From 2022-2023, I travelled a lot. ⁠01 a quick count suggests that i took ~15 flights, most of them crossing the Pacific ocean, with the worst one being 19 hours straight I also had very bad luck⁠02 ~60% of them were either cancelled and rebooked or delayed... it was diabolical with my flights. Anyway, the point is that I seem to be catching some of my bad luck again (my flight is delayed right now by at least 30 minutes). Since I have nothing better to do, ⁠03 as in, i drank a matcha this morning that i'm somehow reacting to right now, so i have to put my mental effort towards something that makes me less jittery here’s a mind dump about my classes that I’m taking this semester. This is a pretty low-effort post, but forgive me—bigger things are coming in the works!

How does choosing classes at MIT work?

For many institutions, choosing classes is often not even an option for students: they just have to take set requirements according to the structure of their pre-determined major. MIT has a double edged sword: it has almost zero requirements on what classes you must choose. Of course, you have to declare a major and your advisor will probably not approve your pre-registration if you’re not on-track to graduate, but at otherwise, MIT is a “choose your own adventure” when it comes to the classes and education that you want. I remember from somewhere that a major’s coursework is supposed to be completable in 3 years with 3-4 classes a semester, so that gives a LOT of flexibility to people to flounder around explore.

For other references on how majors and graduating requirements work, I like Andi’s blog on how he chose his classes, because it’s more comprehensive on how class choosing works. I actually read it again to help me decide what classes I’m going to take this semester, so you have n >= 2⁠04 sorry for the <a href="https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/mathisms/">mathism...</a> what can i say i buy the sauce. evidence that the blog is pretty decent. I also like Gloria and Teresa’s blog on the design major. It’s really specific to design (which unfortunately I think is not the predominant major at MIT…), but I think it’s a great example for how a major at MIT can be structured.

Why did you choose these classes?

Recently, I’ve been confronting the fact that I only really have 1.5 years left at MIT. I’ve matured a lot in terms of my academic confidence and rigour, and I’ve started putting more intention into choosing my classes.

One big regret for me back in freshman year is that I over-indexed on the extra-curricular MIT experience, and didn’t think that much about “getting an education” in some way. I was pretty disillusioned with schooling systems from my own experiences in high school, where I primarily self-studied and spent the majority of my effort in my national and international competitions, so I was prepared to just put in some limited amount of effort into my classes and just grind extra-curriculars at MIT again. But, shocker, MIT is actually a globally top-ranked institution for a reason! This is something that I’ve really come to appreciate over the past two years or so.

I have more thoughts on trusting institutions and pedagogy, but then I wouldn’t be able to get this post out in 30 minutes. So maybe I’ll write about my thoughts on making the most out of my MIT experience another day, but don’t hold your breath. I’ll probably forget (sorry!)

Anyway, what these thoughts actually mean for my classes is that, even if I have to take a class, I will be endeavouring to understand why this might be a useful class, and what I’m hoping to get out of it.

For additional context, I’m majoring in 6-4,⁠05 Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making, aka AI concentrating in 21W, ⁠06 writing; the 21 means that it's a HASS major and probably minoring in course 7.⁠07 biology I’m in my junior spring, and I’m also trying to give myself the flexibility to graduate slightly earlier, which also informs how I chose my classes this semester.

6.s058: Intro to Computer Vision (aka 6.4300)

I need to graduate, so I thought I’d finish up my CI-Ms⁠08 communication intensive in the major this semester. Computer vision seemed pretty interesting, and I was sure a lot of people I know would be taking it, so I signed up.

So this class is supposed to… *checks notes* right. Give you an introduction to Computer Vision. But what does that actually mean?

As it turns out, computer vision is pretty interesting and relevant these days. Teaching computers to have a vision system have lots of applications: ecology (species identification for deep sea cameras), healthcare (think diagnostics from scans and other visuals), driving (obstacle identification), accessibility (automatically tagging photos with descriptions), gaming, robotics… the list goes on.

I’m enjoying this class for now. The lectures are engaging (lots of visuals for my zoomer brain) and there are fun physical demonstrations. Sometimes the pacing can be a bit slow, but I think it will be interesting to build intuition around what a computer “sees” and how we can leverage it in different ways.

why is there a light dot and a light green line?

as it turns out, lenses focus light rays so that when the laser light hits the lens, it all gets focused into the focal point, but outside, the light will travel as a straight line since the refractive index of air is essentially none. very cool!

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6.4110: Representation, Inference and Reasoning in AI

This also hits one of the graduation requirements I need. If I’m being completely honest, this is a class that just fit into my schedule and seemed reasonably doable, but I’m cautiously optimistic that this will end up teaching me something.

This class is the one I’m least sure about. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to learn from this class; from the lectures so far it seems to be about designing algorithms and constraints that determine how a machine learns and acts. When I say machines, I mostly mean Agents, which to my understanding are autonomous software objects which can perform different functions. They’re very popular in the tech field of AI right now. I’m hoping to demystify what they mean through this class. Unfortunately this class clashes with my Lab’s group meeting time so I’m not actually sure how many times I’ll show up to lecture 💀

7.33/6.4710: Evolutionary Biology

I’m very interested in evolutionary biology for a few reasons. One of the most famous and top-performing AI models for biology trains on evolutionary data (ESM3), so evidently there is something valuable to learn from how molecules have evolved and changed. It’s also a very intimate class (only ~12-20 people?), and I’m optimistic about the assessment structure. Our final assessment is an oral exam where we discuss papers with the two professors of the class, which will evidently force me to actually engage with my professors.

I also really enjoyed the first class: we had a guest lecturer, Professor Berwick, who is a post-tenure ⁠09 when i asked him what that means he said something like 'i get to just have an office and hang out', so hopefully that provides some information about both what post-tenure is and who this legend is professor in the CS and neuro department. He also bought a 19th century edition of Darwin’s The Origin of Species for us to flip through and admire, which was both very daunting (the spine was literally falling apart) and cool (duh).

when i walked into the lecture and saw the prof wearing a darwin sweatshirt, i already thought it couldn't get any better. turns out i was wrong

in case you couldn't see clear enough

and i mean of course you've got to have the origin of species. like come on

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21G.077: Introduction to the Classics of Russian Literature

This hits a HASS requirement, but my decision in taking this class is a lot more pre-mediated than the previous classes, since HASS requirements are very flexible, which means that you must make more of a conscious choice in what you take.

I’ve always heard a lot of good things about Russian Literature in general; people of the likes of Dostoevsky and Gogol (importantly, a Russian novelist of Ukrainian origin) are touted as geniuses that discovered the secrets of the universe and profound things about life. Previously, I read two pages of Crime and Punishment and decided that it was too verbose for me. But I’ve maintained an interest in understanding these texts better, and I’ve heard many good things about this class, so this class was a must-take for me this semester (it’s Spring only).

This is my favourite class so far. Professor Khotimsky is a wonderful teacher: she is genuine in a way that encourages you to be as excited about the literature as she is, and she is so sweet and intentional with her words. The stories are also engaging, and given current events, we place the stories through a particularly critical lens and understand how these stories shape culture and our understanding of the world in general. She also bought a great big bowl of cherries to our last class because we read a short story that involved cherries, which is an EXTRA bonus in my book. I like food, especially when it’s free.

cherries! with Elena B. '28, who is taking the class with me

when i say there were a lot of cherries, i was not joking

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21W.764 Computational and Experimental Writing Workshop

This also hits a HASS requirement, and similar to Russian Literature, this was also a class that I definitely wanted to take.

This is probably the class that, when I mention it, other people are the most confused about: what sort of computation? what sort of experimentation?

I first encountered Computational Experimental Writing from reading the html review. My preliminary understanding of this kind of writing is that, where typical writing is creative in the content of the words, computational & experimental writing extends its creativity to the process and form of creation. Some works we’ve read so far are: a chronicle of world history that was written entirely from memory, alice in wonderland except all the dialogue is from moby dick, and a series of articulations that are written based on the fluidity of its semantic meaning.

This is a writing workshop, which means that most of the class will involve a lot of writing, and this is also why I’m taking it. I’ve been thinking about how to engage with AI and computational works in a way that doesn’t offload all creative direction to the AI, but also doesn’t necessarily eschew the presence of AI in my process of creating work. Technologies may be created with certain incentive structures and intended behaviours in mind, but as users, I think we still have a certain amount of agency over the technologies that we should use with intention and care. I’m looking forward to thinking a lot about my relationship with technology, and also what creative works actually mean to me.

I’m hoping to write a blogpost eventually on the big ideas of my classes this semester. But there are always so many things to do and so much life to live and so many things to write… and now I have to FINALLY board my flight, ⁠10 it was delayed by 2 hours and i lost track of time so really this is not as low effort as i originally claimed so I’ll see you around!

final note: i had to put in my photos for the blog and also forgot to lightly edit it sooo i’m actually posting it at the airport AFTER returning from my trip (a day later lol). since we’re already here you should have a photo of my friend alice’s adorably overenthusiastic border collie! her name is lark and she looooves attention. any attention in the comments should be directed towards lark. thank you very much 

she’s bilingual btw. if you’re ever procrastinating on language homework i hope you know that you might be less literate than this very cute dog

actual final note: bruh i got scooped by Kayode D. ’27 because i procrastinated on getting the photos done for this blog. actually so doomed. according to him, it’s different because “…[he] did what classes [he’s] eating this semester” ?????