Taibros.net

“Just remember: half of you will be below average.”

- Words spoken from one of my professors during the first day of classes. Someone in the class then cleverly retorts, “actually, half of us will be below the median.” This begins the story of the rest of my life.

So I’ve been at MIT for 2 weeks now, and have finally started classes. Law is making me write about my time so far, so here goes. (illustrations from PHD Comics).

So getting in here was a time of excitement for me. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to MIT? The Nerd capital of the world. After listening to a wonderful keynote welcome address to the first year grad students, I was pumped and excited for the profound contributions I would be making in the future…

… But then classes started. It’s been an interesting mix of promise, comfort, and finally, pain.

Promise: On the one hand, there is much to be hopeful for. I appreciate the the mentality and sheer intellectual meritocracy that is MIT. After all it is why I came here (over another more success-oriented university here-to-be-unnamed). This makes me hopeful of the future and my place in it.

Comfort: I would have to say, being a ChemE grad student at MIT has its perks. Everything is designed for maximum support as a first year. We receive free laptops, departmental funding, free health insurance, nice offices, tons of free food, great facilities. All for one purpose: to allow us to concentrate on our studies. While extreme and hardcore in a sense, it also is quite reassurring. I have heard this is even quite special among the various departments in MIT.

Pain: So I’ve had three days of class so far. At times we cover whole semesters worth of my undergraduate education in a single lecture. The rest of the times, it is simply assumed that “we should already know it.” Things like this, as well as the quote up top, serve to be very intimidating reminders of what is ahead, at least for the next 4 months. It has been recommended that for the first semester, one should give up any hope of meaningful social interaction / development, and forgo any notions of joining any extracirricular activities. You may be thinking, “how silly!” I thought so too. Until I spent 10 hours doing introductory hw on the second day of classes.
The scariness can be summed up in this comic:

Alright, that’s it so far.
Only 124 days left until Quals.

I encourage you to check up on me every so often, you know, to see if I’m still alive.

If not, resurrect me so that I may get back to studying.

(so ya, no more comics, if you were wondering)