Junior Year Sticky Notes by Jessica Z. '27

Spring break was last week, which means we are *officially* past the halfway mark of spring semester. I stayed on campus this year, so I had a lot of time to think about all the things that weren’t deemed time-sensitive enough to focus on during midterm season. I’ve also recently gotten into the habit of sticky-noting my thoughts/reminders on my dorm wall, so I’ve picked a few that have consumed my mind the most:

I am almost done with my degree requirements.

After this semester, I will officially have two classes left in my Course 20⁠01 Biological Engineering/BE degree⁠02 ignoring my HASS and PE requirements lol requirements. The first is a required core subject: 20.380: Biological Engineering Design. It’s essentially our capstone class. It’s a CI-M⁠03 Communication Intensive class in the Major and seems pretty laborious time-wise,⁠04 9-12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays :0 but I’ve heard good things about it from upperclassman.  

The other class is a restricted elective that I get to pick from a relatively long list. In total, we have to take 33-36 units of restricted electives⁠05 Most classes are either 12 or 9 units, so this is three classes total to fulfill our degree. Something I learned in late February was that BE allows students to take a certain combination of restricted electives to form a concentration. Concentrations aren’t listed on our degrees, but I ended up scrolling on the website anyway. 

I found out that one of my classes this semester, 7.26: Molecular Basis of Infectious Disease, was listed under the Immunoengineering concentration. I also knew I wanted to take 20.230: Immunology next year, which meant I only needed one more class to complete the concentration. After a slightly-frantic scroll on Course Catalog, I ended up joining another class, 20.365: Engineering the Immune System in Cancer and Beyond, relatively late⁠06 around mid-March, oops into the semester.

Ultimately, I’m glad I did, even if it was mainly for the concentration. We spend a lot of time talking about therapeutic trials and discussing what the current landscape of immunology looks like. It’s also honestly cool to see all the pieces of science from my past and current classes⁠07 I think 7.06 (Cell Biology) and 20.320 (Analysis of Biomolecular and Cellular Systems) in particular really helped me collide into one. I’ve also learned how to more critically approach scientific papers,⁠08 I've never spent so much time looking at appendix figures in my life which is something I honestly haven’t done in such depth before.

I officially submitted my degree forms a few weeks ago. Most were officially approved last week, so if all goes according to plan, I’ll graduate with a degree in 20 and 15-1⁠09 Business Management with an STS⁠10 Science, Technology, and Society concentration. It’s crazy how things are becoming more real. 

I am trying industry this summer. 

I honestly might make an entire blog about the process of applying for jobs because this section got way too long and wordy. The short version is that I ended up really liking the lab I joined this fall, and it encouraged me to think more seriously about working in a technical field after I graduate.

This year was the first time I applied to official internship postings. Beyond the slew of generic do-not-reply@[company].com emails I got, I was lucky to get a few interviews from industry companies.

all at once from one company and at 3:39 am is cruel

shoutout to that time i submitted an application and was rejected less than 8 hours later

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My first interview request was actually the one I was the most excited about, but I botched it⁠11 In reflection, I botched it in a pretty funny way. At the time, it was not funny, and I spent a good two weeks being slightly miserable about it and didn’t have high hopes from that point forward. I ended up getting an interview for a different company in early January, which went much better, and I felt pretty confident leaving it that I would at least pass to the next interview round. Two more interviews and an HR screen later, I officially had an offer. 

I’ll be working at an immuno-oncology therapeutics company in California, primarily focusing on tissue engineering and biomarker discovery.⁠12 I'm painfully aware that this could match pretty much any biotech in the Bay Area lol I’m excited! I’ve never worked in industry before or with a larger internship cohort. I’ve also never been to the West Coast. The unfortunate downside is that figuring out short-term housing in California at a reasonable price has been nothing short of painful BUT I’m spending most of my days briefly ignoring that (while scouring studios for 3-month leases) and focusing on embracing that California by beabadoobee lifestyle. 

I have changed my mind about what I want to study.

Kind of? I think the biggest shift is that while I’m interested in biological engineering applications, I’m not all that interested in using biology-specific systems⁠13 or atleast I don't think I want to only work with cells to solve them. I’m a lot more drawn to how we can engineer materials to solve these biological problems, which gives me a slight bit of fomo from not taking any Course 3 classes here. That being said, I might try to squeeze a biomaterials class next year, but that’s a problem for Fall registration. 

I think I want to go to grad school. 

An unfortunate symptom of seeing all my senior friends announce their post-grad plans is that I have spent a lot of time thinking about what post-grad looks like for me. I’ve ultimately concluded that I want to pursue some form of graduate school after undergrad, although it’s unclear when. 

April is going to be busy.

I’m prematurely planning to do zero work⁠14 or atleast close to zero during CPW and instead focusing on the different events I’m helping out with throughout the weekend.⁠15 Come say hi!! I’ll be co-running activities with floor C4 in Burton-Conner, MIT SWE, and FLI@MIT.⁠16 MIT Society of Women Engineer's Chapter; first-generation and/or low-income @ MIT. ALSOO meet the bloggers! come say hi! I also think April is a time where everyone starts panic-planning group outings before finals and project deadlines, which is stressful but always fun.

I feel like I have tried too much and too little at the same time. 

A kinder alternative: there is so much I want to do and so little time. 

I’ll go into this with the awareness that it’s incredibly melodramatic because I know that a) college is not the end of everything and b) I’m a junior. That being said, it’s jarring to think about how this has influenced how I think. If there’s a class that I want to take that’s only offered in the Fall or Spring, I have one semester left to take it. I also have one IAP left. My friends and I usually take a trip together the week before school starts, which means this summer will likely be our last trip—or at least the last time it’s relatively easy to plan one with that idea that we’ll all be returning to the same place afterward.

On the idea of trying too much: I’ve spent the past semesters and summers working in different internships focused on different types of science communication. It’s really interesting to love the non-technical side of science⁠17 Science communication, education, journalism, writing, policy, public health, etc. at a school that tends to emphasize the technical; it’s equally interesting to navigate⁠18 and frustrating to reconcile that I really enjoy spending my time on public health, but I don’t think I want it to be my main career in the future.

I feel like friendship has become a lot harder.

Harder isn’t quite the right word, but I don’t really have a better one. I’ve been really, really, really lucky to have amazing friends here. Something that’s been more challenging for me this year, though, is figuring out how to balance friendships. I’ve unfortunately gotten about a million times worse at responding to texts or initiating plans, which has less to do with any of my friends and more with my own exhaustion. 

Something that’s also been sitting in the back of my mind is the high likelihood that my friends will end up scattering to different parts of the globe—for jobs, graduate school, travel, and everything that comes after college.

I obviously knew this before, but it feels more… impending? I’m also aware that there’s a non-zero chance that some of us might lose touch entirely, though I think it’s more likely that staying connected will just be harder. I don’t know exactly what that will look like. At the very least, it will be different, and it’s hard to imagine how my friendships might change once we’re no longer anchored by the same physical place.

In conclusion: there are lots of things to think about. 

This blog ended up being a lot more school-heavy and serious-ish than I intended, but it’s honestly what’s been bouncing around my head for a bit. This is also the only semester that I have no finals, though, so I’m hoping that my writing mindset will gradually become less school-y and more life-y. I’ll keep sticky-noting until then :’)