Contexto
Espero que ya conozcan los términos Aprobado/Sin registro. Básicamente, durante el primer trimestre de primer año en el MIT, solamente te evalúan con “Aprobado” o “Desaprobado”. Si obtienes una A, B o C en una clase, en tu expediente académico solo queda registrado como “A” de “Aprobado". Si obtienes una D o F, no queda registrado en tu expediente; es como si nunca hubieras asistido a esa clase.

Creo que es un muy buen sistema por varios motivos.

1. Las clases del MIT son más exigentes que las de la escuela secundaria, y los alumnos suelen obtener las calificaciones más bajas de sus vidas en el primer trimestre del MIT.
2. El sistema incentiva a los alumnos de primer año a divertirse y a explorar la vida fuera de los salones de clase sin que tengan que preocuparse exageradamente por sus calificaciones.
3. Los alumnos de primer año pueden aprender a administrar su tiempo prudentemente y encontrar un equilibrio entre las obligaciones y el ocio sin afectar los expedientes académicos.

El sistema de “Aprobado” o “Sin registro” ayuda a los alumnos del MIT a disminuir el estrés por sus notas. En consecuencia, a menudo ignoran sus trabajos y corretean y juguetean incluso cuando “deberían” estar haciendo otras cosas. (Por ejemplo: una noche de noviembre a la 1 de la mañana en mi primer año, estaba estudiando para un examen 8.01x (física) que tenía a la mañana siguiente. Mi amigo Akhil me envió un mensaje preguntándome si quería ir a recorrer el campus. Le dije que sí. Terminé trasnochando antes de un examen porque me estaba divirtiendo explorando túneles, sótanos y lugares similares. Fue genial).

Mi primer año
El primer año en el MIT fue bastante difícil para mí en el aspecto académico, ya que no había tenido Física Avanzada ni Química Avanzada en la escuela secundaria. Todo era nuevo y representaba un desafío, y los problemas que daban eran difíciles… Además, nunca aprendí a administrar el tiempo prudentemente en la escuela secundaria porque podía hacer toda la tarea en la sala de estudios la mañana anterior a presentarla, si es que tenía tarea para hacer en primer lugar. Faltaba a clases más frecuentemente que en los años posteriores porque no me había dado cuenta de lo que aprendía mejor en las clases... También faltaba porque Física comenzaba a las 10 de la mañana y me quedaba hasta las 4 de la tarde hablando en los pasillos con mis amigos nuevos. Además, todavía estaba saliendo con mi novio de la secundaria, y la relación se estaba deteriorando rápidamente, así que pasábamos bastante tiempo discutiendo por teléfono.

Como imaginarán, nada de esto favorecía mi vida académica.

Debo admitir que no recuerdo exactamente cuántos exámenes desaprobé en primer año. Sé que fueron al menos tres exámenes de física (dos trimestrales y el final), dos de cálculo (uno trimestral y el final) y dos de química (ambos trimestrales). Terminé con una B+ en Humanidades, artes y ciencias sociales (HASS) (9.00, Introducción a la Psicología), una C+ en 18.01 (Cálculo simple-variable), una C en 5.111 (Introducción a la Química) y una C- en 8.01x (Física). Para aprobar 8.01x se necesitaba un promedio general de 60; mi nota final fue 63,5.

Y, sin embargo, en el expediente oficial dice “A” para todo. ;) Y ese es el expediente académico que vieron los comités de admisión cuando me postulé a una escuela de posgrado; no sabían que aprobé Física de primer año casi de casualidad.

¡A divertirse!

Tenía algunos amigos que habían desaprobado algunas clases del primer semestre y simplemente las volvieron a cursar en el segundo semestre.

Para los alumnos de los últimos años de la carrera, existen otras estrategias. La fecha de renuncia es la última fecha en que se puede abandonar la clase; son dos o tres semanas previas a la semana del examen final. De manera que si no te está yendo bien en esa etapa del semestre, generalmente abandonas la clase y la vuelves a cursar en otro semestre. Los estudiantes de los primeros y últimos años también pueden tomar dos clases con calificación “Aprobado o Desaprobado”. Esto les permite tomar clases interesantes sin tener que preocuparse por efectos colaterales en sus promedios.

Mi situación actual
Hoy fue un feriado libre de impuestos en Massachusetts: el gobernador suspendió los impuestos a las ventas durante el fin de semana a fin de incentivar a que la gente compre. Adam y yo teníamos que comprar solamente víveres (que en Massachusetts no llevan impuestos), pero fuimos hasta la galería únicamente para ver todo el desenfreno.

La gente se abalanzaba sobre Best Buy, intentando comprar televisores y cámaras digitales, todo con el fin de ahorrar USD 25 de impuestos. Me encanta. La gente no es muy buena en matemáticas. Adam y yo compramos una película y un reloj digital. Ahorramos unos dólares.

Asimismo, me gustaría destacar que es divertido juntarse con personas del curso 16 porque puedes decir “Esto no es astronáutica, amigo” con una voz superior cuando no saben hacer cosas como estacionar el automóvil y no pueden decir nada porque, después de todo, no es astronáutica y ellos lo saben mejor que nadie.

Preguntas y comentarios

1. Colin preguntó:
“Estaba pensando, ¿tendré posibilidad de acceder al curso HASS-D que deseo si voy el primer día? ¿Existe algún curso HASS-D muy popular? Específicamente, estoy considerando tomar 21M.011 (Introducción a la Música Occidental), pero sé que la música es un interés común entre los alumnos del MIT.
Generalmente, existe una alta probabilidad de entrar a una clase el primer día, incluso si es bastante popular. No salí sorteada en 24.900 (Introducción a la Lingüística) en dos semestres diferentes, y la segunda vez simplemente me presenté con un formulario de inscripción e ingresé sin inconvenientes. Lo que sucede es que varios alumnos de los últimos años se registran previamente y entran en sorteo sin realmente querer tomar las clases para las que se anotan. Es más, conozco algunas personas que se registran previamente a cursos que eligen al azar. Como podrán imaginarse, esto genera vacantes inesperadas en varios cursos el primer día de clases. :)

Una vez que se informan los resultados del sorteo, esta página mostrará una lista de HASS-D con vacantes disponibles. Si bien varía de semestre a semestre de acuerdo con lo que es más popular en el momento, 21M.011 tuvo algunas vacantes disponibles el último semestre. (Y en cuanto a eso, incluso si un curso no figura con vacantes disponibles, generalmente hay personas que deciden no tomar la clase, por lo que vale la pena presentarse el primer día con el formulario de inscripción).

Lo importante es que, en cuanto a sorteos y demás en el MIT, existe bastante flexibilidad; casi siempre hay una manera de obtener lo que deseas.

2. Un curioso alumno de primer año escribió:
“¿Los alumnos califican a los profesores? ¿Existe alguna manera de ver esas calificaciones antes de escoger las clases? ¿Los alumnos del MIT utilizan ratemyprofessors.com?”
Yo no usaría ratemyprofessor.com. La única vez que visité el sitio noté que no figuran demasiadas personas del MIT, así que las calificaciones no son muy confiables.

Los alumnos evalúan a los profesores y los cursos de manera estandarizada al final de cada semestre. Las evaluaciones pueden encontrarse aquí (se requieren certificados). Esos resultados no son perfectos (las encuestas se proporcionan durante la última semana de clases, cuando todos los que odiaban la clase ya abandonaron la materia), pero al menos son estándar y las completan una gran cantidad de personas.

3. JE preguntó:
“Para que una carrera de investigación de pregrado se considere valiosa y sea reconocida, ¿es necesario publicar? Es decir, ¿debo ser un autor publicado X cantidad de veces para tener una buena oportunidad en una escuela de posgrado de primer nivel?”
Definitivamente, no necesitas haber sido publicado para ingresar a una escuela de posgrado de primer nivel. Ayuda, por supuesto, pero no es obligatorio. En verdad, ni siquiera es común. Cuando asistí a un taller sobre solicitudes para las escuelas de posgrado durante los primeros años, el cuerpo docente del curso 9 dijo que solo aproximadamente el 5 % de sus postulantes son publicados. De manera que si eres un autor publicado durante el UROP, ponte contento, pero si no, no te preocupes en lo más mínimo. (Y, para promocionar a Melis, ¡puedes publicar en el MURJ!).

I'm here to update you on the breathtaking life of a biology PhD student, which is breathtaking enough to divide into a very small number of categories.

Lab and other school things I do less often than lab
Since I passed my qualifying exam last January, to my great joy and relief, I'm now a PhD candidate in biological and biomedical sciences at Harvard. Functionally, this means that I'm basically done taking classes, and I'm living in the lab full-time doing research. Eventually I'll finish the projects on which I'm working and write my dissertation, which I'll defend in a very long written document as well as orally in front of a group of professors from my program -- it's considered rude to ask a graduate student how much longer until he/she graduates, but you didn't ask, so I'll tell you that I probably have about 3.5 years left. (Hopefully.)

My lab studies the development of several different types of neurons in the mammalian brain, and eventually we'd like to be able to fix neurodegenerative diseases and neurological injuries using the stem cells native to the brain. I'm specifically looking at the role of My Favorite Gene (MFG) in the development of corticospinal motor neurons in the cortex and medium-sized spiny neurons in the striatum -- we know it's important, but we don't know how or why, so my job is to look at the mechanisms of MFG function in the development of these two types of neurons. (If this sounds totally sweet, join my lab -- we do take MIT UROPs. At the very least, come have $1 ice cream with me in the Mass General cafeteria. Graduate students get lonely.)

Things are going well in the lab, although I'm breeding a lot of mice right now, and sometimes I feel a little more like a mouse matchmaker than a scientist. I do also get to be a mouse surgeon, which is fun -- we put pregnant female mice under anesthesia, inject DNA into the embryos using ultrasound guidance, and sew up the females. A few days later, we collect the injected brains and look at the cells that received DNA, which glow green on the microscope.

Things I do outside of lab
(Graduate students don't really have lives outside of lab, but it's fun to pretend.)

This year I'm at MIT two or three times a week, coaching the cheerleading squad. When I was at MIT, I cheered for four years and was captain for one; this, along with my ability to boss people around and show up on time, qualifies me to coach the squad, at least nominally. Mostly I think I just tell cheerleading stories from the olden days, throw Lulu up in the air (pics or it didn't happen), try to remember forgotten cheers, and get way too emotionally invested in MIT athletic events, but it's great to be big and strong again -- I needed an excuse to get back in the gym.

I spend the bulk of my free time hanging out with my curly-haired husband -- we like to cook together and go to Target (married life! it is exciting!). We also do dorky things for each other; for example, for our one-year wedding anniversary, he designed a mouse brain model in Solidworks and printed it for me on his office's 3D printer (picture, which does not really do justice to the awesomeness). I was thrilled, and everybody in my lab is totally jealous. He went a little more traditional for Christmas, getting me a diamond necklace and a four-foot light-up tinsel giraffe with a Christmas hat on it. (EDIT: For real. I got him a Nintendo DS Lite, a new pocket knife, and a Transformers belt buckle to wear during ski competitions. We think frivolity is a very important aspect of our gift-giving.)

I also spend a lot of time on the internets answering questions about MIT and college admissions and life at my internet home, which, contrary to popular opinion, is a good place as long as you're willing to actually contribute instead of just pontificating. (Ahem.)

I'm busy -- almost as busy as I was when I was at MIT. Busy is good.

Adam and I got married September 15 (along with someone else you might know), which dawned drizzly and dreary in Cambridge. Our ceremony started at 4 PM, and the sun came out and the sky cleared around 3:30. (Whew!)

We were married at Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, with twenty MIT alums in attendance and two more in the wedding party. Mark '07, our favorite houseguest, served as the best man, and Carl '07, who introduced us to each other, was another groomsman. Laura '06 and Tulasi '06 performed the readings, which were by Adrienne Rich and ee cummings, both Cambridge poets.

Instead of throwing rice at us after we left the church, our guests threw paper airplanes. Adam designed the airplanes in Solidworks, optimizing for easy foldability and distance. The planes were a little bit pointy, I'm not going to lie.

Our friends had come in from jobs and graduate school all over the country -- California (Seve '05, Mark '07, Carl '07, Stephen '05), Chicago (Swapna '05), New York (Laura '06), and of course, lots of people in Boston. We were so excited to see everybody.

Our reception was held at Boston's Museum of Science, which has a great view of the city skyline. Apparently the museum is a popular destination for MIT alums, because the museum's function coordinator asked for our permission to use a photo from our wedding in an ad in The Tech. The museum was always one of our favorite places -- I mean, one, it's a great science museum, and two, admission is free for MIT students -- so when we found out that they held wedding receptions, there wasn't much of a discussion about where we would be having our reception.

Our first dance was to "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams. Adam sang to me (off-key) during the entire dance.

We got to take pictures in the museum, and we got this great picture of us with Daedalus, a human-powered airplane that was built and flown by a group of MIT students in the '80s. Adam's undergrad advisor and the CEO of the company where he works were two of the designers. Adam got really excited when he saw the picture -- it's basically a picture of the things in life he loves the most.

I have trouble conveying just how perfect the wedding was. It's not that there weren't minor snafus -- the florist didn't arrive until about 3:25, the officiant mentioned during the ceremony that I was a Democrat (news to my parents!), and Adam's mom left our engraved cake-cutting knife in the car. But it was just such a joy-filled day with friends and family, and it went way too fast. I hate being schmoopy above all things, but it was probably the best day of my life.

There are a lot more pictures here (just sign the guestbook to view them), and all of the pictures there and here were taken by our totally awesome photographer, Connie Miller of Studio Atticus, whose pictures speak for themselves in terms of her amazingness.

A little on what we're doing now
As I said above, I'm a second-year PhD student at Harvard. I picked a thesis lab this summer, and I'm working on neural development in mice -- one of the big interests of the lab is to figure out which genes cause neural progenitor cells to become different types of neurons. I'm specifically interested a particular transcription factor that seems to be critically involved in the generation of two distinct cell types in the forebrain.

Adam is working for Aurora Flight Sciences, an aerospace company with a research and development office in Cambridge. Adam is the go-to guy for designing crazy stuff in the office, and pretty soon he'll have two patents earned on ideas for the company. (Incidentally, we're both working for MIT alums -- the professor in charge of my lab graduated from MIT in 1980, and Adam's CEO finished undergrad here in 1979, then continued on to do his master's and PhD as well.)

So married life is great, lab life is great (although I'm preparing at the moment to defend my qualifying exam, which is not a great deal of fun*)... how's life in your corner of the world?
*and which is the reason I have not yet responded to the email Ben sent me earlier this week about having lunch...

Grad school has been treating me well. I've been doing mostly the same things this winter that I did last winter: going to class, reading lots of papers, mixing small volumes of colorless liquids in the lab -- the difference is that now I'm getting paid significantly more to do it. (Ugh, I just did the math -- I'm only getting $3.50 more an hour as a grad student than I was as a UROP. Well, at least my paychecks are bigger.) I'm also TAing this semester, and of course I'm trying to plan Adam's and my wedding without losing my already small parcel of sanity.

I haven't picked a lab yet -- just like you don't pick a major at MIT until after your first year, you don't pick a lab in grad school until you're ready. When I do pick a lab at the beginning of the summer, my choices will basically be between 1) a C. elegans neurobiology lab that does screens for proteins that have particular functions in the neuromuscular junction, 2) a mouse immunology lab that works with proteins in the cytoskeleton to see what they do and how they cause disease, and 3) a mouse neurobiology lab that studies how particular stem cells decide to become different kinds of neurons, with an eye toward repairing spinal cord injury. What would you pick?

All in all, grad school isn't that much different from MIT undergrad, except that I have less work to do, I live in an apartment rather than a dorm, and I have to take the T a lot.

Fiance news
Adam and his friend (and our groomsman) Carl '07 did their course 16 senior project together -- they designed, built, and tested a low-cost solar-powered airplane.

The guys with their plane on the day of its first flight test. (They hadn't mounted the solar cells yet.)

During the design process, they enlisted lots of help from their buddy-slash-advisor-slash-aerospace-bigwig, Professor Drela, and used the MIT name to strongarm various companies into donating materials for the plane. It actually turned out (because they are awesome) that their plane has the lowest solar-cell-to-wing-area ratio of any solar-powered plane ever built, and a lot of people within and outside MIT were very interested in it. As it happened, one of the people who was very interested is the CEO of a company which designs unmanned aerial vehicles, and he had his people request Adam and Carl's resumes. They now both have (extremely generous) job offers from this company, and they weren't even looking for jobs. Cool.

Adam applied to MIT's aero/astro master's program as well, and he was offered admission and a research assistantship. He's planning to defer his admission to the master's program, work for a year or twor, then go back to grad school -- the company he's working for will pay his tuition and also his full salary while he's in the master's program, and he'll do his thesis research there. He's really excited about his job -- all of his professors have assured him that the company is a really good fit for him personality-wise and in terms of his research interests.

We just signed a lease on a (much) bigger apartment north of Boston, where we'll move in June with our bunny, and of course we'll be getting married in September -- our wedding website is here, for people (moms) who like to look at this sort of thing. The ceremony will be held at Memorial Church in Cambridge, and we're having a wonderful science-filled reception at the Museum of Science. And then we'll go on our honeymoon and then at some (distant) point in the future I'll finish my PhD and Adam will do his master's and we'll have little airplane-building, biology-loving babies.

I'm happy.

EDIT: Thought you might all enjoy an engagement photo, taken by none other than this guy's lovely wife.

I've really enjoyed the past fourteen months, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to help people discover the MIT that I know.

Those of you who are at MIT (2010s, bloggers, etc), you know where to find me, and my door's always open. I might even have cookies or pie.

Those of you who want to be at MIT, I wish you the best of luck. It's a fabulous place, and I hope you'll get a chance to be part of the community here.

Please let me know if you have any questions about MIT or grad school or the meaning of life, the universe, and everything -- my email's still mollieb at mit dot edu. I can't guarantee that I'll answer right away, but I'll promise to try.

I love you all, and best wishes in the future!

I have one... I was talking to my dad, trying to make decisions about this whole college application thing, and he said if I were planning on going to medical school I should definitely NOT go to MIT. Apparently, MIT graduates are like the worst med students ever. He said they're totally lost and can't talk to people and all they know how to do is stick their noses in books and that older doctors dread having to train MIT grads. That seems completely opposite to anything I've heard about MIT--I thought, as you say, that it was a really collaborative, people place. I don't know if I want to go to med school. I actually have no idea what I'm going to do, but medicine is definitely a possibility I don't want to rule out. I'm thinking things must have changed in the twenty some years since my dad has been in med school... Do you know any MIT grads in med school? Should I worry about that?

And Lori said in response,

My daughter graduated from MIT in June. She is currently in med school. Two of her close friends from MIT and a number of other students that graduated in June also went on to med school. One of the reasons my daughter applied to MIT was at the recommendation of our physician, who was an MIT grad in the 80's (and he's an awesome doctor!). Perhaps contact the pre med office for more info.

For my part, I'll say first that MIT is a dynamic place, and MIT and its students are not the same as they were back in the day. As I hope you can tell from reading the blogs, there's an extrememly wide variety of people at MIT. Your dad's stereotype may have been accurate enough a long time ago, but it's not accurate now.

About 75% of the MIT kids who apply to medical school are accepted each year. Many of them are accepted by absolutely superb medical schools, too -- the acceptance rate for MIT kids at the top several medical schools is about twice the overall acceptance rate. If anything, I've heard that an MIT education is a strong positive for a medical school applicant, since MIT graduates are taught to think rigorously about challenging problems. And although medicine may not be exactly scientific (PhD student cheap shot!), doctors certainly can benefit from strong analytical skills.

The more fundamental issue is that it's very hard to say "MIT students are all, without exception, _____." We are all smart and passionate. We all work collaboratively. But we also all resist being put in boxes -- there are lots of MIT students who look and act like MIT students are apparently "supposed" to look and act, and there are lots of students who don't. And you get to pick to which group you belong. If you don't want to be someone who can't talk to people and who only sticks her nose in a book... nobody's holding a gun to your head. If anything, MIT students are enlightened enough to support any direction you choose to go with your social and professional life. We're just people. MIT people.

One of my good friends, Jen '06, lived the premed life at MIT -- she majored in biology and minored in chemistry, worked really hard at her research job in a mouse lab, and was an undergraduate TA for the introductory biology lab. She was also a volleyball player, captain of the cheerleading squad, and in a leadership position in her sorority. And she got into every medical school at which she got an interview -- clearly her social skills weren't a liability for her.

Don't forget that when people start parroting stereotypes (about MIT or in general!), you have a choice whether or not to believe them. ;)

Question Two
Faye asked,

I'm wondering how doable a double major is. As in, is it something only the truly motivated and slightly masochistic undertake, or would you say that it's totally doable and wouldn't cause frequent cerebral hemorrhaging?

...On that note, what about triple majoring?

Well, I'll answer the easy one first. A triple major is impossible. Like, actually impossible, because you're not allowed to do it -- the most you can do is two majors and two minors.

How easy/difficult a double is depends on several factors.
1. How much AP/transfer credit you had when you came to MIT.
2. What the majors are and how much they overlap. Also, how flexible they are scheduling-wise.
3. Your personal threshhold for pain.

I, for instance, had (1) against me -- I came in with very little AP credit and didn't pass out of any of the GIRs, but I had (2) in my favor -- bio and BCS have several classes in common and neither is particularly requirement-heavy. I guess I also had (3) in my favor, because I'm stubborn as all hell. :) I only had one REALLY bad term, though, and three busy-but-not-totally-hemorrhagic terms.

About 20% of students leave MIT with two degrees, so it's clearly not impossible, but it's also not something the majority of students do. (Of course, it's probably not something the majority of students want to do.) The best bet is to sit down sometime sophomore year and analyze your academic life: how many credits do you have? What would you need to do to double? Is it worth it to you?

I feel like I should mention that double-majoring doesn't provide as great a return as people often think it should. You shouldn't double because you think it will give you an advantage in grad school/job searching/professional school/life -- you should double because you genuinely want to major in two departments and you don't want to give one field up. In the end, a double-major is just two pieces of paper (each in a decorative red leather folder). What matters once you graduate isn't what's on your diploma -- it's what's in your brain. ;)

EDIT, 9/4:
MITalum commented,

This comment is in response to one of your earlier blog entries...

I am an MIT alum have to say that you rubbing your MIT admission in your ex-boyfriend's face is really pathetic. I don't know what this guy did to you, but if getting into MIT was his whole life as you say how could you pour salt in the wound like that?

You've posted your test scores and your rank in high school, and you certainly have nothing to brag about. For an MIT student, getting less than a 1500 on the SAT and graduating with less than a #1 rank in high school is pretty subpar. Certainly, it doesn't justify that level of arrogance which you have demonstrated.

Unless admissions have drastically changed since I applied (about 10 years ago,) you shouldn't be telling prospective applicants that MIT is not looking for near-perfect grades and test scores. They are looking for academic stars, and grades and test scores are an important indicator of this. In fact, they shouldn't be going for the "A", they should be going for the "A+".

Well, first, the ex-boyfriend thing... it was supposed to be a joke? I didn't actually "rub it in his face" -- I had about a 60-second conversation with him once four years ago. We're still Facebook friends.

I'm completely aware that my high school stats are what some people would consider "subpar" for MIT. (That was the point, after all, of titling the entry "How to do everything wrong and still get into MIT.") My point was more that it's not necessary to be perfect to apply to or attend MIT -- I may have had a "sub-1500" SAT, but who cares? Certainly none of my friends or professors here. Certainly not my grad program.

Anyway, don't listen to me when I tell you that you don't need to be the valedictorian or have perfect SAT scores to be admitted to (or succeed at) MIT. Listen to people like Matt and Ben -- they're the ones making the decisions, after all. Grades and scores are important, but they're not the only thing, and having perfect test scores and a 4.0 GPA won't help you if you're not bringing anything else to the table.

Let me first say this is not true.

Most stereotypes have at least a grain of something resembling truth to them -- for instance, many people in Boston do like the Red Sox and say "ah" instead of "r"; many girls do like to talk about their feelings, and many white boys do suck at dancing. In this case, however, I don't see the connection between stereotype and reality. At all.

I think it must be that people confuse "difficult" with "competitive/cutthroat" (which, I might add, is a confusion not supported by my friends Merriam and Webster). Sure, MIT is difficult. This is partially because the courses are inherently difficult, partially because professors enjoy foisting difficult problem sets upon their students, and partially because MIT students secretly love to work right at the edge of their abilities. But this difficulty is what fosters, rather than discourages, a collaborative atmosphere. Freshman year, most students take the General Institute Requirements and learn that the fastest (and most fun) way to get through problem sets is to do them in a big group of your friends with lots of snacks and pizza; this behavior doesn't really change through the upper years.

Adam is an aero/astro major, and course 16 is generally considered one of the most difficult majors at MIT. During sophomore year, all course 16 majors take a four-class series called Unified Engineering (when a class is known by its name rather than its number at MIT, you know it's bad news). Each year, there are about 70 kids who declare aero/astro as a major and take Unified; literally all of them would gather on campus and work on problem sets together. I mean, what good does it do you to be competitive? Nobody would help you with the problem sets, and then you'd be screwed.

Adam's take on the matter
"This freshman asked me the other day if course 16 was a competitive major. I was like 'Wha?' *confused face* What does that even mean?"

My own majors, biology and brain and cognitive sciences, are pretty premed heavy. If there's any place at MIT you'd expect to be cutthroat, it's the place where premeds congregate, right? Well, I still didn't see any cutthroat behavior. Any time I had a question or needed help on a problem set, I had no problems securing that help. Ever. I feel silly even offering a list of times I experienced MIT's collaborative environment, since most of them are so mundane. It's just normal to be helpful around here.

One of the first things people realize when starting classes here is that competition stops at MIT's front door. Everybody here was smart in high school (duh), and most people had to fight to get the opportunities that made them strong candidates for admission. Well, you don't have to fight anymore once you're here. UROPs practically grow on trees, and most student groups are open to anybody who wants to join. The only person with whom you're competing anymore is yourself.

Again, I am not saying that collaborative behavior is "pretty much" normal, and that cutthroat behavior is "fairly" rare. I'm saying that everybody here collaborates with everybody else, and that people simply don't act in a way that's destructive toward other people. (At least with regard to academics. When it comes to romantic and social relationships, MIT students act just like any other group of 18- to 22-year-old people.)

I guess my feeling is that something has to be easy to be cutthroat -- there has to be the possibility that everybody could get a 100% or something, so people take it upon themselves to make sure that other people don't succeed. Here, it's more that everybody could get a 0%, so people take it upon themselves to make sure that other people are doing well also. That's the benefit of difficulty -- it tends to make people feel that they're all in the same boat together.

So no, MIT is not a cutthroat, competitive place. Any questions?

The most succinct advice I can give is from Adam's dad (my future father-in-law, yay!), who has three pieces of advice which he applies to every situation anyone in our family encounters.
1. Get psyched.
2. Stay with it.
3. Do whatever it takes.

I think this is superb advice. My advice is a lot more wordy (surprise surprise).

The most important thing you will learn at MIT will be how to fail.

Okay, one time I said that the most important thing you'll learn is how to ask for help. And that's still true, but I guess the failing part happens before the asking for help part, so the failing gets to be primary.

This might sound surprising, since people seem to think that the most important thing they'll learn in college is how to design a robot, or how to calculate the thermodynamic properties of a chemical reaction, or how to succinctly prove that If an integer n is greater than 2, then aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c. Well, it just ain't so. I mean, if the cold hard facts were the important thing, you could save your tuition money and get your education via OCW or the NCBI Bookshelf. But an MIT education explicitly sets out to teach you how to think, and how to approach thinking, and how to take things you don't know and turn them into things you do know.

And how to fail.

If you're going to be a practicing scientist or engineer, you need to learn how to fall flat on your face. Despite the best intellectual efforts of any given scientist, lab work fails at least half of the time. Sometimes it fails even more than that. Sometimes the scientist can figure out what's wrong and take steps to fix the problem, but much of the time, he'd be just as well off chanting incantations and waving religious amulets. (Some scientists I know recently put up in their lab a statue of St. Jude -- patron saint of lost causes -- next to a picture of Thoth, the Egyptian god of knowledge, figuring that plurality could only be a good thing for their protocols.) Failure's just as necessary a skill in engineering, or business, or life. Nobody's successful all of the time.

So what you need to learn how to do is fail, but not let failure get you down. You have to realize that "something that I did failed" is not the same as "I am a failure," even if you have to tell yourself a hundred times before you believe it. You have to realize that being the best at everything you ever do doesn't mean you're amazing -- it means you're afraid to take chances.

Almost everybody fails a test or two their first term freshman year at MIT. A lot of people fail a whole class or two. This is okay -- it's pass/no record! Live it up. You'll figure out what you need to do to get the grades you want, and you'll do it, and everything will be okay.

And, of course, when you're stuck in your UROP lab doing a reaction for the nth time because you just can't get it to work... well, I've been there too. (Actually, I've been there a lot.) Try to resist the urge to punch a machine, because they're very expensive.

Questions

1. Leo (after reading my directions to Target stores in the Boston area) asked,

I checked all the bus stops and places you linked, man, I feel so powerless without a car.
Isn't there a delivery-to-door option offered by some of the superstores?

There's always online ordering. :) I order stuff online quite a bit, and even though I hate paying shipping, it's easier than carving out a chunk of the day to get to the store and back on the T. I will note, though, that a nonzero number of students do have cars, and most are more than happy to take a Target trip on a Saturday or something. My designated drivers are Rachel '07 and Woody '08 -- Rachel takes me to Target, and Woody takes big groups of people out to IHOP and Outback Steakhouse.

2. Charlotte noted,

A short note to all- having a safe campus doesn't mean one should lower his/her guard, take care, especially if you're a girl (sigh...).

As Adam says, don't wander around by yourself drunk at night with money hanging out of your pockets. ;) You should always be aware of your surroundings -- Boston's a pretty safe city, but it is a city after all.

3. Al asked,

is transfering to MIT hard than entering as a freshmen?

In terms of admission percentages, yes. About 14% of freshman applicants were accepted last year, but only about 5% of transfer applicants were admitted -- and that's actually somewhat high for the transfer admission rate. Not many students leave MIT, so there aren't very many spots open for transfers, unfortunately.

4. I think Colin gave a great response to Aja's question (and Ankit's, too), so you should go look at it if you're wondering how to make yourself shine in the application. :)

I have several problems with this logic:

1. Not everybody wants to go to grad school.
2. You shouldn't spend your undergraduate experience thinking ahead to grad school.
3. You are not the same person you'll be at the end of undergrad, and your undergrad school will change you, whether for better or for worse.

Tonight I am highlighting the differences between me as a 17-year-old undergrad applicant and me as a 21-year-old grad school applicant. I'll tell you right up front that I attribute my success in grad school applications (particularly in getting into my perfect program) to my education at MIT. I'm smart, okay, but I'm not, and never have been, one of those knock-your-socks-off genius whiz kids. My education at MIT turned me from your typical bright, well-rounded kid into a real scientist.

Test scores
2001: Pretty good, but nothing really outstanding in the applicant pool.
2005: Excellent, and better than the majority of people who were applying to my programs. (I got a better score on the GRE than I did on the SAT. I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen.)

Grades and coursework
2001: To be honest, I don't remember what my high school GPA was. I don't even remember what it approximately was. I got a few B+'s and a handful of A-'s, and I took lots of honors classes and three AP's. (None of my AP's were in science! That's a true story.) I was ranked 11th in my class of 530, because I didn't want to play the "take all AP classes and study halls" game.
2005: I had a 3.4(/4.0) when I applied, including a C in 8.02x (Physics: E&M) from freshman year. I had a lot of classes, since I was a double-major, and I'd taken a ridiculous number of upper-division biology electives.

Extracurriculars
2001: Oh, lots! I was captain of the band's 40-member color guard (my senior year, we marched in the Macy's Parade!), played the lead in six school plays and musicals (I was chorus in the two my freshman year), and was the only girl to make the show choir junior year. I was on the varsity quiz team, which went to the state quarterfinals. I did winter drum line for two years and winter color guard for the other two. I sang first soprano in the Ohio all-state choir. I kept little kids off drugs and helped orient freshmen and new students to my school.
2005: Well, grad schools don't care about extracurriculars, but I still wrote about cheerleading for my diversity essays ("As a college cheerleader, I a member of a group that is shockingly underrepresented in science PhD programs..."). I wrote that I tutored my entire entry through intro biology and that I served as my dorm's rush chair junior year; I also mentioned that I did "prospective student outreach through a web-based medium" for Admissions. (Doesn't that sound so slick?) I ended up talking with a lot of professors about cheerleading during interviews, which was fun and silly.

Research experience
2001: None. I totally didn't even know you could do research in high school.
2005: Three years of experience, including a summer finding candidate genes for alcoholism at the NIH and 2.5 years studying protein-protein interactions in neurons at MIT. I had my name on an abstract/poster at the Society for Neuroscience conference and on a paper in Cell. I'd worked on an independent project for a year, using an arduous screen that even grad students like to avoid.

Interview
2001: None. I was too shy to sign up for an optional interview.
2005: I was confident and relaxed at my interview weekends, and I actually really enjoyed meeting with faculty and discussing my research. I was very comfortable with the details of my project, since my lab treated me like a scientist, not a baby, and was able to discuss my project with humor and poise.

Recommendations
2001: I got what I'm sure were very good recommendations from my favorite biology teacher and my (only, but still favorite) theatre director.
2005: I got what I know (because they told me at interviews!) were absolutely fabulous recommendations from my UROP supervisor (famous for being hard-driving and demanding quite a bit of his students), my favorite professor (famous for doing great research), and my NIH supervisor (famous, but not in my subfield).

In the end, MIT was the right place for me, and the education I got here really changed the course of my life. That, I think, is what you really want in an undergrad school -- a place that will bring out the best aspects of you, even if they're not totally obvious at the time you apply. You have to know what kind of environment will support your learning and blooming; for me, that place was here.

Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, my mom told me while I was home that I ought to write something about safety on campus, because she was worried about sending me off to school in a big city four years ago, and she thinks lots of other parents are probably worried too. And so... safety on campus, or "why you are safe on campus, even if you are about as street-smart as the average hole in the wall".

I will say first that I am a girl, and a panicky transplanted cowtown girl at that. I have very little common sense, and when I got here I didn't even know how to cross streets in the city, let alone how to tell if I was in mortal peril or not. I still don't really know how to tell if I'm in mortal peril, but that's why I have an imposing-looking fiance. And at least I have learned how to cross busy streets: if the light is green for the line of cars parallel to you, go! If the light is green for the line of cars perpendicular to you, don't!

MIT does have an urban campus, and we are a quick walk from Boston in one direction and Cambridge's Central Square in the other. Despite our location, though, we're pretty isolated from the nastier aspects of city living; the quarter-mile of river between us and Boston helps a lot in keeping us and the city separate. And few Cantabridgians come as far down as MIT's campus -- there's a lot more for them to do somewhere more bustling, like Harvard Square.

Another deterrent to unsavory characters is the campus police force. They're pretty visible around campus on foot, on bikes, and in cruisers, and they offer seminars and other resources to keep students safe.

Crime on campus is pretty rare, and violent crime is almost unheard of. The most common crime complaint is stolen food from the common kitchens -- of course, this is sometimes hungry suitemates, but there was actually a rash of crimes a few years ago which were too widespread to be attributed to other students. They eventually caught the thief with a backpack full of frozen food... it was sort of bizarre. Of course, more expensive items get stolen sometimes too, but that pretty much exclusively happens when people don't lock their room doors; locking your room door will stop theft in the dorms. Except theft of frozen food, apparently.

EDIT, to answer the question below: The vast majority of crime at MIT is committed by non-MIT-affiliated people. Sometimes your roommates/suitemates/floormates will eat your cookies, but mostly you can call them on it and make them pay for the pizza next time you order or something. :)

Students who are in the city at night can take the Saferide shuttles until 2:30 AM on weekdays and 3:30 AM on weekends. There are four shuttles (Boston East/West, Cambridge East/West), and they all stop at 77 Massachusetts Avenue. You can even track them on the internet if you're not sure when they're going to show up. (I should note that I feel like the major purpose of Saferide is really student laziness rather than student safety, but you know, six of one, half dozen of the other.)

Finally, it is safe to roam campus at all hours of the night, for two basic reasons.
1. Much of campus is connected via tunnels and hallways, so you can get from the T stop in Kendall Square to 77 Massachusetts Avenue using well-lit, well-traveled paths. Bad guys don't hang out in the Infinite.
2. On a campus full of night owls, geniuses, and grad students, there's always somebody else up roaming the halls. Even at 3 in the morning, there's a comfortable cadre of compatriots on Amherst Alley or the Infinite.

Any other questions about personal safety?

Questions -- lots

1. Mike asked,

I have questions about getting fundnig at MIT graduate school. I am interested in my academic advisor's project(I indicated this interest in my SOP), but a few months ago he told me that the funding in this area is "extremely tight".( I didn't even start to ask). So right now, should I ask him for the RA position, or should I just give it up and go to other professors for RA offerings?

Well, you're asking the wrong kid -- everybody in biology gets fellowships, no RA or TA necessary, so I haven't a clue about funding issues. My field is extremely spoiled, and we like it that way. I will say that it probably wouldn't hurt to ask your advisor.

2. a sophomore asked,

i'm gonna be a sophomore next year and i rly wanna take 7.02 but the site says that it's a lottery class and that sophomores are 2nd to last on the priority list. how do i max. my chances; i rly wanna take it in the fall.

Well, the good thing is that there aren't as many juniors and seniors who try to take the class each year as there are sophomores -- so all of the juniors and seniors, and many of the sophomores, get in. You'll maximize your chances if your schedule is flexible and you can fit in either the Tuesday/Thursday or Wednesday/Friday sections.

3. Alberto asked,

How's the pay for UROP's?

Campus minimum wage for UROPs is currently $9/hr, and that's how much you'll be paid if you go through the UROP office. If you're funded by your supervisor, you might make more -- I made $10/hr all three years of my UROP, and Adam makes almost $20/hr.

4. Anonymous asked,

"Despite the disdain many MIT students profess for tradition, many MIT students and graduates wear an MIT class ring, which is large, heavy, distinctive, and recognizable from a distance."

You said that quote is TRUE yet RIGHT after it you said "We love this school, you just won't find people admitting it in public." I don't understand...

Haha, I don't know how to be less confusing. MIT kids will rarely admit out loud that they love MIT (I'm an exception, I guess), yet most of us buy and wear a big, clunky, easily-recognizable symbol of the school. I mean, surely you weren't expecting us to be completely internally consistent?

5. Adam Spanbauer asked,

I have a very deep, and very philosophical question for you to answer...

Why?

Because you love it. :) The only reason to do anything.

6. Anonymous asked,

I'm considering a double major at MIT in physics and math and I was wondering how you managed to take all the required classes from both courses and also met the credit limit. Did you run into any complications? Also, how much credit is normally awarded for UROPs? Thanks!

Well, I took a lot of classes! I took a few 75-unit terms, which are hard for sure, but that's what you have to do if you really want to double-major. My class plan is here. I never really ran into any scheduling problems, but that's partially because I was really flexible about which classes to take -- if you lay down a concrete plan for yourself, that's asking for trouble. You have to allow for schedule conflicts, not to mention your own changing interests and the right balance of hard and not-so-hard classes.

The amount of UROP credit you get depends on how much you work -- you get one unit of credit for each hour you work per week on average. I got 12 units of credit one semester and 15 units another; I'm not sure what the "average" number is, but I suspect that a lot of people just get 12 units because that makes the UROP the same as a regular class.

7. Drew asked,

Is the hacker's map on the inside of the ring? And what year do we get the rings?

Yup, it's on the inside. You will get your ring sophomore year; the committee that designs the ring (RingComm) is selected at the end of freshman year, they design the ring during the fall, and the design is revealed at a class-wide event in mid-February. After the premiere, everybody orders the rings, which arrive at another class-wide event in late April/early May.

8. Leo Luo asked,

One irrelavent question, I plan to have one(at least) school-supplies-shopping journey after planned arrival on Aug.26 by plane. Is there a Walmart around and how do I carry all the stuff without a car?

There's not an easily accessible Walmart, unfortunately. There are a few Targets served by the T, but their convenience is not necessarily related to their distance from MIT.

The closest Target is in Somerville, and is about a mile away from the Lechmere Green Line T stop. You just get off the T and walk a mile next to route 28. Obviously, this is less than ideal if you're carrying stuff.

The next-closest the one in Watertown, which can be reached by taking the #1 bus to Central Square, then switching to the #70 or #70A bus. The Target is about 2 miles down Western Avenue, right across from the Arsenal Mall. This is also somewhat less than ideal, unless you have a car.

The third-closest Target is very close to the Andrew Red Line T stop. The store is just over a bridge after exiting the stop, and there's even a little shuttle that runs back and forth if you don't like to walk. This is my favorite T-accessible Target, mostly because I like neither walking nor buses.

As to how to carry stuff without a car... that's the not-fun part. You should have seen Adam and me try to get back to our apartment earlier this summer with a new air conditioner and a trash bin full of other stuff. It was not fun. Some people buy little shopping carts for this purpose, which I heartily endorse. They only cost about $30, and you will more than recoup the money in saved time and frustration.

9. Anonymous asked,

I heard that people get two brass rats- one gold and one silver. Why would you do that?

Well, the not-practical reason is that a lot of people like to keep the gold one as the "nice" one that they wear for interviews and formal events. The practical reason is that there's usually a deal that if you buy a gold one, you get a stainless steel one for a very reduced price, so getting two really doesn't cost all that much more than getting one.

10. kash asked,

Hey, what kind of GPA does it take to get into MIT? 3.75?, 4.0?, 4.25? what general area, and if you don't mind what did you or any friends have?

To be totally honest, I don't even remember what my GPA was in high school -- it was lo so many years ago, you know? :) I got a couple of B+'s (2-3) and a handful of A-'s (5-6?), so my GPA wasn't perfect.

There's really no cutoff, though -- if you get a lower GPA while taking very challenging classes, that will be noted.

Well, Melis has written about her 2008 Brass Rat, Mitra has written about her 2007 Brass Rat, and Matt has written briefly about the Brass Rats for the past six years, but nobody's ever written about the 2006 Brass Rat, which I humbly consider to be the most superior Brass Rat ever. (Hee.)

My class ring was unveiled during a premiere at Walker Memorial, then distributed at a swanky event at Top of the Hub, a very classy restaurant at the top of Boston's Prudential Tower. (In case anybody missed the implication, Top of the Hub is not somewhere students usually have the opportunity to dine -- they don't serve hamburgers and fries there, you know what I mean?)

Bezel

The 2006 beaver is supposed to look a little more benevolent than the rough and tough beaver chosen for the 2005 ring. He's holding a scroll to represent knowledge, and a globe to represent the way MIT graduates hold the world in our hands (cheesy, but yes). If you look closely, you'll see that the beaver is also wearing a Brass Rat. At the beaver's feet, there are some leaves shaped like Kresge Auditorium.

Also at his feet, there are reeds in the form of the Roman numerals for 24 -- not for Jack Bauer, but to represent the fact that MIT majors go from 1 (civil/environmental engineering) to 24 (linguistics and philosophy). Course numbers are pretty fluid -- at the moment, there's no 13 (used to be ocean engineering), no 19 (technically), and no 23. Next to the reeds, there are blocks with the letters A, B, and C on them. This represents fundamentally the fact that we were the first class to have A/B/C/no record second term (all classes before ours had pass/no record all of freshman year); it takes the form of a hack which also commemorated this change. Our beaver is sitting on eight ivy leaves. I'll let you fill in the blanks on that one.

There's a tree behind the beaver; you can see "IHTFP" spelled out in the branches (note: this detail is not at all subtle in this picture, but it's subtle on the ring itself) and a map of the Infinite scratched onto the trunk. A gnome peeks out from behind the tree, celebrating the gnome hack.

My favorite part of the ring is the "companion beaver" in the river. He represents the idea that no one at MIT succeeds due to his or her own abilities alone, but that all of us rely on other students for academic and personal support.

In the background, a double helix stands next to the symbol from the top of the MIT chapel. The symbol on the chapel is meant to represent religion, and the juxtaposition of the religious symbol and the double helix is meant to show the need for a dialogue between science and religion.

Class shank

This is the side that says "2006" at the top. In the sky at the top, there is a shooting star, drawn from the logo of the space shuttle Columbia. In the background, the Stata Center (opened at the beginning of my junior year at MIT) looks like a piece of abstract sculpture; if you look closely, you see the letters "ILTFP" hidden in it. I like the inclusion of "ILTFP" as well as "IHTFP" -- even though IHTFP technically has both positive and negative meanings, the negative one is usually inferred when someone uses it. I'm glad our ring incorporates ILTFP as well -- we all have strong feelings about MIT, and it's definitely possible to love the school strongly and hate it strongly at the same time.

Both domes can be seen in the class shank, and the Green Building towers in the background. Four students stand in the foreground; they represent the variety of students at MIT, but unfortunately it is 1 AM and I can't remember what they are -- I know one of them's an artist and one is an athlete, but I forget what the other two are. I'm old. Sorry.

Seal shank

Look for a bunch of small details on the seal shank: "punt" and "tool" in the leaves around 1861 in the center; a TEAL clicker in the pocket of the scholar; a snow shovel, representing the President's Day 2003 snowstorm, in the hand of the worker; a coffee cup in the worker's other hand; the number "81", representing our sister class, the class of 1981, coming out of the mouth of the lamp at the top.

Skylines

The most notable and coolest thing about the skylines is that, if you join fists with another '06 wearing a Brass Rat, the skylines will meet and form the letters "MIT". Go look at the website if you don't believe me.

On the MIT skyline, there are two Greek letters, phi and theta, representing the fact that our class was the first to force all freshmen, even those who were fraternity/sorority-affiliated, to live on campus. Some non-Greek people were roundly annoyed at this, leading some people to show up at Ring Delivery with "Phi Theta" t-shirts on.

Hacker's map

I have to admit, I've always been tempted to take off my ring and point out locations to lost prefrosh when they stop me and ask for directions.

I wear my Brass Rat every day. It's heavy, so it takes some getting used to, but now I feel funny if I don't wear it. After graduation, the ring is turned over 180 degrees -- prior to graduation, the beaver faces you, but after graduation the beaver faces the world. This is politely explained with reference to the skylines: prior to graduation you look over the river at Boston, and after graduation you're an outsider looking into Cambridge. Less politely, prior to graduation the beaver is thought to defecate on you... after graduation, the beaver defecates on the world for you, because the world is your oyster now.

I always heard stories about Brass Rats being recognized on planes and at job interviews, but I thought they were hyperbole until I went on my graduate school interviews. I wear my ring on my right hand, and it's obvious to anyone shaking my hand -- I had several professors look at my ring and say, "Oh, you went to MIT!" The Brass Rat is not a subtle thing.

Is everyone at MIT ugly?

I know Christina wasn't serious, because she goes to MIT and is one hot piece, but other people in the world are shallow in what I editorially find to be a shocking way, so I'll answer anyway.

Look at yourself in the mirror -- there are people at MIT who look just like that. And I've said before that, no matter how attractive you are, there are plenty of people at MIT who are way out of your league.

Professor attention
silly the willy asked,

How do you make the professors love you?

Well, my closest professor friend is my UROP professor, who loves me because I do lots and lots of research for him for very little in the way of salary. So slave labor works.

My other close professor friend got to know me because I took a lab class with him, and he liked me because I helped other students in the class. (I had been working in my UROP lab for a year when I took the class, so I knew a lot of the lab techniques we were learning, and I was happy to help students who didn't understand as well.) So just being a good person works, too.

I think professors are often under-utilized -- at MIT, professors are so happy to hold office hours and talk with students about classes or about careers, and the only barrier to becoming close to professors is in students themselves. So don't be scared of them! They like to talk.

Just hanging out
Anonymous asked,

If not in their dorm or in class, where would you generally find people hanging out? Especially weekends... Is it common/uncommon to go into Boston a lot or do people generally stay on campus? I know there may not be one answer, but an idea of the atmosphere would be great.

There definitely isn't one answer, but I'll give you my answer. My friends and I go into Boston basically every weekend; sometimes we go for dinner and a movie, sometimes for a fraternity party, and sometimes for shopping. Some people go to Boston every day -- most of the fraternities and sororities are there, and even affiliated people who don't live at their houses frequently go to dinner at the houses.

It's also common for people to go the other way on the Red Line and end up in Harvard Square for dinner/dessert/shopping. There are some winter weekend nights when it just feels better to put on pajamas and rent a movie and order some pizza with friends, though. :) Especially because with my group of friends, you're likely to finish the movie and the pizza and get into a pointless argument about some completely unresolvable issue.

I don't personally get into Boston much during the week, and on a weekday night you're most likely to find me and my friends in the main lounge of our entry, pretending to do homework.

Marriage
Anonymous asked,

what are your thoughts on marrying so young?

Haha, we're married already in every sense but the legal one, and it'll be better for both of us if we do all the wedding planning before we start our respective theses. We love each other very much, and I think that when you're as sure as we are that you've found the right person... age ain't nothing but a number.

The name I'm not changing next year
JKim asked,

What's your middle name?

It's Ann, which sounds awful in my weird Midwestern accent. I always secretly thought it might sound better if there were an "e" on the end.

Hosting
Nichole asked,

As an enthusiastic freshman, I'd love to host prospective students during CPW, or throughout the year...how do you get to do this?

There will be a signup later this fall (I think last year it was in late September) for people who want to host during the year -- you'll see signs around campus, especially around 10-100 and 3-107, so keep a lookout.

CPW hosting is separate from during-the-year hosting, and the signup will be in mid-March. Again, there will be lots of signs and emails reminding you.

Hosting is a lot of fun, and I would really encourage everybody to think about doing it. I hosted for CPW freshman, sophomore, and senior year, and hosted during the year freshman and senior years... I have a 75% yield rate!

School spirit
Anonymous asked,

For the most part is there an over sense of community, school spirit, unitedness etc among MIT students? And...I know Boston is basically the collegetown of Earth, but do all the students from the diffrent colleges really interact/hang out?

The first part is harder than the second part. So MIT students don't have "school spirit" in the traditional sense that the term is used -- I mean, people don't paint their bodies and bellow at the football team or anything. But we are certainly proud of our school, even if sometimes we're a little bit underground about it.

MIT's Wikipedia article used to have a really true quote -- something like "Despite the disdain many MIT students profess for tradition, many MIT students and graduates wear an MIT class ring, which is large, heavy, distinctive, and recognizable from a distance." We love this school, you just won't find people admitting it in public.

The second question is easier -- the students from different Boston schools definitely do hang out, and specifically, they hang out at MIT fraternity parties. We hang out most frequently, I'd say, with people from Northeastern, Wellesley, and BU, although people from other schools are always welcome!

MacGregor
Anonymous asked,

Why are MacGregor students so anti-social?

And Jon asked,

as a follow up to the MacGregor question....or an addendum I suppose, you don't really seem the "anti-social" type...does that mean your entry was not one of these anti-social ones?

See, this is why stereotypes are dumb -- they sound great, but it's hard to say whether or not they're actually true. I did live in two MacGregor entries that are considered to be "social", but I know a lot of people from other entries, too, and I never found them antisocial. I certainly don't know anybody who actually locks him/herself into a single room and never comes out.

In the interest of full disclosure, I like to be around people, but I also like to have alone time with the door shut. Maybe that makes me a stereotypical MacGregor resident.

Late nights
Joe asked,

Better question: My CPW host and his study group stayed up until about 3 in the morning on one DiffEq pset. Now, I know the workload's supposed to be massive, but is that about normal for an average pset?

Slightly related, but about how accessable is Jolt/coffee/coke/caffeine/speed/whatever in the dorms?

Haha, I'd say that's about average for a freshman pset, but only because freshmen tend to start psets around 11 or midnight. :) As you get older and wiser, you learn the magic trick of finishing psets early: starting them early. Incidentally, classes at MIT don't start before 9, so even if you go to bed at 3, you can still get some solid hours of sleep.

Because I am insane, I keep statistics on this sort of thing. Freshman year, I went to bed on schooldays just past 3 AM on average and getting 6 hours of sleep... by senior year, I was getting to bed before 1 AM and getting almost 7.5 hours of sleep.

As for caffeine sources, LaVerde's is open 24 hours a day during term, and MacGregor Convenience is open until 2 AM. We definitely less than three our caffeine around here.

Seances
Colin asked,

Is it possible to contact the spirit of Ellen Swallow Richards from Lobby 7?

Yes. You did get your list of super-secret incantations in the Next Big Mailing, right?

Other schools
Me asked,

I am applying for University this year and I have no idea where to apply, besides MIT. What are some other good schools with good physics and computer science programs?

I wish I could answer this authoritatively, but honestly, I only know what I read on College Confidential. I know that Carnegie Mellon is a popular choice for CS, and that Case Western (in my home state of Ohio!) is pretty generous with merit aid. People are also psyched about Olin.

The only subject that really matters (food)
Minh asked,

On a more serious note, how is the food in the dining halls/how accesible is it around Cambridge (outside of MIT?)

I used to eat at the (dinner/residential) dining halls a lot during my freshman and sophomore years, and I think the food is okay. There are definitely healthy options -- you can get made-to-order stirfry, so you can get lots of fresh veggies in a low-fat meal any time you want. My major problem with the dining halls was that I got really sick of stir-fry, but I also didn't want to eat hamburgers and hot dogs every day.

A lot of students cook for themselves (there's a Star Market right behind Random Hall, a Trader Joe's right up Memorial Drive, and a Whole Foods just a little bit further up Memorial Drive) or order food from campusfood.com. I personally recommend using campusfood.com to order from Thailand Cafe. Mmm.

The lunch dining situation is really superb, because you have good ethnic food (Lobdell, the food trucks), good veggie/organic food (Steam Cafe), good deli sandwiches and sushi (Stata and BioCafe), and lots of actual restaurants (Dunkin Donuts, Quizno's, Au Bon Pain, Anna's Taqueria, LaVerde's). Actual restaurants are good because the food has to be good -- they're feeding it to real people, not just hungry college students.

Winter coats
Hamster asked,

Approximately when is the first snow of the year? I'm from Florida and am looking forward to experiencing real winter, but I'm going to have to buy a lot of new clothes upon arrival... I'm wondering how long I can get away without buying a real winter coat? Right now the warmest thing I have is a regular cotten sweatshirt.

So I have a temperature gradient coat system:

• Cheerleading jacket, 60F-70F.
• Hoodie or lined MIT jacket, 40F-60F.
• Peacoat, 20F-40F.
• Pink poofy jacket, below 20F.

I don't have to break out the pink poofy jacket until IAP, but the peacoat definitely gets used beginning about mid-November. The first real snow each year usually isn't until late November/early December (actually, it's often the week before finals, and everybody wants to go play in the snow and not study); the blogs seem to indicate that the first snow of any sort was in late October last year.

Getting paid
Alberto asked,

Better question: When will you be done linking old blogs, and the new page be up? Also, are you doing this for free? I hope Ben is giving you some kind of compensation!

Oh, you better believe he's paying me -- I don't come cheap! ;) Actually, I am planning to tape-record the ridiculous and hysterical conversations that he and Nance have every five minutes and sell them on the internet and/or use them for blackmail.

I don't remember the exact date, but the new site will be up in early September (I seem to think the 5th?). It is super-hottttt, and tons easier to navigate.

So I want questions about life at MIT -- the social life, the workload, extracurriculars, living groups, food -- whatever. Bonus points if you ask a question so blatantly stereotypical that it makes me get snarky.

Answers tomorrow.

Questions

1. Anonymous wrote

Awwww.... you were such a drama queen!

Here I was thinking you were flawless, and worshipped the ground you walked on.

Haha, I think flawless is about the last word even Adam would use to describe me. In my defense, I'll say that I'm a lot less of a drama queen than I was in high school... although objectively I suppose there was nowhere to go but down from there. ;)

True story: My friend Stephen '05, who is from Pittsburgh, visited a bunch of his friends (including Mikey in Michigan, I think?) over Christmas break 2003, and my hometown in Ohio was his first stop. After meeting my high school friends and doing stuff around my hometown for two days, he said to me, "I see now that the drama queen you are at MIT is a pale shadow of the drama queen you were in high school." Hee.

2. Drew asked,

If someone applies to MIT for grad school, does Pass/No Record still take effect?

No, pass/no record is only for first term freshmen. But really... you don't need pass/no record in grad school. Grad school is about research, not grades, and is notoriously grade-inflated. Undergrads here take grad classes to raise their GPAs, okay (my GPA in MIT grad classes is 5.0!); grad students are living the good life, at least as far as grading goes.

The background
Hopefully you know about pass/no record already. Basically, first term freshman year at MIT, you are only graded in a pass/fail fashion -- if you get an A, B, or C in a class, it gets recorded on your transcript merely as a "P". If you get a D or an F, the class doesn't get recorded on your transcript -- it's as if you never took the class.

This is a really good system, for several important reasons.
1. MIT classes are harder than high school classes, and people tend to get lower grades first term at MIT than they've ever gotten in their lives.
2. The system encourages first-term freshmen to have fun and explore life outside the classroom without being overly preoccupied with their grades.
3. Freshmen can learn to manage their time wisely and find an appropriate balance between work and play without damaging their academic records.

Pass/no record really helps MIT students quit stressing about grades, and as a result, freshmen often blow off work and run around and frolic even when they have stuff they "ought" to be doing. (Case in point: At 1 AM one night in November freshman year, I was studying for an 8.01x (physics) test which was to occur the next morning. My friend Akhil '05 MEng '06 IMed me and asked if I wanted to go explore campus. I said yes. I ended up pulling an all-nighter the night before a test because I was having fun wandering around tunnels and basements and other such places. It was great.)

My freshman year
Freshman year at MIT was pretty difficult for me academically, since I didn't take AP Physics or AP Chem in high school. Everything was new and challenging, and the problem sets were hard... and I'd never learned to manage my time wisely in high school, because I could just do all my homework during study hall the morning before it was due, when there even was homework in the first place. I skipped class a lot more frequently than I did in my upperclass years, because I hadn't figured out yet that I learn best from lectures... I also skipped class because physics was at 10 AM, and I stayed up until 4 somewhat frequently talking in the hallway with my new friends. Plus, I was still dating my high school sweetheart, and our relationship was going downhill pretty quickly, so I spent a lot of time fighting with him on the phone.

All of this stuff was not great for my academic life, as you might imagine.

I have to admit that I don't remember exactly how many tests I failed freshman year. I know it was at least three physics tests (two tests during term, plus the final), two calculus tests (one test during term, plus the final), and two chemistry tests (both during term). I ended up with a B+ in my HASS (9.00, intro to psychology), a C+ in 18.01 (single-variable calculus), a C in 5.111 (introductory chemistry), and a C- in 8.01x (physics). Passing in 8.01x was an overall average of 60; I had a final grade of 63.5.

And yet, my official transcript just says P for everything. ;) And that's the transcript that admissions committees saw when I applied to graduate school -- they had no idea that I passed freshman physics by the skin of my nose.

Rock out.

I had a couple of friends who failed classes first semester, and they just re-took the classes second semester, no big deal.

As an upperclassman, there are other strategies -- Drop Date, the last date you can drop a class, is two or three weeks before final exam week, so if you're not doing well that late in the semester, you'll generally just drop the class and re-take it another semester. Juniors and seniors also get to take two classes on pass/fail, which frees them to take interesting classes without worrying about adverse effects on their grade point averages.

Current stuff in my life
Today was a tax-free holiday in Massachusetts -- the governor suspended the sales tax for the weekend to encourage people to go shopping. Adam and I didn't have anything to buy other than groceries (which aren't taxed in Massachusetts anyway), but we went over to the Galleria just to watch the frenzy.

People were swarming over Best Buy, trying to buy their televisions and digital cameras, all for the sake of saving $25 in tax. I love it. People are really bad at math. Adam and I bought a movie and a digital clock. We saved two bucks.

I would also like to note that it's fun to hang out with course 16 majors, because you can say, "This is not rocket science, buddy" in a really snotty voice when they suck at doing things like parking the car, and they can't say anything, because after all, it's not rocket science, and they of all people should know that.

Questions and other things of that nature

1. Colin asked,

I was wondering -- is there a good chance that I'll be able to get the HASS-D course I want if I go on the first day? Are there any notoriously popular HASS-D courses? Specifically, I'm thinking I want to take 21M.011 (Intro to Western Music), but I know music is a popular interest among MIT students.

There's usually a pretty good chance that you can get into a class on the first day, even if it is traditionally popular. I didn't get lotteried into 24.900 (Intro to Linguistics) in two different semesters, and the second time I just showed up with an add form, and got in easily. The thing is that a lot of upperclassmen pre-register and enter the lotteries without actually intending to take the classes for which they're registering -- I know a few people who actually pick pre-reg courses randomly. As you might imagine, this creates a lot of unexpectedly empty spots in various courses on the first day of class. :)

After the lottery results are out, this page will show a list of HASS-Ds with open seats. Although it does vary from semester to semester depending on what's popular, it looks like 21M.011 had quite a few open seats last semester. (And for that matter, even if a course isn't listed as having open seats, there will usually be a few people who decide not to take the class, so it's worth showing up the first day with an add form.)

The bottom line is that there's very little that's hard and fast about MIT lotteries and other class stuff -- there's almost always a way to get what you want.

2. Curious Freshman wrote,

Are professors rated by students? Is there a way to see the ratings before choosing classes? Do MIT students use ratemyprofessors.com?

I wouldn't use ratemyprofessor.com. The one time I visited the site, I noticed that not a lot of MIT people are on it, so the ratings aren't reliable.

Students evaluate professors and courses in a standardized form at the end of each semester; the evaluations can be found here (certificates required). Those results aren't perfect (the surveys are administered during the last week of class, when all the people who hated the class enough to drop it are already gone), but at least they're standardized and taken by a large number of people.

3. JE asked,

For a research career in undergrad to be considered valuable and worthwhile, is publication a must? Ex. is there an X number of times you should be published to have a good shot at a top grad school?

You definitely don't need to be published to get into a top grad school. It helps, no doubt, but it's not required. It's actually not even common -- when I went to a workshop on grad school applications junior year, the course 9 faculty said that only about 5% of their applicants are published. So if you can get published through your UROP, get psyched, but if not, don't worry about it in the least. (And, to put in a plug for Melis -- you can publish in MURJ!)

Sidenote: You, too, should go back and read all of the old entries. There's some good stuff in the archives, plus it would probably save you the trouble of asking poor Matt some question that's already been answered twenty zillion times. And don't be a wuss and say "But there are fourteen hundred entrieeeees in the archives!" Boo hoo. I've read and tagged them all in four days. Don't be a weenie.

So since some of the categories don't have many entries at the moment, I am dedicating myself to writing entries on a couple of under-discussed topics.

Hence, today: Undergraduate Advising at MIT.

Freshman advising
Freshman advising is separate from upperclassman advising; upperclassmen are advised by faculty members in their declared department, but freshmen are all officially undeclared until the end of the year.

Freshmen have a variety of advising choices:

• Traditional advising. In traditional advising, the freshman is assigned to an MIT faculty member or staffperson, who holds meetings on or near registration day to discuss potential classes with the student and sign the student's registration card. A traditional advisor is also available for one-on-one meetings any time during the year.


• Seminar advising. A freshman seminar is a weekly class which students attend; they're on a wide variety of topics (friends of mine have explored Boston's museums, discussed the ethical implications of the Human Genome Project, and built personal electronic devices in their seminars) and are open only to freshmen. The seminars offered this year are here and here. Seminars have very few students, so freshmen get a lot of one-on-one attention from their advisors, who are MIT faculty or staffpersons.


• Residence-based advising. In RBA, students are advised and placed in seminars based on the dorms in which they choose to live. RBA is available only in Next House and McCormick Hall.

There's no one best advising choice for every incoming freshman. Freshman seminars are usually quite enjoyable (and no, they don't take up a lot of time -- but you do get 6 units of academic credit for them!), but not everybody wants to add a seminar to his or her schedule. Personally, I did traditional advising, and I turned out just fine.

In a more practical sense, freshman advisors are great for advice on careers and that sort of thing, but most MIT students rely more on the upperclassmen with whom they live to give advice on which classes to take. This works out pretty well, since most MIT students spend freshman year taking the General Institute Requirements and perhaps the introductory class(es) in their majors, so upperclassmen are really experts on which courses are best. Plus, it's easier to get advice from an upperclassman next door than an advisor all the way across campus, especially at 2 AM.

All types of freshman advising, I ought to mention, are copious sources of free food.

Advising for upperclassmen
All upperclassmen are advised by a professor in their major department. (I'm not sure who advises students who remain undecided after freshman year.) Some departments assign students to their advisors, some allow students to pick their own advisors, and some take into account a combination of student preference and advisor availability. In Brain and Cognitive Sciences, I was allowed to list four or five professors as potential advisors, and the final decision was made by Jason, the (awesome) undergraduate administrator, probably based on how many other advisees each of my choices already had. In Biology, I just picked my UROP supervisor as my advisor. (Yeah multiple birds with minimal stones.)

In case it's not obvious by what I just said, students who declare two majors get two advisors. Double the fun for everyone -- and double the number of people who can sign your papers!

Different departments have different policies on the advisor/advisee relationship. Some departments only require that advisors meet with students on Registration Day, but others require that the advisors and advisees meet at other times too. (My Biology advisor, for example, was required to meet with me on Registration Day to discuss my plans for the term and during the week before Drop Date to discuss how well those plans were working for me.) Of course, you're welcome to drop in on your advisor at any time to discuss classes, grad school/employment plans, or just life in general. Sometimes you have to make an appointment.

Some people have a great relationship with their advisors, and some only see their advisors when they need something signed. I was very close with my biology advisor, since I worked in his lab for three years and could drop into his office any time I had a stupid grad school freakout question, but I only ever saw my other advisor on Registration Day. Adam is best buddies with his advisor (they fly remote controlled airplanes together), and is even still close with his ex-advisor, who had to move south for health reasons -- Adam's going down to Georgia in a few weeks to help him with an experiment. Adam and I also both have trusted professor friends who aren't our advisors.

As with freshman advising, upperclassmen are still often the best resource when deciding which classes to take -- professors are great with the life advice and all, but sometimes they're not exactly with it on the classes needed to get there.

Students who are interested in medical school, law school, or dental school are also assigned a preprofessional advisor through the MIT Careers Office; this advisor offers guidance for class selection and the professional school application process specifically.

Questions

1. Anonymous asked,

Is it recommended for biology/premed students to use the ap credit for 7.01x or take the class to have more of a solid foundation? If we use the credit, what upper level biology class should we take?

It's really a personal choice whether to use the AP credit for biology or not to do so. Particularly, you should check the requirements of any medical schools to which you plan to apply -- many won't accept AP credit, but require that premed classes be taken at a university. Personally, I'm glad I took into biology at MIT, because I learned the way that professors tend to ask problem set and test questions without having to deal with new material at the same time.

If you choose to take AP credit, typically you wouldn't take any upper-level biology course in your freshman year; you'd take 5.12 (organic chemistry) in the spring to prepare for 5.13 (organic chemistry II) in your sophomore fall. You could also take 18.03 (differential equations), which is required by some medical schools. The first upper-division biology class students take is usually 7.03 (genetics), which is generally taken during fall of the sophomore year.

2. Hattie asked,

I'm pondering whether I should apply to MIT early or not. I've heard that people who are accepted early are exceptionals (like winners of international math/science competitions, etc), so I'm not sure if an average person like me should apply early. Do you know what a normal early-admitted person is like? Thanks!

Honestly, if you have your application done by the EA deadline, you might as well send it in. You'll never be at a disadvantage applying EA -- you're not, after all, being compared to all the other applicants, just to yourself and your opportunities, so it shouldn't matter whether the applicant pool is stronger during EA or RD. I obviously don't have any sort of systematic data, but my friends who were admitted EA don't seem to be stronger students in general than my friends who were admitted RD. :)

3. Ying Wei wrote,

i wonder that if i manage to get into MIT one day, do u mind me paying u a visit?

I love visitors! (And I should note, for the '10s among you, that I plan to have fresh cookies, and possibly pie, during Orientation. Not that I'm trying to bribe you to visit me or anything.)

4. Matthew asked,

You mentioned one of Adam's supervisor asked him to work on a project for his Aero/Astro master's degree? What's the project?

Oh lord, I'm going to make an idiot out of myself trying to explain this. So Adam works with UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) right now, and his group is transitioning from using large UAVs which can only track objects using GPS to using small UAVs which can track objects using a different system (he says it's similar to the motion-capture system that they used to animate Gollum in the Lord of the Rings?). The big advantage of the smaller UAVs is that they can be flight-tested indoors -- it's tough to get good outdoor flying weather in New England on a consistent basis. The motion-capture system is absurdly expensive, but Boeing is footing the bill. ;) He has a video of his prototype plane-tracking thingy in his Athena locker, which I will link to after I find it.

The eventual goal is to track objects better than they're tracked right now, and presumably with the intent to blow things up, et cetera. (That's usually the goal in applied aerospace research.)

5. Joe asked,

If one is accepted to any dorm, each floor is said to have its own culture. Can you kind of give an overview of that in MacGregor? Thanks! Congrats on the engagement :)

I think if I try to stereotype, I'm just going to get myself in trouble, so I'll merely say that yes, the entries in MacGregor are pretty different, and hopefully everyone who's interested in MacGregor will explore the different entries both before and during in-house rush. I'm hesitant to stereotype, because a) stereotypes are inevitably too broad, and b) entry culture can often change dramatically over a year or two, so anything I say might not be accurate for this year.

6. Andrew asked,

I was just perusing some Macgregor related sites and found some conflicting information. You said that all the entries are co-ed, but on the F-entry homepage, it says that they are all-male (perhaps this is just old, and hasn't been updated recently...). So, what's the truth?

Keri's right -- F-Entry just went coed last school year (2005-2006). They probably just haven't updated their webpage yet.

A cool thing that I find amusing
We went over to the Museum of Science today to check out the reception site. Hanging in the space over the main entrance to the museum are the vehicles Daedalus (a human-powered plane) and Decavitator (a human-powered boat), which were both powered to world records (Daedalus and Decavitator) by MIT aero/astro professor Mark Drela. Professor Drela happens to be Adam's academic advisor/friend/airplane-loving soulmate, and Adam's planning to invite him to the wedding. Adam mentioned this to the MoS staff member responsible for renting the facilities, and she got really excited. We're inviting celebrities to our wedding! Sort of!

Going on vaca
Adam and I are going to the Bahamas tomorrow and staying there until Monday evening. Vacation! I'm super-excited. I haven't been to the beach since spring break of sophomore year (when I went to Jamaica with Rose '05 and Swapna '05), and I can't wait to lie on the beach and read science books and drink fruity drinks all day. Adam can't wait to visit the Nassau Pirate Museum. Eh, to each his own.

Questions

1. Anonymous asked,

You'd recommend taking chemistry rather than bio first term in general? If so, please explain.

Yup. Almost everybody takes chemistry (whether 3.091, 5.111, or 5.112) first term, which means that you'll be able to find more people to join your pset group. Comparatively fewer people take chemistry in the spring (only about 1/4 the number of people who take it in the fall), and those people are overwhelmingly people who failed it in the fall. Some courses at MIT have "on" terms and "off" terms -- intro chemistry is almost always taken in the fall, so the spring class is usually markedly less enjoyable, but intro biology is taken whenever it can be fit in, so the spring and fall classes are equally enjoyable. Furthermore, if you're planning to take further chemistry courses, taking 5.111/5.112 in the fall frees you up to take 5.12 in the spring, then 5.13 the next fall -- 5.13 is only offered in the fall, so if you want to take it your sophomore year, you'd better take 5.111/2 fall of your freshman year.

2. Betty asked,

Hey Mollie! Would you recommend taking 7.01x first year for premeds if there are other science GIRs to complete? Also, what are the differences between the intro bio courses? Thanks =]

I would take 7.01x during the freshman year if you're planning to major in biology or in any other department which requires a lot of bio courses (such as BE or chemE with biotrack). Most biology-related majors take 7.03 in the fall of their sophomore years and 7.05 in the spring, so you'll want to have 7.01x under your belt before taking those classes. I believe premeds generally want to finish the classes required for the MCAT by the end of sophomore year anyway.

As for differences between biology classes, I think 7.012 (offered in the fall) and 7.013 (spring) are really quite similar, though I believe 7.013 has more of an emphasis on human disease and genetics than 7.012. The major differences between 7.012 and 7.013 are with the professors -- 7.012 is famously taught by Eric Lander and Bob Weinberg, while 7.013 is taught by Tyler Jacks (a very well-known cancer researcher) and Hazel Sive. I personally thought Jacks was wonderful and adorable, but everyone says Lander is outstanding too. More non-biology majors take 7.013 than 7.012, although I'm not sure why.

7.014 is different from 7.013 and 7.012, as it emphasizes microorganisms, as well as "big" things like ecology and evolution, which most other MIT biology classes don't do.

3. anon asked,

when do we register for P.E. classes? I want to take ice dancing :P

The DAPER website says that registration will be August 30 to September 6 this year, and first quarter classes will run from September 11 to October 24. (PE classes last half a semester during term and all month during IAP.) Be sure to check this website between August 30 and September 6, as there is a PE lottery to enter to get your class. (Like most other MIT lotteries, it's kind of just a suggestion -- if you miss the lottery, you can go to the first meeting of a class you like and usually get in. But space is more limited in PE classes, so it's best to get lotteried in.)

4. Kelly asked,

Hey Mollie, if it usually takes around five and a half years to get a PhD, do you know how MD/PhD programs work? Thanks.

Usually MD/PhD candidates go to medical school for the first two years, do their PhD in four years, and finish medical school. (I have a flowchart on my Degrees in Biology PDF!) The way this works out is that MD/PhD candidates are generally given thesis projects that are more of a sure thing -- they're not especially likely to get earth-shattering results from them, but they're likely to be able to get through the PhD part with fewer snags than the average PhD-only candidate.

Some MD/PhD programs work differently -- my friend Jen '06, for example, is picking a lab for her thesis before she starts medical school (she's up to her ears in zebrafish this summer!). But I think that just means she'll hit the ground running on her thesis in two years when she starts the PhD part of her program.

We bought the ring together last week, so I wasn't entirely surprised today, but he did take me to Killian Court after lunch and say some really mushy things and ask me to marry him. And I said yes! And my ring is unbelievably sparkly and gorgeous!

I'm going to write some stuff about how we met and got together later, but right now we're going out to dinner to celebrate. :)

MIT doesn't consider legacy status in admissions -- legacy kids aren't at an advantage compared to the rest of the pool. So basically, all you admissions poohbahs, I'm giving you until 2029 (2006 plus 5 years -- when I'm done with grad school -- plus 18) to change the policy. :-P (For Karen, below: A legacy is an applicant whose parent(s) attended the school. Some schools give preference to legacy applicants; MIT doesn't.)

MIT romance
I met Adam in September of my sophomore year at a party at Baker, but I wasn't really aware of his existence until IAP of that year, when he told our friend Carl '07 (who's going to be an usher!) that he had a crush on me. Being a boy, Carl promptly began promoting Adam to me in the most unsubtle way possible, and being a girl, I was totally uninterested.

In March of my sophomore year, Adam and I went to another party at Baker, where we consumed some ethanol and flirted with each other. I kissed him on the cheek, and after we came home he wrote me an IM telling me that he liked me. (Cheesy.)

A few weeks later, a bunch of people were sitting in my room gabbing on a Friday night, including Carl. Adam came upstairs to A-Entry to talk to Carl, and since Carl was in my room, Adam joined the conversation. One by one, everybody in my room left except for Adam, and we stayed up all night talking to each other. The next night, there was a party in D-Entry, and Adam kissed me. And we really haven't been apart since.

After he proposed in Killian, I got to thinking -- I wouldn't even know him if I hadn't come to MIT. Kind of weird, to think of the different life I could be leading.

Eeee, we're getting married!

I cried.

Thankfully, I didn't cry until after I got outside and had said all my goodbyes and everything. You know how there's no crying in baseball? Well, there's no crying in science either. Unfortunately for me, I am a hopeless sap, so the best I can hope for is not crying in front of people.

On Thursday, my postdoc took me out to lunch near campus, and we talked about the past three years (after working together for such a long time, you have lots of stories), about graduate school, and about careers in science. He gave me a lot of good advice about picking a thesis lab, and about planning my career trajectory in general -- and he gave me two books to read at the beach next week.

By my count, I spent about 3000 hours in the lab over the course of three summers, three IAPs, and six semesters. I went into lab during blizzards (winter 2005), heat waves (summer 2004), weekends (uh, pretty much every weekend since 2005), holidays (in 2004, July 4 was the first holiday I took off), mornings (7 AM every Wednesday this summer), nights (until 2 AM one Friday night in spring 2005), and a lot of times in between. I guess I'm a little bit of a workaholic. But it was totally worth it.

Why it rocks to go to MIT for college, reason #65932
Adam, my beautiful curly-haired rocket scientist better half, is applying to grad schools this year. He had been a little nervous about applying (aren't we all?), especially because me picking Harvard for grad school effectively meant he'd have to get into MIT's aero/astro master's program.

Well, he was talking with his UROP supervisor last week, and his supervisor casually mentioned that he has a project that he'd really like Adam to take on for his master's degree.

So basically, Adam's going to get into MIT -- if you have a professor who already wants you specifically in his lab when you apply, that's grad school gold. He still has to take the GRE and write a statement of purpose and all that stuff, but it means he doesn't really have to worry about getting in anymore. Hooray!

Concertgoing
Last night Adam and I ventured south to the Tweeter Center to see the Counting Crows and the Goo Goo Dolls. If you stranded me on a desert island and forced me to pick two bands to listen to for the rest of eternity, those are totally the two I'd pick, so I was ridiculously psyched to hear that a) they were touring together, and b) they were coming to Boston.

The concert was *amazing*. That's really all I'm going to say, since this blog's title is not "The Counting Crows are Life: The Rest is Just Chemistry and Physics". But I totally rocked out and danced around doing awkward white girl dances and had a blast.

(And then, for the record, it took two hours for Adam and me to get back to the city, partially because of concert traffic and partially because large chunks of the Big Dig were closed for repairs, bottlenecking traffic trying to get into the city. If you're coming out to Boston on a plane anytime soon, do yourself a favor and do not rent a car.)

Questions

1. Meg asked,

do you think it's a good idea to jump into harder courses right away or do you think it's better to just start w/ the easier ones (like calc I and intro to bio) to get a feel for what mit classes are like? Also, what are the math requirements, beyond GIRs, for majoring in bio?

Deciding whether to use AP credit or not is a decision that everybody approaches differently -- some people just take the credit and run, and some prefer to start out in classes in which they have a stronger footing. For my part, I'd advise you to take the credit, but only as long as you feel comfortable with the background you have.

Biology at MIT doesn't require any math classes past 18.02 (although a lot of people take 18.03), so it should be fine for you to skip 18.01 and 18.02 as long as you still remember how to integrate -- you'll need 18.02 knowledge for 5.60 (thermo and kinetics). Skipping 7.01x should be fine also -- a lot of people do it -- although I wouldn't really be in favor of taking 7.03 as a freshman. You'd be better off taking chemistry as a first-term freshman than trying to jump into the biology core. (If you have any other questions, feel free to email!)

2. Sulinya asked,

Hey Mollie, how long does it usually take to do a Ph.D. program? Like how long is your Harvard one?

It really depends on the student and how well his or her research is going -- some people get a project that gives them immediate results, but other people hit snags along the way which delay their graduation. Since getting your PhD depends almost entirely on your research progress, some people graduate after four years, and some people graduate after seven or eight. The average in most of the programs is around five and a half years, but there's a pretty big standard deviation!

3. Katie asked,

How did you get the 6-week internship you did the summer after your freshman year?

Well, the full story is here. The Q&D version is that I emailed a bunch of NIH PI's expressing interest in their work, and one of them passed my name onto a postdoc who picked me to work with him. Melis also has some tips on getting one of those NIH internships here; you have to fill out an online application and get some letters of recommendation, too.

4. Sylvia asked,

Hi. I read that pets are allowed in the dorms. Which pets exactly are allowed and how common do you see others with them?

Officially: Pets are only allowed in EC, Random, Bexley, and Senior House, and the only allowed pets are cats. Some parts/floors of those three dorms have cats, and some don't; pet policies are collected here.

Unofficially: Even though pets aren't allowed in dorms other than the ones named above, I know a lot of animals that live in non-pet dorms. Off the top of my head I can think of a turtle, two cats, two rabbits, a mouse, a tarantula, and a ferret -- and that's only among my friends.

So yes, the only pets allowed in MIT dorms are cats. ;)

Since I went into lab at 7 AM both yesterday and today, I am very tired and want to crawl into bed. But I thought, since it's the beginning of a new application season, that I'd rewrite an introduction to the blog to those of you just joining us. (I am NOT putting my full name in it like I did last time, thus enabling every internet stalker I have -- and apparently I have a few -- to effectively google me. If you're googling my full name, could you please leave a comment saying hi or something? I am tired of having to rack my brain to think of people I know in various states.)

So for the basics. My name is Mollie, and I just graduated from MIT in June with degrees in brain and cognitive sciences and biology. My current research interest is protein-protein interactions in neurons, and I'll be starting a PhD program in cell biology at Harvard in September. (Like any good MIT student, I still get a little bristly when people talk about Harvard. And then I remember that I go there now. It, uh, hasn't exactly sunk in yet.)
While at MIT, I participated in the UROP program for three years; I currently have authorship on an abstract, authorship on a paper that's in revision, and will have first authorship on a paper that is currently in about ten different files on my jump drive. (First authorship as an undergrad = very big deal.) I work in the lab of a pretty famous professor, who was also my academic advisor, and who wrote a ridiculously amazing letter of recommendation for my graduate school applications. I talk about my research in a bunch of different places on the blog. It's been a pretty important part of my life for the past three years, both in terms of getting me into grad school (the boring part) and in terms of making me happy to be alive and able to get out of bed in the mornings. I love research, which is why I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing it; MIT is a pretty great place to be if you want to do something along those lines.

I lived for four years in MacGregor, a very tall, very 70s-esque dorm on the west side of campus. It's a great place to live, and it fit my personality really well. My closest friends are the people in my entries (I lived in A for three years, then D for my senior year), and, rather critically, I met my boyfriend there. I was MacGregor's rush chair in 2004, and one of my bit MIT soapboxes is that I believe very strongly in the dorm rush system -- I was immediately happy and at home in my dorm because I was a good fit with the residents, and I hope that all future MIT students can feel the connection and community that I experienced as a result of open dorm choice. Dormitory choice is a critical piece of MIT's culture.

Even though I was a band geek/choir [nasty epithet]/drama queen in high school, I came to MIT and joined the cheerleading squad. I didn't have any experience, but I got pretty good (I'm stronger than I look!), and I actually became captain my junior year. I really enjoyed being on the squad for a bunch of reasons: the socialization and entertainment, the exercise (I weighed the same when I got to college as when I left), and for three two-hour chunks of time every week when I could run around and joke and not think about signaling pathways and dissociation constants.

I am not a super-genius. I wasn't when I applied, I wasn't when I got here, and I'm not now. I think MIT has made me into a harder worker and a better critical thinker, and frankly I'll take those traits over being a super-genius any day. You don't have to be absurdly brilliant to survive at MIT, but you do have to be willing to put in some honest labor. We subscribe to the New England work ethic around this joint. (Sidenote: One thing I do not understand, and am probably constituitively incapable of understanding, is people who choose other schools over MIT merely because they will have to work less hard elsewhere. It is beyond me that someone would choose not to challenge him/herself at such an opportunity-laden time as college. If you're going to take the easy road now, you're going to be taking the easy road for the rest of your life. Ugh.)

I have a beautiful curly-haired boyfriend named Adam, and he's going to be a senior this year in aero/astro. (Yes, he's younger than I am. He lied about his age the first night he kissed me. I was lured into this under false pretenses.) We've been together for about two and a half years now, and we just moved to an apartment on the west end of campus with an adorable bunny rabbit. Adam's going to stay at MIT to get his masters, and then he will get a job and make mad loot, while I stay in grad school and make peanuts. He likes airplanes an absurd amount. He is a nationally-ranked freestyle skiier. He is also adorable. Don't believe what you hear about MIT boys.

That's about it, I think.

Questions!

1. A Regular Reader asked,

Incidentally, do you know of any MIT bio undergrads who applied to the grad MIT bio program? I hear this is the first year "inbreeding" was allowed, and was wondering if you knew what that admission percentage was?

Actually, I do -- I mean, I applied, for one. :) Supposedly there were 9 of us who applied; I only know of four, including myself, and all four of us got in. So the admission percentage is at least 44%, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if all nine of us got in. I only know of one person who decided to go, though -- most of us decided that it would be better for us to experience academic life in other places.

2. Lizzy asked,

Hmm...if you can't keep blogging regularly for MIT, do you have a personal blog that you can use for we readers to be updated on your graduate school goings-on?

I'm in a bit of a debate on this one. I do have a personal blog, but I'm debating making it friends-only -- there have been some disquieting stories recently about grad students getting in trouble for complaining about grad school on their personal blogs, and it makes me think I'd be better off tunneling underground in the blogosphere.

3. Drew asked,

How do we know what foreign language class to register for? I've been doing Spanish since middle schools, so presumably Spanish I might not be a good fit, but I don't know exactly what level to take. I heard that lots of people just take a good guess and the teacher figures out their aptitude and, if necessary moves them to a different class. Is that true?

Yup, that's how it happens. And every year, some kid who took 5 years of Spanish in high school has the bright idea to take Spanish I for an easy A, and the Spanish profs figure it out in about 5 minutes, and the kid is sent off to Spanish IV or whatever. The professors are pretty good at placement. :)

My new Vaio is blue, which was really one of my major criteria for my purchase: portable, fast processor, colorful.

I'm totally going to have the most stylish computer in grad school.

I suppose I should mention, in case it wasn't patently obvious by now, that you don't have to know much about computers to get into or attend MIT. I like technology, but I am quite happily clueless about the actual workings of my shiny new Vaio; I know enough about it to run it and maintain it, but if there's anything wrong with it, I take it to the nice people at the Computing Helpdesk.

Summer reading
Like Laura, I also read up a storm in the summer. I (re-)read Robert Sapolsky's books A Primate's Memoir, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and Monkeyluv last week, and I am currently in the middle of a book I've been meaning to read for ages: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. It's a science book about cooking. I am completely in heaven. (And, as I'm sure Sam will be excited to know, the book mentions the Maillard reaction just about every other page.)

Speaking of cooking, Adam and I have been making some great food the last few weeks: red lentil curry, beef stew (it tasted just like my grandmother's), mango chicken stir-fry, homemade pizza piled high with veggies, pesto penne... I think that my cooking skills are pretty good, considering that I had never eaten Chinese, Indian, or Thai food before I got to MIT. (Come to MIT! Expand your culinary horizons!)

Work
Next week is my last week in the lab (which is to say, the last week before I start working for the month of August with a new boss), and I'm finishing up my last few experiments. Unfortunately for me, this means that I have a ton of data analysis to do.

Basically, what I have to do is take one of my neuron pictures, select five 30-micron regions on the neuron, then zoom in really close. The program I use allows you to measure areas on the picture, so I measure the length and width of each spine in the regions I've defined. The program automatically logs this information to Excel. It takes me about 10 minutes to get through each picture. I've analyzed about 45 pictures so far, and I have about 80 to go. And then, I have to manipulate the data in Excel so I can figure out the average length and width of a spine for each condition, and decide if any differences between conditions are statistically significant.

This is bone-crunchingly boring work. This is something I don't think people mention enough to prospective scientists -- a decent percentage of the things you have to do in science are brain-liquefyingly, eye-poppingly boring. That's just the way things are.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal, one of the first neuroscientists and one of my personal scientific icons, said "You should abandon science... if your soul isn't flooded with the emotion of anticipated pleasure when approaching the long-awaited and solemn moment of the fiat lux." And I think that's why it's worth it... if you didn't have to grind through the tedium, you wouldn't appreciate that moment at the end when the clouds open up and scientific grace descends from on high. (Incidentally, this is also my policy on suffering through Boston winters to get to Boston spring and summer. And, for that matter, it's my policy on working really hard for an MIT degree. MIT kids are really good at delayed gratification, as you might imagine. Either that, or we're just masochists.)

Zoo!
Adam and I were going to go with some of our friends to Six Flags today, but the crappy weather forecast convinced us that would be a poor choice. So instead, we headed for the zoo. Zoos are collectively my favorite place on the face of the earth, so I was a pretty happy camper.

There were lots of baby animals, and all of the animals were pretty relaxed, coming to easily-viewable spots in their habitats to stare at the human visitors. It was a good zoo! I think if I weren't going to be a cell biologist, I would totally be a zookeeper.

Questions

1. Helen asked,

What is the percentage of MIT students living at dorms owning a TV set (estimated by Mollie)? And how many of them watch TV frequently?

It really depends on where you live. In MacGregor, it's fairly rare for a student to have a personal TV, since each entry has a TV in the lounge, and TV watching is part entertainment and part social interaction. In dorms without widely-used community spaces, it's much more common to have a TV in your room. Either way, you would be perfectly fine bringing a cheap TV with you to school -- if you end up in a dorm which watches TV in community areas, you can just send it home.

And I suspect that whether or not you watch a lot of TV is highly dependent on whether or not you watched a lot of it before you came to MIT. :)

2. thekeri asked,

You took Latin?

That I did. I was actually one of three people in my school to take it all four years -- all but three of us dropped out after Latin III (including the friends for whom I did homework), so Latin IV was an independent study. I now remember very little of all that hard work, alas, but it did help tremendously when I was studying for the GRE.

And Christina asked,

Did you take any languages at MIT?

I took 21F.701 (Spanish I) and 21F.702 (Spanish II) sophomore year. I really enjoyed the classes (the Spanish profs at MIT are super), but I couldn't take the higher levels because they kept conflicting with required classes in my majors.

3. Anonymous asked,

Do you know if an MIT undergrad majoring in physics can apply for the MIT grad program in physics?

My friend Fadam '07 says that yes, course 8 undergrads are allowed to apply for the PhD programs, although they're not generally encouraged to do so. It's not always (or even usually) the best choice for a student to stay in the same program for undergrad and grad school, since a lot of success in science depends on a student's connections and ability to network.

Incidentally, I don't think it's a good idea to choose/not choose MIT as a school for undergrad based on your desire to go here for grad school. I think it's very foolish when people say "Oh, I'm not going to go to MIT for undergrad; I'll just save it for grad school." Um, yeah, good luck with that. It's not easy to get admitted to any of MIT's graduate programs, and besides, you shouldn't be planning where you want to go to grad school before you even start undergrad. (Anyway, the environment of your undergraduate program is a lot more important than the environment of your graduate program -- you don't actually have a "life" in graduate school, so you don't have to choose a graduate school based on the general school atmosphere.) If you like MIT, you shouldn't choose not to come here because you think you'll be able to get in for your masters or PhD.

What kind of high school student were you? Did everyone always come to you for help, expect the best from you, etc?....did you like it or hate it?

I think that's an interesting question, albeit with the caveat that memories are believed to be strongly modified by later experience. So I'm going to try and cite from primary sources (that is to say, my high school journal) wherever possible. This might be somewhat challenging, considering how much of my high school journal is concerned with boys, but I'll try valiantly to pick out the pieces that aren't about being boy-crazy.

First of all, this was me in high school.

I think I look pretty much the same as I do now, which pretty much ensures that I always get carded when I buy beer. I went to the Massachusetts RMV to get a driver's permit a few weeks ago, and the lady said, "You have to have a co-signer if you're under 18." I was like, "I AM TWENTY-TWO AND FIVE-TWELFTHS."

My high school was a decent suburban Ohio public high school; it wasn't superb and it wasn't terrible. My graduating class had 530 kids in it, but there was a small core of smart kids who had been together ever since gifted class in fourth grade. My high school was pretty well-known for the performing arts, and I was heavily involved in them -- I was the only kid in my year to make the play and the musical all four years of high school, the only girl to make the competitive show choir my junior year, and the captain of the 40-member flag corps which accessorized the 300-member band.

I primarily ran around in the band/choir/theatre circle. My friends and I were all smart, but we were better-known for being good singers/actors/instrumentalists. I was popular within the performing arts crowd (which, remember, was about 500 kids strong!), and I personally didn't care one way or another whether the other crowds knew I existed or not. (When I was in elementary school, one of the other kids caught me reading the dictionary, and everybody teased me mercilessly for the rest of third grade. This tends to instill in people either a never-ending desire for popularity or complete apathy toward what other people think. I chose not to care about the opinions of people who weren't my friends.) My senior year, our musical was Crazy for You, and for the show I had to wear stilettos and a backless slinky gown and sing a rather provocative song. I got a lot of unwanted attention from the popular boys after that. It was mortifying. (Although I did look damn good in the dress.)

I had always liked school, but I never did anything "so I could get into college". I'm just naturally a perfectionist, and I liked getting A's. I was also known as someone who would help anybody with homework -- most of the time during choir performances or theatre show week, you'd find me backstage with some confused person, making drawings about cell division or correcting the grammar in an English paper. My journal says

There's only one Latin III class, so Ali and Sarah [my best friends] and I can kick butt together -- ok, I can kick butt and do their work for them so it looks like they kick butt.

I put myself under tremendous pressure to get A's in high school, although that doesn't mean I actually spent all that much time doing homework. I was good at cutting the corners that needed to get cut, which was good, because I was taking a challenging courseload and doing a zillion extracurriculars at once and generally had a few too many irons in the fire. From the journal:

I am so thoroughly sick of being so busy! I feel like I'm being pulled in twenty different directions: the play, band, ITK [quiz team], Chorale [show choir], English, Biology, Genetics, college applications... the problem with being a polymath is that everyone feels they have the right to a slice of my time. I know I got myself into this, and there's nothing I would give up -- but oh, for some time to myself!

Haha, that sounds a lot like something I would have said at the end of last semester. I still like the time juggling act, even if it gets exhausting after a while.

Questions

1. Anonymous asked,

When did you learn to rejoice when you made average grades? When did your mind set change?

You know, I'm not entirely sure. I know it had happened by the beginning of second semester, but I'm not sure when in first semester it happened. (First semester of my freshman year is kind of a blur for me -- my high school boyfriend and I were having problems and then broke up, so the whole semester is just a blur of angry phone calls, late nights, and work work work.)

2. Charlotte asked,

Some people choose practicality over passion in selecting courses because they feel that whatever they're interested in can easily be read in books anyway and therefore the only thing that counts is the final grade. So what will make a course far more rewarding than mere reading?

I've always found it much easier to learn from lectures than just from books, because I find it easier to learn when the salient points are picked out for me firsthand. There are some things in science that are confusing, but they're much easier to get when somebody is telling you which details are critical and which details are just window dressing. Some people are better at learning from books -- and I'm very jealous of them!

3. Katie '10 asked,

This might seem kind of random, but I was just wondering if we really need extra long bed sheets. I've heard from a few college students around here that they are actually too long for their beds and that they could have bought regular sheets.

Well, I always used twin XL sheets, and they fit just fine. I never tried regular-length sheets, though, so I don't know how well they would work. And Christina, a full-size comforter will be fine -- you will want as much comforter as possible for the Boston winters! :)

4. Adriane '10 asked

I'm currently planning on majoring in course 2, but how easy is it to take classes in neuroscience outside of one's major?

It's pretty easy to take classes outside your major in general at MIT, and course 9 classes are no exception. Most classes have a formal prerequisite, but a) prereqs are rarely strictly enforced at MIT, so you should take whatever you feel comfortable with taking, and b) if you take 9.01 and/or 24.900, you can take most classes in the department.

5. Anon asked,

You are in neuroscience, right? I'm looking at MIT undergrad, and saw this in the Boston Globe online today

In a letter responding to professors who wanted MIT to investigate the senior professor's treatment of the job recruit, Hockfield said there are ``ongoing tensions among MIT's neuroscience entities" and suggested that the current situation ``threatens ongoing disruption of the collegiality of our academic enterprise." The letter, dated Monday, was obtained by the Globe.

Is this just jostling between profs, or does it affect undergrad students too? If you work with one prof, will others resent it and not help you or give you good recs?

Oh god, that's totally just professor politics. Undergrads are definitely not involved in that sort of stuff -- if you work with one prof that somebody else doesn't like, it won't affect his or her opinion of you in the least. (And to be honest, I don't see any unusual political maneuverings within the department -- the kinds of disagreements which occur between faculty members in the MIT BCS department occur in every other department in every other academic institution in the world. Unfortunate as it is, professors are people too, and when they interact with each other they can be small-minded, petty people.)

Schrodinger's train, perhaps?

And now, the real stuff
A common concern voiced about applying to/attending a school like MIT is that in a milieu of such strong students, it's going to be difficult for a given student to stand out among his or her peers, and she/he won't get into a good grad program. This is also usually bound up with the concern that not being at the top of the class will cause the student to shrivel up like a bacterium in Lysol.

I remember having those same concerns when I got into MIT. (I didn't feel them when I applied, as you might recall, because I applied out of spite.) It's a little nervewracking to realize that you're no longer the class brain, and that you can't sleepwalk your way to perfect grades anymore.

My first semester at MIT, I realized just how meager my high school preparation had been. I had never taken physics before, and I was suddenly taking 8.01 with a bunch of people who had "merely" gotten 4's on the AP test. In high school, I'd been upset when I got grades below 90; my first semester at MIT, I learned to rejoice when I got class average. My first semester average would have been a 3.25 on MIT's 5.0 scale, had it been on grades -- I got 3 C's and a B.

But the cool thing was that I was happy with that. I had worked my tail end off for those C's in a way that I'd never worked for my A's in high school. A semester of MIT taught me what twelve years of public education never had -- it's not about the grades, it's about what you learn in class, and you have to learn for you, not for the grades.

My new philosophy informed my attitude about every other class I took at MIT. I didn't drive myself crazy studying for finals; I did what I felt was necessary, then took a few hours to talk to friends and eat potato chips. If I had a choice between studying an extra two hours for a test and doing a critical experiment in lab, I chose the experiment every time. I didn't go to night classes, even though some of my biology recitations were held at night, because I knew I needed time at home at night to defragment my brain and hang out with my boyfriend. I learned that learning is a priority for me, but getting perfect grades isn't.

Ironically, the more I applied my philosophy -- taking classes because they were just drop-dead cool, reading the scientific literature about subjects I liked voraciously, spending time in lab just for the sheer joy of it -- the better my grades became.

I don't think this would have happened to me if I had gone to Ohio State. I think I would have still felt like I needed to be at the top of the class, and I would have been focused on my grades to the neglect of my education and personal growth. Moreover, I would have needed to be at the top of my class at OSU to get into the grad schools I got into this year. I didn't need to be at the top of my MIT class to get into those schools, as grad schools seem to be overjoyed to admit ridiculous numbers of MIT-educated scientists and engineers. (Point in fact, I wouldn't know if I were at the top of my MIT class. MIT doesn't rank, and nobody graduates with Latin honors or anything foofy like that. True story.)

I think MIT was worth it for me both in terms of the way I was taught to be a first-rate scientist, but also in the way that I was taught to follow my own desires and motivations rather than living for immediate grade-based rewards. I didn't graduate first in my class at MIT. Thank God for that.

Step one of the "don't look like a tourist" guide is not to stand around like a moo cow in front of 77 Mass Ave. It may be the summer, but we students have places to be and things to discover, so kindly refrain from clogging up our path!

Step two: This is our campus.

You may notice that the buildings on this map have numbers on them. This is not an accident, nor is it just convenient map shorthand. We actually call buildings by their numbers here, and refer to rooms within buildings by their numbers. It's kind of bewildering at the outset, but it makes tons of sense once you understand the system.

The room numbers make the most immediate sense, so I'll start there. At MIT, we refer to rooms in a format like this: 10-100 (the Admissions Reception Center). This means that the room is in building 10, on the first floor, room 00. The Admissions Office is in 3-108, which is in building 3, on the first floor, room 08.

Main campus is considered to be the irregular pentagon of land bordered by Ames Street on the east, Memorial Drive on the south, Massachusetts Avenue (Mass Ave to the natives) on the west, the railroad tracks on the northwest, and Main Street on the northeast. Buildings outside this pentagon have a letter in front of their building number -- the medical building is E25, the student center is W20.

Buildings on main campus are numbered in a more or less logical system. Generally speaking, numbers are odd on the west side of building 10 and even on the east side of building 10. Numbers are small near the river and get larger as one heads north. There are some oddities, but that's a good general rule.

Step three: Start with the Infinite.
The Infinite Corridor is the hallway which passes through several of MIT's main academic buildings. It's a great thing for lost visitors in the summer and frozen students in the winter -- once you get to the Infinite in the winter, you very rarely have to go outside again until you need to go home. Most of the time, Boston's weather is lovely and/or tolerable, but there are certain days in January when the connectedness of the Infinite just seems like a gift from the god of poor frozen college kids.

The main part of the Infinite runs from building 7 through buildings 3, 10, and 4 to building 8. At this point, you can take a jag left, then right, and find yourself walking through buildings 16, 56, and 66; this route isn't really considered the Infinite, but is still a long straight line of interconnected buildings with helpful signs.

Step four: Know the natives, and don't be a shallow jerk.
I heard a visitor say once that the people at MIT looked unhappy and busy, which struck me as a) infuriating, and b) as a ridiculous generalization. See, when you visit, there will be a lot of people roaming MIT's campus. MIT is kind of a miniature city -- there are about 4000 undergrads (only about a third to a half of whom are here for the summer, mostly doing research or interning at Boston companies), about 6000 grad students, about about 10000 faculty and staff members. Most of the people that you see in the halls aren't undergrads, so don't base your perceptions of MIT on the people you see in the halls -- base them on the people that you meet. If you see somebody who looks like an undergrad, stop him or her and ask a few questions about MIT life. If he or she is an undergrad, I'm sure s/he'll be happy to oblige.

Part two of not being a shallow jerk is to realize that the campus architecture will (really) have zero impact on your happiness as a student. MIT's campus is in the middle of the city, and a lot of it is made out of concrete. This does not mean you can't find secluded green spots where you can sit and enjoy life. You shouldn't be picking your school based on something as silly as architecture. Program quality, yes. Personality of the student body, yes. Weather, if you're a wuss. But campus architecture? Weird.

Step five: Putting it all together.
So when you visit, you're going to get out of my way when I'm heading to the lab, know the numbering system, start with the Infinite Corridor, know who's an undergrad and who's a bitter grad student, and take in the sights without being shallow.

Yay!

So this morning, I was psyched when Adam suggested that we join the herds of tourists and walk the trail. It was gorgeous today -- 82F with a light sea breeze and very little humidity -- so we hopped in the car and parked in a parking garage downtown. (Normally, we would take the T. But today they were running a shuttle between MIT's stop and Park Street, and a crowded shuttle bus wasn't on the list of things with which I felt like dealing today.)

We only walked the Boston part of the trail, but we got a nice long walk in today -- almost four miles!

1. Stars and Stripes cow

Boston is in the middle of a Cow Parade. I thought I'd look like a super-tourist and pet the cow for the camera. (Note: Only tourists take pictures with the cows. Boston residents are WAY too cool for this sort of thing. When you get to MIT for orientation, you have approximately a two-week grace period in which you are allowed to act like a tourist, but after that you have to pretend to be a jaded Bostonian.)

2. Old statehouse

The old statehouse is Boston's oldest surviving building. Right next to the statehouse is a marker commemorating the Boston Massacre, which happened right there. There's a museum in the statehouse, but it costs money, and Adam and I were determined to spend as little as possible.

3. Waterfront

Next, we headed to the waterfront park. It's very nice there, and it smells like the sea! We haven't had a hurricane in Boston since I've been here, other than the remnants which come up the coast, but we do get some pretty sweet nor'easters, especially in the winter. Nor'easters are like hurricanes, only way more fun.

4. Veggie cow

Adam met this veggieburger cow in the waterfront park.

5. Sox cow

I like this Red Sox cow because of the World Series ring on the front leg. When the Red Sox had their amazing comeback in the 2004 ALCS to beat the Yankees, my friends and I (and pretty much all of Boston) ran to Fenway Park to celebrate in the streets. I could hear the World Series from my river-facing MacGregor window -- believe me, it's really tough to study for a 7.20 (Human Physiology) test on the liver when the World Series is going on outside your window.

6. Old North Church

At the Old North church, we learned that Paul Revere didn't really hang the lanterns in the church himself (he sent somebody else to do it), and that the it was really "one if by land, two if by water" -- the British were either going to march to Charlestown by land, or they were going to go via the Charles River. Hope they brought their hazmat suits.

7. Copp's burial ground

Copp's is one of the oldest graveyards in Boston. This guy died in 1747!

8. Haymarket

Haymarket is a farmer's market held in downtown Boston on Fridays and Saturdays. You can get pounds and pounds of produce at ridiculously cheap prices -- a dozen oranges for a dollar, six red peppers for two dollars, five pounds of potatoes for a dollar. It's great. I like to go to Haymarket on Saturday mornings and make a nice cheap vegetable stew for dinner.

9. T cow!

This is where we live!

10. Frog pond

The Boston Common Frog Pond is a wading pool in the summer and an ice skating rink in the winter. By the time we got to Frog Pond, it felt really good to wade in the cool water.

11. Other buildings

From Boston Common, you can see the old Hancock Tower, the new Hancock Tower, and the Prudential Center. But that's an entirely different walking tour. :)

Adam's family is Portuguese, so they make linguica dogs for the 4th. They actually do make some regular hot dogs now, but that's only because of the horrified look on my face in 2004 when I realized that there were no hot dogs on the 4th of July. The look of horror prompted Adam's mom to ask me what kinds of ethnic foods my family makes. Ethnic foods? The most exotic place anybody in four generations of my family came from is Indiana. (I think I said candy buckeyes, which are not ethnic so much as delicious.)

After the giant food extravaganza (and after a somewhat violent game of monster badminton), we headed down to the Plymouth waterfront for the fireworks. Usually we sit up on a hill in the middle of an 18th-century graveyard, but this year we decided to go down to the breakwater instead. I was kind of sad, because I like sitting in the graveyard -- it makes me feel all historical. Adam is totally over the whole Plymouth history thing (I guess that's what happens when you grow up there), but I cannot get over how cool it is that the Pilgrims might have gotten off their ship at the exact place that I was watching the 4th of July parade almost 400 years later.

This is my family and Adam's family at the fireworks last year. Can you tell which ones are related to me and which ones are related to him? (I think this is a hard question. Maybe I am wrong.)

Adam, Mark, and I drove back to the city early yesterday morning, and Adam and I went to work for about a half-day before taking our bunny, Abby (full name: Princess Abigail Hops O'Houlihan Woodworth), to the vet for her first check-up. She is in excellent health, I am happy to report, although she doesn't like riding in the car at all.

And now I really have to stop wasting time on the internet and get back to writing my paper. I'm drowning in lab notebooks...

EDIT: Ooh, and happy anniversary to my blog!

Questions
1. Anonymous asked,

Hi, I'm a member of the class of 2010, and I was wondering if there is a Carvel ice cream place near MIT...

Well, the easy part first -- the Star Market just north of campus (behind Random Hall) sells Carvel ice cream cakes. That's just a quick walk from anywhere on campus, no public transportation necessary.

For a Carvel ice cream store, you're going to have to T it up a little bit. The closest store is in Malden, about five miles away. To get there, you'd have to take the Red Line inbound from Kendall to Downtown Crossing, then switch to an Orange Line outbound train and go to the Malden Center T stop. The store is about a mile and a half from the station, so you could either walk or take the #105 bus. (I will note that this trek would not be considered particularly bizarre -- my friends and I have gone to nearby Everett on special occasions for fresh Krispy Kreme donuts or for Phil '05's 21st birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.)

2. Elizabeth wrote,

I've been reading about this cool new feild called neuroengineering... Is anyone at MIT researching that? I was just wondering, because I think brains are cool :)

Haha, I am just going to blindly point you at the Biological Engineering department, because to be honest, I am puzzled by the distinctions between all the different combos of biology + engineering that everybody always talks about. Suffice to say that majoring in BE at MIT (and taking classes in/doubling in brain and cog sci) and doing research in bioengineering/neuroengineering would be excellent prep for a PhD program in neuroengineering -- my friend Stephen '05, who majored in biology with several EECS classes on the side, is now getting his PhD in a neuroengineering lab at Stanford.

So I guess instead, I'll talk about what my lab studies generally, and hope you don't notice that there aren't any shiny jpegs to go along with my talk.

I've been working in Morgan's lab for the last three years, which makes me one of the more senior lab members. Morgan's lab is primarily concerned with studying the proteins which make up neuronal structures called dendritic spines.

As someone may or may not have ever told you (I know they didn't teach me anything about neurobiology in my high school bio class... but maybe things have gotten better over the last five years), neurons talk to one another via chemical signals. One neuron gets excited, and sends an electrical signal to its end which causes little packets of neurotransmitter to be released. The packets of neurotransmitter travel across the synaptic cleft and bind to receptors on the outside of the postsynaptic neuron.

Different neurotransmitters bind to different receptors, so at this point everything gets really complicated. But something that's relatively universal is that the receptors are anchored to other proteins, which form a scaffold for the receptors and their associated factors. These scaffolds are located in the spines, and form a line visible on an electron microscope. This is called the postsynaptic density, or PSD. The spines are the hotspots of activity in the postsynaptic neuron; there aren't many/any receptors or scaffolds outside spines.

Ohmigod, I did not make this figure in Paint. How rude of you to suggest that I did.

This is from a paper of Morgan's from 2004. As you can see, lots of proteins in spines are binding to each other, and some proteins act as master scaffolds binding many different types of proteins together. These master scaffolds seem to act as liasons to the actin cytoskeleton. This is important, because reshaping of the spines via the cytoskeleton can be shown to have effects on memory-like states. Relatedly, patients with fragile X (a prominent symptom of which is mental retardation) can be shown to have long, skinny spines; most spines in adult neurons are relatively short and have "mushroom" heads.

If you look back at my neuron pictures from last week, you'll see that the body of the neuron is yellow (red + green = yellow), but there are lots of little green speckly dots all over the dendrites. (Aside: "Dendrite" comes from the Greek for "tree". If you look at a live neuron in 3-D, you'll see that the dendrites do look quite a bit like tree branches.) The reason there are speckly dots is that my protein, which is stained in green, localizes very strongly to the spines.

There are approximately a majillion proteins in spines, and each person in my lab is studying a different one, pretty much. Some people are studying kinases (proteins which add a phosphate group to other proteins, generally changing the activity of the other proteins in some way), some are studying scaffolds, and some are studying ubiquitin ligases (proteins which add a small molecule tag to other proteins, causing them to be degraded by the cell).

So that's what we do!

Questions?
1. Arun asked,

Mainly, I was wondering how much social responsibility do you think scientists have and whether that is enough... many labs seem to focus on issues which are interesting to scientists but will have no effect whatsoever to the outside world.

I have mixed feelings about this personally. As I look through labs in which I could do my thesis, I'm drawn to labs studying medically applicable problems -- blame Professor James and 21A.216 (Dilemmas in Biomedical Ethics), but I would love to do something to help cure diseases, particularly the really devastating stuff like tuberculosis and AIDS. But my personal interests aren't necessarily in those areas, and I'm certainly no microbiologist.

I'm reassuring myself for the moment that even areas that don't seem to be relevant to disease can be just a few fortuitous discoveries away from a new therapy. As long as it's related to the workings of biological organisms, it is potentially medically applicable. You just have to think a little harder. ;)

2. Nathan asked,

I'm really interested in neurons, and I was wondering if you've heard of the theory that neuron density is associated with intelligence or comprehension.
Is it true that the activity of a neuron is proportional to the length of its dendritic tree?

I would say that more accurately, neurons more densely packed with spines will tend to be more active. In a hand-waving way, spine density and spine number are related to intelligence (see again the fragile X example above), but with the strong disclaimer that most studies of this sort are looking at changes in the electrical properties of one type of neuron -- my lab uses rat hippocampal neurons -- in a dish in culture, while there are many different types of neurons in your head cross-talking in ways we can't even begin to comprehend right now. Understanding intelligence in a cellular way is far away.

3. Ashley asked,

I was wondering, after you get your bachelor's degree, are you required to get you master's and then your PhD, or can you start working on your PhD right after getting you bachelor's?

It depends on your field. In science, you generally go straight from a bachelor's program to a PhD program -- I'll never get a master's degree. In engineering, you generally receive a master's degree before you are eligible to receive a PhD.

4. Anonymous asked,

im really interested in being a cheerleader this fall but i dont have any experience :( what should i do to prepare for the tryouts in the fall?

First and foremost, DO NOT WORRY. We only call them "tryouts" so people will understand what we're talking about -- as long as I've been on the squad, we've never cut anyone who was interested in joining. Tryouts are really more for you to try out the squad and see if you would enjoy being a cheerleader. Historically, about half the people on the squad did not cheer in high school -- certainly I didn't, and I was even captain of the squad my junior year.

Jess '08
Well-- I'm in Italy studying architecture in the Veneto Area (around Venice)... mainly the work of Carlo Scarpa.
Favorite ice cream: Kiwi gelato (from Venice!!)
Major: Architecture and management science
What else are you doing this summer? I'll be working for Lockheed Martin as an engineer and project planner when i get back (I know... doesn't really fit with the major!) And when I get home I can't wait to watch trashy VH1 countdowns and hear English all around me!!!

Jenn '08
Major: Course 14 - Econ
Favorite ice cream: Oatmeal cookie
What are you doing this summer? Interning at JPMorgan in Investment Banking - Debt Capital Markets (DCM)

Where? NYC
Details: I get to work on a trading floor and met the CEO of JPM (Jamie Dimon) as well as other JPM execs.
Have you gone/will you go anywhere cool this summer? Going to Oregon for an outdoor-sy family vacation.
Anything else? I've run into a lot of MIT people in NYC and particularly in Banking/consulting. It's also pretty cool, because everything seems pretty easy in comparison to late nights at MIT (except maybe waking up before 7am).

Chris '09
[Ed. note: Yes, he is a boy. And he is a boy who gets to hang out with/touch 20 girls in short skirts on a regular basis, so he's a smart boy, too.]
Major: 8 and 22
Favorite ice cream: Gingerbread
What are you doing this summer? Astrophysics UROP
Where? The Kavli Institute for Space Research in (Building 37)
Details: I'm working with a group that is involved in the physics behind a new radio telescope array that is to be built in the radio-quiet region of Mileura in western Australia. My group is focusing on detailed measurements of the magnetic field surrounding the dynamic solar corona.
Have you gone/will you go anywhere cool this summer? Well, I spent some time at home after finals, and before coming back, my friends and I drove down to Manchester, TN for Bonnaroo, a 4-day music & arts festival. Think Woodstock, all over again. As for the future, I'm sure some camping trips around the Great Northeast are in order. Anybody down?

Jiang Wei '08
Major? Course 15 (finance concentration)
Favorite ice cream flavor? Plain sweet creamy French Vanilla
What are you doing this summer? Investment Strategies
Where? A private wealth management firm in Boston
Any amusing/noteworthy tidbits about your job? The people are all so dedicated, smart, and nice!
Going on any cool trips before school starts back up? I went to South Africa earily this summer to teach communication skills to mechanical engineering seniors at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Later this summer I will travel to Chicago and NYC!
...and really, anything else you feel like saying: I love reading, learning, and if you can't tell, cleaning* and having fun.
*Note: Jiang Wei's original picture has a vacuum to the left. And it's super-sexy. Alas, I had to crop it out.

As for everybody else... I know Morgan '09 has her own office for her UROP (I'm so jealous!). Aline '08 is doing research in Wisconsin. I think Carly '07 is doing research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (she's course 12 and course 5). Isa '07 is doing a nuclear engineering internship in North Carolina (and living on the beach). Robin '08 is doing an engineering internship in Vegas, and I think her cute football player boyfriend is there too. Jen '06 started her MD/PhD program in Texas, and she and her boyfriend Joey '06 moved into a cute little house and got a kitten. Michelle '09 is doing a UROP here at MIT.

And that's all I know (or can reasonably discover on Facebook)!

I'll answer questions next time, I promise.

EDIT, 6/29
Shannon '08
Major? Environmental Engineering (1-E)
Favorite ice cream flavor Moose Tracks =D [Ed. note: This is a rather amazing ice cream flavor.]
What are you doing this summer? UROP
Where? Parsons Lab, Bldg. 48
Noteworthy tidbits about your job? I'm working with hollow high density polyethylene spheres, molasses, and a vibrator. However, the greater scope of the research is carbon sequestration to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. I'd say that's the sexy part. [Ed. note: So I guess you could say Shannon is using molasses to save the world, while Sam uses turkey carcasses. Sounds like Christmas dinner to me.]
Anything else exciting in your life? I'm co-teaching a cheerleading class at MIT through ESP this summer with Morgan '09. I'm also working on my back handspring with guys from the MIT gymnastics team.

On the lab front, this week I started writing a paper about the project I've been doing for the past year and a half. I started with the materials and methods section -- explaining all the experiments I've done and the specific ways that I did them. It's the easiest section to write, because I don't actually have to think about the implications of anything I discovered, I just have to cite old papers done by other members of my lab and note the differences between our protocols.

I'll be the first author on this paper, since I've done basically all of the work on it; my postdoc Albert, who has helped me through all the (many) glitches, will be second author. Morgan, the professor in charge of the lab, gets to be last author, because he's the boss. And he pays my salary.

I'm going to finish up a few more experiments by the end of July, and hopefully I'll have the bulk of the paper written by then, too. After I finish the paper, we'll send it to a journal (Morgan hasn't decided which one yet); the journal's reviewers will look at the paper and decide if it has merit. It's possible that the reviewers will send the paper back and ask us to do another experiment or two. If that happens, Albert will do the experiments and write the revision, because by then I'll probably be well into my first lab rotation for grad school!

I've been doing a few experiments at the bench this week in addition to writing the paper and making figures; mostly I've been doing stuff with mammalian cells cultured in dishes in the incubator. I transfect the cells, which means that I get them to take up a plasmid DNA and make copies of my protein. Following the transfection, I harvest the cells for a Western blot or stain them with fluorescently-labeled antibodies.

I get to go into lab tomorrow (SATURDAY) and transfect some COS7 cells, which are cells derived from a monkey's kidney. At least there's a long (5 hr) incubation, so I can mix the DNA in with the cells, then go to Fire and Ice with Adam, Mark '07, Dave '07, Steph (Dave's girlfriend, Northeastern '08), Kate '07, Stephanie '08, Jomar '07, Jay '08, Kjell '09, and Tal '09. It's all-you-can-eat for $10 on Saturday afternoons!

I thought I'd leave you with some sweet pictures that I took on the microscope. They're neurons that I stained with antibodies, then came in at 8 AM to image on the scope.

Aren't they hot? Those are some damn good-looking neurons.

I know a lot of people are thinking about their fall schedules right now (I mean, a lot of freshmen -- most upperclassmen are probably still trying to erase memories of their spring schedules), and I've heard several people wonder whether they will be able to hold a job and successfully complete their schoolwork, so I thought I'd talk a little about the jobs I've had at MIT.

I've had a job of some sort since Registration Day of my first term at MIT, and I'm glad that I did. In an obvious sense, money is good, and I've always felt that the less money I had to beg from my parents, the better. They paid a lot of money for my education, and the least I could do was try to pay for makeup at Sephora and nights out at the movies, yeah? I never felt that having a job impaired my ability to do my homework -- in fact, I've found that having a job and participating in an extracurricular activity have helped me acquire my ninja-like time management skills. When you know you have to go to work, you have to think twice about turning off your alarm and sleeping through an entire school day, unless you are exceptionally good at faking sick to your boss.

I think that first-term freshmen should be careful not to overcommit themselves, but working two or three hours a day is almost certainly not going to overcommit you to anything. As a first-term freshman, you'll probably be in class only four or five hours a day. You're probably used to being in class seven or eight hours a day; you could use those "extra" hours to watch Cartoon Network and eat Cheetos, or you could use them to earn some money. Your choice.

Librarian
August 2002 - May 2003
My job as a student librarian at the LLARC (Language Learning and Resource Center) was actually the first job I'd ever held -- I was way too absurdly busy in high school to work. I heard about the job during cheerleading tryouts, when Maritza '03, the captain that year, told everybody that the LLARC was hiring and that we should all go apply.

I worked seven hours a week during fall term and eight hours a week during spring term; I usually worked two hours a day. I got paid campus minimum wage, which is $8.75 an hour, and I was responsible for checking out books and other media to patrons, keeping library materials in order, and doing weekly chores like dusting the bookshelves. It was a very good job for a freshman, because there's a lot of downtime, so I was pretty much stuck at work with my homework for a few hours on end. I got a lot of homework done that year while getting paid to do it. Pretty good deal, if I do say so myself.

Lab Monkey
June 2003 - August 2003
Like I said the other day, I got a ten-week internship at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism the summer after my freshman year. (My postdoc told me at one point that he'd picked my resume from the pile of applicants because he was curious to see what an MIT cheerleader was like. For those of you keeping score at home, that's two jobs so far which are directly attributable to the cheerleading squad.)

I spent the first few weeks of the summer getting all my safety training and learning how to do things like PCR and gel electrophoresis; I helped a little with a project to find candidate genes for alcoholism. My major project that summer was to genotype 300 rhesus macaque monkeys at six genomic loci using PCR and a big expensive capillary gel electrophoresis machine worth approximately as much as my life. It was time to breed the macaque colony (which was a test population for studies on genetic and environmental contributions to alcoholism), and in order to set up breeding pairs, the postdocs needed to know which macaques were closely related to others.

I don't think I got paid much hourly (the NIH is the federal government, after all), but my stipend checks came monthly, and I'd never seen checks for so much money made out to me. I loved my NIH job, and I happily worked overtime with no compensation so I could finish the project before I had to leave.

Lab Rodent
August 2003 - July 2006
During my summer at the NIH, I decided it would be a good idea to look for a UROP. I emailed about ten professors whose work sounded interesting to me, sending my (admittedly skinny) resume and a short cover letter explaining why I would make a good little worker bee in their laboratories. I got two responses, one from the professor I work with now (Morgan), and one from the professor next door (Yasunori). I interviewed with Morgan, and he offered me the job on the spot, so I never even interviewed with Yasunori -- I don't think he even remembers, though. At any rate, Yasunori always talks to me in the hallway, so if he remembers, it didn't hurt his feelings. (Note here that I got the UROP because of my previous experience at the NIH -- so mark this one as an indirect instance of the cheerleading squad getting me a job.)

I am not so much inclined to talk about what I do in my UROP, as I've talked about it five majillion times on this blog and it's starting to bore me. At any rate, I work full-time during summers and IAP, and about 15-18 hours a week on average during term (although working 20+ hours wasn't terribly unusual for me). I get paid through Morgan's research funds (not by the UROP office) -- I'm actually funded by a grant from the Japanese research institute RIKEN.

I've been at the lab longer than most of the postdocs and grad students who are there now. Been there forever, yep yep.

Blog Queen
July 2005 - August 2006
I'm sure I don't need to say anything about this job (duh), but check this out. Ben offered me the blog job because he'd seen me posting on College Confidential... and I started posting on CC because there was a thread about MIT cheerleaders and I was defending my kind.

So apparently if you want a job, the best thing to do is join the MIT cheerleading squad.

Questions
1. Jason said

I plan to take course 16.50 "Introduction to Propulsion" this fall, and I want to prepare in advance. I would like to know is there anyway I could get information about what textbook would be used in this course?

Well, two things. First, the textbooks required for MIT classes aren't listed anywhere online, and the only way to find out which books you need is to physically go to The Coop in Kendall Square and look. This is the Coop's evil way of trying to discourage you from buying textbooks online. Still, even though the Coop opens the book section criminally late, there will still be plenty of time to order the book online after finding out what it is.

Second, you could check out the community book trading sites -- BookX has a listing for two 16.50 books, and generally speaking the books stay the same from year to year. I don't know the URLs of the other two sites -- we used to have one site for the whole community, but it shut down last year, and since then things have become rather randomly chaotic. APO also does a book exchange every semester.

I should mention that some course 16 classes don't have textbooks -- 16.05, which Adam took this spring and which is the prereq for 16.50, didn't have a book, just a course reader available at CopyTech.

2. Jon said,

I don't know if you've ever been there, but Pirate's Cove has seriously got to be one of THE BEST minigolf courses in America. If you haven't been, check it out!

We were actually going to go to Pirate's Cove (because what's cooler than pirates? nothing), but a) it was hot, so we wanted a water park, and b) Adam was nervous about driving that far. :)

Friday
I went into the lab for a short day which included transfecting some rat hippocampal neurons in culture, developing four Western blots, and preparing some plates for splitting cells over the weekend. (NOTE: As I was writing that sentence, I said, "[Totally inappropriate four-letter word]! I have to go into lab today!" Good thing I started writing this entry, because I would be up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle tomorrow if I didn't split my cells today.)

I ate lunch at ABP, which is a special treat for me because it's a bit of a walk from the lab and because it's kind of expensive for lunch. It's on TechCash, but since I've graduated, there's no more reservoir of parental TechCash money, and I actually have to pay for all my meals myself. It kind of sucks. But anyway, it was a nice sunny day, and I ate my soup and sandwich outside in Kendall Square while reading a book.

After leaving work, I walked home along Vassar Street listening to "Summer in the City" on my iPod. There is basically nothing better than walking home in the summer heat listening to that song, unless you happen to be wearing a sundress and flip-flops, which I wasn't. I got home and started getting together my sources and protocols to begin writing the first draft of the paper on my project.

Adam got home around 5, and we picked up our friend Mark '07 for dinner and a movie. After the movie (where I saw Bryan!), we came home and watched House and ate chocolate-covered blueberries.

Saturday
We got up around 9 and picked up Mark '07 and Stephanie '08 for a trip to Water Wizz, a water park on Cape Cod that Adam used to go to when he was little. We drove down to the Cape with the radio on and the windows down, and I got to sing a bunch of awesome songs along with the radio.

Sidenote: I love Cape Cod because it is slightly cheesy and touristy, but still really cute. Adam says (with typical South Shore resident disdain) that most of the Cape looks like it was constructed in the 1950s, and I don't disagree. There are seafood restaurants and mini-golf places everywhere. I love it.

It was a pristine summer day, hot and breezy, and there was hardly anybody at the water park. We went on all the water slides, lazed in the lazy river, splashed around in the wave pool, and went mini-golfing. (Yes, this is a combination water park-mini golf place. Best idea ever.) I even managed to not get sunburned, which is really kind of a feat when one is as sheet-white as I am and when one is trying not to get skin cancer. I got to prance around in my new polka-dotted bikini, too.

We left the park around 4 PM, and stopped a mile down the road for Cool Dogs, my absolute favorite summer treat. You can buy them at the grocery store, or order them on Campusfood.com from Beantown Dogs, but I prefer to eat them only in the summer at this one particular mini-golf place that Adam and I always go to on the Cape.

So let's make a list of Things that Remind Mollie of Summer in Boston:
1. The smell of SPF 50 sunscreen
2. A Cool Dog piled high with whipped cream and hot fudge
3. "Summer in the City" by The Lovin' Spoonful
4. Sundresses and flip-flops
5. Eating frozen blueberries and whipped cream after dinner

After eating our delicious Cool Dogs, Adam and I took Mark and Steph on a tour of Plymouth ("America's Hometown"). Adam showed off his high school and elementary school, and we drove through downtown to see Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. Adam and I have been together long enough now that I know all his stories, so I was the tour guide. ;) We went to Adam's house, and his parents took all of us to dinner.

Plymouth Rock, in the flesh. Isn't it nice that it says "1620" on it? How thoughtful of the Pilgrims.

Mark '07, Stephanie '08, and Adam '07 outside the shrine which houses the rock. And yes, the one with the thumbs up? I'm marrying that one. Voluntarily.

Adam and me with the Mayflower reproduction ship in the background.

Sunday
This morning, Adam went flying remote controlled airplanes with his dad and Col. Pete Young, who's a senior lecturer in the Aero/Astro department. So while the boys were out having a good time, I slept in until 11, ate a leisurely lunch, and went into the city to shop a little.

It was really hot in Boston today (the heat index was about 96F), so I was glad that all the stores I stopped in had air conditioning. I picked up a cute pair of khaki capri pants and a cropped yellow sweater at H&M and checked out the shoe selection at Macy's. (I also found the church I want to get married in, but I'm pretending that wasn't the actual point of my outing, so play along.)

After I came home, Adam and I went to the grocery store and bought our groceries for the week. We're having steak tomorrow! I headed into lab for about half an hour to split my cells (thanks to this entry); Adam cleaned the apartment and I cooked dinner.

And now it's almost time for The 4400!

Questions!

1. Evan B. asked

So...do you know if you're going to get to keep your blog next year? I think it would be great to get the graduate perspective...plus all the bloggers are awesome, and I'd hate to see them go.

Well, this blog will still exist as an archive, just with no new postings. :) At any rate, I'm sure my graduate school life will go something like this: Wake up. Go to lab. Come home. Go to bed.

2. zel asked,

Hmmm... so way back in the day when I was doing my college visits, I was at [reputable state school] where the general admissions people touted the school's new undergraduate research program. When I asked one of the engineering professors about the program, he said something to the effect (although much more nicely put) that undergrads don't know jack, so it's pretty pointless to try to get them working in labs. This made sense to me, and I kind of took it for granted until I heard about MIT's 80% UROP rate. Now I'm really interested in doing research, and as you've mentioned, it's very important for grad school.

I think that was very snotty of him to say, particularly since undergrads are really just grad students with less experience. (And point in fact, undergrads can even be better researchers than grad students -- Adam had a grad student working for him at Draper, because Adam knew how to design things well and the grad student didn't!)

I will note too that undergrads at MIT are given quite a bit of freedom and respect in their undergraduate research. Professors at MIT know that undergrads can produce absolutely outstanding work, given some instruction and training, and they're generally very eager to work with us.

Is there any way to get UROP experience without experience? If I wanted to... say, do some research in physics, are there "entry level" positions for me to start out in? Would the professors and senior researchers actually bother to teach me procedures? (I assume they're quite busy.)

Most definitely to all of the above. When I interviewed for my UROP, I was coming in with very little experience (just a 10-week internship at the NIH), and Morgan was very well aware that my postdoc was going to have to teach me a lot of protocols. The one thing he did ask was that I only take the job if I was serious about sticking around the lab for a year or more, because it does take a long time to train a new UROP, and he wanted to make sure all that training time wasn't wasted. Professors and senior researchers are very busy, but they were all undergrads once, so they have a pretty strong commitment to training the next generation.

When you apply for a UROP, you will generally tell them what sort of experience you do or don't have, but not having experience isn't a particularly terrible liability as long as you indicate that you're willing and excited to learn new things.

3. Hannah asked,

I'm curious, how does one become an admissions blogger?

Well, for me personally, Ben noticed that I posted quite a bit on CC, and that I generally like to answer questions and explain things. He did some sort of administrative magic to look up my real name, and he offered me the job.

New blogger(s) for next year will need to have a proven track record of regularly musing in cyberspace in an amusing fashion. Ben says: "There is no formal application process, but please note that we only hire experienced bloggers, and therefore your current blog (i.e. your "portfolio") is the major factor in whether or not we choose you. The quality and frequency of your content (and how long you've been keeping your blog) will all affect your chances of being chosen."

4. Anna asked,

how do you feel about working with animals in labs. even though you've only run them through mazes, which is pretty harmless, but how would you feel if you're doing cancer research and have to inject harmful substances into them?

Well, I've had to dissect rodents for hippocampal neuron cultures before, and I don't like it. MIT's Division of Comparative Medicine is in charge of animal protocols, and they make sure all the researchers at MIT are treating their experimental animals with care and respect, so I certainly don't feel that I've ever done anything unethical. (After all, an unhappy animal is never a good experimental subject, so it's really in my/any researcher's best interest to keep our animals happy.) I prefer to avoid doing things that make me sick to my stomach -- hence the reason I'm not going to medical school -- but when I have to do those sorts of things, I can, as long as I talk myself into it.

5. Larisa asked,

Also, could you give me a link or something to your cell article? My bio teacher loves cell and always clips out articles from it for the class.

Oh man, that situation is a story and a half. So when you send a paper off to a journal, they will often return it with questions that you have to answer to the reviewers' satisfaction before the paper will be accepted. Our paper came back with a few questions about our electrophysiology experiments; unfortunately, the collaborator who did our electrophysiology had just moved to England. So my postdoc had to train a new electrophysiology person from scratch, which, as you might imagine, has taken a really long time.

So the long and short of it is that the paper's not officially submitted yet.

6. Helen asked,

Can the courses taken to fulfill Hass-D requirements also fulfill Hass Concentration?

Yes, but only one class for the concentration can be HASS-D. Mostly this is not a problem (there aren't too many concentrations that would contain more than one HASS-D anyway, and certainly not more than one HASS-D in different categories). Foreign languages are probably the major exception, because you can take multiple foreign language classes as HASS-Ds. If you concentrate in a language, you can only count one of your upper-level language classes as both HASS-D and concentration.

(Did that make any sense?)

What's the difference between a minor and double majors? Mollie, suppose you take a minor in course 9, can you dance with two diplomas when graduating? If not, how will it be? And can a take double majors and a minor?

A second major will take more classes than a minor. For example, the minor program in biology only requires five classes, while a major in biology requires ten. A student who double-majors is also required to take 270 units outside the GIRs, while a student who does a major and a minor is still only required to take 180 units outside the GIRs.

If you get a major and a minor, I know you don't get two diplomas, although you do get some sort of notation on your diploma that you completed a minor.

The most any student can officially have is two majors and two minors. (My friend Swapna '05 graduated with degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biology and minors in Biomedical Engineering and Comparative Media Studies. She is, in fact, a beast.)