So what big points did I take away this time?  In no particular order…

1. Talk to the students in the group.  They are probably the people you will be working with the most, and they can give you insight into the group and advisor.  Talk to students who have left the group if you can too, since they have less conflict of interest and might be more willing to spill on any bad aspects.
2. Know your own style so you can find the right match.  For example, want someone hand-on or hands-off?  Like to work by yourself or in teams?
3. Don’t be afraid to go outside your comfort zone when finding a research topic.
4. Don’t take too many classes your first semester.  One of my friends took four (!) and used it as an excuse to procrastinate finding an advisor.
5. If you are not comfortable committing to a group, be upfront with the professor.  When you accepted the graduate school offer, you accepted the school, not a specific research group.
6. If you end up not liking a group you pick, don’t be afraid to switch groups.  Going back to the whole advisor-advisee marriage analogy, divorce is possible.  Time it right (for example, wait until you finish your MS), and don’t burn your bridges.
7. Use other resources.  If in a jam, talk to your graduate advisor or some other faculty since they have probably dealt with similar situations before.

Not a big problem here, but like my previous post, this reminded me of past events… like the time my sister and I were coming back to the States after a summer in Taiwan, and the customs agent scanned our passports, only to have the machine respond that I had never left the country.  The agent said this was probably due to the similarity of our passports (since it also somehow said my sister had left the country twice), but come on, if I cannot even use my passport to legally distinguish between my sister and myself, what’s left?

Other notable mistaken ID instances:
* The time a receptionist at the doctor’s office asked me if I had surgery earlier in the week even though it was my sister who had visited then, and then proceded to ask me if I was sure when I said “no” - as if I would not remember having surgery.
* All the times in K-12 when my sister and I got placed in the same class and our teachers switched up our grades, and once when they would not correct it since the grades had already been submitted.
* Walking across campus (we went to the same undergrad), having some random individual wave “hi” to me, giving them a nod back (by that time, I figured if I didn’t know who they were, they probably knew my sister), then having them complain to my sister the next time she saw them about how rude she was for just giving them a head nod in greeting.

I digress from my original point on unique ID’s, and now that we are separated by some 2000 miles (she’s back in Texas), it should be harder for these kinds of things to happen, I suppose.  Still, I must have tons of accounts/IDs (schools and scholarships I have applied to, banks, driver’s license #, SSN, as well as more innocuous ones like facebook or various blogs or forums) - it is a bit funny to think that the latter (that allow anonymity) actually do a better job at keeping the accounts of my sister and myself separate.

Way back in Fall 2005, when I was a junior at Rice, Hurricane Rita came to town.  Meaning all lines of communication got jammed from the traffic.  The day Rita became a Cat 5 and Rice decided to shut down, also coincided with a massive email failure on the undergraduate servers.  Turns out the servers were already overloaded and the outage probably would have occurred anyway, but even as people left Houston en masse (due to the traffic, you were likely to make it only partway out of town before running out of gas), I remember many Rice students were more worried about their emails.  The next week, the school newspaper had a good cartoon of the situation: on the left, a Houstonian sees a news report on TV and goes “Oh no, Hurricane Rita”; on the right, a Rice student sees a computer and goes “Oh no, my email”.  It caused quite a bit of trouble with Rice emergency preparations, too, since Rice did not require alternative emergency contact info (e.g. cell numbers) back then, and all announcements were being sent through email, meaning most undergraduates did not get notice of Rice shutting down, classes or nighttime tests being postponed, etc until Rita had already passed.  Not having any email then was a huge problem as I scoured campus trying to find my sister so we could get off campus.  Rita ended up missing Houston, but Rice learned to be better prepared in notifying students (though they then botched up in helping graduate students during Hurricane Ike).  I probably learned something about priorities in all that mess, too.

Anyway, it’s summer, and one day of no email turned out to be okay since I just spent the day doing research anyway (some might say no email makes you more productive).  Luckily, IST ended up fixing the email servers so that all the emails in queue were retrievable as well, meaning I did not have to wonder if I missed some important email during the day.  Hopefully, the day ended up going just as smoothly for the rest of you as well.

Just have to say that thank goodness the EECS deadline is today (as opposed to the MIT May 8 deadline).  I gave the thesis to my advisor on 5/2, he was gone for a week at a conference, and we only really started going over it together last Friday (talk about cutting it close).  Meaning I spent the better part of this week making changes, including adding a whole new chapter!  (Well, at least it was in the appendix.)  I know that only me and maybe any future students in the group will probably ever read the thesis, but still, personal pride made me tweak it all the way up to today so that I could get it just right.

Found out about my professor’s semi-ritual for theses, too.  All theses done by the group are signed with a “sacred” pen (a nice fountain pen in a fancy box).  Anybody except him and the student are kicked out of the office, and the door is closed before the box can be taken out of his desk.  Not part of the ritual, I assume, but since the pen is used pretty infrequently (last time was 1.5 years ago), it took him a couple of minutes to get the ink running smoothly so that he did not make a big blot on the thesis.

Anyway, my professor and I had a final look-over the thesis at 1 pm today, and then we realized that one thing I forgot in all my hubbub writing and revising the thesis is that it is nice to get the thing printed on fancy archival bond paper, rather than the typical white printer paper.  That means making a trip over to MIT CopyTech, and since today was the deadline for EECS (biggest graduate deparment at MIT) and AeroAstro (small department but long theses), I spent an hour or so to print 87 x 2 = 174 pages.  I guess that’s not too bad considering.  Except the deadline was 3 pm today, and I got out of CopyTech at 2:50, so I had to make a mad dash from Bldg 10 to Bldg 34.

The thesis is signed and submitted, though, so another milestone done.  Maybe I can finally devote my time to my new research group now…

Visit weekend also means this blog is about one year old, and eight posts over 12 month is not a bad record for me, seeing how my previous blog once stayed untouched for three years.  Also scarily (excitedly?), I am only 2-3 months away from completing my Masters.  I just dropped off my proposal, and my parents have already gotten tickets to fly in for commencement, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I finish in time.  I am at a good point in my research though, and barring something crazy happening, I should be walking across Killian Court in June.

Aside from MIT-related things, I have also moved (again).  This time though, I am fairly sure that I will be living at this new place for the next five or so years, so I can finally get some nice stuff - the first thing on the list was a large HDTV.  Unfortunately, cable is not setup yet, so the HD part is wasted at the moment, and I will have to find somewhere else to watch the last episodes of BSG, but at least the TV looks nice (when it is off).

Also, my (former) roommate turned 25 last week, which according to her, means she is now “old”.  Another friend suggested that after your 3rd year, you start becoming an nth year student, so I had better get a move-on since I am only one more year from all these turning points.

Last Tuesday, I was asked to be on a panel for current MIT undergraduates interested in applying to graduate school.  I remember the crazy process my senior year, and along with the other panelists, I hope that we were able to answer some questions about the process.  I actually learned a bit myself since Prof Terry Orlando (EECS Graduate Officer) was also on hand to offer a faculty perspective, as well as Janet Fischer and Anne Hunter, the EECS Graduate and Undergraduate Administrators.  Since there are hopefully some prospective graduate school students out there reading this post, allow me to share some highlights.

Applications always remind me of a running joke at my high school regarding getting into college: we (and the teachers) always thought that the admissions choices of a particular selective university were so impossible to understand that they must toss all the applications up in the air and accept those that land face up.  And I will admit, after numerous applications for undergrad, graduate school, and financial aid, it does sometimes seem that way. But most of this was due to lack of experience with the application process.  The graduate school application is better than undergraduate and fellowship applications in many ways however since it has one and only one focus: your ability to do research.

According to Prof Orlando, the three key aspects of any application are grades, the personal statement, and the letters of recommendation.

1) Grades: Most students interested in graduate school will have the grades to back them up, mostly A’s with a few B’s.  A bad start is okay if you have shown improvement.  In my opinion, grades can hurt you, they cannot help you.  Graduate schools care about classes only so far as they provide information about your technical background.  Oh, and do not forget to take the GREs.  MIT EECS is kind of the odd duck since it does not require GRE scores, but almost every other school, not to mention most graduate fellowships, will require the GRE.  So go grab a GRE book, take some practice tests, and like any standardized test, just get it out of the way.  Like everybody else applying, you will probably do well on the math and so-so on the verbal.

2) Personal Statement: This is the only chance you have for the admissions committee to hear your voice, so make it count. Do not start off with “ever since I was a child”.  Show maturity and explain why you want to go to graduate school.  Also describe previous research if you have some and tell the committee why this particular graduate school is a good choice for you.  Be careful not to get too specific - it is better to name a field than a narrow research topic, and if you list professors/groups, list a couple (otherwise you run the risk of being a good match to only a single group, and that professor may not be looking or new students or may be on sabbatical).  Do not give a list of all your extracurriculars, unless they have some relevance to your field.  Remember, you want to show that you can do research, and too many extracurriculars might even be bad since you may give the impression that you will not devote much time to research.  According to Prof Orlando, do not try to explain bad semesters beyond a single sentence.  Leave that to your recommendation letter writers (typically the one written by your academic advisor). Use humor sparingly, if at all. Be concise - around two pages, more and the reader might lost interest (they do have to read a lot of them).

People tend to put off writing their personal statement, and in my experience, you just kind of have to force yourself to sit down and write something.  The first draft will likely be terrible, but at least it gets your ideas down on paper.  Get your friends, or current graduate students or professors if they are willing, to read it over and help you since they have much more experience with this type of writing. The personal statement serves a double role since most recommendation letter writers will typically ask that you provide a personal statement (as well as a CV, transcripts, and other relevant materials).

3) Letters of Recommendation: Three is the number to shoot for.  Do four if you must, but never more.  Pick letter writers who can attest to your research potential, and follow up.  Your thesis advisor, if you have one, should definitely be a letter writer; it will be hard to explain his absence otherwise.  Letters from people in industry are fine, too.  Also, professors are busy people, so make things as easy for them as possible.  Give them a month or so heads up, check back near the deadline, but do not pester them.  If you are worried about asking people, do so in person without the materials, making sure to ask if they will write a supportive letter, then gauge their reaction before making the decision. As for the deadline, straight from Prof Orlando: remember that most graduate schools will be reviewing applications starting from the deadline, and they have tons of applications, so a few late recommendations are typically okay (though this would break down if everybody was late).

*) Financial Aid: Nobody, I repeat, nobody should have to pay for graduate school.  Hey, you already spent all that cash on your undergraduate education, let the current undergraduates (or rather, your professor, department, external fellowships, etc) pay for your graduate education.  On this note, apply for external fellowships, many which have deadlines much earlier than school deadlines.  Also note that much of the statements above do NOT apply to fellowships (specifically, there is typically more focus on extracurriculars/leadership, and deadlines are absolutely final).

Some additional points:

1) Be reasonable about the number of schools you apply to.  Six to eight is probably a good number to go for.  Yes, the applications are probably just copies of one another except for <school> and <research group>, but applying to lots of schools is not a good way to approach this regardless.  It is that much more paperwork/documents/applications to keep track of, and the application/GRE reporting/transcript fees start to add up if you apply, like a panelist did, to fourteen school.  Do some research on which schools/research groups match your interests, and ask alumni (typically professors) for the inside scoop if you can.

2) If you can, go to a different graduate school than your undergraduate. Maybe this is just a personal preference, but all of the other panelists agreed that you really should go somewhere different.  You get to form a new network, and you just get a different experience at somewhere new.  Plus, it is unlikely that the topic that you choose going into graduate school will be the topic that you work on for the next 5-6 years, and going to a new school just opens up this new set of opportunities.

3) This is way early, and I can probably write a separate post on how I chose among the graduate schools that accepted me.  But, really, the biggest advice here is just to attend the school’s visit day/prospectives weekend. Nothing beats getting to know the school first-hand (and talking with the current graduate students).

That’s about it then.  By the way, phdcomics had a good comic recently on graduate school enrollment vs unemployment.  Good luck to all those applying, and of course, feel free to ask any questions through the comments or email.

Being the diligent, somewhat tech-savvy MIT student, I had anti-virus and anti-spyware programs and kept regular updates and scans, but being the lazy, graduate student, I had neglected to backup most of my files.  And since I could not start the machine in safe mode, I was pretty annoyed at the thought of losing all my files.

Anyway, I have dealt with other students trying to help me resolve computer issues before, whether at Rice in the form of student computing consultants or at MIT with residential computing consultants, and I have to admit, I have been less-than-astounded at the help provided, which was usually in the form of letting my ticket (with the problem noted, including any error codes or messages) sit in queue for a few weeks, then when they finally make an appointment, asking me what is wrong, looking at my laptop for about five to ten minutes, then telling me “I don’t know what’s wrong”, often accompanied by “you can try to reinstall Windows”.  At Rice, I eventually stopped going to student IT workers altogether, some of whom I would not trust to even touch my computer.

But hey, I figure I would at least try out MIT’s computing help desk since I am paying for it, and to my pleasant surprise, my phone call was answered by an actual human being within a minute or two, and I got an in-person appointment the very same day.  A full-time staffer helped me out, confirmed my suspicion that this time, it really would be easier to reinstall the OS, and I made a quick trip over to MicroCenter (finally got to see west side of campus) for the necessary adapter.  Anyway, long story short (or at least shorter), I ended up making three more trips to the help desk (drive not recognized, hardware diagnostics, laptop pickup), and eventually recognized how much of an idiot I was for not removing my hdd password before trying to access it externally (leave it to me to overlook the obvious).  A couple of hours of CD/DVD burning and an OS reinstall later, I can finally get back online at my apartment (a big deal since the cable has decided to go down, limiting my sources of entertainment).

You know how they say that a cell phone is like an extra arm to some people?  I think that’s how it is for me and computers, so losing mine for pretty much a week was really aggravating.  On the upside, this happened before classes start next week (meaning that I really should pick out my classes).  Plus, I have encountered some “my computer doesn’t work - fix it” people lately, so I have a better understanding of the kind of gruff that IT workers have to face.  Combine that with the fast response time and knowledgeable (full-time) staffers at the computing help desk means that I now have much more respect for MIT IST… well, until I went to New Ashdown and saw that they had a wireless router every hundred feet but no cellular repeaters, which might explain the strong wireless signal and the almost complete lack of cellular reception in that building.

For the non-first-years, events included a welcome dinner Sunday night (yummy Thai food except mass-produced Thai food is less yummy), a Boston scavenger hunt Monday afternoon followed by dinner and pool at Flat Top Johnny’s (beware the pool shark), an information session jointly coordinated with the department (everything you wanted to know about MIT EECS in 5.5 hours), and finally, a trip to MIT Endicott house (think country club) Monday before registration day Tuesday and classes Wednesday. What a week.

Anyway, most of the events went pretty well in my opinion. I particularly liked the scavenger hunt and Flat Top Johnny’s since it was something different from my year. While the subject is still fresh in my mind, though, I’d like to share some of my favorite quotes from the information session:

dept head to incoming students in welcome address
- “By default, half of you are below average, but that’s okay, because the average here is really high.”

question to TA-ship presenter
- “What is the typical undergraduate student at MIT like?”
- “If you get an RA and a TA, do you get double the money?”

panelists on safety in Boston/Cambridge
- “I think the campus is pretty safe. I haven’t heard of a crime report recently.” followed by some students raising their hands to inform him of an email bulletin sent by campus police that morning
- “If you have lived in Boston long enough, you’ll know someone who has been mugged.”
- A guy: “I’m pretty big, and I try to look menacing when I walk at night, and I still get accosted.”

panelists after being asked about social life
- “Uh…” *pass microphone to another panelist*

You can probably imagine the reaction to those quotes, but in case any prospective happens upon this post, I would like to address the safety issue a bit. Yes, crime does happen here, but as in any city, common sense goes a long way to ensuring safety. In an effort to assuage any fears, one of the other co-chairs is also female, and we both told everybody that neither of us had ever been accosted (less reassuring from me being only here for one year, but Minji was an MIT undergrad and has been in the area for around 6 years). Personally, I think Boston/Cambridge is pretty safe - it’s a urban city and there are some shady characters and areas to be aware of, so be vigilant and smart (walk with a buddy, walk in lighted areas along main streets, use the SafeRide and police escort services, etc, etc). Besides, the MIT campus area is a bit safer than the city in general due to the sheer number of students in the area. And hey, I’m still alive and well, and I’m not very imposing.

The class is well-taught - they stay away from buzzwords as much as possible so the whole experience does not seem as daunting. We learn a bit about rigging the boat, watch the volunteers show us the right way to steer the boat and trim the sail (adjust the sail so it not too slack or too taut), and then get an entire hour or so to sail with a partner, switching between being skipper (steering) and crew (trimming). Lucky for us (or unlucky depending how you see it), the wind today was quite strong - MIT sailing website says 16 mph, and weather.com says 20 mph with 25 mph gusts. I had a tough time getting the boat to go perpendicular to the wind (I was never good at figuring out which direction I should turn to be oriented the right way) - at one point, the volunteers on motorboats drove by and were like “Turn. Turn. The other way - you’re going into the wind”. To give you an idea of how terrible I am at this, I saw numerous boats speed by, and even with the high wind, I had trouble picking up speed. Otherwise, I also tacked a few times (turned the boat from facing one way to into the wind to facing the other way) and got okay at it by the end, I think. My partner and I did a decent job keeping the boat balanced, but I think that was partly because we were going so slow…

The most exciting thing came after my partner and I switched jobs. First off, we had a tough time figuring out even how to do the switch while keeping the boat balanced. Then, at the first tack my partner did, I remember seeing the boat tilt on my side and … capsize. (We tried figuring out what went wrong once we got back on the dock - he says he might have kept the rudder turned the wrong way, I forgot to let go of the sail once I saw the boat tilting.) Neither of us managed to prevent the boat from flipping over all the way (rather than just on the side), and somehow, I ended up in that little air pocket under the overturned hull. Let me just say, trying to go from the air pocket to the open air while wearing a life jacket was not fun - I didn’t hit my head or anything but fighting to go under while the life jacket keeps you up is not easy. My partner told me he got a bit scared when he did not see me since he managed to be on the outside of the capsized boat. After I got my feet untangled from all the boat lines (again somewhat annoying), we waited a bit until the very kind volunteers came by in their motor boat and helped us out. (The Charles was actually not too cold today, and the staff told us it is not as dirty as it used to be, which is a plus, I think.) They towed us to shore, where we bailed out some water (we had to get new jugs since our original ones are now lost in the Charles) and then tugged the boat onto the dock. Looking out into the water, I saw we were not the only boat that capsized (yay for my self-confidence?), and the staff later told us that today’s wind conditions plus the Charles River are particularly hard to learn on - supposedly, we had a record for the number of capsized boats in a learn-to-sail class.

Anyway, after the rest of the boats either got towed to the dock or managed to land (and after some odd rain that lasted all of about two minutes), we unrigged the boats (including me getting some weird grime on my fingers, compliments of the river I suspect), hosed off all the sails on capsized boats, and I made it back to my room and took a nice long shower to get the lovely Charles River off of me. Like I said, though, sailing was definitely worth it, and unlike my perpetual commitment to go to the gym (which is almost never fulfilled), I think I will go sailing, and hopefully by the time I graduate, I will become at least a somewhat competent sailor.

Anyway, she and my parents drove up all the way from Texas (I don’t envy their two and a half days in a small Toyota Corolla cramped with boxes of junk), and I went by her place to help her unpack (and see the folks of course). Very nice apartment with large rooms, on the 16th floor with a great view of the city, and most importantly, her place has central air conditioning. Coming from Texas, I have always taken A/C for granted, and even when I interned in Seattle for a summer where my apartment didn’t have A/C, the heat was bearable. But walking from her nicely air-conditioned complex to the mucky outdoors that was Boston last night was unpleasant, to say the least. Compound that with my non-air-conditioned room, and I think I should have tried to overnight it at her place. Don’t get me wrong - I have been a fan of Boston weather so far. Fall was great (the leaves here actually change color), winter was fun (I got to see snow), spring was a bit dull (but had none of that constant rain or humidity), and summer so far has been fine (good breezes). There are just days in any place where you walk outside and feel absolutely gross and sticky. And apparently, Ashdown was so hot early this week that there was a camp out in the large Hulsizier room Monday night for those who wanted to bring their sleeping bags and try a nice cool night’s sleep. I guess if I really crave A/C, I could always start sleeping in my lab, but I don’t think my professor would approve (or maybe he would be happy?), on top of which I think I have enough of a “grad student image” without succumbing to that false stereotype.

This whole heat thing also makes me appreciate the new place I will be moving into next year. Sure, on-campus housing is great for convenience and for meeting people and making friends (one of the reasons I decided to be on-campus first year of undergrad and grad, that and I did not want to go through the hassle of searching for a place when I first move to a new city), plus you don’t have to worry about utilities, houses have free food opportunities like housemaster dinners and weekly coffee hours and brunch, and housing is very quick (same day response) about fixing any problems, even something as small as a burnt-out bulb. (Hey, I’m not really that lazy, but the lights are high up and me being a short person means rearranging furniture to even be able to scrape the bottom of the bulb. So yay for high ceilings giving the sense of a bigger room, but they come with a price?) Back to the issue, though, going off-campus just gives me this added sense of independence, and having lived off-campus for most of my undergraduate, I just like the feel better. (If you are willing to put the effort into the search, you can actually find great places within a walking distance of campus, though you have to be quick in your communication.) As you can probably tell from the tone of this post, one great thing about the new apartment is it has central A/C. Plus, my future roommates have already begun thinking of throwing parties since we will have a decent-sized living room and kitchen, and I know that I will make use of the big-screen one of them is bringing (a 20″ just does not do movies justice). As far as this summer goes, though, I suppose I should do the smart thing and go find a window unit or some fans so I don’t melt before my next post.