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Aug 13, 2009

(Academic) Year in Review

It has been almost an entire year since my last post. I like to think that during that time I have been taking advantage of the flexible schedule and life that grad school offers to do exciting things.  Here is a sample of some of the things that I did last year. Posts expanding on some of these are in the works…

Things that kept Jon from blogging in 2008-2009:

1. Classes
- Took that sweet class on mobile development in the fall
- Took no classes(!) during the spring term. The first time in my life that I have not been taking classes…

2. Trips Eating Kettle Corn in SF
- Went to San Francisco, presented a poster.
- Went to San Francisco again, gave a talk.
- Went to San Francisco again, ate a lot of kettle corn.
— Here I am eating kettle corn in San Francisco ——>
- Went to Hawaii
- Went to Florida for New Year’s, played golf.

3. Concerts
- Went to a few concerts.
- Went to a Styx (my favorite band) concert.
- Participated in the MIT Logarhythms 60th anniversary concert. - Logs from the entire 60 year history of the Logs came back and sang together.

4. Passed the RQE!

5. Got older, had a birthday party.

6. Gave a talk at a conference.

7. Competed in the USAV National Volleyball Tournament.
- Here is a picture of the court setup at the tournament.
Courts at USAV Volleyball Nationals
8. Grew a beard.

Oh yeah, I did some research, too.

The author has filed this entry under the "Uncategorized" category.

2 Responses To This Entry:

    Welcome back to the blog Jon.

    What is a RQE?
    How did you do in the volleyball tournament?

    Posted by: nakoruru on August 13th, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    the Research Qualifying Exam (RQE) is the last part of our PhD qualification process. You basically have to give a research presentation to a panel of (two) professors. I remembered there being more posts on it, but could only find Nicole’s:
    http://eecsblogs.mit.edu/blog/ndilello/2008/04/29/taking-the-rqe/

    More info on the General Exams that we have to pass can be found here: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/grad/3800.html

    As for the volleyball tournament, I will only say that it would have been nice to win a few more. (But I guess that is always the case.)

    Posted by: jvarsanik on August 13th, 2009 at 3:55 pm

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