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recent entries "My take on Thanksgiving" "Belichick used results from dynamic programming!" "I know he's not to blame, but..." "In sickness and in health..." "Fall Beautiful"
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Mar 17, 2008 gummies and chocolateYou are what you eat. Today, I enjoyed a lot of delicious sweets that I got from the admit I hosted. She brought us gummies and chocolate all the way from Germany! This brings me to thank my housemates (and the other two admit guests we had) for taking on the bigger load of hosting a guest and a greater apology to my guest for not being able to show her around more. I had a paper deadline at midnight Pacific time yesterday which really means 3AM for us. This is all the norm but depending on the working style of your research group, this could mean that you are up very late with your advisor for the days before a deadline (and submitting to the last second). For me, this was the case. I knew about this before I chose my advisor in CSAIL and opted for this style as a personal preference. All things considered, I really appreciate the attention in the group. On the other hand, this research style means balancing classes, social life and sleep. In the case of classes, I like to take a lot. I generally find that even if you only get a fraction of what was taught in the course, it will eventually be useful toward your own work. Different people have different opinions on this and perhaps my own view will change in the future. All things considered, however, I consider myself a student and I like to take classes (both in and outside my area). As an institution, Area II requires you to take four (and get three passing grades) to pass quals. In the case of social life, I find myself very bursty. This past weekend, I had to offload spending time with my guest to my housemates (and the other admits in the house). Given other weeks I would have really enjoyed showing somebody around. Perhaps that means you should visit again! I love sleep. Again, depending on the group you join, you will have different sleep patterns. Back when I was at the Media lab, sleep was on the shelf during demo deadlines. In my current group, sleep is on the backlog around paper deadlines and camera-ready deadlines. Overall though, as with most things, there is always time to catch up later. So thats the shimmy on circadian rhythms. It’s probably not that much different from your current lifestyle. I hope you’ll come back to visit… but if not, I’m sure we’ll catch up later!
5 Responses To This Entry:Post A Response
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Uhm. Isn’t B a passing grade at MIT? To be precise, we need 3 A’s and the fourth can be a B. You can also make up for more B’s via oral exams. But you’d rather do good in the classes, no?
Posted by: Szymon on March 18th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
A friend of mine who is doing her PhD at MIT Sloan told me that a B is like bad if you are a grad student, and C is like failing.
Posted by: ninja on March 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
That’s true. Generally, only As and Bs are given out in a graduate course. Professors and students alike understand that you are in the course because you believe it will be useful. Hence, the emphasis is not on the final letter grade. Probably you have to really annoy the professor to get him to give you a C.
Posted by: Grace on March 19th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Yup. Cases that qualify for a C usually end up as late drops. But there are quite a few TQE classes were a substantial number of people get B’s.
Posted by: Szymon on March 19th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
well said. it is very important to choose an advisor with whom you are compatible. some are hardcore micromanagers or expect you to be in office 9-6pm, while others are very relaxed or deadline oriented. talk to the other students in the group to find out which category a particular prof fits into. as a general rule, tenured, older, more famous profs tend to be more hands off..
Posted by: Laura on March 31st, 2008 at 8:28 pm