Be a Blogger 2023! by Chris Peterson SM '13

It is summer in Cambridge, which means that:

1. every morning I wake up and check AirNow to see if more smoke is floating down through the Great Concavity and I need to mask outdoors as well as indoors today
2. my potted Cattley Guava is fruiting (in USDA zone 6!)
3. it is time for those of you who might want to be bloggers to share your garbage with the world

livestream of Ceri and I posting the blogger app and prospective bloggers coming out of the woods to feast upon it 

What does it mean to be an admissions blogger?

MIT students are the Institute’s best ambassadors. Admissions officers can explain complicated processes and provide words of wisdom, but we can’t write about what it’s like to live on Conner 2, or plan REX, or UROP, or decide how to pick your classes, or a really cool new thing you learned today in class, and so forth.

The mission of the blogs is to help our students communicate what MIT is actually like. We do this by hiring students who have good judgment, a compelling voice and perspective, and the disciplined exuberance to post at least twice a month on average. We may ask you to help advise creative projects in the office and serve as a touchstone for student culture. We pay you for this work. It’s a pretty good gig, to be honest.

Your application will be read by a small committee made up of AOs, senior bloggers, and a few blogger cruft. This application itself was designed mostly by student bloggers to help ask and answer the kinds of questions that might be useful for identifying their kin.

Please note that *only* current MIT students may apply to be bloggers (i.e. no prospective students or students at other colleges). This application is open to all MIT undergraduates of any class year.

This application will go live on 07/01/2023, and close on 8/01/2023. Anyone who has started their application by 08/01/2023 will have a grace period of 7 days to complete and submit it. We will begin reviewing applications after the grace period, and hope to select and alert bloggers before orientation if at all possible.

If this sounds like something you might like to do, then head on over to Slideroom and fill out the blogger application. If anything isn’t clear, let me know in the comments or via email!⁠01 However, please note I am on vacation and/or away for work travel for much of July, so my response may be delayed.