sophomore spring by Fatima A. '25

while planning a semester, I have some general sense of what I want out of the semester or a weak ideology with which I choose classes and activities. before sophomore fall, I chose classes I was interested in and I just took them. because I knew I wanted to take them more than I cared for whether I was ready for those classes. I took up all the activities that I wanted to take because I cared a lot about all of them. 

although I was happy with how fall turned out in the end, I was miserable for the first half, both because I was physically unwell for a huge chunk and because I had a lot on my plate. dropping a class definitely helped but I knew I wanted to go into the next semester differently. I didn’t re-run for the Next House exec election. I promised myself I wouldn’t take 18.906⁠01 Algebraic Topology II or some other crazy math class that I was definitely not ready for. but, that was about it. my only threshold was to not be super mega unready for the classes I was taking. 

so, after a pretty full IAP,⁠02 Independent Activities Period I took 68 units on top of a 12 unit class on Listener⁠03 this is similar to audit status. you have access to all the course content but you do not need to do any work for the class or take any exams and you do not get a grade. (which I ended up dropping pretty early on), working >1 jobs and multiple extra-curriculars.

1. 18.702: Algebra II

this was my only math class this semester. I took it mostly because it would help me when I take algebraic geometry or more algebraic topology. the class is divided into three parts, covering representation theory, rings and an introduction to Galois theory. 

I definitely spent less time on this class than I needed to. the representation theory part still eludes me the most. I feel like I will need to watch the lecture videos or read the book like three more times to fully understand it. 

the professor for this class was really good. I did often feel that the class demanded a certain level of mathematical maturity and went at a pace faster than I could keep up with but the professor was clear in his explanations and was passionate about the content. 

2. 8.04: Quantum Physics I

I really like the professor for this class. he was really nice and accommodating, but was sometimes too smart for me to understand him. we didn’t have lecture recordings available until the end of the class but watching MITx videos after lecture helped me with understanding a lot. 

I didn’t do that well in the class but had a good experience. a bunch of my friends were in the class and collaborating with them made the experience so much better than it would have been otherwise. I also had a mentor for this class, Pam S. ’23, who was so smart and helpful. Zimi Z. ’25 and I would be asking the stupidest of questions and she would answer us patiently and helped us so much through so many conceptual gaps.

3. 6.1210 (6.006): Introduction to Algorithms

I took 6.006 for real this time and it was a much better experience than last semester. In lectures and recitations, I felt like I was thoroughly understanding the content and was able to solve problems a lot better than last semester. I started working with Julia L. ’26 and my roommates Jenny and Nora B. ’25, who turned out to be an incredible pset group. we worked really well together and I ended up learning so much from our discussions. I didn’t do as well on the final but I do not think that was very reflective of my learning in the class so I don’t care about it that much.

whether I know people who are in the class was not normally a factor for me while choosing classes, so the key realization from both 6.006 and 8.04 was how useful it can be to have good people to work with.

4. 5.111: Principles of Chemical Science

I finally took chemistry, yay! I first met Julia in my 5.111 recitation but then we also started working on 6.006 together. the class went well for me! the pace was reasonably fast but I had seen some of the content before so it was fine overall. who knows, maybe I will take 5.12⁠04 Organic Chemistry I if I have the chance! 

5. 21L.487: Modern Poetry

I took Modern Poetry this semester. I took the class with Katherine L. ’24! She is the local literature genius⁠05 the class anthology, some would say so it was an honor and a pleasure. 

the professor for this class knows so much about literature and poetry. I found the class structure to be very different from 21L.004,⁠06 Reading Poetry the only other literature class I have taken before, but it was a good way to read new things that I know I wouldn’t read otherwise. 

6. 12.409: Hands-On Astronomy: Observing Stars and Planets

and the best for last! both the staff and the students were so nice and passionate that the class itself became a great community. the class taught me to use telescopes and cameras for low-light photography. at the end of the class, every student collected a portfolio out of the pictures they had taken throughout the semester.  

oftentimes, before our Wednesday night lab sections, I would think to myself that I am too tired to be out in the cold for 3 hours, but whenever we would get out observing, I would forget everything else. it has definitely converted me to become an Astronomy minor! 

pinwheel galaxy! this is one of the images I requested to be taken remotely from the MIT Wallace Astrophysical Observatory

star trails

taken from the roof of building 37

i took this with my phone, i'm so proud

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7. UPOP: Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program

the last two units came from UPOP Team Training Workshop (TTW) and UPOP for the Spring. I felt slightly out of place for Spring milestones because I knew I didn’t want to apply to an internship for the summer but TTW was fun regardless. it was very hectic but I had a great team and a great mentor. I also got to talk to another mentor who was really nice and gave me very helpful advice. 

in the fall, I felt that the classes I learned best from were the ones I poured a lot of time into, which is not surprising but I guess I realized that it takes me more time than the average to gain something useful and lasting out of the class. I think when I was planning this semester, I was looking forward to a relatively chill semester. I could not have been more wrong. if I could have put just a little more into 8.04 or 18.702, I would have gotten a lot more out of those classes. my advisor would always tell me that you do the best math when you have time to breathe and time to think. the enticing variety of classes and limited time you have at MIT, again and again, forces you to take up a lot. I don’t think I had time to breathe last semester or think deeply about anything I was doing. looking at the next semester is again a struggle. I want to take fewer classes, so I can explore more than the required around those classes but, I also want to take a lot of classes, all of which sound so interesting. I am trying to find a balance that lets me take fewer classes, some that help me get requirements out of the way and some completely random ones that I just want to take.

my two main extracurriculars for the spring were being Treasurer for MIT SAAS⁠07 MIT South Asian Association of Students and Housing Chair for DormCon.⁠08 Dormitory Council throughout the semester, I always felt completely out of breath. I felt that I could be contributing a lot more if I had more time.

we had two big events for SAAS this semester, Eid and Holi, for which I was writing a ton of funding applications and helping out with prep before and during the events. we also had a bunch of other exciting events, out of which I could only go to a couple.

DormCon had to deal with a lot of different things and though I tried my best, I could have been there a lot more than I was.

I had been able to keep up my pace of writing a poem a week for the entirety of last year. this spring, I wrote three poems, out of which two were unfinished. I barely wrote on the blogs. I had close to zero creative energy the entire semester, which was also a reminder of how much space I personally need to be able to think clearly and write cohesively.

I continued TAing for 18.03⁠09 Differential Equations with ESG,⁠10 Experimental Study Group, a first-year learning community which was super fun! my office hours were right before the pset deadline so a lot of people would show up. I am not TAing at ESG next semester but will hopefully re-join at some point in the future.

in other random things, I went to SAYI, which I wrote about here.

I taught a Spark class about plants with Katie K. ’24, who is the local plant genius! Spark is one of the programs run by ESP that CJ and other bloggers have blogged about in the past. It is a weekend long program where MIT students run a lot of different classes for middle school students. I had a lot of fun planning the class with Katie. we first came up with a rough plan of how we wanted to spend our budget, how we wanted to organize our time and choosing a hands-on activity. we then made slides for the class and ran through them a bunch of times. teaching the class was also really fun. we ran two sessions, and organized the class into two parts: the first half being a presentation about weird and cool plant facts; the second half was the activity. we bought pots, soil and different types of seeds and had the students pot their own plants to take away. the second session especially was very involved and asked a lot of questions and contributed a lot of different stories.

during some 6.006 lecture, Nora and I started talking about Turbo, the snail from Turbo, the animated movie and we decided to watch it some time after 6.006 psetting. this turned into several, usually impromptu movie nights, all of which were absurd animated movies, that were really fun to watch. 4W⁠11 four west, my wing in Next House used to have Friday movie nights at the beginning of last fall but it completely died out apart from the occasional Mamma Mia showings. I really missed having those so having these movie nights was a really good way to relax and just chill in the lounge. hopefully, we will continue this more frequently next year!

in terms of student performances, I went to see the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble production of Julius Caesar. Prajna N. ’25 was producer this semester for the show and Kelsey G. ’24 was front of the house manager! I also went to see the Asymptones concert, where Alan Z. ’23, Silu S. ’24 and Arthur D. ’23 were performing. it was also Alan’s birthday that day so we got to wish them mid-show. I also went to the Asian Dance Team’s showcase where Jonathan H. ’25, Z C. ’25, Maggie Y. ’25, Dora H. ’25, Jamie, Derek, so many people were performing! it was my first time watching an ADT showcase and it was incredible! there was a mix of very mellow and very loud songs, but they balanced each other pretty well. it was very loud throughout though, but that mostly meant the crowd was very energetic.

I also went to the CMSW⁠12 Comparative Media Studies and Writing undergraduate theses readings to see Alan read their poetry thesis! I had seen the poems before, but it was really cool to see all the poems come together into a larger work of poetry. I also got to listen to other people’s theses and everyone’s work was so cool!

I was on campus during spring break and did not have much planned so I worked desk a lot, did my taxes and caught up with a lot of people. Prajna, Jyotsna N. ’25, Margaret Z. ’23 and I had a lowkey Taylor Swift listening party in the McCormick West Penthouse which was really fun! I watched Kabhi Khushi, Kabhi Gham with Prajna and Jyotsna, which is supposed to be one of the old Bollywood classics but I had never watched it before. I visited the Harvard Art Museums with Zimi and we ended up roaming around their Science building afterwards. it was not their spring break so we saw a lot of students going to classes and working so we got to rejoice in their misery. I also went to Portland, Maine with Alan, Jonathan and Lynette C. ’24. We drove there around 6 in the morning and came back around 9. We went to the Portland Museum of Art. In addition to their permanent art collections, which were pretty cool, they had an Art in Bloom exhibition going on, spread throughout the museum.

from the harvard art museums

from the portland museum of art

from Art in Bloom

taken somewhere on twin peaks island

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CPW⁠13 Campus Preview Weekend is always a very energetic time around campus! this time, Jenny and I were also hosting a pre-frosh, which was very exciting! I went to the academic expo to help out at the ESG booth, stuck around at the SAAS CPW event, then went to Holden M. ’25’s concert, literally back-to-back. Holden is super talented and I was sitting very close to the front, so I actually could see him play and it was really fun! I hoped to go to more of the Emerson Scholars⁠14 a program that funds MIT students for private musical study concerts after that but didn’t get to go to any others. later, I went to the Meet the Bloggers event, where we got to meet a bunch of pre-frosh and have very good pie! I also went to NACT⁠15 Next Act, a Next House club that puts together a musical production every CPW. to watch the play/musical that Alan wrote in three days, literally insane. Silu,⁠16 forever the main character Katie, Paolo A. ’21, Ashhad A. ’23 and other Next House people were acting so it was really fun to watch everyone. maybe, I am biased because poetry is my favorite form of writing but I could tell that the writer of the play also wrote poetry and I mean that in a very good way. the play was light-hearted at times but also dealt with very complex emotions, all in very beautiful ways.

I went with Nora to a poetry reading by Ross Gay! I read his book be holding for my poetry class in the fall and I loved it. he ended up reading an essay about cover songs from his book Inciting Joy and it was so incredible. not just the work, but his energy is so straightforward and kind. the way he reads the work also adds something extra and it was an honor to listen to him read!

speaking of honors, I also got to go to Gilbert Strang’s last linear algebra lecture! I have never even had him as a professor but it was so touching to be there and hear him talk about his long career and relationship with MIT.

I stuck around for a little bit after finals week so I had some downtime before leaving campus. I went to New Jersey to the Taylor Swift concert with Prajna and Jyotsna and since I can’t talk about that in moderation, I will simply not talk about it. when I was not away, I played a lot of mahjong in the 4W main lounge and watched some assortment of things, including the first Harry Potter movie and a Very Potter musical. I also volunteered for commencement! I was at the info desk at the advanced degrees ceremony for the School of Science. I ran into my 8.04 professors there, which was really nice! the other volunteers were also very nice and we were all getting really happy and excited watching the graduates and their families, who came from all over to attend the ceremonies.

every semester teaches a new lesson about how to make decisions for the next one. I am halfway done with MIT and I still do not know how to MIT very well.

with the multiple pset deadlines every week, often coupled with other commitments, it really feels impossible to get everything done sometimes. but, you get through it. every week. you take extensions, you get help. or you don’t. but, you get through it. I have heard MIT students post-graduation say that one of their key takeaways from MIT was a sense of courage and belief that things will get done, no matter how impossible it seemed in the time being.

I have realized that I don’t want to just get through it. I don’t want to be miserable the whole time for this lesson. I ascribe so much value to the process that even if I end up with a good score or a great project at the end, it will not feel worth it if I was sad and angry the whole time. I do not like waking up with IHTFP being the first thought on my mind.

so I am not going to choose to be overly miserable to get something done. I am going to simply, gasps, fail. one of the most detrimental things you could do at MIT is determining your self worth based on how much you are doing. there is usually a lot to do but there are ways to make it a little easier or a lot harder for you. oftentimes, it boils down to your ego and out of all the things to consider, that, in my opinion, is the stupidest way to choose to not drop something. I am not going to choose to pat my ego over my happiness, which is already very hard to choose in places where productivity is so highly valued. I am relearning to find meaning in the way I approach things. I put a lot of thought into everything I do and that usually means I cannot do a lot. but even the small things mean a lot to me. the point is not to fill up every waking moment with something productive or to finish everything you start. my friend Jonathan says there is always tomorrow. I don’t believe that. 

everything will not get done is a very humbling realization. it feels like I am losing a core part of why I belong at MIT. but, I do not think any of us are here because we can do the impossible. I do not think we are expected to break our backs to try to fit some image of what an MIT student is supposed to be like. I think we are mostly here because we cared about things and we will continue to care even when things don’t get done. in a completely academic context, a lot of the classes I have taken still feel unfinished and open, not because I have actual work for them but because I care about the content and want to learn it at a deeper level. so, maybe feeling like things are unfinished is not that bad. the lack of closure is also an expression of care. this is not to say that the alternative implies you do not care. what I am trying to say is that completing tasks and reaching goals is not the only way to measure care or success.

yes, there will always be regrets. because there will always be care.