‘At heart, I am Chinese’
This is part of a series of MIT application essays submitted by students who were later admitted to the Institute. The following prompts are from the 2014-15 admissions season.
Coming back to TFP
It was somewhere along the Pacific Coast Highway, shaded from the setting sun by a row of tall palm trees on both sides, a refreshing headwind wrapping itself around my motorcycle helmet, when it suddenly occurred to me that I’d found what I was looking for. I’d spent the past several months away from school, searching, scouring the vast world outside and within for some elusive purpose, a gem of insight that would justify the profusion of pain and doubt that veiled my time in college up to that point.
Why bike across America?
This is the first article in a two-part series about a biking/teaching adventure across America. Part One describes what a 3,000-mile bike trip feels like and why a sane person would ever willingly embark on one.
‘My love for people is the best part of myself’
This is part of a series of MIT application essays submitted by students who were later admitted to the Institute. The following prompts are from the 2014-15 admissions season.
Green on the green
I really don’t have any extraordinary talents. I can’t throw a 90 mph fastball, I have the vocals of a dying cat, and I can guarantee you that there were multiple revisions before this article even made it close to the paper. Needless to say, I was a little intimidated when figuring out what clubs I wanted to join here at MIT.
Falling bottles and FOMO troubles
Unlike most horror stories, ’twas not dark and stormy when disaster struck one mild Friday afternoon. It might as well have been, though — the magnitude of my technological catastrophe should by all rights have triggered a swirling mass of rain and hail. Instead, I was left to gape at the aftermath of my colossal mistake to a backdrop of sun and blue sky.
Escape the dome: pset stalling and Boston Calling
There are times when I can forgive myself for unleashing my inner music fangirl. Even rarer are the occasions when I can allow myself to release her in public. During Boston Calling, two days before my first hell week, was one such occasion. In that period of pre-hell week, I saw armies of deadlines and tests march toward my slapdash barricade — namely, the weekend — but it was too early for a call to action. All I could do was sit quietly in a corner and hope that if I ate enough chocolate, I would survive the trials to come.
Learning to take rain by storm
This was it. This was the day I had been dreaming of for the past few months, the day I had been fantasizing about in my mind over and over again since my official enrollment into MIT, the day I thought might never come: today was the first rain.
Institute Double Take
For those unfamiliar with the MIT Sailing Pavilion, every time the moon is full the pavilion stays open past sunset and allows members of the MIT community to sail Lynx Catboats until midnight. On Sunday, Sept. 28, the full moon was made even more impressive by coinciding with a total lunar eclipse. I brought a Nikon D800 down to the pavilion dock and set up a series of long exposure shots. Green and white running lights on the boats made for wispy light trails as boats came and went from the dock, with the Boston skyline providing the backdrop. The 30-second exposure time allows for a low ISO of 400 and f/stop of 8, which prevents distant objects from appearing overly blurry or noisy.
‘I am an enthusiastic foodie’
This is the first in a series of MIT application essays submitted by students who were later admitted to the Institute. The following prompt is from the 2013-14 admissions season.
Raising the bar
When I learned I got into MIT, I worried more about the swim test and PE requirements than about the academics.
Institute Double Take
A long exposure image of the first half of the Sept. 27 lunar eclipse, taken from near Boston’s Zakim Bridge, showing the moon’s decreasing luminosity and characteristic red hue at totality resulting from the wavelength-dependent Rayleigh scattering of the earth’s atmosphere. The image was taken by stacking 320 images taken at 30-second intervals.
So how exactly do I make an app?
It might be exaggeration on my part to say that I’m wholly illiterate, but compared to the ever-expanding language of computers, my programming experience pretty much equates to knowing the alphabet. Two Saturdays ago, equipped with a somewhat functioning knowledge of command prompt and for loops, I entered the cavernous hub of ingenuity that is HackMIT.
Laundry and life
My first day of class, I was up before my alarm. I typically take an extra ten minutes to mourn the end of summer. That morning, however, was the exception. That morning was a magical microcosm of perfection, on par with a sunny “getting-ready-for-school” movie montage. I could almost hear faint echoes of peppy ukulele music.
Sisterly beginnings
Greek life used to make me shriek. As a result of growing up in a southern college town, the words fraternities and sororities became synonymous to me with partying, money, and stupidity. Even though I viewed Greek life in a negative way, I still made the decision to go through recruitment this year. To be honest, I’m not really sure why. When people asked, I would tell them that sorority sisters form tight bonds and I was interested in that. But, I suspect I also saw it as some form of rebellion against my parents, who were not fans of the whole Greek Life culture. Whatever the reason was, the week of orientation, I entered my information onto the sorority recruitment page and was ready to go.
Institute Double Take
Saturday morning at the Sailing Pavilion dock is a lovely sight in and of itself, but with cloudy weather and twilight lighting, it’s even more serene. The water is silvery and sparkles in the sun while the city skyline is crisp. It really brings out the bright colors of the boats and sails.
A ladies’ (and gentlemen’s) guide to Rush
As a freshman, I’ve been on campus for less than two weeks. And yet, I’ve already received free steak and shakes, won a 3D printer, and proven that I am Grade A fraternity brother material.
A guide to groceries at MIT
Buying your own groceries can be intimidating. I’ve been buying groceries for the past year, so I decided to put together a guide to groceries near MIT.
Elegy for Bexley Hall
“no more can you teach stone to swim can you teach a lawful man to breathe” she kicked the gate and black paint flaked off revealing a deeply burnt-in rust