Times Report on the Earthquake

When I describe Sichuan to people I always mention the food, and the mountains, the humidity sometimes, and I always explain that Sichuan translates literally into the four rivers that cut through it. The people there speak with a flattened dialect, like this, I say. And I say I'll take them one day to this place.

If you feel compelled to help, I've been looking around. Here are some relief organizations that have already begun their operations:

American Red Cross International Relief Fund

World Vision

I hope everything is alright with your family, your friends, you, out in this beautiful region of the world.

I am another Biochemist coming from MIT to Cambridge. I am not nearly as advanced as Kathy, so I have no lab work at all. Instead, I take a lecture course, hashing out the basics. Differences between the two educational systems
are very fundamental.

As Kathy has said, Biology as conceived by Cambridge is about knowing a vast set of facts. Moreover, this set is rather rigidly defined for undergrads; it's an old philosophy, which says that all "educated" people should have a common foundation. Ask any young Cantabridgian to expound on collagen, but s/he may not know how to use a pipette:

Cambridge teaches passion. It assumes that tools will appear if the idea is planted in you. Learn about poetry, and you will acquire literacy to write your own.

At MIT, students are equiped to look pretty in the lab. For example, I can pour a gel, then set up a PCR and eat lunch before the gel sets. I understand not how or why. Last year, I finished an entire project on a protein, knowing only
its name and that it "caused cancer." Fact. It was Cambridge that finally taught me what the protein was.

MIT teaches process. It assumes that inspiration will follow if the tools are laid before you. Learn the alphabet, and you will be moved to produce poetry.

Clearly, both schools are missing something. Knowledge and practice do exist in both places, but it seems we can only focus on one at a time.

***

"So, which has better academics, MIT or Cambridge?"

To me, the question is meaningless. My second subjet - Zoology - has no equivalent at MIT. It's not cutting edge, and it doesn't cure cancer. But it's a fascinating subject, which I doubt I can explore as deeply without a department to guide me. This is what I will remember most about Cambridge.

As for Biochemistry, I hope students in either country end up in the same place as professionals. Any differences leading up to that point are just differences in order.

***

One thing I notice about Cambridge students is that few things stand in their way of enjoying life. Along with parties and such, I am talking about sports, activities, and "cultural enrichment." Last week, I went to an unpublicised recital at Trinity College, where I randomly met five members of my own college. Last term, students hosted a Chinese New Year gala on a scale that we would not expect at MIT.

I know these are poor excuses for not studying. But as Justin said, Cambridge students keep an eye on the long-term, and that includes learning to retain knowledge while leaving enough slack to not hate yourself after doing it. (I don't care how much satisfaction you get from 4am psets - they are not "fun" in the strictest sense.)

***

Still thinking about CME? Consider this: If you love your side of the Atlantic and don't want to learn any other way, then be happy to stay where you are. If you are intrigued by change, then come along. Bring optimism but not
expectations. Look for something completely different. You'll regard MIT with fresh eyes and renewed spirits. Plus, your friends will be terribly impressed with you.

When our waitlist decisions are finalized, we will notify the admitted students, informing them that they have been admitted from the waitlist. Financial aid will follow up shortly thereafter with aid packages. Admitted students can then choose to accept our offer (it is an understood part of admissions that some people will shuffle around during the waitlist period; you will lose your deposit at the other school, but it is a standard practice to consider accepting a waitlist offer) or decline it.

Also, we will begin notifying some students on the waitlist that we will not be able to offer them admission. We offered a spot on the waitlist to 739 people, in the possibility that we needed to go very deep into our waitlist, as most schools must do from time to time. But now, as a high number of admitted students have chosen to enroll, we know that we will need to enroll only a relatively small number of students from the waitlist. As such, it isn't ethical to keep all of those people on the waitlist at this point, so we will notify hundreds of students that they will not be admitted from the waitlist, and wishing them the best of luck at the college they've chosen.

We also will keep some students, approximately 70, on the waitlist for another few weeks until we are fully satisfied with the class. Last year, we were satisfied with the class after one round of waitlist admissions; two years ago, we admitted students in two rounds of waitlist admissions. We'll know more about how this year looks in a few weeks.

The waitlist committee has been working hard since May 1 to determine how many students, if any, could be admitted from the waitlist, while in parallel working to make admisions decisions. The waitlist admissions process will continue for the next week until we fully determine who will and will not be admitted, at which point we will notify students. I don't yet know what day we will notify students. We'll keep you up-to-date.

Here are the different events and how they contributed to the team’s point total:

Sunday:
- Cake and pie baking contest (pictures below)
- Eating contest (pie tin filled with whipped cream and a gum ball. Find the gum ball using only your mouth and the first person to blow a bubble wins.)
- Participation (team with most cake/pie entries wins points.)

Monday: Salsa night (team with most participants wins)

Tuesday: Community service day
- Made activity books for kinds at Children’s Hospital Boston
- Bake sale where all proceeds went to the Hospital

Wednesday: “Chariot racing” = pushing someone in a shopping cart down the Infinite Corridor

Thursday: Dodgeball tournament, with a small entry fee donated to the Children’s Hospital Boston

Friday: Powderpuff game (where girls play football and guys are the cheerleaders). Points based on how many people came to watch, how many played, and if your team won.

Sunday: Greek Convention

Throughout the week there was a “Jar War”- each team had a jar and you could either put pennies and dollar bills for positive points in your own jar, or nickels and quarters as negative points in the other jars. They raised $1300 for the Children’s Hospital!!!

As you can see, Greek Week harnesses the natural competitiveness of ambitious students while raising money for charity and having a lot of fun!

Here are pictures from the Cake-off competition. What are your favorites?

Believe it or not, several of these cakes were made by guys! Way to go, guys!

Muhahahaha:

Some of my sorority sisters at the event:

ZBT shows their Greek Week spirit:

The lovely judges, who had to try so many cakes that they almost puked. (Sigma Kappa alone submitted 29, and Zeta Beta Tau submitted 20!)

The pie eating contest:

I distinctly remember that question when I interviewed to be the Sound Designer for the Musical Theater Guild's (MTG) spring production of The Full Monty. It's a great question when you really think about it-—how does one attach a microphone to a stripper without it looking too conspicuous? When you're not wearing anything in front of an audience of 200 they shouldn't be looking at a black box on the small of your back, if you know what I mean.

MTG (and MIT's other student theater groups) makes questions like these (and the mental images that inevitably follow) possible. It's only one of the many memories I took away from the show, memories that include chatting with the awesome new people I met and overcoming the frustration that comes with learning something new (I had never sound designed on my own before).

But the production process isn't as easy as answering a few disarming questions and joking around with the case. It takes more than two months to put a show together around here and the payoff is six days of raw, naked glory (let me assure you that carefully lighted full-frontal nudity is neither commonplace nor a prominent feature of most of the shows done at MIT). It's a long, difficult road-—from the first production meeting to the first rehearsal to load-in to the first tech to the last night. Just ask anyone associated with a show here or anywhere—-there's always the worry that all the components won't come together (and they usually don't until the night the show opens). But it's truly rewarding to start with 120 pieces of paper and infuse them with the unique visions of many individuals—-to give life to words on a page.

This is my experience from only one show but I've got countless more that date back to my freshman year of high school. Theater is a wonderful experience in which you meet all kinds of people and experience all kinds of crazy stuff. And by working with the immensely talented and diverse people here at MIT I guarantee a wealth of memorable quotes and events from your days doing theater or any other artistic endeavor here. Have any questions about MIT (artistic or otherwise)? Or do you have an artistic experience you'd like to share? Post it in the comments and strike up a discussion! Who knows—-maybe you'll remember it years from now.

The all-nighter turned out to be a killer, since after the Physics test and some dinner, I ended up working for 13 hours straight, from 11 pm to noon the next day. Part of the reason why it took so long was because the orgo reactions on my 5.111 pset were literally quite impossible to do, with my limited orgo knowledge. But, through very valiant perseverance (and a lot of Youtube music playing in the background to keep from falling asleep), I completed my epic 15-paged chem pset and turned it in at noon. That said, and I did better than I expected on the physics test, so everything was worth it in the end. (thanks for all your well-wishing on the last entry too! you guys rawk. =D)

Whee - three more finals left and it's the summer!

So - I took 4 courses and had my UROP for credit - so I'm not that hardcore but it still puts me at 60 credits, breaking the 57 freshmen credit cap and this was why I had to declare sophomore standing and yadda yadda yadda.

Fortunately, I'm pleased to report that after this semester, I will be completely done with GIRs! woot!

< graphic content >

Often (and my roommates have heard me use this analogy countless times), I feel like taking the Physics GIR is like being at a buffet with all-you-can-eat, but instead of being able to leave after you're comfortably full, the food just keeps on coming and you're forced to stuff more and more down your throat, until it's like...uh, overflowing. But you're not allowed to puke it out, since if you do, you have to start ALL over again.

< / graphic content >

Yes, i think that describes my abhorrence towards physics.

Keeping that in mind, enjoy the food!

8.02 - Physics: Electricity and Magnetism - 12 credits - GIR for Physics

It's not an overstatement to say that this is the bane of my existence this semester. I know this shouldn't really be an excuse, but I feel like the reason why I dislike physics so much is because I never had a teacher that really presented physics in a manner that was "exciting," or so to speak. To me, physics is like a blob of equations and manipulations with forces that I can't visualize, fields that I can't perceive. When I left high school, I vowed to never take Physics again, but the MIT GIR requirement came back to haunt me - and I guess I'm stuck with it now.

Ai - that's enough complaining, here are the more substantive stuff:

8.02, in many regards, is pretty much the same as 8.01 . Classes are taught TEAL-method (in classrooms with computers and the teacher lectures from a Powerpoint presentation), and there are online assignments, read: the notorious Mastering Physics (which you'll love to hate, trust me ;D). As for the content, you start out from calculating electric/magnetic fields of simple particles, and then advancing on to calculating electric/magnetic fields - and finally applying everything to circuits with inductors, capacitors, and resisters. (Did you know?! Cool!).

I think what's quite notable about 8.02 is that it's the only class so far (with 8.01), that is graded strictly according to a certain percentage cutoff that is announced beforehand (much like high school, where 90 = A). Although most MIT courses aren't "curved" per se, the scores are still "distributed" at the end, with a certain percentage of the class getting As, Bs, Cs (this percentage is often based on standard deviation - which is how you perform in relation to the rest of your class). Thus, if you have a lot of very intelligent people in your class, it might be difficult to get As in certain classes. However, in 8.02, you're told from the very first day that if your overall average is above a 85, you will get an A for the course, and it's viable that everyone can get an A in the class, if everyone gets above a 85 on the average (which isn't technically viable, because then what the professor would do is to write harder exams, so it would be more difficult to get a high score).

What made 8.02 a memorable memory for me was the fact that there were a lot of cool demonstrations for the class (like the one where Snively was almost fried by 3000 volts - he blogged about it in one of his entries, but I can't find it cuz he has too many! lol). Also, for my section (8.02 is taught across eight different sections with more or less 80 students in each, since there are like 650+ students taking 8.02 right now because of the GIR requirement), I had a professor that taught 8.02 because he loved it, not because he's doing it as a job - and his enthusiasm really came across during the lectures. I think he was definitely the best physics teacher I ever had (though - not that I had many...I had one in high school, one for 8.01, and now 8.02).

I definitely felt like I learned a lot, although I don't think my new knowledge of physics will ever entice me to major in Course 8 - I'll leave it to my roommate, Zach. (he finishes the 8.02 psets in an hour each and completely loves the material (not to mention - OWNS every exam). Naturally, he declared Course 8 =p)

For me, 8.02 is like Zongzi - basically, Chinese rice balls with lots of yummy stuffing inside. Like 8.02, zongzi is great in small quantities, but due to all the glutenous rice - the more you eat, the more you start feeling blehh. (just like how I'm like on Physics OD right now, haha).

5.111 - Principles of Chemical Science - 12 credits - GIR for Chemistry

The chemical counterpart to 8.02, this was my other GIR. Unlike 8.02, however, I actually ended up enjoying this course a lot. Starting from basic chemical structure, we progressed through physical trends, acid-base, equilibrium, kinetics, redox, and finally orgo.

One thing about the chem and bio GIR is that, for some reason, most freshmen actually take Chemistry first during the first semester, and then take Bio during the second semester. Since I technically took these GIRs "out of order," I had a very small chem class (there were only about 60? students and 3 recitations). I guess this was both a blessing and a curse, since I'm finally not in a massive classroom for the GIR - but the curve (or rather, the "grade distribution" - to be politically correct), is also worse since there's a smaller sample size for exam results (and they tend to cluster at the top, since we have some very intelligent students).

5.111 is the chem GIR that's recommended if you're planning on doing a bio/chem related major, for reasons that I'm not entirely sure of (it covers more application stuff while maintaining a grip on theory?). Most freshmen actually take 3.091 (abbreviated as three-oh-nine-fun) during the fall semester. The class is known for a high pass rate and an amusing professor, and thus had commanded a very large audience (I believe this year's fall 3.091 class was the largest class in history - part of the class had to watch the lectures in another lecture hall because they couldn't all fit in one lecture hall).

Of course, like 8.012, there's also a chemical equivalent for an more advanced class, if you're really into chemistry - 5.112. Only offered in the fall, this course is a rigorous approach into the principles behind chemistry, and it's generally recommended only if you have some pretty good chemistry background.

For me, 5.111 was like Kung Pao Chicken. See those chili peppers in the pictures? Although deceptively-innocent looking, consuming many of them in rapid succession can have very adverse effects (they're dried chili peppers - so the resulting heat you get out of chewing them slowly in your mouth is much stronger than normal chili peppers). I have a pretty high heat tolerance, from growing up in Asia, but I've definitely had a few plates of "Chicken from Hell."

5.111 is like Kung Pao Chicken because although the subject matters looks deceptively simple (for me, since I had a really good preparation in AP Chemistry), it gets pretty difficult rather quickly (this was at least 2-3x faster than my AP Chem course), and the biggest difficulty of the course is actually finishing the exams on time (since there's a LOT of questions, and you're only given an hour). In those hour exams, you basically have no time to go over your answers - so it's like right is right, and wrong is wrong - there's no time to check. For me, the "chili peppers" are also the notoriously long psets for 5.111 (that generally take me 6-7+ hours on average to complete).

14.01 - Principles of Microeconomics - 12 credits - HASS Elective

So, I've always been fascinated with economics. I mean, it basically governs the way the business world works (just like physics govern the way science works). Economics wasn't offered at my school, but I decided to take AP Microecon on my own, senior year, just for kicks. (I mean, the PR review book for economics was REALLY thin, right?) I ended up getting a 3 on the exam (yes, cramming for econ 2 days before the exam doesn't work - and senioritis didn't help either). To rid myself of my shame (jk), I decided to take the introductory economics course at MIT.

Actually, coming here, I didn't know we had the best economics undergraduate program in the country (according to the Gourman Report), but I definitely had a feel for the popularity of Course XIV as I walked into the 14.01 lecture (which was brimming with students - undoubtedly many potential Course XIV majors). The unique thing about 14.01 is that you can either opt to take the "lecture-based" format of the course, or the other "recitation-based" option. In the lecture-based format, you go to lecture 2 days a week and recitation on Friday (which is pretty similar to most courses). In the recitation-based format, you completely go to recitation and do not attend any of the lectures (the TA gives you the lectures). Obviously, there are pros and cons to both options, but everyone manages to find the method that works for them. I opted for the lecture option, and enjoyed many of Professor Jeff Harris' amusing lectures (he's quite an interesting lecturer that loves putting himself as the center of his examples (among other things). Nearly all of his examples involve a guy named "Jeff" =p)

The interesting thing to note about 14.01 at MIT is that even though economics is definitely considered "science" at many other schools, 14.01 is a HASS class here, which means the credit you get from 14.01 gets grouped with all of the other writing/music/arts courses that you may be taking.

For me, 14.01 reminds me of Zhajiang Mian. Zhajiang Mian is a very popular noodle dish that's eaten across Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. Consisting of regular noodles with a heavily-flavored dark soybean paste (fried with meat, scallions, and garlic for flavor), the zhajiang mian is eaten (at least in Taiwan) with a wide variety of toppings (often with cucumbers, eggs, bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage, and kimchi - just for starters). It's almost the same as putting extra stuff (like guacamole, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, salsa..etc.) on American burritos, if you prefer to imagine it that way. In fact, the Taiwanese version often get so colorful that it's called "five-colored noodles" (because of all the varied colors of the toppings - sorry I can't find a public domain pic that I can post).

In very much the same way as the varied toppings, 14.01 is an introductory course to the many multi-facets of microeconomics. Starting out from the basics of supply and demand, you quickly progress to indifference curves, isoquants, risk behavior, taxes, tariffs, subsidies, price ceilings, equilibrium, efficiency, game theory, oligopoly, monopoly, monopsony (the opposite of monopoly!)...and so on. It's a nice hodgepodge introduction to a ton of stuff in microecon, and I definitely had fun sampling all the different flavors and watching it come together :)

21F.703 - Spanish 3 - 12 credits - HASS-D (Language Option)

One of my biggest interests in my life is learning languages. Probably living in a country that's already bilingual (Chinese, Taiwanese (Min Nan)) and potentially quad-lingual (English and Japanese are very popular in Taiwan) shaped my love for language. Since high school, I've taken Spanish, although I never really could speak it until I took 21F.782 (Spanish 2 in Madrid) and got to go to Spain during IAP!.

Taught by the same professor that I went to Spain with, Spanish 3 is a class that's very geared towards communication (generally listening/speaking - but there's also a fair bit of reading). I'm happy to say that I can finally read Marquez (or, at least, some of it, haha). Most of the course was focused on interactive exercises in class where you had to speak a lot, but we also had some pretty cool things going on, such as a live web-chat with a class at the Polytechnic Institute of Valencia (which I visited when I was in Spain! woo!).

If you take a language course that's higher than Level 3 at MIT, you can actually get HASS-D credit for it (HASS-D essentially means HASS Distribution - you have to take 3 HASS classes in different disciplines of humanities in order to graduate). The other unique thing about language courses is that they tend to meet four days a week, and since it's based so much on participation, absences will count a lot against your grade (for example, if you miss more than 4 Spanish 3 sessions, you get an automatic F in the course). My class is at 11 in the morning and it's my first class of the day - suffice it to say that because of Spanish, I haven't skipped a single lecture on Mondays to Thursdays because of oversleeping this entire semester (Fridays may be a different story...XP).

I'm planning to take both Spanish IV and Japanese III at MIT next year, so I guess there'll be a lot of languages going for me! I heart<3 (not like physics, ahem ahem).

Well, since this is Spanish, we should have a Spanish dish, right? But ahh - you're in a Chinese buffet, remember?

Arroz con Pollo is my dish of choice for 21F.703. Being a very common dish in Spain (almost like how pizza is like here), you see arroz con pollo nearly everywhere you go in Spain (in fact, some of the hosts for my Spanish program were fond of only cooking arroz con pollo for their host students). Flavorful in both the saffron rice and the chicken (usually seasoned and diced, rather than presented whole), arroz con pollo reflects the Spanish culture of vivacity and energy.

In Taiwan, we have pretty much the same thing too - chicken and rice - except the chicken is simmered in soy sauce until the meat is tender and juicy and placed over white rice with a variety of other condiments. It's popularly sold as a bento box for train travelers during the 50's to the 90's - but it is also a very common dish in Taiwan that mothers make for their children.

(the point is to see that there's chicken over rice, lol)

7.URG - Course 7 Undergraduate Research (Graded) - 12 credits - General Elective

At MIT, you have three options to choose from when you're doing an UROP. You can either do the UROP for pay, for volunteer, or for credit. A lot of people start their UROPs as a volunteer, since they want to convey to their UROP supervisors their passion for their research (so much that they wouldn't mind doing it without pay). Doing an UROP as an volunteer is also a good option if you aren't sure whether you want to commit to the UROP long-term. Sometimes, you might be forced to do an UROP for volunteer as well, since your project might not be ready to fund you or you have a credit cap so you can't append extra credits onto your schedule.

However, the majority of the people either do UROP for credit or for pay. If you do an UROP for pay, you are either funded by 1) your lab, 2) some external organization, or 3) the UROP Office (often in the form of scientific research grants to MIT). From my personal experiences, I've realized UROP supervisors are generally more hesitant to take on freshmen UROP students for pay (generally I think because of lack of experience and uncertainty in long-term commitment). However, doing an UROP for pay is generally the better option when you're doing an UROP at MIT over the summer (which I would be doing), since if you opt to obtain credit for your UROP during the summer, you actually have to pay summer tuition (which costs an oodle of money) to MIT. If you apply for funding from the UROP office, you get paid at the base rate of $9 per hour - but hey, it's great getting paid while you're increasing your lab experience and scientific knowledge at the same time!

Finally, doing an UROP for credit is a very popular option during the school year. You register credits with the Registrar's Office (generally 9 or 12), and you have two options to choose from - X.UR, or X.URG (X being the course number you're doing the UROP in). X.UR means you get the credit for doing the UROP, but you don't actually get assigned a letter grade for the research (it's on pass/fail). In X.URG, you actually get assigned a letter grade by your research supervisor for the quality and effort you put into your research. Personally, I don't feel like getting credit is the most important thing for an UROP, but it's great to be getting "compensated" for all the hours you spend in the lab. :)

For me, my UROP is like Almond Tofu, my favorite dessert by far in Chinese cooking. Made from almond extract and gelatin, almond tofu (jelly) is like the Asian equivalent of Jello that's super fragrant (and not artificially colored! Jell-O coloring freaks me out). It's often eaten with fruit cocktail (that isn't present in the picture), and despite the name (which is a direct translation from Chinese) - doesn't contain any soybeans.

My UROP is like Almond Jelly for me because I often head over to the lab after my classes, just like the dish is often eaten as a dessert. Although some of the lab work can get cumbersome and confusing, I feel like the times when I'm pouring the petri-dishes, cultivating bacteria, setting up an RNAi screen, playing around with the microscopic worms, or raising worms are excellent times to think about how everything in biology ties together and how everything starts to "make sense" after you really do work in the lab. The feeling of having finally figured out how a MAP kinase pathway works in the lab, for example, is a nice, refreshing feeling. It means so much more than reading a bunch of diagrams in a 7.012 textbook =p.

Buen provecho!

I've decided to post all of the YouTube videos that I've favorited since I've gotten here. "What does this have to do with MIT?"

Look, I saw all of these videos while attending here, meaning that something about the environment caused me to watch them. Also, many were shown to me by other students, so I'd say that the content matter of these videos is pretty much in line with the interest levels of MIT Blog Readers. That being said, enjoy!

First, and most importantly, Dan Sauza's Gamer Ballad is a must watch. He performed it at the Conner 2 talent show tonight and rocked the house. Enjoy, and then go over to YouTube and rate it 5 stars. We're going to turn this thing into a YouTube phenomenon, alright? I need your help though, push it to the top!

The Gamer Ballad

And now for the rest

That being said, I begin with two plugs:

-- Check out the second issue of the MIT International Review at http://web.mit.edu/mitir/!
-- Forum on American Progress will be releasing a booklet, America in the World: MIT Speaks, that showcases 25 undergraduates' responses to the following question: "What is the most important challenge facing our world, and what should the United States do to solve it?" Two fellow bloggers, Paul and Karen, are among the authors. Here's a picture of the cover so that you can get a sneak preview:

Next, a hearty round of congratulations is in order for Zahir Dossa, who I profiled in my first blog. A producer at the History Channel happened to read it, contacted Zahir, and asked him to film a 14-part television series this summer on global warming in Antarctica! He's currently planning the first few episodes, which, apparently, are so good that the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and several other high-profile channels are bidding over the rights to his series.

Next, keep your eyes peeled for profiles of the one and only Melis; Kendra Johnson, who's founded a program to help the women of Santa Ana, Ecuador, support their water system through the sale of their jewelry and ceramics; and Nadia Elkordy, whose team won this year's IDEAS competition for its development of a braille pencil.

Last but not least, I'll be revealing my successor in an upcoming entry!

In other news, the last full week of spring classes has come and gone. I spent last night finishing up the last problem sets I will ever do as a freshman, which is a pretty awesome feeling. All that's left to finish up this semester is the final paper for my humanities classes (remember Arrowsmith? yeah, it's on that novel) and, of course, finals.

Easier said than done? Yeah, just a little. But this is MIT - what were you expecting? ;)

I'm actually looking forward to this weekend. Earlier tonight, a handful of friends and I went to a performance of four student-written one-act plays put on Dramashop (the same group that put on Suburbia last year). They were pretty good, especially considering they were all written by actual MIT students. Of course, Dramashop wasn't the only club putting on a show tonight - Dance Troupe, MIT Symphony Orchestra, and the Chorallaries were also out in full force. I wish I'd been able to go to all of these awesome events - but, alas, I haven't perfected the art of being in multiple places at once. (Yet.)

After Dramashop, the aforementioned friends and I headed over to the student center to grab some snacks from LaVerde's, the campus convenience store, and sat around swapping stories and other random humor - including a very fun story about various "giant confectioneries" our group had baked or otherwise encountered recently. Around ten, I met up with another friend Samantha '11 and headed towards Central Square to Toscanini's, everyone's favorite local ice cream store (yes, it was a junk food-filled night and it was DELICIOUS). Sam and I have been friends since we were prefrosh, but for the past few weeks we've both pretty busy with our own lives (and problem sets!), so it was awesome to catch up again.

Finally, I headed across the river into Boston to meet up with Teresa '11, who was hanging out with a bunch of mutual friends at Theta Xi, yet another of MIT's 27 fraternities. And that was also fun. ;)

Now, it's about four o'clock in the morning Boston time and I'm currently sitting in my own fraternity's TV lounge, splitting my attention between blogging, the 2012 Facebook group, and reruns of Scrubs. I should get to bed (and I will, soon), but somehow I couldn't resist the urge to write an entry.

This weekend is shaping up to be, I think, relatively relaxing. Skullhouse is throwing our Spring Formal this Saturday night, and Teresa and I are going together (draw your own conclusions :D), so it should be a pretty awesome night. We also are going to have our house elections (drum roll please) on Sunday morning, but otherwise I'm mostly free - and when I say free, I mean free to keep plugging away at my homework. Ah, the joys of MIT.

In actuality, I have much, much more to say - but for now, I'm off to bed. To the incoming prefrosh, have fun with the Next Big Mailing, which I believe many of you have already received and the rest of you will no doubt be getting shortly. Best of luck, in particular, with choosing your Athena names. Basically, do your best to pick a name you'll still be happy with using four years down the road, and you should be fine.

All right, I'm out. Best of luck to you all with finals, APs, IBs, or whatever it is you crazy kids are up to these days.

I -- Apologies to any random prefrosh that have contacted me lately. I've been really hosed and have kinda been brushing people off. It's not because I hate you, it's because MIT hates me.

II -- Yesterday, while sitting in the kitchen, I decided that I hadn't roller bladed in a while and I missed it. So, like any spontaneous college student, I walked over to Boston and bought a pair of roller blades.

I forgot how much I really enjoy skating. I've been skating everywhere lately and I've been loving it! Tunnels + Roller Blades = awesome. Rumor has it that I can get a fine for skating inside buildings but nobody has yelled at me yet (well, except for CopyTech and LaVerdes) so I guess I'll just keep going until somebody complains.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 and went skating for a couple of hours. I went down to the Museum of Science, over to Boston, all down the shore of the Charles, back into Cambridge, and then back to MIT. I guess I should talk a bit about transportation at MIT. Things you'll see used are:

-- Bikes
-- Ripsticks
-- Roller Blades
-- Skateboards

If you want wheels then just bring/buy what you're most comfortable with. You by no means need transportation, walking works just fine, it's completely up to you.

III -- I saw geese the other day. Well, not just geese, but also baby geese! It's officially spring when you see bouncy little furry yellow things running around.

Seeing things like this just makes me happy. I tend to forget about all the crap that's going on around me and just think about what it'd be like to have no cares or worries. As it is, I can only pretend, but it's almost the same!

IV -- I walked by the dome the other day and saw a bunch of facilities guys doing something on it.

I have no idea what they were doing, nor will I probably ever find out (unless I ask them or I can dig around and find a hacker to ask but I don't think I care quite enough to go through all of that). All I know is that random people walking around on the dome isn't something you see everyday.

V -- 2.007 was the other day and, although I didn't get to stay for the whole thing, I got to see a couple of rounds of competition. Maybe some of you recognize what this guy is wearing from CPW?

I wish I could have stayed and seen more but I had to rush off to toy lab and work on my toy.

VI -- SHAMELESS PLUG: Toy Design PLAYSENTATIONS on Tuesday May 13th, 8 pm in 6-120. BE THERE!

In all seriousness, it's crunch time in toy land. I still don't want to tell you what we're making, but I can give you a picture and you can try to guess, how about that?

What is it? Guess in the comments.

VII -- I finally got a new hard drive for my laptop and am in the process of reinstalling everything, readjusting all of my user settings, and trying to get everything back to normal. PAIN IN THE BUTT. Even though I didn't lose much data, just getting all of my settings back to normal is a massive undertaking.

That's it from me, for now. I'll be slaving away on toys all weekend and then that's the last thing I have due before finals. After next week it's just three more tests and I'm done with freshman year at MIT, woo-hoo!

Finally! When you pick your athena name and e-mail address, please please please don't:

Use underscores _
Use numbers 0-9
Be a middle school girl with a new AIM account "qtpi314@mit.edu"

Be classy and you'll do fine. Remember, you only get to pick this name once, make it count.

"We are, we are, we are, we are..." The Engineer's drinking song is being proudly sung by a pack of ever so slightly inebriated beavers. Our Harry Potter friends are looking on in amazement as to what kind of Wizard's Institute of Technology could engender such devotion. The Cambridge-MIT exchange has successfully made this year's land-fall and both universities are trying to learn each other's secrets to success.

Although some of my fellow MIT students view our exchange as Cambridge trying to shake off its 700 year layer of dust and pick up some MIT-brand entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, my exploits in the Mathematics department have led me to a different perspective. It's not all cranky tradition on this side of the pond, and Cambridge has a few tricks of its own to share.

Structurally, Cambridge and MIT couldn't be more different. Learning is divided up into three independent branches, that I will argue provide a superior culture for learning. These three branches are the colleges, which are the home to the supervision system, the lecturers, which are faculty members who must apply to their departments in order to lecture, and the examiners, who are an anonymous group who set the questions to be examined at the end of the year.

The university is made up of some 30 colleges which are all financially, geographically, and socially distinct from each other. Students do not apply directly to the university, but rather to their college of choice. Admissions are tough and Cambridge engineers are sometimes plagued with interview questions that some MIT students won't see until their first interview with Goldman-Sachs. As a member of Churchill College, I am one of 17 math majors (mathmos as the natives say) who is closely watched over by my Director of Studies (DoS). My DoS will then arrange for me to have approximately 4 supervisions per class per term. The supervision system is considered to be the highlight of the Cambridge educational experience. Imagine having a one on one (sometimes two on one) recitation with you and a faculty member or graduate student who knows the subject exceedingly well. In preparation for these supervisions, you are to work out as many problems as possible that are assigned by the lecturers. Whereas the idea of only having 4 problem sets per class may sound like paradise to most MIT students, staring at a 17 question Analysis problem set two days before the supervision, suddenly is a lot more intimidating. The main advantage to the supervisions is that the example sheets are not graded and the supervisors have no connection with lecturers or examiners. When I get stuck on a problem or am unsure about a step in a solution, I openly annotate my own example sheet for discussion in supervision.

Lectures and classes tend to have a better attendance rate compared to my MIT classes. Each college is trying to improve its own exam results, so students from a subject are encouraged, not only by peers, but by the sometimes not-so-friendly college competition to attend as many lectures as possible. One then arranges supervisions in a majority of them, and then picks a subset of those to review for the final examination. As a Cambridge student you have three 8 week terms with lectures concentrated in the first two terms. 8 week terms are certainly intense, but the high burn-out rate during the 13 week semester at MIT is not nearly as evident. Lectures are open and do not necessarily entail painful amounts of work. You can choose how involved you want to be, and no one really minds if you decided to dump a bad class. Although some of my friends at MIT audit courses, too often will people think they are interested in a course, put a lot of effort into it, but then realize too late that their interest does not match their effort. Often MIT students become too willing to compensate their education for their GPA. In comparison, I will attend 12 or so courses for the year, and only supervise and review 10 for the exam. Although some may review anywhere between 6 and 10 for the exam, there is less commitment for attending a lecture, and thus students are more likely to engage in the contract of learning

Of course an 8 week semester may contain a lot of information, but not as much as semester of MIT. I offer the analogy that MIT semesters give large pillars of knowledge and Cambridge builds brick walls. You might reach higher, but your understanding can sometimes be on rocky foundations. In mathematics, Cambridge might ease you into the bath water of abstraction, in contrast to the cannon-ball approach of 18.100B, but there is a lot of context that you learn to motivate and support your understanding.

Furthermore, whereas there is plenty of room at MIT to be intimidated by the freshman taking graduate-level subjects, everyone at Cambridge, from your lowly genius to your Isaac Newton starts the same course of study. Both systems clearly have their own advantage. Although being forced to repeat courses may sound like a hindrance rather than an advantage, one often gains an intuition for things not appreciated on the first encounter. One day this term I sat down to have my 3 hours of lecture spat at me right in a row (which frees up time in the afternoon to work, and thus sleep for the evening) and every lecture talked about a similar concept but in three distinct settings. Redundancy is not a strong feature of any course of study at MIT (with courses 2 and 6 maybe as exceptions), but it reinforces learning and stimulates a strong synthesis of ideas.

Finally, the third consul in our triumvirate is the common enemy of the other two: The Exam. After some of you finish 18.02, 8.01, or 3.091 this term there is little concern for how much you will remember six months from now. It seems to be a general feature of the American education system, that if you have a good enough short-term memory and study hard enough, you can usually soak up enough knowledge and worked examples to spew onto a final exam a few days later and do well. On the contrary, 6 months from now I will begin my final term of Cambridge, audit a course of two and spend the majority of my time reviewing material from the entire year. Results on the exam are divided into five categories: First, Two-One, Two-Two, Third, and Fail. Results from each year become an object of fascination among all the colleges and potential employers. Talk of who is the top-first is hotly discussed and college rivalry reaches its peak. Once exams are over, instead of everyone running home to lick their wounds, they launch into "May Week" filled with dozens of "May Balls" where everyone regales in college life.

The Cambridge-MIT Institute was founded to make two of the world's best universities better. In 1970, Dean of Institute Relations at MIT, Benson R. Snyder, published a book entitled "The Hidden Curriculum." In this book, Snyder provides a sweeping critique of MIT and a culture of bible-compilation, copying of problem sets, and the perceived battle of the student body against the Institute as a whole. Based on my early observations here in Cambridge and my two years at MIT, there is clearly improvements to be made on both sides of the Atlantic. Although the institute will continue to change, Engineers everywhere will keep on singing "We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers!"

Last 8.02 exam.
Last 14.01 pset.
Last 5.111 pset.
One all-nighter.
Wish me luck. ;)

The semester is really coming to an end!

Freshman year is almost finished...wow.

I'll be back tomorrow (after I'm done with the exam and the two psets I have to do after the exam) to update this entry with an account of my academic adventures for this second semester!

Good luck on your AP exams, too! But don't stress out too much about them. ;)

(just stress out about Physics C, Calc, and English - cuz you can pass out of stuff or not take the FEE (woot!) if you do well on those exams =p)

But that's not what this entry is about. It's about my experiences with undergraduate research. I'm sure all of you know by now about MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Click here if you want the official site. But the basic idea behind UROP is to take undergrads and expose them to individual research. You know all those textbooks you read? The information had to come from somewhere. It came from people publishing their original research in peer-reviewed journals. MIT has a program dedicated to giving you the opportunity to put some of your thoughts in a textbook.

I've had the distinct pleasure of having three UROPs during my time as an undergrad here. The first was on the now defunct MIT ChemECar team. ChemECar is a competition to build a car powered by a chemical reaction that can achieve certain standards in speed, accuracy, and precision. Back in IAP 2006 we gave it a shot. Our idea was to power the car using a galvanic cell. To control how far the car went, we'd use an electrically conducting solution as a circuit breaker. When the tank of electrically conducting fluid ran out, the circuit would break and the car would stop. It was a good idea, but we were too hosed to see it to completion. We made good progress during IAP, but once classes started we didn't have time. Nevertheless, it was my first exposure to a wet lab (a lab that makes use of chemical solvents. Examples of dry labs include physics and EE labs) and an opportunity to do something original.

My second UROP I started in Summer 2006, and it was undeniably the best UROP experience I've had here. I worked with Eric Verploegen (soon to be Dr. Verploegen: Congratulations!!) on "thermoelastic liquid crystalline side-chain block copolymers for actuator applications". That's a bunch of big words for a simple idea. 1: Attach liquid crystals (the things that make the digits on your calculator) to a plastic. 2: Make the liquid crystals line up. 3: Apply an electric field to the plastic, move the liquid crystals, and thus turn electric field into macroscopic force. I got the opportunity to learn about polymer synthesis, an entire host of materials analysis techniques (dynamic mechanical analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, polarized optical microscopy, small and wide angle x-ray scattering, nuclear magnetic resonance), and even take a trip to two synchrotrons: The one at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the one at Cornell. Synchrotrons are pretty cool, check out this Wikipedia page to find out more about them. I worked with Eric officially for pay/credit during Summer 06, Fall 06, IAP 07 and volunteered during Spring 2007 to help train my replacement. The UROP culminated in a paper we published (linked here.)

My third and final UROP was at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Plasma physics is a tough branch of physics to study, particularly because a lot of the equations (MHD, for example) are impossible to solve analytically (except in simple, ideal cases that aren't applicable to real systems), and computationally expensive to solve numerically. Nevertheless, I tried to do numerical analysis of the propagation of radio waves in fusion plasmas. In order to achieve magnetically confined nuclear fusion, we need a way to heat a low pressure gas of tritium and deuterium to tens of millions of Kelvins. The best way to do this is by blasting the gas with EM radiation, turning it into a superheated plasma. My job was to make a determination of how much energy would be absorbed by a plasma of certain parameters (density, magnetic confining field, particle orbits), given radiation of certain parameters (intensity, frequency, polarization). Of course, at the time I'd only had up to 8.03 and was attempting graduate level plasma physics. I knew I was over my head and stopped UROPing in Fall 2007. It certainly showed me how much I liked physics, though.

My advice to you is to get involved in the UROP program here. I forget how many students participate each year, but it's on the order of 80%. However, I would also advise you not to limit yourself. A lot of people come here and feel like they need to stick with a single UROP so they can get published. That's what grad school is for. Use your time here to figure out what you like. Save your nobel prize for when you're older.

@ AXO Lip Sync this year: (I dunno, this was like a week and a half ago)
I'M IN IT FIND ME (you won't be able to, so here, I'll just tell you: I'm in the second group stunt and the partner stunt and the top of the pyramid at the end)

Last year at Lip Sync: (you may have seen this from Molly)

Yeah our squad is smaller this year. Anyways, end of term, hey!

Just like in high school, a favorite strategy of professors is to assign tests right before finals (to minimize the amount of new material between the last test and the final), meaning I had an 18.03 test a week ago and an 8.02 test this week.

Actually, instead of putting these into paragraph form, let me do a quick rundown of what I'm doing and what stuff is due:

Wednesday
8.02 PSET due (haven't started)
2.001 PSET due (halfway there!)
Powerpoint for Toy Design (haven't started)

Thursday
UROP
Toy Lab (work on presentation/build toys)

Friday
18.03 PSET due (haven't started)
UROP
Meeting

Saturday
Work on Toy Design all day

Sunday
Work on Toy Design all day

Monday
Work on Toy Design all day

Tuesday
Toy Design Presentations

So, let's see, where does that put me? I've got a physics test I haven't studied for, a 2 PSETS I haven't started, a presentation due tomorrow that I haven't touched, and five toys to help build and present in exactly one week (seriously, Toy Design is freaking me out right now). But wait, there's more!

I'll save the full story for later because it's ongoing, but I still haven't taken my pre-employment drug test for Hasbro so I need to find time for that. Oh, and did I mention that last night the hard drive on my computer randomly died. That's right, just went away. I spent 5 hours running diagnostics and talking to tech support this morning trying to figure out what happened before we finally worked it out such that I'll get a new hard drive mailed to me, completely clean. Just one more thing to add to how busy I already am, rebuilding my computer. I'll have to get Microsoft Office and Mathematica shipped to me from home, I'll have to reinstall Dreamweaver, Portal, SecureFX, the MIT VPN, replace all my bookmarks in Firefox, change all of my user settings around, install Matlab and SolidWorks again, get iTunes up and running, and everything else necessary to restore my computer to its original state.

Do I have time for any of this? Right, two weeks before finals, hardly!

IHTFP much? Yes methinks, back to tooling . . .