i love this f*cking place by Ankita D. '23

okay, it’s a bit early to proclaim my love for this place, especially since MIT is a freaking hard school that will likely destroy me sometime in the near future.

but i digress.

i had a strange senior year experience—i graduated high school a semester early (in January) and chilled for four months taking various online courses, studying Chinese, and spending an obscene amount of time on Facebook talking to my fellow adMITs. my daily routine consisted of waking up, making a matcha latte with almond milk, being vaguely productive for a couple of hours, and then video calling my adMIT friends until 2 am. 

like, seriously. i didn’t leave my house.

so going from this ~suburbia~, where I interacted exclusively with my parents and online friends on a regular day, to a CAMPUS with PEOPLE  e v e r y w h e r e was so much. 

suddenly, there was so much going on that i didn’t even have the time to tag people in memes anymore??? or to even look at memes??? i felt as if i was abruptly thrust into the world of icebreakers! and New Friends™! and wow it was a lot to handle. and for someone like me, who was starved of social interaction, it was pretty damn overwhelming.

but. yall. i am very happy to announce that EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION I’VE HAD ON CAMPUS SO FAR HAS BEEN INCREDIBLE

every freshman i’ve met is SO nice and interesting and friendly it had me shook. i’ve run into so many people whom i’ve instantly clicked with and it’s nothing but reassuring that i’ve chosen the right school. i love literally everyone, no joke

my roommates? amazing. we were cuddling within hours of meeting it was so wholesome

the upperclassmen are SO. SUPPORTIVE. they’ve directed me to such cool resources and have opened to my eyes to the range of opportunities MIT offers. the upperclassmen on my floor, in particular, are wonderful and such comforting presences in my life, honestly 

and the professors and advisors are so accessible! every person I’ve reached out to so far has been responsive and kind and lovely. this environment is new and more than a little daunting, but the fact that its mentors are so approachable makes me feel really secure.

i truly have fallen in love with the strong sense of community i’ve experienced on campus thus far. classes have barely started, so this could be my post-orientation honeymoon phase talking, but i’m having such a great experience here that it seems unreal. and i can’t wait for the regularity of my classes and activities to kick in so i don’t feel the sense of chaos that orientation has engendered—even though the past two weeks have been some of the most fun i’ve had in my life. 

my favorite moments thus far:

• chilling at a floor gathering eating Chilean snacks (courtesy of a super sweet GRA), hearing one of my suitemates who i didn’t know that well say “ice cream” with a Japanese accent, and proceeding to EXPLODE about how much we both love anime/Japanese culture (shoutout to Mojo <3)
• a very intense discussion about MIT’s culture in an empty Sloan classroom that led to me adopting my FPOP teammate as my son and vowing to protect him for the rest of his four years here
• my roommates rolling me across campus in my sister’s rolling chair 
• cuddle puddle jenga (me and five others spooning on a beanbag with two people draped on top of us) 
• now, as i write this post. because every moment here is amazing and i’m happy. really, really, happy. :)

bonus video of me attempting to do the worm on Killian Court: