Laptop Stickers of MIT by Danny and Allan G. '20

It doesn’t take long being on MIT’s campus to notice all the laptop stickers around! Not everyone here decks out their portable computers, but many do! And among those who do, so much variety exists, in quantity, arrangement, aesthetic, and content of stickers.

It’s true, you can tell a lot about a person from their biography.

Now here’s what we can learn about an MIT student from their Laptop Stickers!

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The stickers mostly represent my friends, home, and love for nature. Everyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love everything about Chicago and the Chicago Cubs (my family and I are all die hard fans) and will literally rave about the city for hours if you let me. The “fly the W” sticker also relates to the Cubs if you are unfamiliar. The red/green Beast sticker is a symbol for my hall in EC, Beast, who are my best friends that I love greatly and honestly couldn’t survive MIT without. The original image is black and white, but was made into a red/green image to spite the large number of color blind residents that used to live on Beast. I’m incredibly proud of my hall and dorm, so both of these stickers had to be on there. The “distressed” sticker I got from one of my friends and given the stress and work that MIT students face, I felt it was highly relatable. The “adventure awaits” sticker I have because I absolutely love to go camping/hiking/backpacking. I have tons of stickers from all the places I have visited but reserve those for my water bottles.

Julia C. ’21, Course 5 & 12, East Campus

I have SO many stickers on my laptop; about 140 grams worth of them, to be somewhat precise (some friends and I put my laptop on a scale, and I just looked up the weight on the spec sheet.) I just put a sticker on any random place on my computer, creating layers and layers and obscuring stickers placed long ago. Honestly any sticker I ever find is worthy of going on my computer; even if I don’t like the sticker that much, I’ll just put it on the bottom of my laptop (not pictured) :pp But for the front panel, I try to keep it very colorful and eclectic, that’s really my aesthetic, and I’m a big fan of clashing and bright colors like you see there.

I think the oldest sticker that’s still visible is the little blue sliver on the far left of the picture; it’s a Hillary Clinton 2016 sticker. The latest one I put on is the MakeMIT sticker on the right side (the M in the gear); I found that sticker in the TechX storage room, when me and my friends (one of whom is in TechX) had a meeting in there for a club. Other notable stickers include the “Stop! I could have dropped my croissant” sticker which a friend here gave me, and the Supreme sticker which I found on the floor in Boston Logan (gotta stay fresh and rock what the cool kids rocking)

Faraz ’21, Course 14, Next House

Anon ’19, Course 3,  Next House

These we’re a gift from my wing secret snowflake this Christmas. They’re my favorite character from Overwatch (D.va) but redesigned to be me instead. My friend actually designed them and made an entire pack of K.tie stickers for my laptop, phone, and anywhere else!

Katie ’20, Course 2, Next House

Jeba S. ’20, Course 6-2, Maseeh

I’m picky with the stickers I put on my laptop. They need to convey my personality, aesthetic, and/or represent significant parts of my experience.

FRIENDS & FAMILY:
confused alpaca sticker: my friend Hannah got this for me in Japan!–she said it was representative of me
cat in a terrarium: my sister gave me this one :) it’s cute
Spirited Away’s no face with a heart: I love Hayao Miyazaki films and watch them with my family. My sister gave me this one.
“did somebody say distressed?”: Milka (MIT 2019) made a bunch of these stickers as a play on words. #relatablecontent
“HAPPY CLUB”: is from MIT Happy Club! My friend, Ada 2018 gave me this one!!
“<3” sticker: This is the logo created by my lovely friends Bibit Bianchini(MIT 2018) & Henry Love(MIT 2018, MEng 2019). It contains their last initials :)

WORK:
the google sticker with the lanterns: I got this from my mentor at Google when I interned there for a second summer. I liked how it didn’t have Google’s traditional branding and is representative of my Chinese background
gnome: one of my coworkers runs a store with his wife! it’s called “honey & brie” the sticker came with some pins i bought
Scratch Jr. cat: I’ve been working with Lifelong Kindergarten in the Media Lab for over a year and a half now :)
Headspace cartoon: I externed at Headspace in January 2019 and loved it :) They’ve got a distinct style expressed by their color palette and flat shapes to match the cartoon aesthetic i’ve got.

PERSONAL:
birds of paradise: fave flower in one of my fave colors. vinyl cut this sticker as part of the (in)famous “how to make (almost) anything” class :)

Tina Q. ‘M.Eng, Course 6, East Campus, but now living in Central

Radiolab sustainer : It’s the best podcast out there! The team tells incredible, human stories where science, politics, and society intersect. A few of my favorites are the Border Trilogy, Anna in Somalia, and The Gondolier.
PLEASURE@MIT: I joined PLEASURE in August, and I have met the most incredible friends there. I really appreciate that I can talk about the very best and very worst of sex and relationships without judgment around them.
Stars: I am obsessed with stars, but not in the way that Course 16s love space. My Chinese nickname is actually 星星, which means “star” and is why I have loved stars since childhood.
DFTBA: I loved watching the vlogbrothers in high school, and I ended up attending Nerdcon (where I got the sticker) in Boston during freshman year. My CPW host actually works for Hank Green and writes for SciShow on Youtube!
Ariel: The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney movie, and Ariel is my camp nickname when I’m a counselor for Camp Kesem at MIT. “Part of Your World” is the best Disney song, hands down.
Hogwarts: I was a big Harry Potter fan during high school, and this sticker was a gift from my high school student government advisor.
Join the World: Still haven’t MISTIed yet, but hopefully someday…
Seattle, WA: My hometown and the most beautiful city in the world (peep those towering evergreen trees).
MIT MedLinks: MedLinks was the first organization I joined at MIT, and I know that our members impact students in so many positive ways. We help make sudden colds more bearable, talk our friends through the worst of TFP, and advocate for better services at MIT Medical.
2020 Ring: Our brass rat is weirdly muscular, but it’s still the only piece of jewelry I never take off.
MindHandHeart: People > psets always.

Laura L. ’20, Course 7, Burton Conner

I really like all of em, so that’s why I bought em. I’ve had them on my laptop for a couple years now and when I’m working on my laptop out n about I forget they are on until people comment on them. I think they are funky fresh and add personality to my mac. I really appreciate how they look and how different they are (and how some of them push boundaries in fun ways). They are for the most part either art-related, music-related, or progressively-minded (or sometimes a combo) and I like being able to express those realms of myself on the back of my laptop in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Sky ’22, Simmons

The stickers on my laptop are a mix of random, colorful, and meaningful. The first stickers were the Terrascope stickers in the bottom corner. The black and white sticker above it is a picture of Simmons that I found in the Simmons Room of Requirement while looking for items needed to run the CPW Escape Room. The Chrome, Cat, Pi Day, Yeti, and Ring Premiere stickers are just random stickers I found and ended up liking. At the top covered by other stickers are NASA faded stickers I got at career fair a couple of years ago. And finally are the stickers I got from MIT Cru. They have a few bible verse, that I strive to live up to, Especially, “She is clothed in strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future – Proverbs 31:25.”

Asia ’20, Course 2, Simmons

I have two surfaces where I put stickers on my laptop–the outside front and the inside, around the keypad. My previous laptop had a lot more stickers but I decided I preferred a more minimalist aesthetic. So the outside has stickers that I feel communicate something to others, since they are outward-facing. I have the Blogerati blog-or-die sticker that echoe made dead center, a cool wooden sticker I found at a whole foods in Longmont, CO, which has the iconic “welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign text, and then the newest addition is an MIT-Africa sticker. These are all organizations or places that are very important to me, and that I want others to know I’m a part of.

On the inside are stickers that are more “for me”. We have a Clover sticker, a “this is fine dog” sticker, and the MIT-Africa logo. I spent a lot of time eating/studying/hanging out at Clover as an undergrad, especially during Lent (though my family is Catholic we still adhere to the Ethiopian-Orthodox lenten fasting tradition, which is basically going vegan, and Clover is entirely vegetarian/mostly vegan) so it’s sort of a happy place. The “this is fine dog” sticker is something Chris Peterson got with an actual “this is fine dog” stuffed toy from a kickstarter campaign (it is adorable) and you know, just all mit students relate real hard to that meme. I sometimes just glance down at it in times of stress and feel a little better, because it reminds me that things will be fine, of a funny moment in Chris’s office one time, and just gives me a second to calm down. And lastly, also a new addition, the MIT-Africa logo reminds me of what I’m starting to see as my purpose and calling in life–to contribute to the growing global afro-renaissance, to use whatever skills I have to lift up people and change societies and champion a new path forward in the world. Very abstract for now, but as a recent graduate (’18) I’m still trying to piece together what concrete things I can do to lead me there, like switching from robotics to maybe clean energy and water resources or applying to do Fulbright research (this is a blog post for another day).

Selam G.  ’18, 2A-Robotics, I live in cambridge now~

I LOVE STICKERS!!!! The base sticker is from a holographic sheet I cut out to fit. It used to be very shiny and distracting in classrooms and would blind anyone who looked directly at it but since then the scratches have toned it down. I have two MIT related stickers, the BE one because I want to study that and the Hustler one because I am always doing too much (my roommates have matching ones, one is Hacker and one is Hipster). The label-looking stickers I printed from a label maker in lab when I was supposed to be doing research. Please Work is my general attitude towards life, and the wow emoji is my fave. Gossip Girl is the best show. The rest is just cute stickers I bring back from Shanghai each summer lol.

Emily H. ’22, Course 20

The sticker in the upper right says EC, which stands for East Campus, the dorm that I live in! Going along with that, the specific floor of EC that I live on is 5West, which you can find in a sticker on the upper left. Right next to that one is a sticker that says “Black and white to color”. Our GRT (MIT’s version of an RA) said that phrase while telling a story and it was so amazing that we made stickers out of it. And of course, #ihtfp.

Claire ’20, Course 18 and 6-3, East Campus

I have had a wide collection of laptop stickers since early high school. Basically everyone in Speech and Debate always had good stickers, so I started my collection. Non of those original stickers remain as I found so many new fun stickers in college, but in high school I always found that all my stickers fit in the category of tech stuff or political stuff. Depending on how you define political, a good number of my stickers now still fall under that category. A lot more of my stickers now pertain to things I’m involved in. The quintessential ihtfp sticker has to be there, but I also have two AEPhi stickers from my sorority and two CodeIt stickers, a club that teaches middle school girls how to code. Some stickers I got for free, which are always the best stickers, either from my dorm or at activities midway. The biggest difference between my current stickers and my high schools stickers are probably the visibly gay stickers like Queer Women Code or “Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not.” As I was not out in high school, I never had stickers like that or felt comfortable sharing that part of myself in such a public way. MIT is a very different place from high school. While my high school wasn’t that homophobic, very few people were actually out, so coming out was a scary, big thing to do. On the other hand, I have met a large number of people who are out here at MIT and that has made it easier to come out. My laptop tells a small version of who I am. My interests and passions are a part of who I am, and I enjoying sharing that.

Anon ’22, Course 18c, New House

I keep my stickers close to my keyboard so I can see them when I work. My first sticker was an MIT AeroAstro sticker I got my first semester as part of the department, which I like to keep close by because the aerospace field has always been where I wanted to spend my life. Opposite that I’ve got a Europa Scuba sticker. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has put out a bunch of stickers and posters advertising different travel destinations throughout the solar system and galaxy, and this was one of my favorites. I like looking at in in the hope that one day we’ll be able to scuba dive on Europa!

Raul L. ’20, Course 16 & 6-2, Burton Conner

They all have stories! My favorites:
– NOLS: National Outdoor Leadership School, in which I kayaked and backpacked in Alaska the summer after freshman year. I had to leave early because I was dealing with undiagnosed depression and didn’t know what was going on, just that everything hurt. It’s a painful reminder, but an important part of my story.
– Scul: I was at sevlev at midnight on a misty evening, and all of a sudden this gang of people on decked-out bicycles — LEDs, speakers, double-decker bikes, the works — pulled up. I talked to them for a bit, listened to their music, and they gave me this sticker. I decided to put it on my laptop to always remember the magic of freshman year and of the new city I had moved to.
-I VOTED: I didn’t turn 18 until sophomore year, so when I was finally able to vote, it felt like a huge milestone!
– Beta Inside: from 6.004. I was 6-1 at the time, which turned out disastrously — I was pushing myself into engineering out of a vague misguided desire for job security — but I learned so much from that class, and was so proud of my progress, that I definitely wanted to save that sticker.
– got consent?: a very important issue for me as I grappled with sex, sexuality, and rediscovered trauma during my upperclassman years.
It seemed almost like fate that as I wanted to add a sticker, there would be a place where it could neatly fit. It’s funny, but they ended up mapping many major milestones of my time at MIT, and by looking at them, I can remember those parts of who I am.

Daniela Z. ’17, Course 8, East Campus

I have to eat the fruit that a sticker is associated with in order for me to be able to put it on the laptop.

Aria ’20, Course 5

When I came to MIT, the only stickers I had on my laptop were my NASA sticker, my TESS (transiting exoplanet survey satellite) sticker that I got from an engineer who worked on it, and my Wheaton Ice Arena sticker (where I worked and trained in high school). Once I got here though, the stickers piled on! The Yellowstone sticker is from my FPOP (the course 12 geology fpop) and I added on a bunch of other course 12-centric stickers, like my tardigrade sticker, my Drake equation sticker (fun fact: my freshman advising seminar was all about the Drake equation!), and my “women in Planetary Science” sticker. I couldn’t forget a reference to one of my favorite memes (the dog of wisdom) and the falling petunias from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Not pictured is the sticker of the Shib Sibs (ice dancers) on the keyboard part of my laptop and the multiple stickers that I’ve found I don’t have room for on my laptop that are now on my water bottle or are currently being shipped to me. (I have a sticker problem, I know.)

Juliana D. ’22, Course 12, Burton Conner

A solid number of the stickers on my laptop are from my time as a Hackmit organizer, during which I was surrounded by incredible people who all worked together rto out on an incredible event every year. The top right pokeball is from Pokémon League, which was one of the first clubs I joined and helped my friend Lucy Yang get started (but in all honesty she mostly carried the entire league on her back). Just below that one is a small ADT sticker (I unfortunately don’t have any DT stickers, but dancing in college was something I never thought I’d do but ended up enjoying immensely). Two of the bottom stickers are soylent and my no ramen no life stickers, which pretty much sum up my diet when the crunch time hits. To the left of those is King Gourd! He’s the mascot of my wing in Next House, 2E, and I also have the same sticker on my phone wallet. The worn out Messenger sticker and vintage Instagram Pokéball are from the summer I interned at Facebook which was also the same summer Pokémon Go came out. And right next to that are stickers from GEL (the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program) and MEET (Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow)!

Carlos H. ’17, Course 6-2, Next House

I don’t buy any of my stickers, instead getting them from career fairs, conferences, and my clubs. I made the Hitchhiker’s Guide sticker in high school using shiny holo-vinyl with our makerspace’s Silhouette Cameo. It’s one of my favorite books, and it’s nice having a constant reminder to relax.

Katya B. ’22, Course 6 and 12, Random Hall

I got a bunch of stickers from Activities expo, HackMIT, Career Fair, and more. I actually keep them in a plastic bag in one of my drawers. Despite my huge collection of stickers, I decided to use only one of them – the Facebook laugh react sticker, which I placed right on top of the Apple logo.

The laugh react sticker is an accurate representation of me. I’m always laughing and smiling (sometimes in serious moments).

I really appreciate minimalism. One small sticker can speak much more than stacks of stickers that cover the whole area of the laptop.

The message is simple and clear. It’s a reminder to me and those who sit around me to smile and laugh often.

Megan W. ’22, Course 6, McCormick

I’ve got a lot of stickers, I use them as a skin for my laptop, they wear off so the shell isn’t damage. Every sticker has a story. Dig is a record store in Moscow that I bought a cat record from once. The break-a-record rectangle is from MIT’s flu vaccine push a year ago, when they tried (and failed by a good amount) to vaccinate 10k people (I was 3 thousand something). I’m a member of WMBR, the radio station (and you should be too). Cliked was a meme startup my friends and I had in high school. VHacks was this hackathon at the Vatican of all places, which was really interesting. The eyeball is from миша, a clothing brand. Perla nera was off of an Italian watermelon, I think I bought it near Veroli, Italy, and carried it home on my head. I found the IHTFP at like 2am in Stata when I was frosh, the Arduino and rpi come from the NYC maker faire the year we did the meme startup. I’m a guide at the List, hence the List sticker, and my roommate subscribes to Sketchbox, and then I eat their stickers. The 500 Yen was from incense I bought in Japan, but I couldn’t read Japanese so I thought I was buying a thing for a diffuser? But it was incense? I gave it to my grandma before I realized, so her house just smelled like Hot Topic for a few days…I think she appreciated it, perhaps because she’s never been to Hot Topic. The zipline thing is from a place my second cousin works at. She’s cool, I think she’s living in Oracle in a house my grandma used to own. Batman was from a happy meal, maybe from Hong Kong but maybe from the McD’s on Mass Ave, I can’t remember. Rocket Fizz is a store that gives away stickers when you buy things, its near my little cousin’s house. Last year I bought a small rubber hand for my fingers and tried to scare my grandma. It didn’t work. Hello Kitty was from an off-brand kinder egg from Auchan outside of Moscow (it was the first hypermarket I’ve ever been to, and after my head sort of hurt; it was like eight Sams clubs smooshed together). I found the DANGER sticker in the basement of 18 off of reuse, and me and my cousin put the Supreme on top of it because we thought it was funny. But now everyone memes at me for liking Supreme, so I’d say it was all in all a regrettable decision.

My laptop is slowly disintegrating, and I fear for the day I have to replace it, because I don’t want to lose my stickers. I don’t really pull stickers from monumental events (ie, I don’t go to New York to get a I heart NY sticker because those aren’t really common), so I feel like my stickers are from these small and insignificant moments of impulse involving disparate strangers and little coincidences that I’d otherwise forget. Its like a small collection of little things I’ve been a part of.

Claire ’20, Course 2A, Random Hall

My laptop stickers mean a lot to me, because they have been growing with me since the beginning of college. Each sticker represents activities/organizations that I got involved with and am proud to represent. I’m running out of space so I am starting to put stickers on the bottom of my laptop now.

Wei H. ’19, Course 2, MIT Student House

I have a lot of stickers on my laptop. I think I’m working on the third layer. Most of them are from career fair but a couple are important. The Jalite sticker is from the company my dad works at and the small square below it is a Jalite product (it also glows in the dark). The pink tree is from a friend of mine and it says “oh, ‘tis love ‘‘tis love that makes the world go round”. I have the 21 Brass Rat sticker on there as well as an oath sticker which is one of my favorite places to eat near campus. I have quite a few 2.00b stickers from my time in that class and a sheep sticker that says “sleep is for the strong!” that I got from MIT Medical. There’s an associate advisor tucked in there as well as a few McCormick stickers. One of my little brothers told me his favorite sticker is the one of a pirate ship that reads “It’s more fun to be a pirate than join the navy.” My newest sticker is the WMBR sticker, and I’m positive it won’t be the last one I add.

Leah Y. ’21, Course 18 and 21W, McCormick 

Most of my stickers come from my department – course 3 gives out a lot of goodies. The sock monkeys along the bottom are from a gift given to the sophomores to celebrate their first exams, and all of the joke ones are from course 3 study breaks. And, of course, the “DMSE” sticker. I got one for the opening of MIT Nano, a blue elephant from a company at career fair, and I pulled the black one in the corner off of a leaf blower I dismantled in lab. Finally, signac.io comes from a summer research position at University of Michigan, with the group that uses and produces signac, a data management system geared towards materials scientists.

Rachael S. ’19, Course 3, Random Hall

Some stickers I bought, some were free from career fair. Some represent things I like (Game of Thrones, Transistor), some are fun (skateboard bird, Boba Fett tea), some are from my communities (Next House, 2 East Gourd), and some are simply because I liked the colors/aesthetic (Postmates wooden sticker, Customink octopus).

Shavina C. ’19, Course 6-3 and CMS, Next House

Rima D. ’18, Course 2A, Simmons

(I’ll describe left to right!) Top left corner, of course, is our lovely school’s saying IHTFP and I do find it to be pretty rigorously true. Right below that is a cupcake because I think that if I were to be a food, I would be a cupcake (and also it’s just really adorable). The thumbs up is just a nice encouragement throughout the day that things are always going to end up being a thumbs up (y). Next to that is a seal because seals are my favorite animal and gosh that one is adorable <3. Right above that, there’s a blank space because I’m /waiting/ for my little brother to give me the logo to his startup so I can promo it (shameless plug: get the Privasee extension for your chrome browser!!) I absolutely love my family and want to support him anyway I can. Bottom right is pretty obvious: I…… go to MIT (shocker !!) Right above that is my favorite molecule; it has absolutely no physiological significance or anything but I think the way that it’s synthesized is really beautiful (can you tell I’m a Course 5??) Lastly, the top right sticker is probably my favorite because it encompasses two things I believe in: chemistry and positivity. I’m almost always high energy and upbeat and I love that this sticker fuses that and chemistry.

Katherine ’19, Course 5

When I got a new laptop I decided to consciously curate what stickers I put on it to reflect different aspects of my self. The three sad looking stars are from a poster session for 6.830 (Databases) last semester – the instructors put stars on the posters they visited (and silver/gold ones on the ones they liked). I made the “Did somebody say distressed?” stickers for a personal meme. Consent is from SSC. Empowered women is from the SWE booth at Midway, but it reminds me of a specific friend who doesn’t go here. Team rainbow is from career fair (SubtleGay(tm)). Tender hearted and the feminist agenda are from a woman on etsy because I saw them and they were me. Marylin Monroe was donated to Margaret Fuller House where I volunteered last year, and was deemed inappropriate for children. Hacking the Glass Ceiling is from Pearl Hacks at UNC. Sleep is for the strong is Big because it’s Important.

Anon ’19, 6-3 & 21L, East Campus

I collected around 100 stickers from various places and events around campus, and this is what came out of it. The colors of the Duolingo stickers really stood out to me, so they were a definite yes. I live in McCormick so that one was easy too. My sister gave me the Oovoo Javer sticker, and I couldn’t resist donning the meme (technically not found on campus, but a gift from home <3). I think the “I create awesomeness” sticker is an interesting one to continuously be reminded of given the infinite resources and opportunities at MIT. By far my favorite and most defining sticker is the one on my spacebar. I always have questions, and you bet I’m always looking for answers.

Layal B. ’22, Course 2A (probably), McCormick

My friend hand-drew the Spiderman decal for my birthday since we are both obsessed with Tom Holland (😍😍😍). The pink carrot is from my high school’s “Quadchella” event, and it kind of reminds me that not everything has to be the way that they always are (carrots don’t have to be orange!). The rest are from MIT, either the career fair or activities midway or something else! With all due respect to the organizations that made these, I hate branding, so I generally cut the names off and stick on the designs. Except New House! Because New House!

Joanna ’22, Course 7, New House

First we have IHTFP because it’s totally true. As a senior, I Have Truly Found Paradise more than I Hated This F***ing Place. Next, ESP is my favorite student group on campus: we run events like Splash and HSSP where MIT students can teach middle and high schoolers about literally any topic they want. The blue elephants are apparently a data snuffleupagus from a company whose name I’ve forgotten at my first Career Fair. They are the exception to my rule of only having stickers from things I’ve been actively involved in because they’re really nerdy and cute. The parachute, purple DANGER knife (because Purple team), and 2.009 surrounded by triangles are all from 2.009, the MechE capstone product design class that dominated my life last semester. The black Star Wars beaver is from 2.007, the class that inspired FIRST robotics, where MechE sophomores design and build robots to play a game. In 2017 the game was named May the Torque be with You and based around a Star Wars x-wing. The blue gear is my high school robotics team logo; I vinyl cut this sticker myself in one of the maker spaces on campus my freshman year. The TechX, HACK, and xFair stickers are all from my involvement with TechX, the group that organizes tech events on campus including HackMIT and xFair. My dorm, MacGregor, created stickers with this alphabet soup logo because we have entries named by letters. I was really excited when we finally got the stickers last semester because I felt like my love for E entry, my living group, was underrepresented on my computer. The beaver was the MIT Peer Ears logo, which I kept even though I’m no longer an active Peer Ear (students trained in active listening skills by MIT Mental Health to be a confidential resource for their living groups) because it’s cute. I actually don’t know why I still have the Happy Club beaver since it breaks my “things I’ve been involved in” rule but as one of the first stickers I got, the others are structured around it, and I haven’t found a replacement with a similar shape. Plus it’s happy and cute (you may be starting to see a theme). Finally there’s the anti-theft tattoo which I got as a frosh when my computer had no stickers. At least it inspired me to get stickers to make it stand out less, which I think worked!

Marianne O. ’19, Course 2 & 15 minor, MacGregor

Anon

I have a lot of fun finding stickers for my laptop. I figure if my face is going to be behind one all the time, my laptop might as well tell the world a little bit about me. Just looking at the collection, you can tell I’m probably into the outdoors, given the seven stickers with pictures of mountains, rocks, trees, and/or tents. I’m a geoscience and planetary science major here at MIT, so I guess I have a thing for rocks. My favorite sticker of that bunch is “rocks with socks”, because I think it is just so silly and ridiculous. The Yellowstone sticker also holds a special place in my heart, as I have been on the DEAPS Yellowstone FPOP two times, once as a prefrosh and once as an undergrad TA. I have met some really great friends on those trips. In the upper left corner I have a Massachusetts REI sticker, which was given to me by a grad student in my lab who knows I love stickers. In the center I have a Chicago heart sticker, to remind me of my hometown and favorite city. I also have an MIT EMS patch sticker, as I am an EMT in the service. Lastly, I have several stickers to recognize two great loves of mine: cats and coffee.

Megan ’21, Course 12, New House (German House)

The stickers on my laptop represent things that I’ve done as well as things that I admire. I’ve actually printed and cut a few of these myself, namely the Binance and X stickers. The scratch sticker was actually the first sticker on my laptop, and I was (and still am) very proud to have disrupted the beautiful aluminum with the scratch cat.

Dan C.

I love stickers! They spark conversation and each one represents a small part of me. They also make things more lively and interesting. I think I have way too many to describe them all, but many of my stickers are about my faith. Christianity is very important to me and I love to talk to people who spark conversation with me about why faith is such a valuable part of my life. Also my life is a huge meme so I love memes and I LOVE THE OFFICE so you see a bit of that here. There’s a big Dreams+Nighthawks sticker because that was the show sticker for my most recent summer marching with the Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps.

Sally L. ’20, Course 20, Simmons

Shannon ’22, Course 5-7, Next House

My stickers are all from clubs or events I went to and felt quite influenced by or put a lot work into it. For example, I have a lot of stickers from HackMIT which I both attended and organized for a year. I also have a sticker that’s not like that: the remains of a Hello World sticker are now just a falling Hell. A sticker from the house I played the most in Legacy Betrayal on the House on the Hill is one of my favorite memories and stickers :)

Jynnie ’20, CMS, Next House

I really love my laptop stickers, because they do a pretty great job of describing me as well as I’d ever be able to in words. Three of my stickers target a core piece of my identity – that I’m Colombian American, and specifically from Medellín (hence the knockoff “Supreme” sticker emblazoned on the top of my computer). In the bottom left are two more bits of Colombia: Carlos “El Pibe” Valderrama, and a flowering coffee plant. My dad played professional soccer in Colombia and I grew up hearing his stories about El Pibe’s playing days, and I spend approximately 80% of my waking hours sipping on coffee or tea (but usually coffee).
There are also three stickers that target another bit of me, which is my concentration in Japanese language study. In the top left is a woodblock print by my favorite artist, Hiroshi Yoshida; in the middle is a NASA sticker that makes a pun on “gomen nasai” (“I’m sorry” in Japanese); and on the top right is the restaurant logo from a favorite anime of mine about an elite cooking academy. The latter two stickers additionally touch on the facts that I’ve achieved my dream of working for NASA via a past internship at JPL, and that I would want to be a chef in an alternative (better?) timeline of my life.
And in the bottom right, there are two animals: a yellow badger (go Hufflepuff!) and a Sandslash, which has been my favorite Pokemon since elementary school.

McCoy ’20, Course 6-3, New House (German House)

My stickers a fairly random assortment of clubs I was interested in the beginning of the year. The Activision one comes from a Game Dev club meeting. Kinky and queer are self explanatory ;* and finally I live on Slugfest. Basically my stickers tell you nothing about me except what most people already know :P

Mimi S. ’22, East Campus

Anon

Most are from events I care about: Battlecode Finals, HackMIT, etc. Most also have reasons. Those reasons are (approximately left to right):
Never Settle: I have a OnePlus phone and that’s their motto, and I like it a lot.
Hack Magic: great play on words, from HackMIT.
Beta Inside: 6.004 was a really awesome class and I learned a ton.
Ownership Permanently Monitored Police Traceable Tattoo Beneath: It’s true. Please don’t steal my laptop.
Yext: Group of guys from my high school went their separate ways and then came back together and founded a super successful company, and my friends hope to do the same.
IHTFP: I have truly found paradise.
Cruise: Interned there for a summer, and it was great. Autonomous cars are cool.
M: From a makerfaire in Beijing I won a trip to with my automated whiteboard, great experience.
Battlecode: fantastic game AI competition, tons of fun every year, you should all do it (it’s open to all students of any age!).
HackTJ: my first hackathon, and a token of my high school.
Cornell: My girlfriend goes there. It’s beautiful. The commute to/from Boston is not.
20 ring: I wear my brass rat proudly every day.
Grumpy Fuzzball (SIPB mascot): I’m a SIPB keyholder, and enjoy being one of the many computer nerds in that club.
REI: I love hiking and the outdoors, and am from VA.

Nate F. ’20, Course 6-3 & 18, Simmons

What kind of degenerate weeb has huge anime girl stickers on their laptop? I guess that’s me. But I never feel shy to express my interests here at MIT, so I proudly show them off! Left to right, top to bottom: Oshino Ougi, Gumi, Cirno, shark poster from Nichijou, Hatsune Miku, Sakamoto-san

Cory L. ’20, Course 6-3, Next House

My high school senior year, I was OBSESSED with Redbubble’s collection of stickers, so when I got my first laptop for college, I went ham. The birds flying away from a chainlink fence, the bear standing on a snowy day, and my favorite of them all Oh For Fox’s sake which is in the coveted Apple Logo spot. My freshman year, there was a SWE event where the CEO of Axosoft visited and described her journey of becoming the CEO, and she gave out the “It was never a dress sticker”. I remember putting them on all sorts of random places in Next because we had so many! I’m a huge fan of Yuzuru Hanyu, who’s a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist in Men’s Figure Skating, so I have a sendaid sticker, which donates money to the rebuilding of his hometown from the 2011 tsunami. I have some Facebook react and bun stickers from career fairs, as well as an IHTFP from xfair. The ATS and king gourd sticker were from communities that were an important part of my journey at MIT. I made the MIT dome sticker in my Intro to Making class. The nibble sticker is from a popup, as there was a popup space that used to be around Kendall Square, and the Anna’s sticker is from a really good friend who grew up in Boston. (They do have the best burritos!)

Alicia O. ’19, Course 18C, Next House

Rosie the Riveter for girl power! The dog of wisdom is from one of my favorite youtube videos. The dabbing avocado is a long inside joke with a friend. I’m “plant powered” as a vegetarian. Please note that the bottom left sticker is for the “North American Snek Association”. I have the J Entry flag and the Ohio is Home sticker. I’m also a member of WMBR and have a show on Friday nights. I’m in Air Force ROTC, thus the Air Force sticker, and the classic MacGregor Alphabet Entry Soup is from my dorm.

Julia ’21, Course 6-1, MacGregor