I DECLARE BASICNESS!!!!! by Aiden H. '28

I come today as the bearer of some un-chic news. It is not only a frankly boring, overdone announcement, but a regression to my previous self, a negative evolution. Nonetheless, it is true to my soul, and I found it time to release the news publicly.

Last year, I posted a crisis about declaring my major. It seems I have learned nothing, as it is today that I am declaring⁠01 I'm actually not officially declaring it through MIT yet because I'm too lazy to fill out the form and talk to my advisor, and I should also probably take some more CS classes first to be very very sure, but in essence a (double) major in computer science. Specifically, course 6-7.⁠02 Computer Science and Molecular Biology

I know this may come as a shock. It is not too seldom that I hear “Oh my god Aiden you’re so original and unique and creative, you’re probably studying something really niche and groundbreaking and cool”. ER WRONG (buzzer noise), it’s computer science.

Note that this is a double major. I am not and will not abandon course 10B⁠03 Chemical-Biological Engineering despite joking about it ±3 times/day. I am and forever will be a chemical engineering student who does a little CS and not a CS student tacking on some chemistry.

There are a few reasons this comes as embarrassing:

1. The whole “meme”. I get flustered every time I try to confidently say that I’m 6-7.
2. I originally came into MIT thinking I wanted to major in 6-7, and then I made a whole ordeal out of switching into 10B, and now I’m just proving myself indecisive yet again by doing both.
3. Literally everyone and their mom at MIT is a CS major of some flavor. It’s trite and overdone! Still, I’m passing the torch or something. (also people might think I smell)

This comes with only very minor shade to the larger CS community! I do believe that a lot of people enjoy and are passionate about computer science. I also believe it is kinda the communications/business degree of the STEM world. BUT! Let me provide my justification for choosing it anyway:

1. Unfortunately, I do like ML. Something about those gradient descent heat maps scratches a little part of my brain the way thermodynamics never could. This does only apply for bio applications, though–I’ve never (fully) wavered in the fact that whatever I major in will be bio-leaning, which is why 6-7 specifically and why I won’t drop 10B.
2. If I decide to go to grad school or pursue any actual technical job in my field (as opposed to the business/consulting side), I really need the CS background. Any grad school/internship/job that focuses on computational biology has many many many more CS students who work with bio datasets than bio students who learn machine learning and algorithms casually.
3. Engineering is good, and I am not completely full of regret for course 10B. However, it is a little too “physical”, if you know what I mean. I like the concepts and I like chemistry and stuff, but if I talk about a pipe all day I’ll just end up blurting “WHO CARES!!”. I need the balance between the hands-on nature and thinking of an engineering degree combined with the abstract weird math stuff that CS has. Again, I’m indecisive, so every time I’ve committed to one or the other, I’ve convinced myself I want the opposite (i.e. abstractness vs tangibility).

I shall not (can’t) start taking any CS classes until the fall, where I will be the junior in 6.1010⁠04 Fundamentals of Programming and 6.1200,⁠05 Mathematics for Computer Science but hopefully by then I will have gained enough wisdom and meta-learning techniques so that I’m not completely fucked over by whatever curve the incoming math olympiad kids set.

-Aiden (computer lord of the bio world)