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Archive for grad life/MIT
December 6, 2006 at 10:26 pm · Filed under grad life/MIT
We had another big meeting today. A guy I normally say hi to and am very friendly to when I see him was there presenting a proposal. I totally went bitch on him and basically told him that I disagreed completely with his proposal. That in and of itself isn’t such a big deal because we all have different opinions than our friends … but every time he’s brought up wanting the proposal to go forward in passing when we see each other around school, I’ve just shrugged it off, laughed.
I bet he didn’t expect me to come out and oppose him at this meeting. Now I feel like an ass. I honestly just didn’t really think that much. When he’s mentioned stuff before, I didn’t shrug it off or laugh because I agreed with him. I usually just did it because I didn’t care that much. But today at the meeting, I was particularly caring about this issue. Bleh.
October 10, 2006 at 1:00 am · Filed under grad life/MIT
This morning at 6am, I typed the finishing word of my thesis proposal and sent it to my advisor via email. I then went to sleep, with no alarms set, phone on silent, and no thoughts except “I wonder when I will wake up?” I finally got up around 2pm, checked my email, and noticed that my advisor had already gotten back to me about my proposal. He had one change he wanted to make (instead of three signficant figures on a set of data, he suggested we use only 2), and with that, my thesis proposal written document was done, and I got the green light to send it to the rest of my committee.
I then went off and sat in the sun on some grass next to the river and daydreamed for several hours. I watched crew teams cruise by (I’ve always been mesmerized by the methodical clunk, oomph of feathered oars gliding across the water). I saw a little toddler run around, barely able to stay upright. There were plenty of students out there studying and couples whispering sweet nothings into each others’ ears. I saw plenty of bikers whiz by, motivating me to want to get on my bike (I made a phone call to my biking buddy, but he was stuck in lab, what a shame).
It was such a gorgeous day to be free and to be out by the river. It was nothing like what you would expect for almost mid-October. I was sitting outside with shorts and a tshirt, and at times I even got kinda sweaty. I wish this weather would last forever, along with this freedom.
Tomorrow, I’m going to buckle down and start making slides for my presentation. Today was my one day of freedom.
October 3, 2006 at 1:21 am · Filed under grad life/MIT
I’ve been a bit MIA lately because of this nasty thing called a thesis proposal that’s been hanging over my head ever since May, but that which I have chosen to ignore just about completely until very recently thus leading to massive panicking as I race to get a draft done in time to send to my committee before my actual presentation on the 17th at 2pm (a date that had better be sharpied in on every single faculty member’s calendars who is serving on my thesis committee).
This morning at 10:32am, I sent draft #1 to my advisor, along with a huge sigh of relief and a rather conspicuous pat on the back for myself. I had hoped that I would have a few days of rest and relaxation as my advisor reads over the draft and gives me suggestions for edits. He emailed it back to me tonight at 8:49pm. Geez!! Why do advisors have to be so responsible and prompt? I just wanted to not work for a few days and have an excuse for it.
Oh, and the issue with the date … the oral defense of the proposal was originally scheduled for the 16th. This was something set in stone (or so I thought) more than a MONTH ago, and not without significant emailing back and forth for times that would work with all 4 busy busy busy faculty members! A few days ago, my advisor told me that he has to be in DC on the 16th and could we please reschedule my oral defense. Err, where was the responsibleness when I most needed it??
Luckily, we managed to all find a time to get together at 2pm on the 17th. Considering that I’m flying out of Boston 9am on the 19th, that’s definitely cutting it a bit too close for comfort …
September 26, 2006 at 11:12 pm · Filed under grad life/MIT
Overheard at central campus location, while waiting for the traffic light to turn:
girl #1: man, I got stuck with all the grad students in that class
girl #2: why’s that bad? are all the grad students really smart?
girl #3: well, actually, my advisor said that grad students really aren’t that smart
girl #2: yeah! i really do think undergrads are smarter. there are some really dumb grad students
hmm …
I think grad school dumbified me. I was smarter and more motivated before I got here.
September 24, 2006 at 6:18 pm · Filed under grad life/MIT
I seem to have a knack for getting into messes. Socially, I’m in messes with friends, relationships, friendships vs. relationships, etc. etc. Academically, I’m in a mess with needing to hand in a draft of my proposal to my advisor by this coming weekend (and I have 1 paragraph of the 20-page document written). Extracurricularly, I’m getting caught up in unnecessary politics, and I always hate politics. I thought settling for VP instead of going for the presidency would help me to avoid the bureaucracy, but boy was I naive.
Less than a month more of this, and I’ll be on a plane to China with nothing to think about except seeing my family, having a good time, taking lots of pictures, and maybe getting a new hairdo.
September 18, 2006 at 12:33 am · Filed under grad life/MIT
My patience is extremely thin. I screened two phone calls today because I did not want to deal with talking to those people. I called my parents and was on the verge of snapping at my mom because she wanted to nag me by telling me what I should pack for my China trip (which btw is not until Oct 19). I asked her why we have to talk about the ratio of short-sleeved to long-sleeved shirts I should pack NOW, a month before the actual trip?? Why can we not talk about this three weeks from now?
I also got very frustrated with another phone call after my parents, this time with a good friend. My very-far-from-being-complete thesis proposal (heck, it is hardly even started) is not something I want to talk about right now. I know he meant so well, but the more we talked (he talked), the more frustrated I got because I just really wanted to hang up the phone and actually go work on my proposal instead of talking about it.
Panic is definitely setting in. I was driving around earlier today wondering why I can’t feel a sense of urgency unless I am a day before the deadline. I wondered what the threshold advance-notice was for me to start panicking about something. A test, a paper due, I feel no sense of urgency until the night before, and I was starting to be afraid that I would also not feel the urgency of this thesis proposal until the night before, at which point, it is already too late because there is no way I can write this thing in a day.
But I needn’t have worried. Panic is setting in right now.
**ADD**: I found this little segment from an article in Psychology Today, thanks to keltheyounger’s link:
“There are many depressogenic factors operating in our culture. Information overload is one. Since 1945 we have accumulated at least as much information as we had throughout history until then. The more information there is, the more we end up essentially skimming the surface. This leads to a style of thinking in which we see only the big picture and miss the depth of detail. As a result, when we are faced with difficult problems, we do not recognize the many small steps that solutions typically require; things feel overwhelming and insurmountable, leading us to give up before we even start. “
Wow, that last sentence just about sums up how I feel right now. I want to quit before I even get started because I am so intimidated by this daunting task of writing a proposal. The article the above paragraph came from is called “The Art of Avoiding Depression.” Let’s hope that I don’t get depressed over this whole thing.
September 15, 2006 at 11:46 am · Filed under grad life/MIT
Career fair is coming around next week, so everyone is in a frenzy about this new year of job-hunting season that is upon us. By chance, I met some international students from China last week, one of whom is here for a one-year Masters program. So essentially, less than a month after she’s been at MIT/Boston/the US, she needs to look for a job. That’s about as hard as it gets. American students have a hard enough time figuring out all of the resume/interview/networking/company presentation/online submissions/selling yourself/etc. etc. She’s supposed to do all of this after having been in the U.S. for less than a month.
At the same time, I stopped feeling THAT sorry for her after our TWO-hour marathon session yesterday in which I sat down with her to help her improve her resume (she asked me if I would do this with her last week). It was a frustrating experience for both of us, I think. I felt a lot of resistance on her end toward what I had to say; she was quite unwilling to let go of her pre-conceived notions of what a resume should look like or how to conduct a job search in America. Because of that, I think she thought I was a fraud.
I don’t claim to be the best resume writer in the world; I’m sure my own resume could use tons of help. At the same time, I did go through this whole process about two years ago; I had a decently successful resume/coverletter that got me the interviews, and ultimately the job offers, from top consulting firms and banks. I’m not just pulling this stuff out of my ass when I tell her to make bullet points and to include the title of the Intel exhibit she got ridiculous recognition for. Not to even MENTION that I really was doing her an enormous favor by sitting down with her for TWO HOURS; I don’t even sit down with good friends for 30 minutes these days for coffee because of how protective I have gotten of my time these past few weeks (and will continue to be for the next month or so).
I didn’t want to dangle that in her face that I was going extremely out of my way to help her; if anything, I initially played everything down, “oh, don’t worry; I’m happy to help you.” But even just out of common courtesy (two hours is a long time no matter how busy/unbusy people are), the least she could have done was to respect the suggestions I offered her and to listen to what I had to say.
Maybe my problem was that I was too ambitious in what I wanted to do with her resume. She told me that she wanted to interview for consulting jobs, so I went nuts in helping her to restructure her resume for consulting: highlight activities; highlight leadership; bullet-point and quantify your accomplishments, blah blah blah. Thinking back, I think that was just too much; I don’t think I left a very good impression because most of what I had to say was asking her to change her resume. Taking in so much critique, no matter how constructive I tried to make it, was probably hard. If I were to evaluate her original resume on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being phenomenal, 5 being about average, 1 being very very bad), I would say her resume started out at around a 2.5. I was trying to use that and take her to a 10, but maybe both of our times would have been better spent had I aimed for more around a 6.
I also feel badly because I don’t think she will get any interviews from consulting firms submitting the resume that she has. Since she is an international student in a one-year Masters program, I don’t know what she’s going to do when she doesn’t find a job.
August 24, 2006 at 8:04 pm · Filed under grad life/MIT
I am so incredibly overwhelmed. I think it is going to be another late night at the lab, and I have been working all day. Things at the GSC blew up today with multiple sets of people very upset about multiple things, and I have do damage control and temper people, while trying to hold it all in myself and continue to be cordial and appear professional and open-minded when really I just want to blow up and scream back at people. I feel like everyone wants a piece of my time right now, and I don’t have enough time for even myself, so how can I possibly have time to give to others?
Liang is right. Last August was the same deal; he was there with me as I griped about orientation, research, my advisor, MIT, Kaplan, people, relationships, friendships, everything under the sun. Ironically, that “water water everywhere” post was from August 24 …. and today is August 24. Wow, for all the wondering I did about everything’s that’s happened this past year, I am today at the same state I was one year ago.
It’s funny how life works.
August 22, 2006 at 2:43 am · Filed under grad life/MIT
Taking inspiration from Samuel L. Jackson, I thought perhaps a few expletives would help to save me from my journey to overcommitment and eventual, inevitable failure. Can I make a list of things I need to do? Can I cry out about how absolutely swamped I am? Just once?? I know I HATE it when other people do this, and I can’t believe I’m going to be one of THOSE people, but please just indulge me for a second here; I think it may actually make me feel better.
My to do list (a subset):
- organize f-ing career fair banquet
- magically convince grad students that they should care enough to serve on the institute committee on radioactivity
- update uva club of boston calendar (which btw is 2 months out of date, with no one to blame but me)
- go put on a happy face and meet & greet freshmen who arrived a week early
- go put on a happy face and meet & greet the parents of freshmen who either love me or hate me or love to hate me
- go put on a happy face and meet & greet returning upperclassmen who arrived early planning to talk to the freshmen when they eventually get here only to find that the freshmen are already here
- damage control damage control damage control
- write a speech to deliver to ogle-eyed new DMSE grad students to welcome them to the institute because obviously, i’m the expert on why one should love this place. obviously.
- take on the world of the GSC because all the other officers skipped town
- redo campus tour path, not to mention twisting arms & legs of friends to get them to be tour guides
- write an article for the GSN about my identity crisis of being american, chinese, 23, near-sighted, not deaf, not mute, not ovulating, and not accepting booty calls
- somehow actually spend some time in lab so I can perform a miracle, bring my stupid finicky dead cells back to life, prepare a thesis proposal, convince my committee that I am a worthwhile student to have around, and then actually try to graduate before I turn 93
It is also 1 am, and I am still in lab, waiting for my 500,000 mls of FBS to thaw. Maybe my problem #1 is that I should stop blogging and actually do some work. My problem #2 is that I should cut off all contact with the outside world while I write and prepare my thesis proposal. My problem #3 is not having enough time for myself, which I would argue precedes all the other problems.
On top of all of this, I wish I would stop getting emails asking if I want to “come over and watch a movie” … more on this later maybe after I sleep on it.
*EDIT/ADDITION*: it is now 2:30am; i am getting ready to leave lab, but not without incident:
1) I broke the pipet in our lab hood. I can’t fix it because i can’t find the needed part, so people will be greeted with a “sorry, it’s broken” note tomorrow morning. go me.
2) I think I just sent an email to a list that contains all grad students at MIT. I unintentionally used my own personal email account instead of the GSC’s. I may have done this multiple times. I’m not entirely sure, which makes the situation even stickier.
3) I am a mess, and I need to stop blogging, go home, and go to bed.
August 18, 2006 at 2:14 pm · Filed under grad life/MIT, dating/relationships
guy: You’ve been text messaging all night.
me: yeah, I know. It’s fun.
guy: I feel like I should pull out my phone and text you
me: haha
guy: but I don’t have your number
me: …
I guess campus pubs are no different than Boston bars. And here I thought I was being extremely unattractive and making a fool of myself in the Thursday tradition, belting out karaoke at the top of my lungs despite not being able to sing to save my life.
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