My First Few Weeks at MIT by Hala K. '29
… one year ago
Every freshman’s first few weeks at MIT tend to follow a predictable pattern – hunting for the best shortcuts across campus, making daily trips to Newbury, creating long notes lists of all the restaurants you want to try, wandering through the underground tunnels, spending WAY too much time in Stud 5,01 Fifth floor of the Stratton Student Center (commonly referred to as the Stud) learning to share a tiny room with 1-3 “strangers,” and stopping through Killian Court just to stare at the Great Dome, still in disbelief that you’re actually here.
Over the past 3 weeks, I’ve found myself doing all of these – but now, with a sense of deja vu.
Cue the best 6 weeks of my life: MITES.
First, the “important” stuff: MITES Summer is an on-campus summer program at MIT for rising high school seniors. During the program, students take five college-level courses, receive college admissions and financial aid advice, and receive mentorship from current undergraduate students.
Now, the important stuff:
When I first got my acceptance to the program – I was super intimidated for a lot of reasons.
- Growing up as the youngest of four, with a dad who insisted I kept a fire extinguisher handy just for boiling water, I never considered myself the most self-reliant person. The idea of packing my things to live alone across the country? Terrifying.
- According to thousands of Reddit posts, MITES is insanely hard to survive. So basically, I signed up for a summer of stress, sleep deprivation, and failure. Fun.
- IT’S MIT.
As new fears kept piling on, I started “being realistic”: I should just reject my acceptance. There was no way I belonged at this program, let alone at MIT.
But after getting a lecture (or ten) from friends and family, I came to my senses. “It’s only six weeks. I can power through.”
Spoiler alert: I was wrong. I didn’t just power through MITES, I absolutely fell in love with it.
I remember stepping out of my Uber with no idea where New House02 One of MIT’s 11 residence halls was, my suitcase barely zipped shut, and sweat already dripping down my face. But the second I walked in, someone called me by name, grabbed the other end of my suitcase, and said, “Welcome to MITES!”
The next six weeks flew by. And I don’t know exactly when it happened – maybe somewhere between crying over physics, memorizing the structures for every amino acid (still proud of that), and late-night Dave’s Hot Chicken runs – but by the end, I had found a second family.
And while I can’t fit six weeks of stories into one blog post, I can tell you a few that made me fall in love with the program, and with MIT.
Engineering Design
Each MITES student takes one “project course” – a hands-on STEM class that runs throughout the summer and ends with a final project. The options included Genomics, Machine Learning, Engineering Design, Architecture, and Embedded Systems.
After going back and forth between Machine Learning and Engineering Design for what felt like forever, I decided to try something new and take Engineering Design.
Best. Decision. Ever.
The class started with designing a competitive “game,” then splitting into teams to build a robot that could win it. And at the end of the six weeks, there was a huge competition that the entire MITES community came to watch.
For our cohort, we created a game where robots had to remove tennis balls from an elevated platform and score them into a zone on the opposite side of the board.
After three weeks of hard work, my group finally completed our robot and not to brag, but it was really good.
However, there was one major problem: it was too wide. Technically, it could get through the obstacles but it took a painfully long time.
So, it’s 9 PM the night before the competition, and we’re all sitting there knowing our robot has potential… but probably wouldn’t make it far. After an hour of testing, debating, testing again, and spiraling a little, we made a reckless decision that no one else supported: we were going to cut three inches off the robot.
That meant taking apart every width-related piece, cutting it down, and rebuilding everything… in two hours. It was chaotic, exhausting, and honestly one of the funnest nights I’ve ever had.
And while everyone thought the robot that had once been a shoo-in for the win was doomed… the clock struck midnight and bippity boppity boo, WE DID IT!
So, without further ado, let me introduce you to the one and only:
The Weedkiller
And if it wasn’t already clear from the pride radiating off this blog – the Weedkiller won the whole tournament!
Though even if we hadn’t won, my opinion of this class wouldn’t change one bit. From learning how to use the machines in the shop, to meeting the incredible people at the Edgerton Center, to working with my team to take our design from a sketch in a notebook to a working robot – I loved every second of it.
My Cohort
On the first day I arrived at MITES, there were a bunch of speakers talking about “community” and the lifelong friendships we were about to build. And if I’m being honest – I didn’t really buy it. I already had friends back home who have known me since elementary school. How could six weeks with total strangers possibly compare?
Spoiler alert #2: I was wrong. Again.
We got lost on campus more times than I can count. We “accidently” ended up at Brothers for sushi every other day. We hung out in my dorm until curfew every night, talking about everything from what AP classes we took to what our hometowns were like.
But no matter how close we were getting, it didn’t truly hit me until the final day. We were all huddled up in the New House lobby hugging, laughing, and making last-minute promises to visit. But when it was actually time to leave for our flights, we ugly-cried our way through the goodbyes.
One of my closest friends handed me a note. “Open it during your flight,” she said. I read it somewhere over New York, holding back tears over my crumbling Biscoff cookie.
The letter wasn’t too long – it just summarized the peaks of our summer and that she would forever be thankful to have had the opportunity to become friends with me. I still keep it in my desk drawer.
There were about 60 students in my MITES cohort. Some I see everyday here at MIT in my 8.01 Physics class. Some live up the river at Harvard and I have plans to see them this weekend. Some I don’t think I’ll see ever again.
Though no matter which group they fall into, the friends I made at MITES are the kind of people I know I’ll sprint across a room to hug, no matter how much time has passed. Since the program ended on July 26th, my closest friends and I made a deal: we call each other on the 26th of every month to catch up – and somehow, we’ve actually stuck to it.
The Delta
MITES’ symbol is the delta – the Greek letter for change. And while I did learn how to multiply matrices and what Gauss’s law was (kind of), my delta was much more than the 5 classes I took. I became more comfortable asking for help. I learned how to stop letting imposter syndrome take the lead and start believing I deserved to be there too. I stopped calling myself an “extroverted introvert” and accepted the truth that I was just an extrovert.
I never expected to find people who would understand me so quickly, or who would make saying goodbye feel so impossible. But MITES gave me that – a second family I never saw coming. And if that’s what six weeks can do, I can’t even imagine what my next four years at MIT might look like.
- Fifth floor of the Stratton Student Center (commonly referred to as the Stud) back to text ↑
- One of MIT’s 11 residence halls back to text ↑