Be a Blogger 2021! by Chris Peterson SM '13

For the last six years now, I have started this post with a jaunty list of summer activities. Like last year, things are still a bit pandemic disrupted, but here in Cambridge, vaccination rates are high, and so are people’s spirits. So:

1. my banana plant is almost too large to fit inside my house now. i love it, but fear for when it a w a k e n s
2. a colorful new new MIT welcome center will soon be ready for you to see! more on that later this summer
3. it is time for those of you who might want to be bloggers to share your garbage with the world

livestream of me 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 will go live on 07/01/2021, and close on 07/31/2021. Anyone who has started their application by 07/31/2021 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 bloggers before orientation if at all possible, given people’s obligations and whatever the state of the pandemic.

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!