a minute for your train, or for escalator congestion? Well, I'm sure they'll figure it out! (or maybe I should include that in my notes... hmm...)

I'm sure most of you have heard about OpenCourseWare, a large (and well-funded) effort to put all of MIT's course materials on the Internet. George S. Zaidan '08, a chemistry major, figured that if MIT is opening the doors to its classes, why not do the same for its research? He saw it as an educational opportunity, a way to explain the research process through material, context and anecdotes that don't make it to the final papers. And he even had a project to start on -- his advisor, Prof. John Essigmann, the first author of important work done in the 1970s concerning aflatoxin, had volunteered to contribute to the effort.

George envisioned OpenLabWare (OLW), an interactive Web site of research "modules," each with scanned lab notebooks, timelines of experiments and events, video and audio clips, and personal profiles of the individual researchers. He wanted to highlight the human aspects of research, to show anyone with a knack for knowledge how scientific questions can evolve to real findings. George had a number of ideas as to how all of this should be presented, but he was no programmer, and had no idea where to start. Furthermore, his budget was limited, which meant finding someone with the experience necessary to share his big-picture view would be difficult.

Luckily, that sort of thing is easy at MIT. I first heard from George through this blog -- he stumbled upon it on the admissions site at the end of the Fall '05 semester, and learned about some high-profile work I had done for Amtrak.

I am e-mailing you on the off-chance that the OLW project interests you, perhaps not as much now as trains, but enough to talk to me about it. I am developing the prototype this IAP, and I have funding from a professor in the Biological Engineering department. That said, it's a big job and if you're not interested, there's no point doing it just for the money. But I know from your blog that you wouldn't ever work only for the cash anyway.

He was right. I'm always looking to get in on the ground floor of new initiatives, but only when I think they've got a high chance of taking off. I agreed to meet him in the Student Center, where we went over his thoughts and goals for the project. Even at that early stage, I could really tell he had all of his ducks in a row -- he was even rattling off names of top MIT brass who had expressed interest in the idea. We chatted about large projects I'd developed in the past, some for profit, but many just because I felt they needed to be done, and had the means to do them.

We began to work together during IAP 2006. George sent off one of Essigmann's lab notebooks to be digitized as he turned aflatoxin into a true full-time job. From a seventh-floor office in Building 16, George isolated research material, documented experiments, determined a timeline, and set off to interview the professors and scientists for the module. Back at East Campus, between French 1 homework and weekend trips, I was developing the software foundation for the new OLW. And we brought on a new team member, Chris Varenhorst, to assist with coding new extensions for the site.

George wanted a working OLW prototype by the end of IAP, a goal that kept both of us (and Chris) very busy. George was constantly rounding up new data and anecdotes while I busily added new functionality, like a digital lab notebook viewer and a way to relate the experiments to the timeline on the back end. The work continued throughout the spring. It was all residing on an old development server in my dorm room -- a machine that used to serve as my phone switchboard in the pre-college days. (Somehow I never anticipated it would have anything to do with MIT research!) I still have a horrible memory of being absolutely exhausted one evening, getting to bed early for the first time in weeks, awakening to a wrong number call on my cell phone, realizing the battery was about to die, reaching up in the darkness to see if the charger was plugged into the old outlet at the foot of my bed, grabbing what I thought was the wire, and realizing not only was it the cord to the server, but that I had just unplugged it while on. It took me several hours that night plus the following week to reconstruct work I had managed to corrupt. But anyway...

Over the course of the spring semester, OpenLabWare really started to take shape. It seemed like new features were going live all the time, and along the way, the prototype site was presented to key academic players in science and technology. For example, I recall a very positive meeting George and I had with the executive director of OpenCourseWare, in which we pitched our site and ways OCW and OLW could collaborate. (They loved the idea and have been helping us with production support, being well-versed in what it takes to deploy lots of MIT media content to the outside world.) And I still remember the smile on George's face as we walked away from the meeting, attempting to digest the positive reception the two of us had gotten from someone so senior. We had only known each other for a couple of months, but already we were well on our way to something very, very promising.

It wasn't long until we heard that we were selected as a grant recipient of the Alumni Sponsored Funding Opportunities program. We had managed to get some smaller amounts of funding from other MIT sources, but this latest $25,000 award was a pretty significant step. George and John had secured a glowing letter of support from Prof. Doug Lauffenburger, the director of MIT's Biological Engineering Division, and with the prototype site well along in development, the educational goals of the project were becoming clear. Thanks to the funding, we now have the means to bring on new students to the program -- not only to develop content, but spread the open research message to professors and faculty in their own areas of MIT!

Managing OLW's technology development alongside classes and work has been a commitment, but one I make happily. It has helped me stay connected to various areas of MIT that, as an urban planning/transportation major, I would ordinarily never have gotten to know. It's kept my technical skills sharp at a time when I've been shying away from computers in favor of travel and college life. And I guess you could say it keeps me in touch with Chris, a fellow East Campus resident from that newer building across the courtyard. :) Most of all, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a part of something that has the potential to enhance education and learning, even if the content lies squarely outside of my field.

Over the next semester and coming months, OLW will continue to evolve as new research modules are brought online by our content creation team. In fact, Melis, one of my fellow bloggers, is presently preparing one of these modules and will soon be writing about her experience here. George, Chris and I will be adding more in the way of functionality, and will hopefully (!!) hunt down some on-campus office space, an extremely elusive commodity these days. But for now, I invite you to check out the site, and let me know how you think it could work even better!

One of you asked about what I'm doing down here -- I'm splitting my time between Service Design/Performance and Technology Services, so basically, applying technology to the analysis and optimization of train routes and service. I'm working with some great people, and you know, eight hours in an office sort of fly by if you're enjoying what you're doing. So far, I've been gaining a wide overview of how BNSF runs their trains and the sorts of performance aspects one would be concerned with in the freight industry. It's all new to me, coming from the passenger side of things. I suppose the best part is that it's all making sense so far! :)

The headquarters "campus" is pretty big, and as you can see here, they've got several train cars parked at the main entrance -- these are fully-functioning conference rooms used regularly for business purposes! There's a network of roads connecting all of the various offices, but I've spent most of my time in the Operations and Technology buildings. The TOB (technology office building - yes they actually use this acronym...), located across the street from the rest, was formerly the factory where the TRS-80 was made. :-P On an unrelated note, they've got an old Xerox workstation and laser printer from the late '70s in a glass display case in the cafeteria, from before the BN (Burlington Northern) and the ATSF (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe) merged to form BNSF.

But most importantly, everyone's been very friendly and generous, going out of their way to include me in their work activities or just to show me a specific project they're especially keen on. Take today as an example: a director took an hour and a half out of his day to give me the grand tour of an expensive piece of model dispatching software. Or I'll drop by the desk of a senior manager (the one who had me over to his house for dinner, after taking me to lunch, all on my first day) to ask about something I'm working on, and we'll get into a half-hour discussion about some interesting business problem that I'll then go investigate. I'm the only intern around right now (my boss says "he's here this month while MIT is in hibernation"), but I don't feel out of place one bit. :) The environment is great because a lot of the folks have railroad career backgrounds (as in, out in the field or in the yard, away from management), so they've always got that extra context to lend.

The hardest part about this work is getting up around 7AM! I haven't had to do that on a regular basis for what, four years? We MIT kids are so spoiled with our first classes at 10, 11, or later. It's midnight as I'm typing this, and I have a meeting at 8. Luckily, though, it's typically pretty loose, and as long as I put in a full day, my exact arrival time needn't be so strict. I think it'll be a good summer - I'm already doing neat things!

(Only in Texas can you legally drive 80mph on an Interstate highway!)

This week, I drove about 1200 miles from my house in Arizona to the Fort Worth, Texas area, where I'll be spending all of IAP (and the summer) interning at the headquarters of North America's second-largest railroad, BNSF. I start in a few hours. Now ordinarily, the trainman wouldn't be driving, but I'd be stuck walking to work otherwise... there's no subway around here and if you want to get around, you need a vehicle. I guess that's life.

I'd never driven that far in one shot before, and certainly not in two days. It all worked out fine, though, and I've been hanging around the home of my boss-to-be while he and his family are vacationing. I had some great Tex-Mex food the other night, too. It's kinda neat to be able to go wherever you want, whenever you want, even if that involves a greater-than-walkable distance... can you tell I'm rediscovering the joy of motoring after using nothing but the MBTA and Amtrak for twelve months?? Maybe I'll have to bring a car up to Boston after all... (uh oh!)

So why not stay around MIT for January like most people? It's not like I'm spending time with family instead, a popular alternative for some. I actually had the choice, but this seemed like a compelling prelude to the summer period, when I'll be working here for three straight months. And it's a month's worth of extra salary, which isn't a bad deal, either. Ironically, the guy I'll be working for is an alum of MIT's transportation master's program, and he studied under several of the faculty I know personally. The son of my advisor from last year was one of his classmates. Small world.

I'll provide a few updates as time goes on. I bet you all are relieved to have finished those applications! Now you just sit back and wait. *grin*..............

I have some documents to prepare in the morning for job #1, due technically at the end of the workday but with classes from 10-12:30, a student group meeting from 1-2, recitation from 2-3 and another recitation from 4-5, I probably won't have another chance. It's all right, because I love my job. I've rediscovered waking up earlier than twenty minutes before class, and it feels pretty good... besides, I'm more productive in the morning when everyone and everything else is fast asleep, out of distraction's way. I still have to do more assigned reading for public policy that was actually due for Tuesday, but, you know, I still manage to be a part of the discussions just fine.

You see, I'm probably one of the least academically swamped students on campus, and I won't have it any other way. The energy around here is palpable, and the best part is that I have the time to savor it. I have the time to screw around, the time to stop to think, the time (if I want it) to sleep well, the time to take off for a couple days (either for free or for some artificially-low price), and the time to remember when I, too, was being evaluated by Ben and Matt in selection committee - and oh how much I wanted to come here! - and now I'm here, and it's been two years since I got in and yes it took a little while but I'd be lying through my teeth if I said things weren't wonderfully amazing right now. :)

I may not have seen a whole lot of point in making every single freshman (read: me) drag himself through certain classes he may not like (read [...shock!]: math and physics!), watching him skin his knees in the process, and then if he trips a couple of times because he's hurt, kicking him while he's down. I think I made that clear last year. But it all makes sense now, because to succeed at MIT, you have got to self-advocate, even if that means looking past the obvious places for help. If you don't, you quickly become the weakest link, no matter how many times you've saved lives, circumnavigated the earth, or exhibited general MIT-like awesomeness. This shouldn't scare you - almost everyone does just fine.

Plenty of people come here and navigate those freshman classes with flying colors. Those subjects are precisely what they studied hard in high school, precisely the things they've always been good at, precisely the stuff of their summer vacations, precisely the stuff that made them yearn for MIT in the first place. That's why self-advocacy isn't enough: a lot of people don't even have to try. Me? Heck, I didn't even have a guidance counselor, I missed over fifty days of school each year since fourth grade, and I graduated in 2003 having only finished tenth-grade geometry. But I worked it all out, filled in the gaps, and hey, now I'm doing just fine. I figured out how to make this place work for me, and you know what? I'm pretty darn proud of that.

Maybe some people just want to be good at everything, but I tend to pick and choose my battles. I value happiness and general well-being far too much to be a workaholic, and I value a connection to terra firma. I am acutely aware of the world on the outside, because college is not my entire life, and I am unwilling to let it be. I think that the world is a beautiful place and I still smile when I bump into friends in the Infinite, when I walk past 3-107 and peer in the window, when I'm watching my neighbors through my doorway being incredibly awesome at three in the morning doing things I couldn't possibly print here, but most importantly, when I take a few steps back and realize my incredibly good fortune for being here in the first place.

MIT is an exciting and fascinating place to spend your college years and it's great that you're applying. But before you base all of your hopes on coming here, don't forget who you are and where you are headed as an individual. Because it's you who makes you, not your college. It is you who will make a difference in the world - your college will only help you along the way, giving you the tools you'll need to forge ahead.

Try to get some rest Friday night. :)

One such class is 11.027, "City to City." This course includes departmental funding (!) for travel to and from a foreign city over spring break, when students meet with city planners and conduct research on the topics of their choice. These topics are compared and contrasted with characteristics of a U.S. city, highlighting differences in city design and planning between the two locales.

While in Scandinavia last spring break, a few of us met up with the 11.027 class in Copenhagen. Ian '06, Andrew '07 and Ruth '07 MCP '08 are shown above sorting out some payment for a meal we shared. Denmark doesn't use the Euro.

This spring, the class is heading to Amsterdam, and I think I'll register. It's a CI-M class, so it fulfills part of the Communication Requirement of the GIRs.

Students also can join the International Honors Program for a semester of study in the Cities in the 21st Century curriculum. The itinerary includes time spent in four cities, including three in other countries, and credit is awarded upon return to MIT. As I recall, credit for four classes is given, with two classes counting toward one's planned electives in the major. Sounds like a pretty good deal for those interested. :-)

MIT values an international education, and through the MISTI site and some of my previous blog entries, you can get an idea of some of the opportunities available to the student body as a whole. But now I've gotta go pack - I'm off to Cologne and the Rhine Valley for the long weekend with Dheera '06 MEng '07. Shrewd flight planning pays off - we're going for (literally) a fraction of the usual cost.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving and I'll write again next week after a couple midterms are taken care of. ;-)

Well, you may have heard that many of MIT's engineering departments have something called the MEng, or Master of Engineering, which is typically a one-year degree pursued after graduation, or during one's final semester of senior year and an additional semester. Most notably, Course 6 (Electrical Eng & Comp Sci) offers this and I'm pretty sure it's a lock if you have a certain technical GPA (like a 4.25 out of 5.0). It's an attractive option because you end up with both bachelor's and master's degrees in a shorter period than if you were to pursue them separately or elsewhere.

But it's not just for engineers. Undergraduates in the Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning (known affectionately as DUSP) have a similar option. The two-year Master of City Planning (MCP) program accepts applications from DUSP students in the junior year, waiving the GRE requirement (!!!) and allowing entrance to the program the following year (as a senior). So as a senior, you'd be both a fourth-year undergrad and a first-year grad student, working to complete the requirements for both degrees at the end of five years. That doesn't mean you can't graduate with your undergrad class first - it's all about how you want to structure things.

In DUSP, there are four specialization areas or groups, and students tend to pick an advisor and "affiliate" with the group that most closely matches their interests. As a grad student, you choose which group you want when you apply, but as an undergrad you have the chance to explore offerings in any field and see how you'd like to focus in the future. The topics are wide-ranging and can be closer to the kinds of design one might see in Course 4, architecture (see the Senseable City Lab) or to the sorts of quantitative analysis one might do in Course 1, civil engineering (see the Center for Transportation and Logistics).

I was one of the student representatives of DUSP at the Choice of Majors fair last week (event in the student center to help freshmen get a flavor for what they might want to study next year), and we had several people stop by who were interested in the social and planning aspects concerning developing countries. That is also a big part of our department - in fact, it's the focus of IDG, the International Development Group.

I'm especially attracted to the study of transportation, as you've no doubt found if you've followed my blog in the past. A nice thing about DUSP is the ability to pursue a joint program of the MCP and a related master's degree (such as the MST, the Master of Science in Transportation). You still have to fulfill the separate credit requirements, but you can come up with a joint thesis to satisfy both degrees.

One of the great things about our department is the study and research of planning in all sorts of places, not just the Boston area or the U.S. My next entry will talk about some of the available international and study-abroad opportunities, including a class that pays for spring break overseas!

P.F. Chang's was packed, but we zipped to the front of the line with a large table awaiting us. It was a great opportunity to catch up on how everyone's doing with class, friends, and their new lives away from home. We have a varied group with one hailing from Alaska and another from Panama.

The Altar Boyz played at the Colonial Theatre to a very receptive audience, including another group from MIT. We had a great time in the first row of the mezzanine. Afterward, it was time for some fine desserts at Finale near the Park Plaza Hotel -- the Boston Cream was a favorite. From left, that's David, Peter, RJ, Kim, and Kelly.

And it was all paid for! Even the subway fare.

So far, we've done word associations and sentence completions, where we at MIT enter (in English) what first comes to mind when we see words and sentences related to work, money, food, culture, and other staples of daily life. The French students do the same in their own language, and we compare and contrast the different responses to gain perspectives in the other country.

It's interesting to see the different sorts of things that come to mind when we think of a "good job," for example, in comparison to what comes to the mind of a French student. We consider these observations, ask for clarification and chat with the French students on a discussion board.

Probably one of the most striking differences in perspective we found was the idea of "suburbs"...

In France, suburbs are often dangerous -- a stark contrast to the American idea of them being nice places to settle down, live and raise a family. Basically, the Cultura system highlights the way we think about various things we take for granted, and it's been a useful way to bridge the gaps of our cultures.

I stepped out of my room the other day and had to traverse a couple of construction projects in front of my door, which happens fairly often. We try not to walk barefoot on the splinters and shards, but it is occasionally a problem.

One guy is drilling holes in a glass sign he made (piece of glass cut and etched with some waterjet machine at the Media Lab), and the other is building a tricycle thing (allowing for different levels of recline) for a Mechanical Engineering class.

This is what happens when you don't clean up all of the wood shavings.

Every Friday at East Campus, one of the ten floors hosts a food event in the dorm's Talbot Lounge. They're called FACs, for Friday Afternoon Clubs. Last Friday was Tetazoo's turn - the Zombie FAC, complete with livers, tongues, hearts, and rice cakes that looked like eyeballs.

Some of the more obscure organs on offer didn't prove too popular, unfortunately. A revolting movie was also played on the big screen, but screen shots from that aren't fit for print. ;)

Last weekend, we had an impromptu steel "ring" rolling competition among a few hall members, complete with improvised ramp assembly. The thing was small but heavy and had a tendency to bounce and hit things, leaving dents and injuring toes.

We've got five cats at present -- Dr. Popular, Harley, Nixon, Voight and Saber. We had one last year named Lucca who moved out with her graduating owner, and another named Ferris who had to be put to sleep for a variety of reasons. Dr. Popular is the most skittish, pathologically afraid cat I've ever seen. Harley never comes out from under Hannah's bed, Nixon sheds a lot of goldish-orange fur, Voight meows to himself in this gravelly, rolling manner as he wanders the hall, and Saber is brand new to hall, having arrived in a kennel on Delta Airlines from a place called "TerrificPets.Com" (I'm not joking).

At East Campus, only about half of the floors are designated cat floors -- this allows folks with allergies to make necessary arrangements. Since we have five now, the hall chairs (a couple of hall residents who are the liaisons to house management and the administration) have asked for people to tell them before getting any more cats. I think other halls have had more at one time -- didn't 5E have seven not that long ago? -- but it's probably a good idea to have some sort of internal control. People have just been getting new cats as they feel like it.

They're a lot of fun to have around, and when they do something you don't like, it's hard to get angry at them because... they're just cats. I'd never had a pet before, so I was completely clueless about what they were like on a daily basis before I moved in. Individual residents keep their own cats fed and watered and groomed, but they usually let them roam the halls all day, with their doors ajar to allow for ingress and egress at will. Here are some anecdotes from the past year.

* Lucca had this creepy habit of surprising you on the throne by walking under the bathroom stall when you're inside. Not that I really care about a cat watching me attend to my business, but there's this eerie feeling when she's just sitting there and perhaps jumping onto the windowsill to get a better view.

* Dr. Popular can make every noise possible *except* what you'd expect from a cat. Dolphin is his favorite, with this pathetic, oscillating cry several octaves beyond what Mother Nature intended. He can turn the dolphin into a growling bear, a ghost, or a woodpecker, or all four for the "haunted house" effect. What's best is you can stand there across from him and make the same noises back (I'm good at this), engaging him in a dolphin-meowing match for half an hour. He thinks he can outdolphin me, but to date he hasn't. Usually he just runs halfway down the hall at 45MPH, stopping to look back at me to make sure I haven't caught up to him yet.

* Dr. Popular is the cutest cat you've ever seen. Black with white paws. Problem is, when you pick him up, your shirt turns black also. Cat hair is impossible to quickly pick off of clothing.

* All cats love strings, ropes, cords, twine, keys, and oh yes -- catnip. Especially catnip ordered fresh from the Garden of Ebay. Note to all who may follow: cats know no discretion when it comes to catnip. A large pile found its way into a corner of the hall, was swiftly consumed in full by an indulgent cat, and was equally swiftly turned into vomit in a resident's closet. (The cat was fine.)

* Lucca's litterbox, which sits in the closet right next to the door, never got emptied. Walking to your room shouldn't involve suffocation from the worst smell known to man. It got really bad in the summer with no air conditioning and record temperatures, with the humidity turning said waste into something especially foul. No wonder the cat was always hanging out elsewhere on hall...

* Always look under your bed and around your room before closing your door and retiring for the night. Otherwise, it might be a Saturday morning at 8:00 when a cat starts walking over your face because he/she needs to get out.

* Besides having no clean place to poop, Lucca also had some digestive health problems. Guys, it's important to take care of your pets if you're going to have one. This poor kitty was leaving grey trails of Meow Mix all over the Walcott carpet, and the (yes, grey) stains continue to beckon today. I don't want you to get the wrong impression from Lucca. All of the other cats have been kept well, and their owners have been pretty responsible.

* Either don't leave your door open all day, or get used to finding your socks strewn about the hallway. :P

* Voight is a short-haired cat, making him a great candidate for picking up. He won't shed anything on you! It's immensely amusing to watch him walk up and down the hall, chattermeowing under his breath about all sorts of things (fish? catnip? bunnies?). We all thought he just had a very quiet voice, because even if he's displeased, he'll just softly grumble...

* When you're really hosed, the cats will release some endearing kind of pheromone that instantly destresses you and turns you into a little kid playing with them, running after them, and basically finding every excuse to ignore your work until it's way too late to get a reasonable amount of sleep. The cats then taunt you, bragging that they get to sleep all day and stare out the window.

* Ferris had a behavior problem in his old age. When Hannah was out of town for IAP, this ferocious feline would go into Mark's room (home to Dr. Popular, the other male cat at that time) and pee all over. This happened about six or seven times, soaking Mark's jeans, floor, mattress, sheets and bed -- yes, once when he was in it. It was funny to everyone but Mark, who sounded like a broken record emailing the hall with all kinds of displeasure and directives to keep Ferris locked up and away from his linens. I put a few condolence cards on Ferris' door expressing my wishes that he recover successfully. I think the cards said "Sorry About Your Accident..." (yeah they were actually commercially produced), and each time he soaked something, I'd tape up another one.

* Don't go into a bathroom late at night with the lights off. A cat could be sleeping in one of the stalls, and you just might accidentally step on him, creating the loudest, most shrill "YEOWWWWWWW!" ever. I speak from experience -- it scared me just as much as I must have scared him.

* That said, some of the cats do the funniest things when startled. One suddenly jumps about a foot in the air, and another runs down the hall as if summoned by a wailing air raid siren. It's funny when someone is standing halfway down the hall, sees this cat darting past, and wonders what the heck is going on.

* When you see a cat heading for the stairwell door or fire escape, grab it. It probably doesn't know any better.

Any special questions about having cats in the dorm? EC is pretty informal in that you can keep other pets too if they stay in your room and don't cause any problems. One girl has a bunny rabbit (the cutest thing ever with big floppy ears and a generous pounce), and I think a couple others have fish.

First of all, I like being an urban planning major. I’m taking a public policy class (in my major), an accounting class (in Sloan), and a language class (French III). I’m also getting an Institute requirement out of the way, but that isn’t so important. :) 11.002 (Making Public Policy) has a couple of excellent professors, Judy Layzer and Gary McKissick, who conduct the course in a discussion format. As moderators, they inform and stimulate conversation relevant to the day’s assigned reading, which to date has included topics on global warming and a unit on public policy problems in general. I think what I’ve enjoyed most this month is the feeling of being stimulated, with new insights and questions brewing in my mind even as I’m walking home from the classroom in Building 35. (I did it again – I said “home.”) I am continually impressed by how eloquent my classmates are… and in fact, much of the insight I’ve gathered has been from the students themselves. We have a recitation section every Thursday afternoon in the absolute closest possible classroom to my dorm, which is even more awesome. :)

Our first assignment was to write an op-ed about what the government should (or shouldn’t) do about global warming. Because 11.002 is a CI-H class, we are required to rewrite one of our papers, with feedback on the draft from the teaching staff. Not only did the TA – a grad student in Political Science – offer thorough commentary on my draft, I received suggestions from a writing lecturer (coincidentally one of the new East Campus housemasters) as well. Nice.

The past week of French has been consumed by a strangely amusing software package called A la rencontre de Philippe. It’s an interactive multimedia thing our teacher and others put together internally at MIT, using video clips shot in Paris in the 1980s. In the story, Philippe and his girlfriend Elisabeth are having a falling-out, and it’s my job to help him move out and find a new place to live. With the help of his well-intentioned friend Antoine and gracious Aunt Amelie, and of course, my impeccable sleuthing, Philippe checks out a potential pad with a real estate agent. Depending on user input, the story can go several ways – in mine, he ends up reconciling with Elisabeth after her friend Dominique calms her down. There was a side bit about Elisabeth running off with Dominique’s brother Pierre, but thankfully, she didn’t elaborate. ;)

Today is our first “student holiday” of the year – in months which don’t already have a three or four-day weekend, the Institute makes sure we get one. Because I already took Saturday and Sunday to relax, I spent the “holiday” in D.C. to take care of some work stuff. Every time I catch the 5:15am train from South Station, I am pleasantly reminded that I probably should have slept some more. The catalyst for last night’s dearth of shuteye was a combination of having awakened too late the previous day, and some loud yelps from passionate Halo players in adjacent rooms. Although I think they’re pretty funny when they’re so worked up, shouting at each other into little microphones which digitize their voices and carry them through the conduit in the drop ceiling. And even though most of them live on the same hall, and they all most certainly know each other in person, they call each other by their in-game nicknames when referring to the gameplay. “Why is torpex so good!” “I dunno, but bluefire, man…” “Yeah!! Did you see when torpex shot him from behind??” I think it’s probably a good thing I don’t have an Xbox. :)

We got a couple more Anthonys at EC – one on my floor and one just downstairs. It seems like for the past few months, people call me by my last name (which is also my Athena name), and I’ve sort of grown accustomed to it. Yeah, it’s pretty critical that you choose an account name that you can live with – although if it’s got numbers or underscores in it, people will probably just find some other unique identifier for you. (Numbers and underscores suck. It’s the million-dollar question: when a certain word or name is available without random numbers, why add them?!)

All right, more later. A certain project I’ve worked on since January is pretty close to the point I can start talking about it publicly, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Three hallmates and I piled into a Zipcar the other night for a trip to a warehouse club in the area. The house manager just delivered a brand new refrigerator to our kitchen, and we figured the time was right to christen it with frozen goods in bulk. :) It's pretty economical to rent the car for two hours and split the cost between four people. I think it worked out to around $4.50 per person, which is a steal considering what you save by buying massive amounts of the stuff you use anyway.

Last weekend was the annual Tetazoo Swim Test, an unofficial yet obligatory event in which hall members (freshmen included) swim across the Charles River, just adjacent to East Campus. Now, I'm not much of a swimmer, and even if I were, I doubt I'd want to take a dip in the Charles specifically. But it's college and they say this is when you're supposed to explore. The group left Sunday afternoon. (I didn't take these shots, but they're pretty good.)

On a slightly related topic - as I was scrolling through pictures on my camera, it dawned on me that I never showed you Cam's LED project. He worked on this thing for like two weeks straight before classes began, and engaged freshmen in a soldering seminar as a part of East Campus rush. He spent a lot of time writing C code to make letters display, and his goal is to make a display board out of an array of 20 of these things. Most of the boards are nearly done, thanks to soldering frosh...

Cameron in his lair, clutching the proverbial Snapple bottle and basking in the glow of his three CRTs and one LCD monitor. They're all connected to form an extra-wide quadruple desktop.

This thing takes five volts from the power supply directly beneath. East Campus has a host of community-use tools and electrical engineering equipment for residents only - that power supply belongs to the EE room, for which Cam is the custodian ("EEcomm").

Okay, so that last one is from a few days prior when he was working on a projector assembly. The metal looked really bland, but with some spray-on stuff and crafty use of a Dremel tool, he has given these panels an expensive "brush" look. :-)

People are super creative around here.

It's kind of nice to settle down to classes, but I'm happy the summer went so well - it's good to be productive and get some things accomplished. (I worked on some projects for Amtrak -- got to know some of my co-workers a little better with more time in the office, which is always good.) Not to mention a few overnight train trips here and there -- the Midwest, the South, and elsewhere on some long weekends.

But now that it's time to return back to the academic world, I should report on some of the festivities here at East Campus. The dorm put on its annual reception for freshmen, during REX, the period formerly known as Rush. Bavetta and friends from Tetazoo debuted the highly anticipated "Jesus: The Ride" to much fanfare:

If you're interested in seeing more pictures of the Ride and its construction, check out his entire album. :-)

There were also some other things ...

I'll leave you with the "pizza challenge" :-)

We got an amazing number of freshmen on hall this year, due to a housing anomaly that left us with many empty rooms. I haven't gotten to know too many of them yet, but I think we've got the makings of a good bunch. It's kind of interesting to get a sense of the freshman perspective, and compare it to how I felt a year ago, and to how I feel now. I'm probably a little bit more focused, a little bit more aware of what I need to do to succeed here. I can only say that I am truly blessed to be here, to have the opportunities I have, and to know the people I know here. It's too easy to take things for granted when you're going through the motions or even just tackling a particularly trying situation, but all things considered, I don't think I could ask for much more right now. :)

Classes start later today. I'm taking a mixture of stuff, some which count toward my major and some which count toward the minor in Applied International Studies. My first class is 10am four days per week, and 11am on Wednesdays. 10am! So early! On the other hand, I didn't want huge gaps in time between classes during the day. I found that when I had a couple of late morning sections, and one isolated section late in the day, that last straggler at 4PM was a real drag. I signed up for the PE lottery, but I won't know what I got until tomorrow.

That reminds me of a curious piece of information in the freshman orientation materials this year. Somewhere in some paperwork, the PE requirement was discussed (8 points to graduate -- that's four half-semester classes), and they said that, and I quote, "We note that successful students complete 4 six-week classes during their Freshman year to complete their 8 point requirement."

An abbreviated version of this quote appeared in print form, to the effect of "Successful students complete their PE requirement their freshman year." Now, I don't deny that it's probably a good, conscientious deed to finish your PE requirement the first year, but "successful students"? I know plenty of very successful upperclassmen here who haven't even started working toward their PE requirement. Supposedly you're expected to finish your requirement by the end of sophomore year, but there's no rule set in stone dictating that. The same goes for the swim test. As long as you complete these things before you graduate, you're fine! (Feel free to discuss.)

I'm also advising a group of freshmen this year with Daniel Barkowitz, through the Associate Advisor program. Our group has five students and we've been planning some social activities for the year, including dinners, days exploring Boston, and perhaps a theatrical performance. (Our group has several folks who act, so it seemed like a good fit.) I'll write more about this as the term progresses and we spend more time together.

I should really get to bed, but I think I'll sign off with one last note. Being here for the summer was really awesome. It'll probably be my last summer here, at least as an undergrad, but the humidity aside, it was definitely a worthwhile experience. Take care, and check back often.

But what you might not know is that MIT's original hackers are still alive and well, right on campus and just a short walk from the steps of the Student Center.

The Tech Model Railroad Club has been building, coding and crafting since 1946, when computers filled entire rooms and everything had to be done by hand. Today, club members design cityscapes, write software, solder circuit boards and plan operations, continuing the storied evolution of Gifford City and its railroad, the "Tech Nickel Plate." Anybody at MIT can join right in, even freshmen, and get right to work on everything from scenery to signalling.

Remember AP Calculus and approximating integrals? Only at MIT: Club member Hugh Robinson explains an ingenious use of Simpson's Rule for locating specific trains within a block of track.

Club member David Lambeth develops some property near City Hall. Gifford City includes numerous neighborhoods and districts, and even a scaled version of MIT's Green Building.

The Club has its very own Software Cab system, inspired by the operation centers of freight and passenger services nationwide. Written in Python, it interfaces with homegrown switch cards and the network at large to control the movement of trains across the railroad.

You can find some pretty incredible detail in the Club layout, from tall buildings all the way down to the track level. The computer system can generate correct signals anywhere on the layout - here's a spot in the vicinity of Middle Heights. And below, you'll find a complete turntable setup.

In this second post of a three-part series, I will showcase some vacant rooms in the MIT East Campus dormitory, all from the same floor. My objective is to show the typical setup, furniture, and layout of a mix of rooms -- in the third post, I will show presently occupied and "lived-in" quarters to give some contrast between the way you'll find a room when you move in, and the way things could look a month or a year later. I was able to find empty rooms to photograph because during the summer months, many students choose to go home or pursue summer internships and other opportunities off campus. However, very often a student will leave at the end of the spring semester and choose to come back to the same room in the fall. House management requires the rooms to be vacated unless a student is keeping his or her room for the summer (with applicable rent payment, currently between $1500 and $1800 total). You would have difficulty finding empty rooms during the school year, as EC is a pretty popular place to live.

With this post, I will take the time to clarify something from my last entry: when I said I try to get off campus as much as possible, I didn't mean that I don't like it here! It's just that MIT is located in a vibrant metropolitan area with much to see and do, in a region with many opportunities for travel and exploration. I value my many connections to campus and the activities in which I'm involved, and in my entry I simply wished to convey a picture of a lifestyle heavily influenced by factors both internal and external to the Institute. :-)

That said, let's see some photos... (all taken within the past couple of weeks -- and yes, it's common for freshmen to get single rooms, though not terribly large ones.)

The MIT admissions blogs are, as a whole, supposed to convey a diverse representation of student life, providing prospective students and applicants with a reasonably complete picture of what it's like to be here. We have a mixture of the prolific and the poignant, catering to all tastes and personalities, from the bubbly and social to the more introspective. That's fairly representative, right? Sure, nothing new there.

Some folks prefer to put their lives up in pictures, detailing the events they attend, the reality shows and situation comedies they follow, the activities of their friends and the birthday cakes they bake. Some also view blogging primarily as a "job" -- yes, a fun one at that, but a job nonetheless. And others don't. Maybe they don't watch "Lost" or "24" (seriously, are those TV shows?), and maybe they aren't first or even last in line at the free finals breakfast or Student Center study break. That's me. I don't even own any MIT apparel! Honestly, if I went into Boston (or anywhere off campus, really) proudly wearing a MIT shirt, I'd feel like I was being immodest or something. Not everyone can get into this school, and besides, it's not the first thing I identify with when I think about who I am and how I want to be portrayed. "MIT student?" But Anthony is so much more than that. So how do I pick which advertisement shirt to wear? I don't -- I just wear something tasteful and solid. I don't want the world knowing where I go to school when I'm on the subway or at the market.

What gives me pause, you see, is the thought that I, personally, am representative of anything at MIT. There are two '09 bloggers (so far), and I'm one of them, so one would think I'd have to be a true ambassador of my classmates. And indeed, when I first came to the Institute last fall, I thought I'd finally found my place. For the first time ever, I told myself, I'd have a true peer group: one I could relate to, share experiences with, and ultimately consider to be my friends. I thought I'd fit right into the environment, finally establishing a comfort zone of my own design. And to be true, most people do find this balance and get comfortable. But I guess you can't fight destiny.

Much of my first year was unconventional because I didn't make school my reason for living. I came in with an existing, established life and set of priorities, and school was just yet another thing on my plate. Even in high school (which sort of seems like ancient history now! 1999-2003), I never really called myself a student, particularly toward the end. I got my fill of what the state required from 7:30 to whenever, performed some practical joking and enjoyed some camaraderie, and then I left and conducted business as usual. That "business" was often both figurative and literal at the same time, as my personal interests and practical obligations always tended to cross paths. And yes, now MIT is in a different ballpark, and my philosophy has had to shift a bit in order to satisfy this demanding academic setting, but I can't change who I am.

I feel sort of guilty with specific reference to the blog, because I've held back large segments of my life that have nothing to do with MIT. Really, much of my life has nothing to do with MIT, as most of the things in which I'm involved are very external to the school. (This is changing, but the external activities always receive precedence. Why? Because they're more important in the bigger picture.) Freshman year was painful in that I had to finally confront the split, because nothing I was doing in the classroom had any direct relevance to what I feel is my singular path, yet it was taking a lot of my time that I wasn't giving willingly. (This might not be so glamorous, but people, if you know exactly what you want to do with your life, get ready for the Great Injustices, er..., the General Institute Requirements, to dine on your soul for a little while.) If MIT is going to work for me, I'll have to sew together the pieces of a student's life and my life to create some sort of streamlined amalgam. So what am I to do if I can't change who I am?

I decided to keep things unconventional, with a few adjustments.

I picked a major whose department has a total of less than twenty undergrads, and I'm selecting a course focus (transportation) that isn't even really established yet. When I say Course 11, I'm often asked "what's that one again?" But I love what I'm doing, it fits into the rest of my life very cleanly, and strong career prospects aren't a problem -- so it doesn't matter, and I make no apologies. I leave campus at every possible opportunity (though I enjoy living on campus), maintain copious contact with fine conversationalists on the outside, and generally do everything possible to avoid getting sucked into the cocoon of thinking that MIT is the entire world, the veritable vacuum that keeps some alumni coming back to their former undergraduate dormitories on a daily basis. We live on a planet of innumerable experiences and many hundreds of countries, and as long as I have the resources and power to do so, I refuse to become complacent, letting any intermediate stop overtake the journey.

Knowing I can't evade the GIRs, I'm structuring them a bit differently into my overall schedule than most would. There is nothing wrong with this (-cough cough-, just like there's nothing wrong with not taking your swim test when the orientation planners demand), and in doing so I can preserve a more interesting mix of classes at any given time. After the first semester, I realized that I never again wanted to take a majority of courses in a term that I didn't elect. Choosing a major with few requirements certainly helped -- I doubt I could pull that off in some departments with a laundry list of "mandatory" classes. Happiness is really important... what's wrong with being at MIT and not being dominated on a daily basis by your problem sets? Too unconventional?

Basically, at every opportunity, I'm making MIT fit my mold, instead of the all-too-common opposite. But let's get back to the blog. I said that I've withheld large segments of my daily goings-on because I didn't feel they were worthy of space on an admissions site. You all are trying to get a sense for what MIT is like -- perhaps just what college in general is like -- and my random trips here and there, my business meetings, my love affair with rail travel (not with trains themselves -- please don't be confused), my philosophies and feelings and activities that aren't directly Institute-related... these things all form a package so uniquely mine that I have assumed it to be more helpful to the masses if I stay on the topic of MIT life and admissions. But you know what?

All of that stuff is part of my college experience too. I've been to DC three times in the past week, all by train (for free -- have to love working for the railroad), I've had some great meals in interesting places both around Boston and elsewhere, I've gotten some great advice from a host of individuals both internal and external to MIT, I've worked on some pretty fascinating (to me) projects, I was the primary developer on a project that just won a large grant, and I will say that I am truly enjoying the ride, for better or for worse. Whether or not it has anything specifically to do with SAT scores, dorm room towel racks or midterm examinations, it's still one person's MIT experience, and that's what I'm here to provide.

So now I pose the question to the long-term readers, the ones who I see in the visitor logs every day, the ones who may or may not have me RSSed and who may or may not ever leave comments or any other traces of their attention. Yes, I'm looking for the invisible folks to come out of the woodwork, because I'm genuinely curious. What do you appreciate about, specifically, my approach to the blog -- what do you enjoy (or dislike) and what keeps you coming back? What are you looking for? Do you want primarily admissions/MIT-centric commentary (with the mix of weighing in on the more personal things that I've done throughout the year), do you want the entire college experience, or is there a more desirable middle ground? (Keep in mind that I lack the capacity and interest to provide details ad nauseam about every little thing that happens between dawn and dusk, a common tactic on personal blogs of people everywhere. I wouldn't want my life under such a microscope to begin with.) Basically, what I'm asking is, what do you find interesting -- what is worth recording in this chronicle, and what is best left to my own amusement? What's the right path for the upcoming year of blogging?

Come out from the woodwork, if you please -- you don't have to leave your name, even though you have mine. :-) It might be helpful if you mention whether you're a student or a parent, though, to put things in perspective.

While I am not going to list obvious things, like soap and shampoo, I want to say that not everything needs to be sent from home. Some folks think they need to get all sorts of things at home before they come, but there are plenty of drug stores in the area, so unless you have a particular surplus of your favorite Puffs Facial Tissues or Cottonelle Wipes, I'd save the shipping expense. Just bring enough stuff for a few days to hold you over while you settle into your permanent room assignment.

That said:

MIT does not provide linens, pillows, or bath or hand towels. MIT *does* provide toilet paper, and arguably, dispenser-style paper towels. (By arguably, I mean that while they don't officially leave paper towels around for your usage, they seem to be easily procured if you know where to look. If you like a special Quilted type, better get your own - these are the standard dispenser-issue.)

If you think you will be making some meals on your own, or even saving some takeout food for later, you may want a small fridge in your room. Hold off on getting this until you find out whether or not you will have a roommate: you won't need two fridges. You'd probably want to order this directly to your dorm once you have your permanent room assignment.

If you aren't staying in an air-conditioned dorm, a window air-conditioner (again, talk with roommate, but this one's less obvious) will make you very, very happy. Again, you'd probably want to order this directly to your dorm once you have your permanent room assignment.

Dorm lighting tends to disappoint. Invest in a desk light or even an inexpensive room light (perhaps a torchiere without a halogen bulb that can set things on fire if knocked over).

There are plenty of power outlets in each room, but they don't always tend to be in the most convenient places. Invest in a surge protector or power strip. Also, the ethernet/network drops aren't always where you want them, so think about a long network cable. (Your RCC [residential computing consultant -- an upperclassman] will have an ethernet cable to give you, but you may want something longer.)

Clothes hangers tend to be useful if you have anything more than what you'd fold up in a chest of drawers. Get an extra-beefy hanger or two for hanging up your heavy winter coat (if you don't have one, you certainly will when winter comes around!). There might be a hook or two around your room, but save that for a towel or the occasional shirt that needs a temporary residence.

Paper notebooks, appointment planners, calendars, and the like can easily be found here, but do yourself a favor and don't buy them at the COOP -- everything there is grossly overpriced. :-(

Do you have a printer at home? While you won't *need* one here, and can certainly print your stuff in any Athena cluster for free, it's sure nice to not have to run downstairs or to another building when you've just finished that essay at 3AM.

Some people find a wall-mounted whiteboard to be useful for their room. I'm not a subscriber to the whiteboard-on-your-door thing, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

You won't need to bring any furniture -- chairs, bookcases, drawers, beds, desks are all plentiful. You will need laundry detergent, and it's expensive in small quantities at LaVerde's. Get some at another area supermarket once you arrive.

If you had particular luck with a certain math book or two and want to bring them with you, feel free. It's good to have other resources when something in your MIT textbook doesn't make sense.

I'm sure I'll think of other things, and when I do, I'll post again. :-)

The blogfathers in the admissions office requested a while back that we bloggers do some work on presenting our living groups to you. For reasons that are still unclear, the sampling of East Campus bloggers has yet to fulfill that request. I will try to add some personal perspective on the dorm, for what it may be worth.

Yes, each of East Campus' ten floors is similar in architecture, layout, and structure. I haven't counted, but there are between thirty and forty undergraduate students living on each floor, along with one graduate student (called a "GRT," for graduate resident tutor). The dormitory consists of two parallel buildings officially called the East Campus Alumni Houses, and each building is split into three "sections" named after long-deceased Institute alumni (Wood, Hayden, Munroe for the west parallel; Goodale, Bemis, Walcott for the east parallel). There isn't anything terribly earth-shattering about the way the place was built or planned, and it's about eighty years old. It's been renovated a few times, but still is no match in cleanliness or plushness to shiny-new Simmons Hall or even the ever-popular Baker House.

What people love about East Campus, you see, is the culture. The age of the facility, the relatively lax spatial restrictions placed on residents (we can paint the walls in whatever fashion our hearts desire, for example), and the fact that undergrads of all years live here (freshmen and seniors are often best friends... after a few months) are all factors which allow for some continuity of tradition over time. If a hall wants to be known for something, it can be maintained by motivating the incoming freshmen, who will become active members of the community and ensure the upkeep of tradition for years to come. Surprisingly few East Campus freshmen leave for fraternities or sororities, because instead of seeking an outside community with which to bond, they find what they're looking for right here. (This is a personal opinion, and I'm sure some will disagree. That's why there are numerous bloggers -- so you can gather opinions from many sources.) I should note that there are many other dorms with a feeling of community, so don't think that you have to live at East Campus in order to find it :-).

Each of the ten floors is a little bit different, and some of these floors' communities are stronger and more defined than others. EC is a very diverse dorm, and even within a given floor, there are different affinities and groups of people. I won't try to describe them -- you should see them for yourself! Each floor is something different to each person. For the most part, we're friendly, accepting people, and our location can't be beat. We're so close to class that many of us roll out of bed five minutes before we need to be in lecture. I like the fact that while EC is right on campus and next to all the academic buildings, it's also sufficiently on the edge of campus that with a short walk, you can be on the subway into Boston or milling about the streets of Cambridge. Everyone needs a break sometimes!

Is East Campus the only dorm where I could be happy? No -- thinking so would be closed-minded. Is it the best place for me? The best fit? I can't really answer that, because I haven't lived anywhere else. Plus, I have only lived on one floor and can't label the entire dorm a certain way, having only experienced one-tenth of it first-hand. It is not uncommon for people to move around the dorm, trying out new floors and cultures, seeing what works best for them!

Here are some pictures of one of the ten floors. The building features, layout of rooms, lounges, and kitchen are all similar from floor to floor within each building.

And here are some views of the (off-campus) surrounding area:

On campus, the dorm is quite conveniently located, as shown by the red ellipse:

I'll be moving into a new room on my hall next week, and I'll try to take some pictures so you can see a bit of the East Campus interior. I'll also be starting some full-time, focused project work at Amtrak, so that should keep me fairly occupied for the balance of the summer.

I have to say -- the weather in California is superior. :-( Time to break out the window air conditioner unit when I return.

Take it easy, guys!

Time doesn't fly.

It will be fun to spend the summer at MIT. Summer housing is available to basically any continuing undergrad -- the cost is less than a normal semester... read more at http://web.mit.edu/housing/undergrad/summer.html. Some folks choose to spend summers at fraternity or sorority houses, whether or not they actually are members, because the costs are often far lower than official MIT housing. If you already live in a dorm, chances are that you can move into your fall room assignment for the summer. At least that's how it works at East Campus.

If you don't want to stay here for the summer, there's also something called "early return," where you get to come back a couple weeks early in the fall for free, in exchange for helping out with dorm rush and move-in activities. More information at http://web.mit.edu/housing/undergrad/er.html.

In other news, I am having my wisdom teeth taken out next month. :-((((

Sleeptime. (While weekends are nice, they can be somewhat irritating at times, because the machine of the working world stops. If you're waiting for a meeting to be scheduled or for some bureaucratic development, it's like you have to wait for this two-day pause to relieve itself.)

But... I bet by now, all you '10 folks have your Athena accounts. Any obscure questions about how to use certain things? Here are some useful links and tips:

a) Make sure you get your web certificates -- you can do so by going to these links, in this order:

http://ca.mit.edu/mitca.crt (accept/install when prompted)
https://ca.mit.edu/

b) Get yourself a real mail client -- webmail might be convenient, but there are better solutions out there. You can get instructions on how to set one up at http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/email/, or you can visit http://web.mit.edu/software/ (with your certificates installed) to download a licensed copy of Eudora.

Also available at that software site is a fully-licensed copy of Windows XP Professional -- I believe you can download this twice during your time at MIT. If you'd prefer a fully-licensed copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can get it (again, with certificates installed) at https://web.mit.edu/rhlinux/.

c) Interested in learning about Zephyr, MIT's Athena "instant messaging" tool? Check out http://web.mit.edu/answers/zephyr/ and http://web.mit.edu/olh/zephyr/. You can change the name that is displayed when you send Zephyr messages by logging into Athena and using the 'chfn' command. (This will also change your name throughout Athena, but *not* in the MIT directory or registrar database.)

d) MIT is piloting a Jabber IM installation, and you can find out more about it at http://web.mit.edu/ist/services/messaging/jabber.html.

e) Want to upload things to your MIT Athena or Web space? You can do this via SFTP to ftp.dialup.mit.edu, or for the less technically inclined, you can download SecureFX from the MIT software page. It's a handy drag-and-drop Windows tool.

f) Want to put a period after your middle initial in the MIT directory and registrar database, because your middle name is actually not one letter? Or, want to put your full middle name instead? You can go to http://student.mit.edu/ (with certificates), click "for Students," then "Biographic Record." You can also enter your Emergency Contact (parents) details in there as well -- MIT will hound you for them before the fall semester starts.

g) MIT subsidizes MBTA (subway/bus/commuter rail) passes for students. They pay half of the actual cost, and bill the remainder to your student account. This isn't something you want to look into right now, but it's useful to keep in mind, because it's good to get off campus every so often. People say that "having a pass makes you inclined to use it." To get a pass, you must sign up at https://commuting.mit.edu/parking/index.html at least a month and a day before the month for which you want a pass.

h) As a student residing in a dorm, you are entitled to four static IPs / hostnames on MITnet. This means you can have (anything available) .MIT.EDU on four static IPs, and there are no blocked ports, firewalls, or bandwidth limits. When you arrive in the fall and are assigned your permanent room, ask around for the RCC, an upperclassman who deals with such requests. You can read about MIT dorm network policies at http://web.mit.edu/rescomp/www/. (Hint: nobody I know actually bothers with AUI.)

i) If you want to get involved with technology services at MIT, a good place to start is SIPB, MIT's Student Information Processing Board. SIPB offers and supports various services which complement your Athena access -- check out their site for more.

j) Want an email alias, or two, or ten? You can get (anything available) @mit.edu, without the 3-8 character limit your actual Athena name has. The process you follow is to sign up for a Moira/traditional mailing list, adding yourself as the sole member. Check https://wserv.mit.edu:444/fcgi-bin/lc for this, and don't sign up for a Mailman list -- that's overkill for a simple alias. To add yourself to the list, SSH to athena (if unsure, download SecureCRT from the MIT software page, or visit http://athena.dialup.mit.edu/ssh.html), then utilize the "blanche" command. Example syntax to add yourself (user "pqrs") to list "list": blanche list -a pqrs

k) If you want to use a MIT hostname (and get onto MITnet) before you even get to campus, you can use the MIT VPN. http://itinfo.mit.edu/product.php?name=vpn This is necessary, for example, to view MIT building floorplans, as you need to be on MIT's network with your certificates. (http://floorplans.mit.edu/)

If anyone has any questions (I can explain things further or in far less technical terms!), just post a comment. :-)

There's a lot of buzz on campus right now about some proposed changes to the GIRs (General Institute Requirements). These are the sorts of changes that affect future classes (maybe you), so naturally there are opinions of all kinds about tradition and change. Today's MIT home page spotlight is the Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational Commons, so apparently other people think it's worth a look as well!

I personally think that the current structure of required/core classes leaves much to be desired, but it can be quite helpful for freshmen to take a variety of subjects when they aren't sure what they want to study as upperclassmen. And while this isn't the approach most advertised to incoming freshmen, even if you do know what you want to study, you don't *need* to take all of the GIRs your first year. If it suits you, it's certainly beneficial to mix things up a bit with more than one elective course in the spring term, or even one or two in the fall. I guess it depends on the four-year class plan of the department in which you plan to major.

I'm being encouraged to post more often by various folks around here, so I think one way to accelerate this strategy is for me to carry my camera around far more often. I'm going to take pictures of random things during the day and see what happens.

To the newly un-waitlisted folks, congratulations!

On a more organized note, what are you guys doing this summer? I'll be at MIT, staying in East Campus, but probably working full-time on a fairly interesting train schedule project. (Yes, I think train schedules are fascinating. I have boxes upon boxes of them!)

I just turned nineteen, and the journey billed as the first year of the rest of my life is meeting an anxious end. I'm still in the same room, still know where I want my life to go, inching away from information technology and toward the pursuit of transportation. I'm nursing my destiny forward one step at a time. But in a way, the past eight months have been an excursion. Sure, I've learned a lot, but I've also renewed my independence, bringing me closer to both myself and my parents.

I was recently asked in an advising survey whether or not my freshman year "met my expectations." I decided it was sort of an unreasonable question, in that there is no conceivable way any incoming freshman can know or expect what the year has in store. Certainly everyone assumes and anticipates, but come springtime, it's entirely possible to be fulfilled and happy, even when nothing went as you originally planned.

Even the most lauded and passionate students encounter resistance as they unfurl their wings. I have learned that to be viewed as a successful scholar, you first must prove you can handle the foundation before you move on to what you really care about. As freshmen and sophomores in high school, you probably entertained a broad spectrum of introductory classes as you established a track for elective study. So maybe now you've got a great idea of what you're interested in, academic or not, and you leave for college in the fall, on a plane, train, boat, or bike. You're dreaming about all that could be and all that will be, hanging on to memories of your senior prom and of the countless sleepovers that marked the sweetness of your childhood.

The airport shuttle vans and orientation groups beckon. You're being told how amazing you are, you're being welcomed to campus and everything is looking up. You're on top of the world but you don't really know why, or how. Before you know it, rush week is over, classes start, and the mighty conveyor belt of expectations nears its cashier.

Advisors are taking you out to dinner and housemasters invite you to their apartments for tea. The fresh faces and invigorating energy of new college students captivate even the most hardened faculty. You're being told how amazing you are, how you're the "new generation" that will fix everyone's problems, effect world peace, and cure cancer. Sounds great, doesn't it? Esteemed persons believe in you and insist you've got the potential to touch humanity. (Perhaps you pat yourself on the back a couple more times for spending all that time preparing for the SAT.)

Shock! Your first five exams don't go so well. They must have been lying about that potential, you tell yourself. When your 3.091 TA sends you a Fifth Week Flag, you dutifully join the Facebook groups entitled "Shouldn't Have Gotten Into MIT" and "MIT Is Kicking My [Posterior], But Sooner Or Later I'll Graduate." Of course, new freshmen are to be forgiven for not yet perfecting their study skills, so Julie, Donna, and friends at the ARC lend you a helping hand. They insist that you'll do fine and they recommend some time management and study skills workshops, conveniently being offered the very week you're struggling. You really thought you'd be doing a lot better right now, and you really wish those darned prep school kids who got AP credit for the entire first semester would let you catch up to them.

It sort of depends how invested you were in school before you set foot in Cambridge. Back home, what was your answer when you were asked to describe yourself? Were you a "serious student," spending hours each day on homework and going over your homework assignments until the wee hours, even with impeccable time management? If so, you might find your first semester here a piece of cake. But if you won accolades with school firmly planted in the back seat, if your life and your soul were instead in constant line with the passions that got you up in the morning and put you to bed at night, you might be singing a different tune. You might be asking, why am I studying this nonsense when I could be doing what really matters to me? For some, this question is asked of the humanities, and for others, math and science. Yes, even here.

The trick lies in a view of the bigger picture. An education from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the greatest, most profound things anyone can earn. It garners incredible opportunity and it sets you apart from your contemporaries, just as the Brass Rat sets you apart in a crowd. Set aside the practical benefits for a moment, though. If you can excel in something here, you know that you're capable of that skill at a top caliber. You will come out of here knowing exactly what you can and can't do well. You'll prove yourself to the entire world. So what's a chemistry class or two? Life is a lot more than four months, a lot more than four years.

(And you may not believe me, but those parents you worked so hard during your adolescence to evade will probably become your very best friends your freshman year. They're your lasting connections to your previous life and world, the components of which you still consist. In this new land of college, just as you think nobody understands you and you'll surely fail out, there's nothing like some insight and reassurance from the people who have watched you soar through thick and thin.)

You learn that when your biggest worry is a math final at the end of the month, you're doing fine. Besides studying, though, I'm chasing my dreams, letting nothing claim me or slow me down as I endeavor to find the balance between good grades and a good life. It just takes some practice, something the student directory calls "year: 1."

So what's the moral of the story? If by May you're still dreaming, if you're unfazed by any setbacks you've faced, everything actually went pretty well. :-)

Monday night, I'll attend my first departmental event: a dinner where undergrads and alumni will connect to share experiences and learn about life as urban planners after MIT. On Friday, my department is having another dinner for undergrads, this time at Durgin Park in Boston's Quincy Market. There's a topic for another time: MIT students' love affair with free food!