What does “new” mean to you? The MIT dorm called New House opened in 1975. This makes it older than me but younger than my parents, so I'd consider the designation as “new” to be warranted. Now consider New College in Oxford, which is 620 years old and gets its name from the fact that it came after Oriel College (founded in 1324.) It’s all relative!

At MIT, I lived in Next House for my first two years and Baker House for my last two. I was utterly spoiled with gorgeous river views in both dorms. At Oxford I live in Oriel College and the front quad (pictured below) was built in the 1620s, back when Cambridge, MA was just called “Newe Towne.” Maybe people should stop naming things “New"...

2) Classes

I’m really enjoying my immunology program. For a taste of the subject, check out the book “How the Immune System Works” by Lauren Sompayrac; it’s very clear and simple. The intricacies of the immune system will astound you, I guarantee it. For example, the body has evolved a beautiful system to “deliver” white blood cells to the right part of the body at the right time. It works just like the postal system, where an address ensures the delivery of a letter to the right mailbox. White blood cells carry a unique pattern of receptors and proteins on their surface that enables them to exit the bloodstream and enter infected tissues. This cellular delivery system is at work all day, every day to keep you healthy!

My program has at least three hours of lecture every day and the lectures are taught by experts in the field who come from all over the United Kingdom. There are 18 of us in the program and we’re together all day, every day! This is very different from the typical undergraduate schedule at MIT, where I had at least four different classes, usually in completely different fields. Also as an undergrad I had a UROP every semester, so I constantly juggled classes with lab work. Unfortunately I’m in a taught Masters program now where we’re not supposed to do research until the third term (April-July). I miss the lab and all the excitement that comes with it.

3) Formality and traditions

At MIT, you’re likely to see people taking exams in pajamas after rolling out of bed, or possibly after spending all night in the library. Oxford makes you adhere to a dress code for exams, matriculation, and formal hall (which is just a formal 3-course dinner served in your college's dining hall. Not all colleges have them, but mine offers one every night for three pounds, or about $6!) What is the uniform? For women: a white dress shirt, black skirt or pants, black ribbon that's tied around your neck, black gown (for graduate students the gown does not have sleeves and it has these funny tassels), black shoes, and black tights (a girl was almost not allowed to matriculate because she wore nude tights.) For men, “sub fusc” attire consists of a tuxedo and white bowtie. Here’s a picture from our Matriculation, which is a ceremony after the first week of classes where you officially become a member of Oxford. The MIT equivalent occurs during Freshman Convocation, when President Hockfield gives a speech welcoming you to MIT.

4) Social life

Parties at Oxford are called “bops” and often have a theme, like “Back to School”, “When I Grow Up” or even “Fratparty.” People take the themes pretty seriously and dress accordingly. Each college also has common rooms for undergraduates and graduates, where people regularly hang out and relax. A big difference between the US and the UK is the drinking age, so much of the social life revolves around the many pubs of Oxford. The pubs in Oxford each proudly display portraits and plaques commemorating the famous people that have had a pint there. The Eagle and Child was the meeting place of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis’s writers’ group called the Inklings, and the Turf Tavern was a favorite hangout spot of Bill Clinton and Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

5) Location, location, location

Oxford is in the middle of England, which makes it really easy to take weekend trips to London, other cities in the UK, and even Paris and Brussels, which are both less than three hours away from London by train. My course is intense so I haven’t had too much time to venture out of Oxford, but the few occasions where I have traveled were great. In November I went to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, on the same day that the highly anticipated Wales vs. Australia rugby game was being played in the Cardiff stadium. The streets were filled with fans sporting red rugby shirts and painted faces. We watched part of the game and skipped the second half to visit the Cardiff Castle, which was closed earlier in the day due to a bomb threat!

That’s basically my life on the other side of the Atlantic. Many aspects are the same as MIT (going to class, attending seminars by prominent scientists, enjoying the company of friends), but the differences help me to appreciate my experiences at both places even more. I have come to appreciate the fact that MIT is a place of innumerable opportunities. Looking back, I am so thankful for all of the activities that I was involved with, the variety and quality of classes that were available, the labs that welcomed UROPs with open arms, the friends that worked hard and played hard by my side, and the professors who pushed us to our limits. It’s surely not easy to drink from the fire hose, especially right before Thanksgiving and Spring Break when deadlines pile up, sleep takes a backseat, and you spend your entire TechCash balance on coffee and candy at the convenience store in the Student Center. Yes, it’s necessary to make sacrifices (people like to say that you have three options: study, sleep, and socialize…pick two) but ultimately MIT will help you to achieve more than you imagined yourself capable of.

For all of you fretting about submitting your applications, good luck!

Note: I had taken these on a Sunday morning before the gym filled up, to avoid being spotted and identified as the creepy girl who is taking pictures of sweaty people for future blackmail purposes. It's usually more crowded...but as long as you don't go between 4-6pm you won't have to wait for a machine.

A view from outside (it's distorted...sorry, the panoramic feature on my camera doesn't always cooperate):

A dark view of the lobby:

Walk up the stairs from another entrance, and you enter the first of two exercise floors. There are cubbies on the right to put your stuff, and two locker rooms downstairs:

Continuing down the second floor of the Z Center...just a small sampling of the vast collection of treadmills:

Walk a little further and you reach the weight area, as well as more cardio equipment:

If you look out of the windows on this floor, you can see our beautiful Olympic-sized pool (ranges from 7-20 feet, or something like that) and the training pool:

And for completeness, here's a view of the pool from the ground floor, looking through some decorated glass:

On the third floor, there are more weight and cardio machines, another area for floor exercises, an indoor court (called the MAC court) for gym classes/ soccer/basketball, and squash courts. There's also a huge indoor track field, but I couldn't get in because I was taking these pictures right before Finals Week and the courts are used as testing facilities:

Heading back to the first floor, there is a big area called the Rockwell Cage:

This list is by no means complete; there's also the Johnson Athletics Center (which has a huge ice rink in the winter, but was no longer there when I took pictures) and the DuPont gym (which has a huge area for gymnastics and basketball, and smaller rooms for the martial arts, yoga, pilates, etc.)

P.S. You get a clean towel each time you visit using a towel card (for a one-time $5 deposit), and can enter a lottery for a locker in the DuPont locker room. Oh! and I almost forgot to mention that the DuPont locker room has brand new saunas!! :)

P.P.S. I'm probably forgetting some things...feel free to chime in.

Friday June 6, 2008 began in the indoor track. All graduates (undergrads, Masters, and PhDs) were told to report to the gym between 7:45 and 8:15 am. With 2,335 graduates, there was a well-organized system where we reported to a station in order to be lined up properly for the precession (first by school (e.g. Engineering and Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences), then by major (Course 1, then 2, then 6, etc.) then by last name (alphabetically.)) There was free breakfast but the line was ridiculous.

At 7:45 am (most people hadn't arrived yet):

We are, we are, we are, we are, we are, the "gineers" :)

At 9 am:

Ah, the bond of the brass rat:

At 9:45ish, we began to leave the track and the precession began to organize on the artificial turf. The undergrads looked lame in their thin, unsubstantial gowns, while the people receiving PhDs looked very cool in their robes. One day that robe will be mine... hopefully!

On the turf:

Anna, my roommate for the first three years of college (and currently my next door neighbor):

Many members of the MIT community stood on Amherst Alley and Memorial Drive to wave and take pictures of us (including Bryan ).

Down Amherst Alley:

At around 10:15 am, we walked into Killian Court. It was really overwhelming... I felt like a gladiator entering an arena. Luckily, I was not about to fight with a tiger (though sometimes getting through MIT felt even more grueling.) I tried to enjoy the experience while telling myself not to cry.

Family and friends had to arrive as early at 7 am that day to get good seats, but we just waltzed right in. A view from my seat:

The guy on the left is Ali Alhassani, who won the Marshall Scholarship this year and happened to be next to me (our last names both start with A, and we both majored in 2A).

Ali graciously took a picture of us as well:

There were inspirational speeches by Mohammad Yunus , MIT President Susan Hockfield, the graduate and undergraduate class council presidents, and the president of the MIT Corporation.
Then, it was time to call the names....

And after the graduation ceremony, it was time to party! There were receptions EVERYWHERE, with more free food than anyone could ask for.

Also, my cousin (who is a musician in New York City) wrote me a song as my graduation present. If you'd like to hear it, go to: http://songformelis.com/ Yup, it was one of the best presents ever.

This entry is short and not very detailed, but its 7:17 am and I've only slept 3 hours. I hope you enjoyed the pictures, and leave comments with questions if you have any.

The metallic blue hue of morpho butterflies, the super water-resistant Lotus leaf, the highly maneuverable fins of the Bluegill sunfish: all of these natural wonders have inspired scientists to innovate. When a group of MIT researchers wanted to create the next and best surgical band-aid, they turned their attention to the gecko.

Geckos can scale smooth walls at a whopping three feet per second, and in last decade scientists have begun to understand how these little lizards can defy gravity. It turns out that gecko feet have millions of little projections, called setae, that split into hundreds of projections shaped like spatulas. Each of these tips can attach to smooth surfaces by taking advantage of intermolecular forces, which are individually relatively weak and unstable but can combine to generate enough force to allow a gecko to hang upside-down from one foot.

The initial discovery of the science behind the gecko’s stickiness (Nature 405, 681-685 (8 June 2000)) got a lot of attention, and people proposed applications like making tape to stick equipment to the space station. But Prof. Jeffrey Karp, an investigator in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, came up with a different application when he happened to come across the Nature paper on a friend’s desk. He decided to create a better surgical adhesive by mimicking the nanotopography of the gecko’s foot using a strong, water-resistant, flexible, and biodegradable polymer. This innovation would be as simple to use as a band-aid, and would be a huge improvement upon current biomedical adhesives like medical-grade crazy glue that causes inflammation and other, less sticky alternatives.

Like all things, this was easier said than done. Two and half years and a million dollars later, Karp and his collaborators had made a new polymer called poly(glycerol-co-sebacate acrylate), created a mold for the polymer using the same processes that are used to make computer chips, utilized some tricks to make the polymer biodegradable and nearly invisible to the immune system, and tested these nifty band-aids on pig intestine in the lab and in the peritoneal cavity of live rats.

Lo and behold, it worked! Karp attributes the success of the gecko adhesive project to a multidisciplinary team that included nanofabrication experts from Draper Laboratory, Surgeons and biocompatibility experts from the Massachusetts General Hospital, and polymer chemists and mechanical engineers at MIT. They’re now working on taking this invention into the clinic, where it can be used to replace stitches and sutures. Since the gecko-inspired adhesive does not require repeated re-alignment of the tissue being patched together, it can reduce the time a patient spends in surgery. Additionally, it can be utilized to connect pieces of the colon in patients with Crohn’s disease, or to patch lungs without worrying about air leaks, or even to deliver drugs to parts of a heart that might have died after a heart attack. If all goes well, this bio-inspired adhesive will be found in a hospital near you in less than five years.

The translation from bench to bedside is what Jeff Karp’s all about. He focuses on attacking big problems and has a strong commitment to developing solutions that will help patients. Prof. Karp knew that he wanted to be a bioengineer in college, and decided to study Chemical Engineering at McGill University in order to have the opportunity to learn and practice problem solving and also leave the door open to many career paths. As an undergrad, he was actively involved with research and even published a paper. After getting a PhD at the University of Toronto, he came to MIT as a postdoctoral researcher to work in the world-renown lab of biomedical engineer and Institute Professor Robert Langer. (We’ve written about him numerous times on these blogs, including Paul’s experiences with working there. How are Langer Lab alums so successful? Karp attributes it to Langer’s inspirational leadership, his freedom of thought, and creativity.)

Like his role-model, Karp strives to train the next generation of bioengineering leaders. As such, he has many undergraduates and high school students working in his lab. He tries to have 5-10 undergrads in the lab at any given time, and this summer he will be mentoring three high school students who will be coming to MIT from all over the country. In fact, he was recognized as MIT's 2008 UROP Faculty Mentor of the Year! I spoke with one of his UROPs, Shan Tie ‘10, who said she found the lab through the UROP website: “I looked under the project openings and looked for titles that were relevant to my interests and were interesting. I had several interviews with different labs and I finally decided this one because the [Principal Investigator] seemed really personally involved with each project and work itself dealt with techniques I was familiar with and could continue a project.” Since the fall of 2007, she has been studying hydrogel polymers that could be used as micro-environmental sensors.

For all of you who fret about not having research experience, have no fear. Dr. Karp hires freshman very frequently and says that experience is not a limiting factor. In particular, he tries to find students who have motivation, drive, passion, the ability to work in a team (e.g. experience on a sports team), and creativity (e.g. mastery of an instrument). Once students join the lab, he pairs them with a senior scientist and encourages them to develop their own experiments, learn from their failures, and regularly exercise critical thinking.

Karp referred to a friend who called Boston the “Academic Hollywood,” where stars in every field could be found. With three of the top hospitals in the world and some of the best universities, Boston is the perfect place to conduct interdisciplinary research that will change the face of medicine, science, and technology. Projects like the gecko-inspired surgical adhesive are a testament to the strength of the faculty and students at MIT, and you can be a part of it!

Another traditional duty of universities is to expose their students to world events and ensure that their graduates are well-informed citizens. Along these lines, I attended an event called: “A Conversation with Noam Chomsky- No More Victims.” I bet you have heard of Noam Chomsky before, seeing as how he is an MIT professor and an expert in both linguistics and politics. I first heard about him in high school, and then learned about his contributions to the field of linguistics in my Intro to Linguistics class (24.900). He’s absolutely brilliant, and I have tried to attend his talks whenever possible (though honestly I’ve found some of them hard to follow…)

This particular talk was sponsored by NoMoreVictims.org, which “works to obtain medical sponsorships for war-injured Iraqi children and to forge ties between the children, their families and communities in the United States. We believe one of the most effective means of combating militarism is to focus on direct relief to its victims.” Present at the lecture was a boy named Omar and his father. You can click on the link to watch videos about his story. It’s really tragic, and the fact that we don’t hear about stories like his in the mainstream media is a lesson in itself.

Chomsky spoke about the current situation in Iraq, the Imperialist mindset that still prevails, the world’s perception of the U.S., and the consequences of U.S. intervention. He also answered the audience’s questions, including his thoughts on the current presidential candidates (to negotiate or not to negotiate?), whether the 9/11 conspiracy theories have any clout (he didn’t think so), and whether the “You break it, you buy it” principle holds for the U.S. intervention in Iraq (he responded by asking whether the Nazis should have stayed in Britain.) Finally, he frequently referred to this article which is in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. It discusses the consequences of the surge in Iraq, and is very interesting.

Whether or not you agree with Chomksy and NoMoreVictims.org, events like this demonstrate that there is more to MIT than just math and science.

Here are the different events and how they contributed to the team”s point total:

Sunday:
- Cake and pie baking contest (pictures below)
- Eating contest (pie tin filled with whipped cream and a gum ball. Find the gum ball using only your mouth and the first person to blow a bubble wins.)
- Participation (team with most cake/pie entries wins points.)

Monday: Salsa night (team with most participants wins)

Tuesday: Community service day
- Made activity books for kinds at Children”s Hospital Boston
- Bake sale where all proceeds went to the Hospital

Wednesday: “Chariot racing’ = pushing someone in a shopping cart down the Infinite Corridor

Thursday: Dodgeball tournament, with a small entry fee donated to the Children”s Hospital Boston

Friday: Powderpuff game (where girls play football and guys are the cheerleaders). Points based on how many people came to watch, how many played, and if your team won.

Sunday: Greek Convention

Throughout the week there was a “Jar War’- each team had a jar and you could either put pennies and dollar bills for positive points in your own jar, or nickels and quarters as negative points in the other jars. They raised $1300 for the Children”s Hospital!!!

As you can see, Greek Week harnesses the natural competitiveness of ambitious students while raising money for charity and having a lot of fun!

Here are pictures from the Cake-off competition. What are your favorites?

Believe it or not, several of these cakes were made by guys! Way to go, guys!

Muhahahaha:

Some of my sorority sisters at the event:

ZBT shows their Greek Week spirit:

The lovely judges, who had to try so many cakes that they almost puked. (Sigma Kappa alone submitted 29, and Zeta Beta Tau submitted 20!)

The pie eating contest:

...and more, at Greek Week!

We received the invitation in the mail a month or so ago, and I was surprised to see that it was exactly the same stationary that my high school prom committee used.

The last few months of MIT are tough for most seniors – we are torn between our ever-worsening condition of Senioritis and the stress of knowing that we should be writing our Senior Theses and final reports that are prerequisites to graduation. So the time between receiving the invitation and the actually going to the ball went by really quickly, and before I knew it, it was May 3rd.

In addition to the stress of graduation, we also needed to find dates. Luckily for some, the Senior Ball Committee of 2005 created a Survival Guide (http://web.mit.edu/2008/seniorball/survival.htm) with pointers on how to find a date, things to discuss with your date, etc. They even provided a list of nerdy pick-up lines:

Pick Up Lines for Nerds (from http://askthebeaver.blogspot.com/)
--Hey, baby; wanna test the 'k' of my bedsprings?
--Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I am around you.
--How can I know so many hundreds of digits of pi and not the digits of your phone #?
--You are one well-defined function.
--Hey, baby - wanna be sinusoidal functions? We could oscillate horizontally¡K
--Want a hot Euler body massage?
--Oman, I want Djibouti!
--Hey baby, how about I tinker with your software while you turn on my hardware?"
--Hey, you're O positive too? Guess you're my type!
--Remember my species - you'll be classifying it later.
--Why don't you come over later so you can balance my equation?
--Asexual reproduction is for pansies.
--Let's get together later to converge.
--Hey, I'd like to sample your population.
--I think I need to work on the structural formula of your fatty acid.
--I'm just a cute piece of DNA who is still looking for that special transcription factor to help me unwind.
--Hey baby, can I be your DNA helicase? 'Cause I can unzip your genes

(note: I don’t think anyone legitimately uses these lines…don’t assume that we’re crazy nerds. Except, in the spirit of full disclosure, my roommate did buy a t-shirt from the Coop that says “Talk Nerdy To Me.”)

Before heading over the Harvard Bridge (yes, the bridge connecting MIT to Boston is called the Harvard Bridge; it's because it was built before MIT moved to its current location) to the Sheraton Back Bay hotel, most people picked up their dates and met up with a group of friends to take pictures. Here’s a picture of my group:

At 6 pm, hors hors d'oeuvres were served- bread, crackers, cheese, deli meat. Since most seniors are over 21, there was also a cash bar (but they checked IDs and gave wristbands at the door. For some reason they thought it would be a great idea to use blue and white striped plastic bands that made just about everyone’s outfit look tacky.) It was great to see almost the entire class in one place, I even ran into some people that I hadn’t seen since freshman year. I should also note that there were many non-senior present, both younger and older (for example, I had gone to the Senior Ball of 2006 as a sophomore.)

Here’s a picture of some of my Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters. Gwen, on the left, made her own dress! She’s very artistic, clearly, and I don’t see how she finds the time to sew dresses when she’s on the Varsity Crew team and a Civil Engineering major…

At 7:30, dinner was served and a nice jazz band played in the background. You were allowed to send in the names of people that you wanted to sit with at dinner, and the Senior Ball committee did their best to make everyone happy.

After dinner, there was a dancing… lots of dancing. The music selection was pretty interesting, usually we’re overwhelmed with a continuous stream of hip-hop songs that direct us to get low and throw our hands in the air. But for some reason, the songs alternated between Latin and 80s music. It was great at first, but we quickly exhausted our small cache of dance moves.

At about 11, everyone started to go their separate ways. A few of us decided to go to Top of the Hub for a plate of freshly baked cookies. They’re delicious and I’d highly recommend them, as well as the view from the 52nd floor of the Prudential Building. The weather wasn’t fantastic, but this was the view from a previous visit:

Alas, I am happy to report that Senior Ball was fabulous and I hope you’re all looking forward to going.

I think every MIT student has an intense love-hate relationship with four-day weekends. On one hand, it’s four days off in a row! Imagine the possibilities! You can go home, enjoy Boston, catch up with friends, and hey, maybe even catch up on work and sleep. And yet, there’s never really time for the latter two options; Tuesday night is always so horrendously stressful and work-filled that you vow to never, ever procrastinate again. As a senior, I thought I had learned my lesson, and so I worked on Sunday, was in lab all day on Monday, and worked on Tuesday morning, too. Yet, somehow, I spent all of Tuesday night trying to write a chemistry lab report and listening to “It Sucks To Be Me” from Avenue Q.

But there were several very cool events that happened over the weekend, which I definitely do not regret going to. The first event was the Inaugural Millennium Campus Conference, hosted by MIT’s Global Poverty Initiative (http://gpi.mit.edu/). Forty MIT students got together to organize this amazing three-day conference, which was attended by hundreds of people around the country. The conference schedule is posted on their website and the keynote speakers included Senator John Edwards, Henrietta Fore, Paul Farmer, Ira Magaziner, Jeff Sachs, and a concert by John Legend in MIT’s very own ice rink! If you have an interest in global health, many of these names may be familiar to you.

I was only able to go to two of the keynote speeches. The first was by Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist at Harvard. He founded an organization called Partners in Health, which has made ground-breaking changes in the way that people think about delivering health care in developing countries. He spends much of his time in Haiti and Rwanda, and considers Haiti to be his home. Overall, he’s incredibly inspiring and seems like a genuinely nice person who is helping so many people with tuberculosis and AIDS. At the conference, his talk was called “This is not a hobby: taking global poverty seriously.” He told us about the technological abyss between the developed and developing world and two myths that are preventing us from doing more good.

The Sunday morning keynote speaker was Ira Magaziner, who is currently the chairman of the Clinton Climate Initiative and the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS initiative. He served for six years as Senior Advisor to President Clinton for policy development, and before that he was a successful corporate strategist. Magaziner’s public policy experience is immense, and he talked about the Clinton Foundation and how they were able to bring the price of antiretroviral treatments down from over $1000 to about $100 (a 90% reduction) by changing the economics of drug production and partnering with many groups. Magaziner also talked about climate change and then gave us a set of five principles used to inform the Clinton Foundation (including, the need for respect for local leadership and the need to focus spending directly on people and programs). He ended with advice for us students, like “only unreasonable people accomplish big things because they piss people off.” That’s almost a direct quote =)

After hearing about those complex matters of life and death, it was a little strange to walk with my two friends to Fresh Pond, a reservoir about four miles northwest of MIT. It was a gorgeous day and gorgeous weekend in general. The picture below is actually of Spy Pond, which is ~1 mile away from Fresh Pond.

There were other exciting things that happened, but I’ve got to get back to making pretty pictures for my Senior Thesis… so I will leave you all for now.

It was 2:03 pm when I ripped out the carbon record of my experimental results and dashed out of the 5.310 (Experimental Chemistry) lab. Though the lab period is scheduled to end at 5 pm, today was the end of a four-day experiment and we had finished early. I had two minutes to get to Kresge auditorium, where Julie Gerberding, the director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), was scheduled to give a talk titled "Health System Transformation: Getting Our Money's Worth of 'Healthness.'" What is healthness (not a typo)? I had no idea, but ever since elementary school I have dreamed of working in the Biosafety Level 4 facilities of the CDC, and I wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to hear an infectious disease expert speak, let alone someone who is basically in charge of protecting the health of our country.

President Susan Hockfield gave an introduction to the talk, citing Gerberding’s experience in medicine and public health and that she was named #12 on Forbes Magazine’s “100 Most Powerful Women” list in 2005. Gerberding was also apparently involved with setting up the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing (a 10-year partnership between MIT and one of the biggest pharma companies in the world. )

The main problem that Gerberding and the CDC are trying to address is the fact that the U.S. is ranked #37 in the world for its health system (according to the World Health Organization.) This is appalling; we consider ourselves to be a world leader and we spend the most money on healthcare, yet our health outcomes are dismal! The current system spends an inordinate proportion of the money on people who are already sick, instead of preventing sickness from happening in the first place. Gerberding believes that protecting health is a strategic national investment, and that we’re at a tipping point where we can greatly increase the value of the healthcare system if we just invested a little more. Her vision is a “value-based health system.” She also emphasized that we need to find better measures of “healthiness” and we also need to reward good results in the healthcare arena. (If this interests you, consider taking 17.315 (Health Policy) or 17.317 (U.S. Social Policy). I’ve taken them both, they’re great!)

For those of you who think that changing the healthcare system is impossible, she gave the example of Kennedy’s 1961 space challenge. Even though sending men to the moon seemed utterly unattainable to most people, including NASA scientists, the challenge was met eight years and 59 days later. Gerberding hopes that by May 30, 2016 (the same # of days from today), America will become “a healthiest nation” (again, not a typo. She emphasized that all nations need to be healthy, we shouldn’t be the only ones.)

How does this apply to MIT? The end of the talk focused on “translating health discovery to health.” She emphasized that bench research (done at places like MIT) ends up becoming clinical practice. We need to use our knowledge of systems to evaluate the health outcomes of these clinical practices. Finally, we need to combat problems like obesity by examining a person’s environment. Otherwise, Gerberding warns, our children may have shorter life spans than we do (!)

I saw President Hockfield slip out of the auditorium at around 3:00, and the talk ended at about 3:05. A friend and I made the decision to skip the Q&A session and see if we could make it over to Tom Brokaw’s talk, which was scheduled to begin at 3:30 pm in the Stata Center. Off we went to follow Hockfield!

Of course, the line outside of the Stata lecture hall was very long (as opposed to Gerberding’s talk, which had plenty of seats to go around.) The MIT news page introduces the event best:

“An internationally respected journalist, Brokaw served as the NBC anchor for 21 years. He was the NBC White House correspondent during the Watergate scandal, advancing to lead NBC's coverage of primaries, national conventions and election nights in 1984, 1988 and 1992. Brokaw, 68, is the author of "The Greatest Generation" (1998) and "A Long Way from Home" (2002).

The Karl Taylor Compton Lecture Series was established in 1957 to honor the late Karl Taylor Compton, who served as president of MIT from 1930 to 1948 and chairman of the Corporation from 1948 to 1954. The purpose of the lectureship is to give the MIT community direct contact with the important ideas of our times and with people who have contributed much to modern thought.”

I got fourth row center seats and couldn’t wait to hear his familiar voice bellow from a few feet in front of me. Again, President Hockfield introduced the distinguished guest, and then Brokaw took the stage. He is the most poised speaker I have ever seen. With a pen in his right hand, he delivered his speech in a way that nobody else could. His pauses were perfectly placed, he emphasized just the right words and captivated everyone’s attention. I have to admit that I was so caught up with thinking about his gravitas that my mind wandered and I didn’t pay all that much attention to what he was saying =) I also didn’t take notes because I wanted to focus on watching him…just like on TV but better!

He began by making a joke that giving the Compton lecture was the only circumstance in which he would be admitted to MIT (according to Wikipedia, “Tom Brokaw dropped out of The University of Iowa, where he says he majored in "beer and co-eds" before receiving his B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion in 1962.”) He also joked about how he was afraid that he would also have to speak at Harvard (which he referred to as something along the lines of the’ lesser institution up the street’, which drew much applause) and how he has commiserated with Harvard dropouts like Bill Gates over not being accepted to the college. Anyway, he described how he grew up in South Dakota and then talked about some of his experiences as a journalist. He has met every president since Kennedy, conducted the first American TV interviews with Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin, and Yevgeny Primakov, reported the collapse of the Berlin Wall, covered the September 11th attacks, and so much more. He’s been in the midst of almost every conflict that you can imagine and he told some heartbreaking and inspiration stories. Basically, he’s the kind of person that you’d die to have dinner with (incidentally, some MIT students got to have lunch with him earlier today. They said it was amazing!)

The directly MIT-relevant part of his talk was about the role of information technology in our lives. He described the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as a media outlet, and the advent of the 24-hour news cycle. He warned us that we have to be careful about where we get our information and that, as consumers, our decisions can affect what is covered (like car chases vs. world conflict.) There was more that he discussed… but I’ll leave it to Bryan to fill in the gaps =)

I still can’t believe that they scheduled these lectures back-to-back. What happened to spreading the love? I should have added this to my “10 reasons why I love MIT”: the lectures! We get to hear some of the most amazing people in the world, it’s really a privilege. Incidentally, our graduation speaker will be Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace prize. I can’t wait!

P.S. Thanks for the Brokaw pict, Bryan!
P.P.S. An example of Brokaw in action:

1. The students
This one is a no-brainer. Thanks to the Admissions people, my classmates are a ridiculously talented bunch with the most diverse interests. There are the pre-meds and the hackers, the thespians and the band geeks, the gear heads and the tissue culture nerds. Everyone is involved with a million activities, which can be frustrating when you’re planning a meeting, but is generally amazing to witness. Additionally, no matter where you live or what your major is, MIT students can always bond over how much work that they have to do. It’s an instant conversation starter. I’m surprised that the song, "It sucks to be me," isn’t more popular (maybe because not enough people have seen Avenue Q.)

2. Rooms with a view and living in Beantown
I love the river. The majority of dorms are by the Charles River and in Baker, for example, 80% of rooms have a river view. I also can’t imagine a better a college town than Boston. For more about the community service and fun opportunities in Boston, read one of my previous entries here

The view from my sophomore year room in Next House (my Baker rooms have better views but I don't have pictures):

View from Baker roof:

3. Nobel laureates are a dime a dozen
According to the MIT website: “Seventy-one present and former members of the MIT community have won the Nobel Prize, including seven current faculty members: H. Robert Horvitz, medicine/physiology (2002); Wolfgang Ketterle, physics (2001); Richard R. Schrock, chemistry (2005); Phillip A. Sharp, medicine/physiology (1993); Samuel C. C. Ting, physics (1976); Susumu Tonegawa, medicine/physiology (1987); and Frank Wilczek, physics (2004).”
These Nobel laureates do not sit perched in ivory towers, there are many opportunities to meet them. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a talk by Carl Wieman (Physics, 2001).

Also, thanks to the UROP program, you can do research for all four years of college and who knows, maybe you'll get to join this elite Nobel club one day!

4. It’s a meritocracy
It doesn’t matter who your great-grandfather was or what year you are, as long as you’re qualified you’ll get a UROP as a freshman, become editor-in-chief of an MIT research journal as a sophomore, and become president of your dorm as a junior. This is a beautiful thing, and not one to dismiss quickly.

5. You have freedom to choose your classes
It is so cool to be able to take pretty much any class, in any department, at any school (MIT, Harvard, Museum of Fine Arts, Wellesley.) There are a few classes that are notoriously difficult to lottery into (like some Management classes offered through the Sloan school and some of the pre-med lab requirements), but in general you can’t whatever interests you. If you don’t feel like working too hard in the class, you can take it on pass/no record or as a “listener.” You can play a fun game by going to the subject listings and making a hypothetical schedule for yourself on WebSIS.

6. Freshman 1st semester pass/no record and IAP
This is proof that MIT is not out to get you. They’re so kind, in fact, that they give you an entire semester to acclimate to the pressure-cooker of MIT. For more info, read the entries on: "Why You Can’t Fail A Class Freshman Year."

I’ve probably talked your ears off about IAP, but it’s such a fun time to do whatever you want. This IAP, I worked on my senior thesis, explored Boston, took a wine tasting class, worked out at the gym, and saw several movies. My classmates traveled around the world, got experience in companies through externships, and shadowed doctors in hospitals. To read more, click here.

7. The professors care about you
One of the reasons that I didn’t go to University "X" was because I heard that the professors were much more concerned about their graduate students than the undergrads. At MIT, I would definitely say that this is not the case. When professors are teaching an undergraduate class, they really dedicate a lot of time to preparing the lectures (I heard that it takes ~10 hours to prepare a 1 hour lecture) and they hold weekly office hours where you can just walk into their office and barrage them with questions. Additionally, you’re automatically assigned to a professor who serves are your advisor, and they’re a tremendous resource.

8. People will assume you can fix their cars and build the next space telescope
This comic, from the Feb. 29, 2008 issue of The Tech, says it all...except the attention is not always negative (especially when it gets you a job)!

9. Everybody loves a nerdy joke (or at least they won’t pellet you with rotten tomatoes if you make one)
Re: my entry on math jokes: here

10. There’s always too much to do: the work hard/ play hard mentality
Sometimes, I’ve had so much work to do that it made me cry. That’s the reality. When it’s 2 am on a Thursday night and you still have half a problem set to do, it’s nice to know that the weekend is just a day away. I’ve never taken the time to count up how many emails I get about events on a particular weekend, but I’d venture a guess that the number is around twenty. There are hundreds of student groups that get money from MIT to host cool events. Consequently, the choices are dizzying.

The three professors in favor of the hamentashen were:
- Hazel Sive- Professor of Biology (sitting on the left)
- Ari Epstein- Terrascope lecturer (sitting in the middle)
- Erik Demaine- Professor Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (sitting on the right)

The three professors in favor of the latke were:
- Peter Dourmaskin- Professor of Physics (far left in picture below)
- Patrick Winston – Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science (middle left)
- Stephen Van Evera- Professor of Political Science (middle right)

The debate was moderated by Jeremy Wolfe, who used to teach a wildly popular Intro to Psychology class and is now a teacher in Concourse. (He's on the far left of the Team Hamentashen picture, standing up.)

After a humorous introduction by Wolfe and a Ramen noodle toss (“heads” won), it was decided that the Latke team would be the first to present. Prof. Dourmaskin stepped up to the plate and applied his physics knowledge to explain why latke is a “major food” and that Galileo discovered that a latke and potato fall to the ground at the same time.

Next was Dr. Ari Epstein, representing the Hamentashen team. In order to understand his slides, I’ll explain Terrascope. Terrascope is a project-based class where freshmen solve big problems like protecting the ecology of the Galapagos Islands. In this vein, Dr. Epstein had a hands-on demonstration. His assistants handed out paper plates to everyone, and the half of the lecture hall sitting on the “Hamentashen” side also received colorful stickers. The people with stickers were instructed to decorate their plates with stickers (representing filling that they wanted. Hamentashen can be filled with many things, like apricots, poppy seeds, Nutella, and cheese.) Everyone was then told to fold their paper to resemble a hamentashen. Clearly it was better to have a delicacy-filled hamentashen than something that resembled a dry, folded latke.

Next, Professor Winston showed off his technological prowess using a spiffy computer interface that he made. As shown below, he demonstrated the intelligence of a Turing machine that he programmed by asking it latke and hamentashen-related questions.

The onus was then back to the hamentashen team. Professor Sive defended the hamentashen using a systems biology approach. She showed single-celled diatoms that have a striking resemblance to hamentashen, showed the life cycle of the “organism” h.tashen, and then explored the genetic networks that build it. Biologists commonly study mutants to understand the function of genes, and thus she showed three hamentashen mutants. Of course, one mutant was the “arrested development” hamentashen, otherwise known as a latke. This mutant was extremely simple and boring, compared to the superior and highly evolved hamentashen.

Second to last was Professor Van Evera. As a Political Science professor in an election year, his defense of latkes resorted to significant mudslinging. At one point, he had the crowd chanting “USA, USA, Latke, Latke, USA!” The propaganda was palpable.

Finally, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor Erik Demaine used his linguistics and geometry prowess to explore the natural superiority of hamentashen. First, he argued to change the name of the debate from “Latke vs. Hamentashen” to “Hamentashen vs. Latke” (alphabetical order, it’s only fair!) Next, he discovered that an anagram of the word Hamentaschen is the phrase “enHances math.” Then, as someone who studies discrete and computational geometry, he argued that perfect circles don’t exist, and latkes are circular, thus there are no perfect latkes. His last argument was that circles don’t tile, so as you’re trying to cook them, you lose heat between the latkes and this contributes to global warming.

After a five minute brainstorming session, the teams provided their rebuttals. Team Latke had pre-prepared a rebuttal in the form of a video. They showed a researcher in the Artificial Intelligence lab giving a latke and hamentashen to a furry, cuddly robot. The robot embraced the latke and rejected the hamentashen.

In the end, a blind vote was taken and (not surprisingly) it was a tie. This ensures that there will be yet another debate next year, so hopefully some of you guys will get to see it. I assure you that the real thing was much better than my description…

So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw a poster advertising her upcoming MIT visit, which was sponsored by the MIT Literary Society. I literally jhumped for joy (ouch, yea, bad one.) The timing of the talk wasn’t great; it started at 7 pm and I have a class in the Longwood Medical Area (a 15-minute drive from MIT) that ends at 6:30 pm. I knew I wasn’t likely to get a good seat, but when I arrived at the Stata Center, there was this gigantic line of millions of people (ok, more like hundreds) and I realized I probably wouldn’t even get in. Sadly, even though the talk was held in one of the biggest lecture halls at MIT, there were far more fans than seats. Luckily, they had set up two TV screens right outside of the lecture hall, so I parked myself on Stata’s concrete floor and craned my neck to see the TV.

After a brief introduction, Lahiri began by reading one of the eight stories in her new book, Unaccustomed Earth, for forty minutes. I videotaped a small, random portion of it. To watch it, click here

My general impression was that the subject matter was very similar to her other stories, but it was still insightful, entertaining, and moving. The book comes out on April 4th, and she’ll actually be in Brookline, MA on April 3rd for a book signing.

I’m pretty bummed that I couldn’t meet her, or get her to sign the two books that I brought along, or even get to sit inside of the lecture hall. There was also an awesome tea and Q&A session that the Literature department held at 4:30 pm, where about thirty-five students got to speak with Lahiri and get their books signed. Sadly, I found out about it too late and I was in class anyway =(

Anyway, I'm offering yet another book recommendation. After you've read her books, go see the movie, The Namesake. It's not nearly as good as the novel (you know how it goes), but it's still worth watching.

You can also apply for this scholarship if you're a first or second year college student attending a school in Massachusetts, so keep it in mind!

In any case, MIT is known for being the breeding ground of the next big idea in science and engineering, but I thought that today I’d focus on a great idea by MIT Medical. The program is called “getfit@mit” and it is a 12-week, team-oriented fitness challenge that is open to the entire MIT community. Teams are comprised of five to eight people, and teams compete based on the average number of minutes exercised each week. The first week’s goal was 150 minutes/week and it gradually increases to 300 minutes/week. We're now into the 5th week and the goal is 210 minutes. Teams that meet their weekly goals are entered into weekly drawings for prizes.

Summer is just one (or two) blizzards away, so my friends and I decided that we should stop complaining about our laziness and actually do something about it. Our first challenge was to come up with a team name, we decided on “I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing.” Week 1’s competition was for the Best Team name, and we figured that we’d at least be in the top five. Sadly, our sense of humor didn’t align with the judges’. Out of the five finalists, the participants voted on the winner, which ended up being “Buns’n Burners.” I guess you can’t really go wrong with a nerdy name.

The getfit website (http://getfit.mit.edu/) has a function where you can enter your minutes and see other teams’ results. Team Blatieshoe is in the lead; the group of figure skaters have clocked an average of 6,360 minutes per week (with 8 team members.) One team member reported exercising 1,270 minutes last week, that’s three hours a day, seven days a week! I’m also proud of the 5th place team, called “AXO Seniors,” who have an average of 3,980 minutes per week (with 8 team members.) They’re my sorority sisters, so I know that their minutes are legit =). (Thanks to Kim Shive for the extra info on Team Blatieshoe!)

There are two things about this program that I think make it a good idea. The first is that you can see the minutes entered by your team members. So, you can hold team members accountable by sending emails like “Get to the gym!” and when that doesn’t work, “Get to the gym… seriously!” The second is that it’s team-based and encourages group exercise. My team has had a few (semi-embarrassing) basketball games (with very low scores), but at least we had fun and broke a sweat.

In any case, hopefully you all will be inspired by MIT Medical’s idea and start a fitness team of your own. It’ll give you a much deserved break from integrals.

Given the hype surrounding the potential applications of nanotechnology, it’s quite understandable that many students are interested in studying the field in college. At a recent admitted student event (*shout out to Nate and his friend Alicia*), I spoke with one high school senior (not Nate…or his friend…) who was concerned that MIT did not offer any majors or minors in nanotechnology. Rest assured that there are countless opportunities to learn about nanotech. Given the vague definition of the term (think of how many things are on the nanoscale) and its interdisciplinary nature, you can be in practically any science/engineering major and get exposure to the field. I’ll try to give a brief overview of some nanotech-related classes and research experiences.

Just to whet your appetite, MIT has some of the best nanotech research around!
On the bio-nanotech side:
Yesterday, in my class called “Designing and Sustaining Technology Innovation for Global Health Practice,” (HST.939) we had a lecture by the world-famous biomedical engineer and MIT professor Robert Langer. He’s won almost every science/engineering award available, and is famous for his use of polymers for controlled drug delivery. If listening to him speak about his research doesn’t get you jazzed up about biomedical research, then I don’t know what will.

My senior thesis project is on nanoparticles and I’m doing it in the Lab for Multiscale Regenerative Technology, led by Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia. She has done really cool work with designing injectable multifunctional nanoparticles for cancer treatment, among other things. My previous UROP was in the BioInstrumentation Lab and there is nanotech research going on there, too. For example, one grad student is developing polymer nanowires for implantation in the brain.

Within the Biological Engineering department, researchers in the Lang Lab use a laser “tractor-beam” to manipulate single molecules and cells (and I had used a similar setup to manipulate and assemble nanowires at the National Institute of Standards and Technology). The Hamad-Schifferli Group is attaching DNA and proteins to nanoparticles with applications in therapy and disease diagnosis.

On the physical science side:

Professor Mildred Dresselhaus, Institute Professor and Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, was a carbon nanotube pioneer. She is now “developing innovative materials for controlling temperatures that could lead to substantial energy savings by allowing more efficient car engines, photovoltaic cells and electronic devices.” (News Office) MechE professor Gang Chen is trying to increase energy efficiency using nanotechnology. Professor Angela Belcher of the Material Science department combines chemistry, biology, material science, and electrical engineering to engineer biomaterials for electronic and medicinal applications. MIT also has an Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology that is led by Material Science professor Ned Thomas.

Hopefully you get the picture…the list above is by no means exhaustive and it’s absolutely astounding to see the plethora of cutting-edge research happening on campus. I think the most valuable way to explore the field is to get a UROP in one of the many labs that do nanotech research. If you’re looking for a more formal education, there are many classes available. The majors with the most obvious connection to nanotechnology are Mechanical Engineering, Material Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Biology, and Biological Engineering.

There are categories of classes that fall under “MEMS and Nanotechnology” within each of the following majors, such as...

Within the Mechanical Engineering major:
-2.370 Molecular Mechanics: Introduction to the fundamentals of molecular modeling in engineering, with emphasis on mechanical engineering applications. Discussion of molecular approaches to modern nanoscale engineering problems. Introduction to molecular simulation.
-2.674 Micro/Nano Engineering Laboratory (New): Concepts, ideas and enabling tools of nano science and engineering taught through projects which include learning about MEMS, microfluidics, nanomaterials and characterization tools such as SEM, TEM, STM and AFM. Designed for undergraduates who want to pursue study in micro/nano technology.
-2.372J Design and Fabrication of MEMS: Introduction to microsystem design.
-2.391J Submicrometer and Nanometer Technology: Surveys techniques to fabricate and analyze submicron and nanometer structures, with applications. Undergraduates with permission of instructor.

Within the Material Science and Engineering major:
-3.052 Nanomechanics of Materials and Biomaterials: Latest scientific developments and discoveries in the field of nanomechanics, i.e. the deformation of extremely tiny (10-9 meters) areas of synthetic and biological materials.
-3.063 Polymer Physics: The mechanical, optical, and transport properties of polymers are presented with respect to the underlying physics and physical chemistry of polymers in melt, solution, and solid state.
-3.155J Micro/Nano Processing Technology (Same subject as 6.152J): Introduces the theory and technology of micro/nano fabrication.

Within the Electrical Engineering department:
6.701 Introduction to Nano Electronics (New): Quantization, wavefunctions and Schrodinger?s equation. Introduction to electronic properties of molecules, carbon nanotubes and crystals. Energy band formation and the origin of metals, insulators and semiconductors. Ballistic transport, Ohm’s law, ballistic versus traditional MOSFETs, fundamental limits to computation.

Within the Biological Engineering department (basically every class involves nanoscale phenomena…):
20.342 Molecular Structure of Biological Materials: Basic molecular structural principles of biological materials. Molecular structures of various materials of biological origin, including collagen, silk, bone, protein adhesives, GFP, self-assembling peptides. Molecular design of new biological materials for nanotechnology, biocomputing and regenerative medicine.
20.361J Molecular and Engineering Aspects of Biotechnology” Biological and bioengineering principles underlying the development and use of recombinant proteins as therapeutic drugs; fundamentals of therapeutic protein action, including cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions and intracellular signaling pathways; classes of protein therapeutics; post-translational processing and secretion of proteins; gene cloning and expression in mammalian cells; physiology of cell growth and in vitro cultivation; site-specific mutation of proteins; protein pharmacology and delivery.

Below are just a few highlights of the resources and leadership opportunities that await you when you come to MIT:

Student Life Services

The Division of Student Life promotes an MIT experience that is enriching, exciting, and fun. For many years, Student Life Programs (SLP) @ W20-549 has been the central office where students can learn about the various organizations on campus, how to plan large events, get funding, and how to get involved in student activities.

http://web.mit.edu/slp/involved/leadership.shtml

Student Government

The Undergraduate Association (UA) is composed of elected students who represent students in matters concerning the Institute. The goals of the UA include planning undergraduate events, voicing student concerns, and serving as a link between the student body and the Institute administration. The UA also includes the class councils and various committees like the Course Evaluation Guide Committee, the Judicial Review Board, the Associate of Student Activities, etc in which students can become involved.

http://ua.mit.edu/

Service is leadership.

The Public Services Center

When we think of student leadership, we often think of elected positions in student groups or the student government. However, few realize that leadership isn’t just about having an elected title; it’s also about understanding diversity or taking the initiative to make a change in the community. The MIT Public Services Center offers students the opportunity to volunteer in its numerous community projects and also provides fellowships for students to travel around the world to apply their knowledge and talents in underserved communities. Learn more about the Public Services Center and read more about amazing students who took the initiative to launch projects at http://web.mit.edu/mitpsc/.

There are plenty of opportunities in the living groups.

Residence Hall Government/Resident Based Advising

What will you do with a $10,000 budget? You can plan a cruise, buy new lounge gadgets, see the Blue Man Group, go apple picking, go out for an outrageous dinner, the possibilities are infinite. As a member of the Residence Hall Government, you will have the power to make decisions that directly impact the living space and social life in your dorm. If you live in McCormick or Next House, you can become a Residence Based Advisor, helping faculty lead freshmen seminars and serving as a source of wisdom for the young and impressionable.

Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups

MIT recognizes 37 fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups (FSILGs). The Interfraternity Council (IFC), the Panhellenic Council, and the Living Group Council represent the government of these living groups, respectively. Each group is “self governing, manages all its operations and maintenance, and develops its own academic, social, membership, recreational, and external policies and programs” (MIT Course Catalog). The living groups offer unique experiences in volunteerism and leadership.

Orientation Leaders and Associate Advisors

Some of the earliest upperclassmen you’ll meet (other than ones in your dorm) are the orientation leaders and associate advisors. Orientation leaders guide you through the first hectic week of orientation programs and meetings after your arrival on campus, and associate advisors guide you academically through your first year, and possibly beyond. Many students also choose to return to their pre-orientation programs as counselors. These peer-mentoring roles are ways to meet the incoming class and to give back to the MIT community by sharing with the new students wise words of wisdom for survival at MIT.

MIT offers many workshops, programs, and classes aimed at developing and honing leadership skills.

http://web.mit.edu/uinfo/opps/leadership.html

LeaderShape:

LeaderShape is a week-long IAP program open to all undergraduates. The program emphasizes community building and leadership development experiences through group discussions, team building, and faculty facilitators. It’s a few weeks away from MIT for students to take an introspective look at their values, skills, and dreams. Students who have participated in the program say it’s one of the best things they’ve done at MIT!

http://web.mit.edu/leadershape/

Community Catalyst Leadership Program

This is a new program for the junior class launched in 2007. Assisted by coaches who are alumni leaders in industry or the Institute, the program’s goals are to help students identify their unique leadership skills and potentials and to connect them with mentors who will guide them in their development. This year long program offers workshops on topics like decision-making models, understanding, communicating, etc. It culminates in a private dinner at the Gray House, home of President Hockfield where students will hear her views on leadership and participate in round-table discussions with alumni and senior administrators.

http://web.mit.edu/communitycatalyst/

Student Ambassadors Program

Sponsored by the MIT Alumni Association, Student Ambassadors serve as liaisons between the MIT student community and the alumni and prospective students. They volunteer during campus preview weekends, family weekends, and various reunion events as hosts, tour guides, and sources of information about student life at MIT. Through the Alumni Association, students interact with campus VIPs and alumni who may become important career contacts. Through the events, ambassadors develop communication and other interpersonal skills.

http://alum.mit.edu/ccg/students/ambassador/index.html

MIT Leadership Training Institute

In high school, it’s easy to become the president of a club simply for saying that you were the president, without really knowing the meaning behind the role or having the skills to make a difference. This new program pairs MIT student mentors with high schools students to teach motivated high school students the real meaning of leadership and the importance of teamwork, self-reflection, and self-identity in leadership roles. It’s a great way to mentor and impact students in the Cambridge and Boston areas.

http://www.mitlti.org/

Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP)

This IAP program, geared for sophomores, introduces students to the art of finding and succeeding at internships. By spring of sophomore year (after you’ve learned something at MIT), many students will be in a frenzy trying to find summer internships, and many companies will be eager to hire. But how do you talk to companies at the career fair? What should your resume look like? What should you do once you’ve gotten to your internship? UPOP staff will help you in this week-long 9-5 workshop answer these questions and develop your networking skills and job-side mannerisms.

http://web.mit.edu/engineering/upop/

The MIT Sloan Leadership Center:

The MIT Sloan School of Management also has many resources related to leadership development, in fact, a whole center who is “dedicated to advancing the extraordinary knowledge, perspectives and experiences that enable leaders to transform their passion into action.” In other words, they will help you become future business and research leaders. While Sloan resources are often thought to be only for graduate students of the School of Management, undergraduates are offered the full services and also a selection of classes aimed at improving leadership skills and developing interests in business/entrepreneurship.

http://mitleadership.mit.edu/.

From the president of the UA to the orientation leaders to the MIT student in Ecuador building a computer center in a needy neighborhood, we as MIT students have a commitment to make a difference in our communities through leadership. So get involved. Challenge yourself to experience leadership @ MIT and graduate not just as scientists and engineers, but as leaders with the skills ready to take on high positions in all organizations. After all, who wants a Harvard grad to tell us what to do?

The requirements for the Senior Thesis are surprisingly flexible. It can be as short as fifteen pages or longer than fifty. The research can be performed in your Junior or Senior year. The topic must be relevant to your major, but can be pretty much anything that you and your thesis advisor (who is usually a faculty member or research staff person) agree upon. But in any case, it must be completed by the end of your senior year and it will be permanently archived by the MIT Libraries.

I did a little bit of web surfing to compose a (brief, and possibly incomplete) list of some majors that require a thesis: Mechanical Engineering, Material Science and Engineering, Architecture (optional), Chemistry (optional, but strongly encouraged for graduate school preparation), Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (requirement can be fulfilled by an “Advanced Project”), Physics (if you are 8B), Urban Planning, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science, Economics, Literature, and Nuclear Engineering. For other majors, like biology, there are rigorous lab class requirements like the 30-unit “Project Lab” taken during Junior year that is substituted for a thesis (# of units = projected # of hours of class, lab, and homework a week). Regardless of your major, you’re going to endure some sort of challenging culminating activity.

Have no fear; you will not be released into the wild, unpredictable territory of “Theses research” without a guide. Most people take a 3-unit thesis prep class in the fall or IAP of their senior year. The classes usually focus “on the communication problems encountered in researching and writing a thesis. The class is designed to be 1/3 thesis writers anonymous, 1/3 writing and speaking skills, and 1/3 thesis organization skills. The writing and speaking assignments culminate in a thesis proposal and an oral presentation.” (2.ThA website) Some people choose to begin their research in the fall, IAP, or even the beginning of second term. Regardless, you should have a thesis advisor picked out by the middle of the fall term of your Senior year.

I began working in the Lab for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies in the fall of my senior year, and I’m spending most of my IAP here in the lab. Designing nanoparticles for cancer imaging is the name of my game.

My friend Shaye is a senior in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (Course 12). He started his senior thesis research this past summer on the Big Island of Hawaii and is continuing it from his lab at MIT. He is studying asteroids in the main belt of the Solar System and looking for trends in their mineralogy that could lead to a better understanding of Near-Earth asteroid source regions, meteorite source regions, and the overall cosmochemistry of the Solar System. We like to think that he is keeping the Earth safe from destruction from outer space. Shaye’s main thesis advisor is a research scientist from the Institute for Astronomy at the Univeristy of Hawaii, but he also has a faculty advisor in his department that acts as the MIT representative for the thesis work. Everyone needs an MIT thesis advisor, but they can also have a primary research advisor from anywhere in the world!

That's all for now, feel free to ask questions, though I wouldn't stress out over this too much... yet.

On Sunday when I heard there was going to be yet another snow storm hitting Boston, I called up my friend Dan '10. "Did you hear about the snowstorm tomorrow? You know what this means….Battle #3!". Dan and I are in the midst of a multi-part snow battle. The first two battles involved grape throwing, running around the basements, playing in the secret ninja courtyard, and most importantly lots of snow! By the time I woke up the next morning 6 inches of beautiful packing snow graced the MIT campus - ready to be made into snow fighting artillery. When I met up with Dan in Killian court we decided to make a giant snowman in front of the great dome instead. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.

First, we had a little competition to see who could roll the bigger snowball. Then we teamed up to roll the base which Dan insisted had to be at least as tall as me. To my surprise, creating this giant snowball was just as exhausting as a snowball fight! There we were, in t-shirts, sweating and struggling to push the giant ball back towards the center of Killian. We were getting pretty tired and literally losing momentum. Sometimes the ball would roll back over me after we attempted to budge it from rest. Luckily, a large group of Korean tourists ran out into the courtyard to enjoy the snowy scenery, and a few even lent us their strength to push our snowball base.

The next task was getting the middle portion of the snowman up on top of the base. After several failed attempts to lift the beast and attempting to create a snow staircase, we realized that we were going to need more helping hands. I pleaded with random people walking through lobby 10 for help, and ran into my friend Marie '11. While I was off rolling the snowball for the head, Dan and Marie came up with an ingenious idea. There are these tall and thin green stakes connected by ropes surrounding Killian court. Using just three stakes, we built a makeshift ramp on the side of the 5 feet tall base. Using our engineering skills and atlas-like strength we finally managed to push the middle snowball on top of the base. None of us could believe that it actually worked, and more importantly that it stayed!

Ghassan G, who stopped by earlier to take some pictures, returned and helped us stick the head on top of the now 9 feet tall monster. How did we get the head on? Simple, Ghassan stood on a chair. Finally, Marie's friend, Eva '11 helped us shape, decorate, and put the final touches on our giant snowman! After 3 hours of intense working out, some thinking, and plenty of fun we had just made the biggest snowman of our lives.

Julia '08 and Dan '10 roll their massive snowballs across Killian Court.

Marie '11 hands Ghassan G' some rocks for the snowman's eyes.

Dan '10, Julia '08, Snowman, Eva '11, Marie '11, Ghassan G.

The final product.

That dreadful feeling was inappropriate today, as temperatures were around an extremely pleasant 65 degrees! My classmates and I took advantage of the warm spell by being outside as much as possible. I saw a group of friends having a picnic outside of East Campus (complete with a guitar, basket of food, and blanket), and I was pretty envious. I chose to read my book (Giving, by Bill Clinton) on the roof of Baker, take pictures (I included some below), and go for a run.

Boston is known for being a very walkable city, and it’s even more runable! It’s no sweat to get to some of the area’s most fun and picturesque spots, including the Museum of Science, Harvard Square, Fresh Pond, the Navy Yard, Newbury Street, the Emerald Necklace, the Harbor, and the Esplanade. The Charles River is only a few feet away from most of the dorms, and once you’re there, you can take countless loops around and along it. Just want to work off some stress? Do the Harvard-B.U. Bridge Loop (2.7 miles). Training for a marathon, like two blogger alums? Run the Harvard-Mt. Auburn Street Loop (14.1 miles)…twice! For a map, click here. Mitra had also written an entry about running, found here.

Here’s a little snapshot of the southern view from the Baker roof (click to see a bigger version):

And here’s the northern view. It’s game time! Can you identify all of the numbered buildings?

Finally, we had a beautiful sunset! (Sorry for the low image quality...)

The first big snowfall of the year has coincided with the first of four final exam study days. From my desk at Hayden Library, I watched the snow fall throughout the afternoon. (It reminded me of something a family friend told me when I first got into MIT…when I complained about Boston’s cold winters, he said that “it’s always warm in the library.” He was right! Even better, the nice library staff gave us cookies, coffee, and tea.)

There are about five inches of the snow on the ground right now, and traffic is at an absolute standstill. We had an event tonight for the American Medical Students Association, and it took 2 ½ hours for the food to arrive. Every major road seems to be jammed. My friend said that in the 20 minutes that it took her to walk across the Harvard Bridge (which ironically connects MIT to Boston), the traffic only moved two car lengths.

College students, rejoice! We are incredibly spoiled, as we neither have to drive nor shovel the sidewalks (that is, if you live in the dorms. As Gwen '08 pointed out, students living in Fraternities, Sororities, or Independent Living Groups, FSILGs, do have to fulfill their shoveling duties.) Here are some pictures from this evening:

I'm ready for the snow...

Many students will come back to MIT around January 7 for the start of Independent Activities Period (IAP). *Cue “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”* During IAP, students get to enjoy MIT without worrying about problem sets. Well, that’s not 100% true, there are some for-credit classes that do have tests and homework, but they’re definitely the minority. (For more about IAP, see my former entries on IAP 2007 and 2006.

So what do MIT students do with one month of freedom? I’ll be working on my senior thesis project, taking a wine tasting class, hopefully making some things in the Hobby Shop, and checking things off of my “101 Things to Do Before Graduating From MIT” list. I e-mailed my sorority and asked to hear about their plans. Here’s what they said:

“This IAP I was selected to participate in the January Scholars in France program, an incredible program for students who have shown a strong commitment to studying French at MIT. On January 6, I will be flown out to Paris along with 7 other MIT students. Together with an awesome professor with whom I've taken two courses, we will spend two weeks in Paris trying out all sorts of restaurants, visiting museums, attending theatrical performances, and more, all entirely paid for by this program. Two French guides who really know the ins-and-outs of Paris have worked with this program for several years now to give the January Scholars insider's tours around certain "quartiers" in Paris. I'm also particularly excited about this trip because a French penpal I've been writing to since my freshman year in high school will be taking a few days off from school so we can finally meet and spend some time together in Paris. All the January Scholars will be staying in a hotel in the Latin quarter. The theme of this year's program is "The People of Paris," so we'll all spend some time on our own exploring Paris and trying to better appreciate and understand certain distinctly French characteristics that interest us. This is not a for-credit assignment, just a fun project to help enrich this amazing experience.”- Emilienne, ‘09

“I'm doing the followings this IAP:
week 1: Women's Initiative...An MIT alum and I are traveling to Fredericksburg, VA to talk to middle/high school girls about female engineers.
week 2: UPOP...intense engineering work place skills building
week3-4: UROP in Strano Lab doing researching single walled carbon nanotube complexes for solar energy conversion-synthetic analogs to natural processes.
Last year, I went to LeaderShape, which was amazing and eye opening :)”- Ploy ‘10

“I'm going to astronomy field camp at Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, AZ (12.411) and then backpacking through the Grand Canyon! all with course 12 (the Earth and Planetary Science department)! the entire IAP!!” –Jennifer ‘10

“This IAP, I'm going to Tanzania with my D-Lab (an intro to Development) Team. We'll be working with NGOs, orphanages, wheelchair workshops, and local villages to introduce appropriate technology to address the basic needs of low-income households. In many ways, we are working on helping developing countries by working from the bottom up. My team will be introducing the charcoal project (this process burns agricultural waste to make charcoal, which is an inexpensive way to supply cooking fuel while limiting the deforestation in Tanzania), the pedal power grinder (as maize is a major food crop, this pedal power grinder will turn a typical two-hour chore into a 10 minute process, generating a supplementary income to wheelchair manufacturers and giving more time for women to devote to other enterprises), and the universal nut sheller (this device can shell peanuts, shea nuts, coffee in large quantities, increasing the potential enterprises for local farmers).”- Jodie ‘09

“During IAP, I am taking 6.470, which is a web programming competition/class. There are 10 days of lecture in which we learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX, server-side scripting, databases, SQL, and how to put them together. For the following 7 days (and nights), we program constantly until we're ready to present our final product. Besides the intensity of 6.470, I plan on taking relaxing P.E. classes like pilates and advanced swimming.”- Britni, ‘11

Tina '09 sent me these pictures that she took a few IAPs ago. They built a wooden sled and race it down the steps of 77 Massachusetts Avenue (the main entrance to MIT):

Last week, I also met with two groups of M.I.T. students who blew me away. One was the M.I.T. Energy Club, which was founded in 2004 by a few grad students discussing energy over beers at a campus bar. Today it has 600-plus members who have put on scores of events focused on building energy expertise among M.I.T. students and faculty, and “fact-based analysis,” including a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Then I got together with three engineering undergrads who helped launch the Vehicle Design Summit — a global, open-source, collaborative effort, managed by M.I.T. students, that has 25 college teams around the world, including in India and China, working together to build a plug-in electric hybrid within three years. Each team contributes a different set of parts or designs. I thought writing for my college newspaper was cool. These kids are building a hyper-efficient car, which, they hope, “will demonstrate a 95 percent reduction in embodied energy, materials and toxicity from cradle to cradle to grave” and provide “200 m.p.g. energy equivalency or better.” The Linux of cars!

They’re not waiting for G.M. Their goal, they explain on their Web site — vds.mit.edu — is “to identify the key characteristics of events like the race to the moon and then transpose this energy, passion, focus and urgency” on catalyzing a global team to build a clean car. I just love their tag line. It’s what gives me hope:
“We are the people we have been waiting for.”

The choice to go to college right after high school was probably an easy decision for you (at least it was for me.) Hopefully you have received assistance from your teachers, guidance counselors, parents, and maybe even these blogs, so the decision to apply was not a daunting one.

In four years, you will be in a completely different situation. As “crusty’ seniors, my classmates and I are at a point where we have to make a lot of decisions- big, complicated, and sometimes expensive decisions. The options are endless: go to more school (graduate, medical, law, business), get a “real” job, take a year off to figure things out, work for a non-profit organization (Teach for America, Peace Corps), work in a lab, etc. It can be a very confusing and frustrating time, since these decisions will make a profound impact on the rest of our lives. My classmates and I must think long and hard about what our next step will be. Suddenly, high school looks so easy, since almost everyone knew the next step was college, it was a just a matter of choosing which one.

But, I’m happy to report that this can also be a very exciting time for college seniors. Just like you will undoubtedly receive a college acceptance letter, many of us are receiving job and graduate school offers. It’s with a bit of trepidation that I say that the next 9-10 years of my life are essentially planned. I will be spending the next two years at Oxford University thanks to the Rhodes Scholarship, followed by 7-8 years in an MD/PhD program. Some of the details are still fuzzy, for example I still need to apply for degree programs at Oxford (I’m hoping to studying Integrated Immunology and Global Health Science), and I haven’t committed to a specific MD/PhD program yet, but the general plan is in place.

So how did this all happen? I’m still trying to figure that out myself, actually. The easy answer is that I made a decision about what I want my life to be like and how I will try to make a difference in the world within my field. Then I applied to programs that seemed like they would help me to accomplish these goals. The rest of this entry is a brief summary of the admissions processes for medical school and the Rhodes Scholarship.

Medical School: Most people don’t realize that the medical school admissions process starts early; the primary application (equivalent to the college Common Application) is released in the beginning of June. So if you want to enter medical school right after college, you have to make that decision by the middle of your sophomore year, to allow time to get a pre-medical advisor and get letters of recommendation. (By the way…I’m writing this on the train and it just broke down!!! Ahh, Amtrak, you are the bane of my existence.) I had all of my secondary applications submitted by the beginning of September, and I began getting interview invitations shortly afterwards. (Unlike the college application process, med school interviews require you to travel to the school itself. MD-only programs have one day of interviews, MD/PhD programs generally have two.). The traveling is both a perk and a fault. Because of one of my interviews, I got to go to California for the first time. The interviews are always scheduled on a weekday, which meant that I’ve had to miss classes and devise creative strategies to complete all of my schoolwork remotely. But hey, I’m not complaining.

Rhodes Scholarship: Studying at Oxford has been something that I’ve wanted to do since I spent a week there through a program I was involved with in high school called Youth Leaders International. So far I hadn’t gotten to study abroad (there were too many neat things to do at MIT) so it seemed like a great opportunity to get a different perspective on the practice of medicine and research process. When it came time to seriously considering applying, I checked out the bios of the past scholars and found them to be quite intimidating, as everyone seemed to have accomplished supernatural feats. Even so, I applied with the encouragement and support of the MIT Distinguished Scholarship Office.

The Rhodes application is (dare I say) even more rigorous than the medical school application, in some respects: eight letters of recommendation, 1,000 word personal essay, list of activities and honors, and transcript. First, the application materials have to be turned in to MIT. Next, there are several interviews with graduate students, alumni, and faculty, and then MIT chooses a group of students to give institutional endorsements to. These students formally submit their applications to a Rhodes district. There are 16 districts in the country, and you can apply to either the district where you went to college, or where your permanent residence is. A month or so later, each district invites 12-14 students for interviews, which usually consists of an informal cocktail party on Friday night and a formal panel interview on Saturday. Finally, each district chooses 2 students to win the award, and the winners are announced in person on Saturday evening.

As you can see, the applications don’t end when you get to college. Try to enjoy the process, and remember that you will be fine no matter what. Best of luck to you all! We’ve all been in your shoes, and we’re living proof that there is life after the college admissions process. Feel free to post any questions and I’ll try to address them in my next entry.

And finally, I’d like to extend a big, BIG thank you to everyone who responded so positively to Matt’s entry about me (and of course to Matt for writing it.) I really appreciate it!!!

I’m ashamed to say that I had received an email from Paul ’11 many weeks ago that asked about my choice of major (a sub specialty of Mechanical Engineering called Course “2A”) and I’ve only now been able to respond. Better late than never, no?

Background Info:

As you may know, asking an MIT student what they’re majoring in may result in a numerical response (or even a string of numbers.) For example,
--Laura might say “2”, meaning Mechanical Engineering
--Evan might respond with “6”, meaning Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
--Anthony would say “11”, Urban Studies and Planning
--I know someone that would respond “Majoring in 5 and 7, with minors in 9 and 14”. Translation: “I’m crazy.” Well, more accurately, it means that this person is double majoring in Chemistry and Biology, with minors in Brain and Cognitive Science and Economics.

The (imaginary) MITese – English dictionary has entries for Courses 1-24 (with the exception of Course 19 (which was called Metallurgy from 1937-1940, Meteorology from 1946-1981, and Meteorology & Physical Oceanography from 1981-1983) and Course 23 (which used to be Modern Languages, then Foreign Literature & Linguistics.)) A history of the evolution of course numbers can be found here. It’s actually pretty fun to look at.

Anyway… as if the fact that the majors, buildings, AND classes are all numbered (e.g. “I have 5.111 at 12:00 in 10-250”) wasn’t enough, several of the majors have letters or numbers tacked onto them as well. For example:

-The flavors of Course 1 are 1-A (Design your own Civil and Environmental Engineering degree), 1-C (Civil Engineering), and 1-E (Environmental Engineering)
-The flavors of Course 2 are 2 (Mechanical Engineering), 2-A (Design your own Mechanical Engineering curriculum), or 2-OE (Mechanical and Ocean Engineering.)
-The flavors of Course 6 are 6-1 (Electrical Engineering), 6-2 (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), or 6-3 (Computer Science and Engineering.)
-The flavors of Course 10 are 10 (Chemical Engineering), 10-B (Chemical-Biological Engineering), and 10-C (Design your own Chemical Engineering curriculum).

As an applicant, you are by no means expected to understand this alphabet soup. Once you get here, though, you’re forced to dip your spoon in and search for the right letter (or combination of letters) that suits your interest. This can be a rather difficult task that my fellow bloggers have covered extensively. I’ve compiled some of the links at the bottom of this entry, and rest assured that almost everyone ends up switching majors or minors at some point.

Why I chose to be 2-A (Design your own Mechanical Engineering major with a concentration in Biomedical Engineering) with Pre-med:

I came into MIT knowing that I liked two things: building stuff and the human body (and what can go wrong with it.) I learned how to use a power drill and table saw at the ripe age of 10, and I loved making robots. So, the decision to major in Mechanical Engineering was pretty easy. I thought that an undergraduate degree in MechE would provide me with a solid yet broad engineering background that I could apply to either medical or graduate school. My impression was that studying engineering taught you how to solve problems, and isn’t that a prerequisite for most careers? I also thought that MechE would train me to think analytically about systems – both how to design them and how to fix them when they “break.” Since the human body seemed to be a web of interconnected systems (circulatory, muscular, digestive, immune, etc.), I thought this training would make me a great doctor, as well.

Next, I chose to design my own Mechanical Engineering major through the 2-A degree program instead of taking the traditional full Course 2 route. My reasoning was that the full Course 2 degree program has a pretty defined structure with many required classes. I wanted to learn about material properties, control systems, robotics, manufacturing, and thermodynamics, but I also wanted to have time to take my pre-med requirements (see my previous pre-med entry and explore other classes. To get the flexibility that I wanted (and needed), I enrolled in the 2-A program. This enabled me to take the 9-10 core Mechanical Engineering classes, while taking 6-7 classes in my self-defined concentration. Here’s some info from the MechE website:

“A significant part of the 2-A curriculum consists of electives chosen by the student to provide in-depth study of a field of the student’s choosing. A wide variety of popular concentrations are possible in which well-selected academic subjects complement a foundation in mechanical engineering and general Institute requirements. Some examples of potential concentrations include biomedical engineering and pre-medicine; energy conversion engineering; engineering management; product development; robotics; technology policy and pre-law; sustainable design and engineering; and architecture and building technology. The ME faculty have developed specific recommendations in some of these areas; details are given on other pages in this web site.” (MechE site)

My concentration is in Biomedical Engineering (BME), which has since become a minor. Several of the classes for my BME minor also fulfill my pre-med requirements.

But now, the choices are more plentiful than ever. The Department of Biological Engineering (Course 20) has been developed recently, and it offers some really cool classes, some of which I’ve taken through my BME minor. If you’re thinking of being pre-med but want to get an engineering background too, then Course 20 is an awesome option. If you want to engineer proteins, learning about cell systems, and model processes of a cell, then consider Course 20. If you want to learn about forces, model mechanical systems, study fluids, and build robots and other cool stuff, then consider MechE. Chemical Engineering, or Course 10, is sort of at the intersection, and you should look at the course requirements and talk to professors if you’re incredibly confused. You’ll also be assigned to a faculty advisor who can talk you through the process.

If you’ve made it this far, you get a gold star. Now that I have a few months left at the Institute and I’ve gone through a significant number of med school interviews, I’m really happy about my choice to be 2-A with BME. I think it’s prepared me really well to think critically, and I’ve had the opportunity to take cool classes outside of my major (like Computational Neuroscience, Analysis of Biomolecular Systems, Linguistics, and more.) (On a side note, so far, I haven’t met another Mechanical Engineering applicant on the interview circuit.)

Helpful advice from my fellow bloggers:

Bryan on why he chose to be 2A: here

Mollie’s thoughts on Biology (Course 7): here

Jessie’s advice on Physics (Course 8): here

Mollie’s info on Brain and Cognitive Science (Course 9): here

More on Course 9:
here

Sam’s advice on what Chemical Engineering (Course 10) is: here

Matt’s info on Management Science (Course 15): here

Mitra’s pre-med advice: here

Laura’s adventures in choosing a major:here

Mollie’s advice on choosing a major:here

Berry may not know the exact ingredients in the special sauce that makes MIT such a mecca of talent, but it’s clear that he can’t get enough of its taste. He arrived at MIT’s campus in 1996 as an undergrad and has not ventured far from the Institute ever since. And why should he? After graduating in 2000 with a degree in Brain and Cognitive Science, he entered the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program and completed his PhD in Bioengineering in the famed Langer Lab and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Now a Principal at Flagship Ventures, a leading venture capitalist firm located down the street from MIT, David plays an active role in developing biotech companies.

From the vantage point of his office overlooking the Boston skyline, it seems that life is good for Berry and he admits that he’s “having a blast.” I asked him if he always knew what he wanted to do with his life, and he admitted that he always had a plan but never followed it. While his interests included business and management, David originally wanted to become a neuro or orthopedic surgeon. In his senior year of college, he decided to take the MD-PhD route and make research a priority. He was able to finish his Ph.D relatively quickly, partially due to his ability to pipette with both hands simultaneously (!) Armed with the skill of ambidexterity, he was well on his way to becoming a professor when he received a call from Flagship Ventures and decided to focus his career on finance and technology-based entrepreneurship. He is currently focusing on two companies: LS9, the renewable petroleum company whose technology he helped develop, and T2 Biosystems, a diagnostic company that will improve medical decision-making and treatment.

As a bona fide graduate, Berry remains active in the MIT community. He is on MIT’s board of trustees, called the Corporation, which ensures that the Institute “adheres to the purposes for which it was chartered and that its integrity and financial resources are preserved for future generations as well as for current purposes.” Only one person is chosen from 160 MIT alums nominees, so to the 5-year term position is clearly an honor and a privilege. Serving on the Corporation allows Berry to contribute to the evolution of MIT. He thinks that MIT is “true to itself as a school” and provides its students with the best skills sets, experiences, and background in science and engineering; graduates have innumerable opportunities since “everyone knows that you have earned your Brass Rat.” In addition to pushing its students to, he notes that MIT constantly pushes itself to improve- as evidenced by the rising success of the Sloan Business School.

In spite of all his success, Berry remains humble- he doesn’t think that he could have gotten into MIT now, given his less-than-perfect SAT scores (I respectfully disagree!). His advice to current high school students is to “Go to MIT!” Well, he also thinks that there are many rumors and stereotypes in the college application process and student should do their own research by talking to people who attend the schools on their wish list. Though these people may be quick to complain, he suggests paying more attention to what they say they enjoy. He also emphasizes that classes aren’t everything. His high school extracurricular activities included music (he played the piano and saxophone, and was a member of a Ska band) and sports (competitive tennis and soccer) in addition to the classic science and math clubs. His athleticism continued at MIT, where he was on the ski team, rowed crew, and participated in intramural sports. His final word of advice is that “school is a great place to be, so take the time to mentally explore and learn a lot about yourself.”

(The photo is from the MIT Corporation's website: http://web.mit.edu/corporation/members/Berry-D.html)

So I've never actually been to a Bruins game, but two of my best friends, Anna '08 and Maria '08, won tickets and took my camera along for the trip.

On the night of Ring Delivery, we went to the Top of the Hub for some cookies and a good view.

Yummm....

For an explanation of Ring Premiere, click here:

The LSC (which stands for Lecture Series Committee) brings films and lectures to the MIT community. For example, this weekend I saw Paris, Je T'aime and Oceans 13 for $3 each. The films are shown in one of the large lecture halls. On this particular day, there was a musical performance before the movie.

Every year, The Chorallaries put on a performance called Bad Taste where they make fun of everything related to MIT. It's pretty hilarious...

For more about the 2.007 Mechanical Engineering robot competition, click here:

Shaye '08, Matt, and Boris '08 enjoying an appetizer at Legal Sea Foods. I don't remember this particular occasion, but this picture is from one of the many times that Matt took us out. Thanks, Matt =)

Isn't our gym gorgeous? Yes, yes it is.

However, Ali Khademhosseini has utilized cutting-edge techniques to mimic the microenvironment that heart muscle cells needs to make functional, beating fibers. An Assistant Professor of Medicine at the joint MIT-Harvard Health Sciences and Technology Program, Khademhosseini has recently been named one of Technology Review’s Top 35 Young Innovators of 2007 for his inventive tissue engineering research.

Many researchers around the world are trying to grow living tissue, but Khademhosseini’s work is unique in its “bottom-up” approach. Rather than creating a 3-D gel scaffold and filling it with cells, he focuses on assembling the individual pieces. These “living Legos” can be combined with “building blocks” made of other types of cells to faithfully recreate the organs found in your body. Khademhosseini is applying his micro-scaffold to grow stem cells and tooth buds, study the cell interactions that give rise to the gastrointestinal tract and lungs, and test new drugs.

With over 14 pending patents and 55 published papers, you might assume that Professor Khademhosseini knew from an early age that he wanted to be a bioengineer. In fact, his childhood aspiration was to become a professional baseball player, and it was not until a summer internship in his junior year at college that he became fascinated with tissue engineering. After completing his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Masters degree in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, he came to MIT to pursue a Ph.D. in the lab of world-renown scientist Robert Langer. He admits that while MIT is not necessarily fun in the conventional sense of the word, it is extraordinary because of the incredibly smart, hardworking, and passionate students, outstanding professors, and amazing resources.

As MIT’s Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor in 2004, Professor Khademhosseini has also taught his share of UROP students. He expects his UROPs to be committed, genuinely interested in the process of science and discovery, and mature. In return, many of his students have published papers and attended prestigious graduate schools. His advice for UROP students is simple: be committed and know your limits; classes come first but UROPs are meaningless without dedication.

In general, he advises students to follow their passions; life is filled with highs and lows, but genuine interest in your studies and hard work will enable you to get through the tough times. Since he grew up in Iran and his family immigrated to Canada when he was 12, Khademhosseini applied to MIT as an international student and has experienced the challenges first-hand. But, he emphasizes that MIT is an excellent stepping stone, and is well worth the time and effort to prepare a strong application. He suggests seeking advice from mentors and making sure that your application is well-rounded and clearly demonstrates your interests. Current students and faculty are also a wonderful resource, and contacting student groups like the Persian Student Association, could prove to be very helpful.

To see detailed videos on Professor Khademhosseini’s research, click here.

Added bonus…come to the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal table (#105, near the entrance!) and hang out with me =) Also visit the Biological Engineering-Biomedical Engineering Society table (#33) for chocolate mice and skittles, and the Camp Kesem table (#125) to meet my fellow counselors.

For a list of groups that will be represented, click here.

Below is a map of the table assignments. If you want to see a clearer map, click here.

Necessary background information…. (from the MIT Panhel website)

Over 400 women are in sororities at MIT, making Panhel the largest women’s organization on campus. Sororities do all the following things:
1 – Academic: Each sorority has various academic resources for its members. Additionally, sororities provide underclassmen with programming about choosing majors, classes, and professors. Another great academic resource is the faculty dinners/teas that the sororities host. Faculty guests are invited to have dinner (or tea) with sisters in an informal setting. This is useful for underclassmen who are to make decisions about their classes and major.
2 - Community Service: In addition to providing opportunities for sisters to go out into the community and volunteer, each of the sororities also hosts a large philanthropy event every year. Some of these events raise thousands of dollars and go to benefit various charities. For more information, check out the community service section of each sorority’s website
3 – Health and Wellness: It’s hard to stay healthy at MIT! Because of this, each of the sororities provide some basic programming for women. Additionally, Panhel as a whole sponsors healthy eating study breaks and various other sessions about staying healthy.
4 - Social: Each sorority has a semiformal in the fall, and a formal in the spring. Also, sororities have mixers with fraternities throughout the year. Finally, sororities also sponsor social events that are open to the entire campus community. Be sure to look for advertising during the fall term for these events!

There are 5 sororities on campus: Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Alpha Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Sigma Kappa. Each sorority has a different group of women, living area, activities, etc., but they are all leaders in the MIT community and beyond. Four of the sororities have 80-100 members, the fifth, AEPhi, being the smallest. Three of the sororities have beautiful houses in Boston where some of the sisters live (for example, I still live in the dorm), and one occupies an area in a graduate dorm. All the sororities are part of MIT Panhel, which is our panhellenic association, and you can click here for more information on general sorority life at MIT. They all obey national regulations, including the prohibition of hazing and alcohol in the sorority houses. Seriously, these rules are very strictly enforced.

My perspective: It probably comes as no surprise that MIT is an emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting place. At midnight, when you look up from your desk in the Reading Room to see a row of empty coffee cups and Red Bull cans, it’s your friends who get you through the night. There are countless ways of developing your family-away-from-home, including dorms, extracurricular activities, athletic teams, and Greek organizations. Sororities are just one example of an MIT support network, yet it’s one that lasts long after your four years are up.

Experience #1, an initially hesitant new member: “No one in my family had been greek, so pretty much everything I'd heard about greek life came from stereotypes. I went through recruitment half as a favor to the affiliated women I was friends with and half as a joke (because in my mind, there was clearly no way I was going to actually join). But, halfway through recruitment, when I saw how different these women were from the stereotype, and how much they genuinely cared about each other and had fun in an environment as crazy and potentially-awkward as recruitment, I realized that maybe this was something I wanted to be a part of. So I joined (hesitantly), still not sure what I was getting myself into, and it ended up being my best decision at MIT. I moved into the house, served on the executive council, and met some of my best friends. I had amazing leadership opportunities, and got introduced to the most awesome people and experiences through my sorority. My sorority family is my home away from home in Boston.”

Experience #2, a rising sophomore: “Being in a sorority made my second semester so much more enjoyable and successful than the first. Through my sorority, I have a network of friends to take my mind off studies when I need a break, as well as a group of girls willing to take time to explain concepts or lend me their notes from when they took the class. I love being in my sorority!”

Experience #3, a recent graduate: “Sororities are fun, too! I found that being part of the greek network gave me access and a reason to interact with people I normally wouldn't have been able to meet or interact with. When you become an upperclassmen its easy to get locked into the same groups of people (those in your major, those on your sports team, those in your club). A sorority gets you out there to interact and just have fun with people you may normally not get to hang out with cause of your other obligations. By the time I went into recruitment I was thinking that I wanted to be in a sorority for all of the serious reasons, but it’s not all serious. People need a break from studying once in a while. People need friends that will support them through the non-academic times. I think sororities will give girls access to a more holistic experience while at MIT. More opportunities, and connections than one (who is not incredibly outgoing) would find by oneself.”

As the testimonial above indicates, there are many social benefits of Greek life. Each sorority hosts different events throughout the year; for example, my sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, has an annual Fondue party (also, here) in the Spring, Apple Pie party in the Fall, and talent show/fund raiser for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center during Spring Weekend. All the other sororities have similar events, like AEPhi’s Spaghetti Dinner to raise funds for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Chaim Sheba Medical Center, and Kappa Alpha Theta’s KAT Walk, which benefited the Court-Appointment Special Advocates. Within the sorority, we have weekly meetings, philanthropic projects, social gatherings, and annual retreats.

The academic benefits of sororities are less publicized but equally important. “The sorority GPA average is higher than the general MIT average. In addition, each sorority provides many academic resources that you just can’t get anywhere else. Additionally, you need to maintain a certain GPA to be allowed to stay in the sorority, so academics are obviously very important.” (MIT Panhel) Many sororities also establish in-house mentoring programs, where upperclassmen provide tutoring to underclassmen, and scholastic achievements are celebrated and encouraged. You’ll often see groups of girls working on hard on a problem set while wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts embroidered with their sorority’s letters. (Click here to see “The Truth About Panhel”)

Sororities often promote leadership, with many leadership opportunities available within the organization (i.e. President, Vice President of Community Service, Treasurer, Steward) and MIT. My sorority sisters have introduced me to a whole range of activities, from aquajogging to the Hippocratic Society. Individually, they have developed devices to make prosthetic legs for amputees in India, won national athletic championships, written novels, and started philanthropic organizations. For more evidence of the academic emphasis of sororities, take a look at several of my previous entries that highlighted the achievements of outstanding students. I am proud to call Ana Posada, Christina Royce, Hanhan Wang, Laurie Burns, and Minh Huynh-Le more than just friends, but sisters. I am constantly inspired by the breadth of activities and talents of my sisters.

With this in mind, I would really encourage incoming female freshmen to at least go to the first day of recruitment, which is on September 1.

Confused about what recruitment entails? “Recruitment is a mutual selection process designed so that you get the chance to see all the sororities at least once. During the recruitment period, you will visit each of the sororities and get a chance to meet many upperclassmen women. Then, sororities will decide who they want to invite back, and you will decide who you want to go back to. This goes on until the final event (called Preference), where you will be allowed to visit two sororities at most. After Pref, you will be asked to rank your final two sororities according to who you feel you fit in with best. The next day, you will receive a bid from one of your final two sororities.” (MIT Panhel)

There are no strings attached, you can drop-out of the process at any time, but at least take the time to give it a try. You’ll meet a LOT of freshmen and upperclassmen (who are a great resource for any worries about adjusting to college life) by just going through recruitment, and who knows, maybe some of them will become your best friends. Recruitment Registration can be accessed through the Panhel homepage (http://web.mit.edu/panhel/www/) or directly at http://web.mit.edu/panhel/www/recruitment.html. If you have more questions, please e-mail sororities@mit.edu or call 617-869-7996.

(Side note, for the parents!: I have recently spoken to several incoming freshman about sorority life at MIT, and while most of them have expressed interest, they were concerned that their parents would not allow them to go through recruitment. Parents, feel free to post any lingering comments and questions. You can also contact the adult Panhel advisors: Lauren Wojtkun (laurenw@mit.edu) or Kaya Miller (kmiller@mit.edu), director of FSILGs. Also, Panhel and Interfraternity Council are holding a Parent’s Brunch, where parents can come to eat yummy snacks and meet Panhel women from 12pm - 2pm on August 26th on the second floor of the Student Center.)

As I sit on the train from New York to DC, the fact that I’m going to be a *senior* is slowly, and painfully, sinking in. Could it really be true that I only have one year left at the Institvte? Take me back to freshman orientation, when four years seemed like an eternity and the underground route from E25 to Lobby 7 seemed just about as real as dragons and reindeer (oh wait…) Now, those tunnels are just a warm, familiar respite from freezing midnight walks from Kendall; they are a home that I share with rats the size of cats.

I have this problem where I really start to enjoy things just as they’re about to end. Maybe I just loosen up and become comfortable with my surroundings, or maybe I just forget all the bad things and reminisce endlessly about the good (my memory is funny like that.) So now that I am almost done with college, it’s time to do all the things that I should have done more often during the past three years. That means getting lost (I guess I’ll have to go out to the suburbs for that) and wandering on sidewalks for hours, having picnics by the river, playing Frisbee on Kresge lawn, doing psets on Killian Court, going to more events by the Lab for Chocolate Science, visiting Lansdowne Street, seeing the Boston Pops, and cheering/jeering at a Celtic’s game. It means inviting my professors to lunch and getting to know more of my classmates. It means doing whatever it takes to check every last box on my “101 Things To Do Before Graduating from MIT.” And, lucky for you, it also means blogging more frequently. But, you have to tell me what you want to hear. Want to hear more about my adventures in Boston or my class schedule? Ask and I shall try my darndest to answer (except for “How do I get into MIT?” I still don’t know what to say to that one.)

This past week, I tried to implement my new “carpe diem” mentality. Last Thursday, I went to Boston to attend counselor training for Camp Kesem. As I wrote in a previous entry, Camp Kesem is a free summer camp for kids whose parents have/had cancer. It is an opportunity these kids to forget their worries by just having fun and meeting other people who have had the same experiences. This was MIT’s first year hosting the camp, and I think that it’s safe to declare that it was a huge success. Obviously, the logistics behind establishing a camp can be quite difficult - facilities must be arranged, counselors must be interviewed and chosen, and campers must be recruited – but I think it is safe to say that our first year was a huge success. Before I go on, I would like to thank Daniel Hawkins, Diana Gallagher, and Shaye Storm for their generous donations that helped make the camp possible.

So on August 12, the day camp started, I assumed my “camp identity” of Smile (everyone makes up a name for themselves and none of the campers knew our real names. I chose my camp name because it’s an anagram of my real name and I’m almost always smiling.) I spent the next five days with sixteen other MIT students, three administrators, and thirteen campers at a beautiful facility in Rhode Island. From 7:30 am to 10:30 pm, we sang camp songs, rotated between activities (drama, arts and crafts, sports, and nature), swam in the lake (the third cleanest in Rhode Island, I was told. It turns out that there are only five lakes in Rhode Island to begin with…!), played games, ate smores, and much more. I was responsible for arts and crafts, so I sat at a picnic table nestled between the trees and beside the lake and glued, cut, and drew for about three hours a day. I’m pretty sure that I’ll never get all the glitter out of my pants and hair (pictures of Julio and Vivian ’09 doing arts and crafts below, all courtesy of Dan ‘10. Unfortunately, I can't put up pictures of the campers.)

Some other highlights include our evening “cabin chats,” giant volleyball games (I broke the net on my first serve… though in my defense I never claimed to be athletic), meteor showers, and pie eating competitions. All of the campers were not only incredibly mature and conscientious, but also talented and hilarious. It was an experience that I think we will all remember. Hopefully next year we will have even more campers, and keep us in mind if you are interested in becoming a counselor!

After Camp Kesem, I spent a few days in New York City before heading back home. The weather was incredible and I got to indulge in three of my favorite activities- walking around, eating at cafes, and window shopping. Thanks to my gracious hosts in NYC, I got to see new parts of it like Brooklyn (including Coney Island, where I ate a Nathan’s hot dog at the original location) and the Seaport District (which looks exactly like Boston’s Faneuil Hall.) ‘Twas awesome, and now it’s time to buckle down for one last week of my summer internship.