My first year at MIT; i.e. the nontechnical stuff I learned along the way
It is no secret that MIT is regarded as a difficult school to get into. Once there, the difficulties don’t stop. The institute gets you out of your comfort zone since day one. Students hailing from all types of backgrounds; those who worked incredibly hard during their past years, those that mastered a subject to as close as an expert level as you can get short of publishing a thesis work, to those who have been crucial to the development of their community; get challenged and doubt of their abilities at some point during their studies here. I was obviously no exception, in MIT I felt myself challenged in a way so different from ever before. Being forced to step out of my comfort zone this way has been one of the most influential changes of paradigm in my life, and have greatly contributed to my growth as both a professional and a person.
Some of the more valuable lessons this year had little to do with the technical classes I took and everything to do with the personal development I lived through. These are lessons that apply, by my understanding, to most aspects in life. (At least from the perspective from a college Sophomore). So, without further ado, here are the lessons from my first year, i.e. my non-technicals.
1.Don’t lose your sense of wonder
One of the most common things I hear among the upperclassmen around me is how they feel jaded, demotivated after a couple of years at this place. Life becomes solving problem sets until the weekend, when you can finally let loose until Monday to repeat the cycle. Whatever revolutionary research they are working on or complex algorithm they are learning becomes nothing more than a chore that inhibits optimism on future projects.
Thankfully, I have not yet become jaded by this place. There are still a few things around campus that make me relive that emotion I felt when I knew I was accepted at MIT in the first place, which is a story for another time. Much like many of my freshmen peers around me at the start of our first semester, I was and still am excited and passionate about the possibilities with this place. Yes, MIT is difficult and yes the difficulty is sometimes breaking. The stress can be too unbearable at times and often makes you question whether you chose to go to the right school for you.
When this happens, it’s important to come to terms with the reality and magnitude of the situation, to step back for a second and take your surroundings in. There are labs doing research that will propel technologies for decades, you could be sharing a hall with the next Nobel prize winner. Work wouldn’t be worth it or groundbreaking if it was easy, so sometimes it is important to breathe in and continue to be amazed by what you are doing.
2.Enjoy the small gems life has to offer, they will drive you further
This is somewhat related to my first point. One of the things I most enjoy doing is to walk in front of the Building 10 dome. It gives me wonder and motivation to look at the structure and remember where I am, remember the real importance of things and continue fighting. Often professors will bring their pets to campus, which makes it a refreshing sight to be walking to class, or out of the library and see a dog just waiting to be pet.
Whether it’s a walk along the Charles River, a short break to get some of the best food around campus, or just sitting in the lawn in front of the dome and take it all in, there are many small pockets of happiness that will let you reset and refocus on your work. Many times this has helped me see a problem in a different way, and make even the most taxing tasks or tedious problem sets something more enjoyable that offers a fun challenge.
3.Support the people around you to do the very best they can
This is probably the most important out of all of them. Many times you will encounter terrible managers, coworkers and people who make small voids where they are around. They will try to bring you down or try to push you down by under-appreciating you, patronizing you, or make you feel worthless. We are often told that this is the way of life, that no matter what you are going to encounter these people and your best bet is to ignore them. I believe that this is one of the worst pieces of advice there is. The best course of action is to always spread positivity, encourage people to do their best, and to keep on fighting. MIT has done an incredible job of creating a community that understands how to lift others. Whether its helping a particularly bright IMO student who is struggling with physics, or understanding that people are incredibly capable of wonderfully mastering a subject with the proper guidance, it is absolutely crucial to bring people to their best potential. Notice that I said to ‘support the people around you’ and not ‘push the people the people around you’, there is a very clear difference. People have a tendency to improve upon themselves, and this is enabled by fostering a supportive environment. This leads me to my next point.
4.Emotions Matter.
There is the potential to do incredible difference in a person’s life if you pay attention to their emotional indicators. It is absolutely important to build a sense of community with everyone around you. Not only is it important to pay attention to the emotions of others, but also to pay attention to your own. If you feel your job could improve, speak out. I have gone through two main cases of this over the past year.
In the more minimal one, I felt that I was not learning enough as a I could during my lab work position at Space Propulsion Laboratory, thankfully I decided to speak with my supervisors and the professor in charge and now I could not be happier with the work I am doing. It comes back to having created a more supportive environment which has enabled me to understand my work and research better and make much more valuable contributions to the lab.
The other was a major one. I absolutely loathed my job, one I had held since my first high school summer and all the way up to the end of my first semester at MIT. It was essentially the only thing I knew and was an incredible part of my identity during high school. I wont talk too much about the details here, but tasks that were exciting had been replaced by dull and mentally un-challenging paperwork. The toxic work environment and the fact that I had been working remotely for over a year on this had not helped either. So, I took a leap of faith with the hope of better things to come and left a well founded startup. I have not made a better decision in my life. While I sacrificed all of my financial security at the time, and the short term opportunity to continue building something that may be revolutionary, (I would say it is still uncertain), I have now switched to working in the lab, where the experience still consists of long hours, but they are no longer taxing or detrimental to mental health. The change was refreshing, exciting and has been so life changing. While I felt that I was closing so many doors at the time, I have in fact opened so many more now.
Emotions are extremely valuable. Take care of yourself and do what makes you happy with passion, and both life-fulfilling value and monetary value follow.
5.Solve problems and take initiative, together.
I am combining the last two in part because they are so intertwined with each other and in part because I feel that this is becoming a bit long as a whole. I would say that the one thing that made me apply and enroll in MIT was a particularly motivating commencement speech that Matt Damon gave to the class of 2016.
Here is one of my most favorite quotes from it:
“ So go ahead take your pick from the world’s worst buffet: economic inequality that’s a problem, how about the refugee crisis, massive global insecurity, climate change, pandemics, institutional racism …”
The world is full of incredibly difficult problems, and if MIT has taught me anything over the last year, is that you’re almost never going to be able to solve them by yourself. There are over 7 billion people in the world and yet it seems that not enough people are addressing any of the existing problems. Sometimes it is just necessary to focus relentlessly and stop at nothing until you have made better value for the people around you.
I do have many other things to say, but this reflection has been going a bit longer than I thought when I started writing it. That’s great, that just gives me more material to work with next time I decide to take a break and write.
In short, there are much more things to life than technical classes, than university, than a job. If you’re passionate about what you do, if you have helped build a better environment for your peers, if you can achieve success without pushing others down, then go for it.
There are still many opportunities I have not taken at MIT, and even more opportunities I have not created for my peers around me. In any case, my goal for Sophomore year is to do so much more in comparison to Freshman year, to achieve many great things and to go for more.
In the words of Matt Damon’s 2016 commencement:
“This is your life, this is your moment, and it is all down to you. Ready player one, your game begins… now”
Round two, let’s go.