Where in the world was TechX this summer?

Welcome back to school everyone, and MIT Class of 2020: welcome to your new home!

Dorm row is again busier than ever as all the students trickle in from all corners of the world, and with them they’re bringing their unforgettable summer stories. We wanted to share a few of these stories about what our TechX members have been up to these past few months! From interning at awesome tech companies around the world, to doing research with MIT professors, to traveling the world, to picking up new hobbies, TechX has had a wild summer! Keep reading to find out where in the world TechX was this summer!

Hi! I’m Margaret, a junior in course 18C and I’m this year’s TechX Managing Director. This summer I interned as a software engineering intern at Fitbit in San Francisco! I worked on creating an automatic mean shift detection system to monitor system metrics in production (keep an eye out for my blog post on eng.fitbit.com, the Fitbit engineering site!). I also started running, and somehow managed to complete the SF 5k (ignore how gross and sweaty I look). I hiked a lot (with some TechX alums who were also in the Bay Area), drank a lot of Plentea, and ate delicious chinatown spicy food.

Hi, I’m Claire, a sophomore in course 6–3 and on the HackMIT committee! This summer I did research in Japan through MISTI, while also grappling with HackMIT logistics directorship from 13 to 16 time zones away (depending on your US coast). I’ve photoblogged my travels at clairenord.me, my new website (made this summer :)). The highlight of my summer might be biking the Shimanami Kaido (ocean road) in between two of Japan’s main islands, or it might be our twice-to-thrice-weekly HackMIT video meetings (158 GB of cellular data and counting — thanks MISTI ;o).

Hi! I’m John Peurifoy and I’m on the MakeMIT committee! This summer I built a kitchen from scratch, went backpacking for two weeks in Central America, and worked on constructing novel architectures for recurrent neural networks with Max Tegmark’s group. I met people that were a helluva smarter than I, got pick-pocketed in a Costa Rican bar and almost in a casino (I learned a thing or two the second time), and started learning American Jiu Jitsu. I saw some beautiful places, but don’t take my word for it:

I’m Jenny Xu, I’m a 6–3 sophomore and I’m on HackMIT. This summer I was interning as a Software Engineering Intern at Sony PlayStation in San Francisco. I worked on the PlayStation 4, and I was able to create new features for it that will go live in September! This summer I also went to Europe and got to eat Russian food for the first time!

My name is Caitlin, and I’m part of HackMIT in addition to being a junior in course 6 this year. This summer I interned at Google in Cambridge, and the best part was that felt like I was back home at MIT: every single person I met there was welcoming and curious about the world. Within a five minute conversation, you could tell they were passionate about something and were pursuing it, yet that something was different for every person. Finding a place just like MIT but not MIT was so surreal and feeling immediately at home was probably one of the best experiences of my summer.

I’m Tina Quach, a junior majoring in computer science. I joined TechX, specifically the MakeMIT committee, my freshman year because I wanted to join a group of amazing people who are passionate about technology and innovation. I stayed on the team for round 2 my sophomore year. Serving on the organizing committee of MakeMIT, the hardware hackathon, was extremely rewarding. This summer, I interned at Google in Mountain View where I collaborated with a teammate to build a web-based developer tool for Blockly, a library for visual, block-based programming editors. Critical to building a great tool was knowing what it’s like to be a Blockly Developer. This I learned by creating a “low floor, high ceiling” platform for kids to create “choose your own adventure” stories.

I’m Vahid, a junior majoring in computer science and math, and I’m on the ProjX committee. I had an absolute blast this summer adventuring in the SF bay area! I was lucky enough to be with friends who love exploring and ended up going on a bunch of fun excursions. Highlights were flying a plane from San Francisco airspace to San Jose airspace, riding horses through a forest in Yosemite, paddle boarding the ocean in Santa Cruz, and running half a marathon across the Golden Gate and back (note that I wore a ProjX shirt specifically for the picture in this post). I can officially say I finished the race faster than Mark Zuckerberg! Mid-summer I got a chance to go on vacation with my family in Puerto Rico and catch up after a long while. Throughout I was also working at Google, writing code and meeting a ton of other interns. Overall, I’m grateful for an enjoyable summer and excited to be back on campus! P.S. I went to see Hasan Minhaj perform his show my last night in the bay and it was amazing. He’s coming to Boston November 13 — I’m going again and would recommend; check him out!

My name is Marianne Olsen, and I’m a 2019 Course 2 (Mechanical Engineering). I’m TechX’s Finance & Internal Relations Director which means it’s my job to make sure each of our committees has money so we can run all of our events and initiatives as well as encourage TechX inter-committee bonding.

In short, I spent most of my summer in airports:

After a few weeks at home in Houston and relaxing by the beach in San Diego with my family, I returned here to MIT to be a residential electrical engineering tutor for the Women’s Technology Program, so I got to meet a lot of fantastic women, enjoy the view of 4th of July fireworks from the McCormick penthouse, and play around with Arduino projects. Being on campus was extremely convenient for TechX purposes because it allowed me to run finance errands for HackMIT :) Later, I spent a few weeks visiting my family in Norway, which was lovely and cold, and relaxing enough that I was able to handle lots of paperwork and emails for TechX’s committees and plan for my dorm’s REX (Residence Exploration) events. After a week at home I’m back on campus to run MacGregor House’s REX events!

Hey there — I’m Kevin Shum, Course 6–3/Computer Science, Class of 2019. This summer, I interned at Ori Systems, a MIT-founded startup and Media Lab spin-off based in South Boston. They’re focused on building dynamic, morphable IoT-connected furniture for small spaces, and my summer project was to build their mobile apps. I absolutely loved working alongside a small team of MIT grads in a startup environment. Development moved rapidly, and no two days were alike. I had full ownership of my project and learned a ton about IoT devices and iOS and Android dev, both frontend and backend. I was on xFair Logistics this past year, but I’ll be joining xFair Corporate Relations this fall. I’m really excited to be a part of xFair again!

While this summer has been incredible, we’re so glad to be home again. The HackMIT packages are rolling in hot and we’re already getting hyped to host thousands of hackers next week! Stay tuned to read all about how we’re kicking off another school year with HackMIT 2016 :)