An (overdue) blogger update! by Jenny B. '25, MEng '26

Ah, how I’ve missed blogging.

I fell off of blogging in the last two years of being an undergrad. I just couldn’t get myself to write as much as I wanted to, and I was largely unsatisfied with the posts I managed to make. The merch contest post was the last post I’ve written that wasn’t an announcement or a tongue-in-cheek joke, and the one before that was about my final projects from senior fall.

I got hit by writer’s block for three reasons:

One, I got really into creative writing when I took a short stories class in junior year. A lot of the time I used to spend on blogs was now being funneled into my own writing projects. I’ve been working on a novel for several months⁠01 Don't ask me how much I've written... I just started the first draft two weeks ago. now! It’s very fun, but so hard, but so fun.

Two, junior year was the first time that I genuinely liked my technical classes. I barely liked any of my major-related classes in sophomore year. I had a lot of doubts about pursuing computer science and engineering in general, so I’d let out a lot of my restless energy into my blogs, as an excuse for procrastinating on classwork. Once I started to actually enjoy my classes, I spent more time on assignments and office hours, and less time on my blogs.

Three, most importantly, I didn’t feel like I was interesting enough as an MIT student to talk about my life. Don’t get me wrong, this was a time when I finally felt comfortable with being a university student. It’s just that whenever I started to write a blog post, I would immediately wonder if it was even interesting enough to be posted, and if I was trying too hard to be entertaining.

There was a specific style of humor that I liked to write when I was an underclassman, and it had nothing to do with sharing my own life or being informative. I didn’t care if anyone liked it or not. I was just sharing the same playful energy that made my friends laugh back in high school.

As with most people, my sense of humor changed over time, and it was the same with my friends. Some of us grew closer. Some of us drifted apart. I met new faces and reunited with old ones. My list of blog ideas grew shorter and shorter.

I struggled with blogging in junior year and onwards. This coincided with Reasons One and Two, so obviously a lot of my free time was going into other interests. But it was also the first time when I felt like I had to force out a “shitpost” or a “memepost,” or whatever you’d call some of my earlier posts. Drawing crude MS Paint drawings or Tim the Beaver just didn’t make me laugh at much anymore. I’ve done them enough, and it also felt childish, like I was leaning on these gimmicks to cover up the lack of substance from my MIT experience.

My MIT experience was good overall. It wasn’t flashy or decorated with achievements, but I’ve changed as a person, and hopefully many of those changes count as growth. I found out that I was a lot more introverted than I thought, which honestly wasn’t surprising. Learning this has made me happier with how I’m wired, and I’ve grown to embrace my inner world. When I became a senior, I stopped wasting so much energy into performing at a baseline that burned me out, and slowly let people see me for who I am so I could create more genuine relationships. I’ve felt more awkward at times, yes, but as a whole I feel more comfortable in my own skin.

When it came to blogging though, I worried whether I would come across as, well, boring. I felt the pressure to be fun, like I did back in freshman year, although even back then I was using my humor to hide my introversion on the blogs. There were peers in my graduating class who were going on adventures with their friends and regularly going out for group dinners. There were students who were getting their research published in journals, or traveling to other countries⁠02 Actually! I got to go to the UK right after I graduated, through a MISTI internship. It was a really fun time, and I still have yet to write a more in-depth post about my experience. through MISTI.⁠03 A program at MIT that allows students to visit other countries for internship, research, and teaching opportunities. I didn’t really have anything to offer about my life other than classes (which I wasn’t compelled enough to blog about) and the kind of music I’d listen to in my room, and I wasn’t making satisfactory progress in my UROP.⁠04 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, where undergrads get to be involved in research at MIT. And it’s not like I wasn’t hanging out with my friends, I just didn’t feel the need to post about it for the sake of proving that I was a normal college student. Meanwhile, whenever I tried to return to my “meme-y” blogging style, I could tell that I was trying too hard to act like someone I no longer wanted to put energy into.

Anyway, all this is to say that I wish I didn’t compare myself to my peers so much back then. My blogging energy took a hit from the internal pressure that I had to be an informative and entertaining representative of MIT, when all that mattered to me as an underclassman was sharing what I thought was interesting in that phase of my life. Looking back on my own posts, I don’t care how well I represented the “MIT experience” or how well-adjusted I come across. When I read through the stuff I wrote as a freshman, even the cringey stuff, it brings up all sorts of memories are embedded in these posts.

• Asking Fatima and Nora if they could proof-read my blogs, and giggling whenever they giggled at a meme.
• Hanging out in a dorm lounge with Song, and joking around for the rest of the night.
• Waiting until my roommates left for classes, so I could cry in my bed from feeling like I’m so behind everyone else.
• Being bitter that I was too busy with problem sets to enjoy Halloween.
• And all the times I got bored in lecture and doodled on my notes so I could entertain my friends.

This is my last semester as an M.Eng student, and most likely my last semester at MIT. I was convinced that my undergrad years were too unimpressive to talk about, but I realize now that the point of these blogs isn’t to craft a timeless, picture-perfect exhibit of our student years. These blogs have allowed me, and countless other students, to find their voice and preserve parts of their student life that aren’t easily captured in a photo or a resume.

So, I’m going to try my best to blog more this semester. I’m still getting back into the groove, so I’ll try to remember, but I’d like to preserve a few more memories before I leave.