A Day In The Life

A Day In The Life [By MIDN 3/c Robert Block 10] It is 1200 on a Tuesday during IAP, and I have accomplished more than the average MIT student does in an entire school day. How have I achieved this? It all started with my alarm at 0530. I might have woken my roommates, but it was early enough that Im sure they all fell back to sleep. After a quick shave and a few stumbles over my roommates chairs, I was out of the door of my fraternity and on my bike, riding through the cold and wet January air. I rode across the Harvard Bridge, and I sat down in front of the international phones of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center by 0615; just in time to catch the Polish after their lunch break. After a few hours of inviting Eastern Europeans to the MIT Global Startup Workshop conference, I hopped back on my bike and headed to the Navy ROTC building. During IAP, I am working on a project to improve battalion communications through the installation of a web server. I worked for two hours before hurrying over to the Z-center to make an 11am Jiu Jitsu workout with the American Jiu Jitsu Club. Now it is noon time, and I have already worked for five hours, and squeezed in an hour-long workout. With the rest of my day, I will work in my UROP lab for a few hours and then do some coding for 6.370, a java programming competition also known as Battlecode. You might ask how this relates to Navy ROTC, or why I am participating in so many activities during a month that many students use as a break from classes and work. My achievements during IAP, and many of those during the semester, can be attributed to the skills I have learned as a midshipman in the ROTC program. The Navy stresses time management, planning, and pushing oneself to the limit. During my time in NROTC, I have learned how to budget my time efficiently and accomplish my goals, both in my navy life and my life at school. I have learned that getting an early start isnt always a bad thing, and that taking an hour out of the day to maintain a good level of physical activity can make me more productive. The Navy ROTC program at MIT also encourages midshipmen to participate in on- and off-campus activities. It is understood by the staff and other midshipmen that sometimes the best leadership training can come from applying the skills learned in ROTC to other activities, and it is because of this that the NROTC program doesnt overwhelm midshipmen with time commitments. While my Navy commitments do take a significant amount of time, they do not prevent me from taking advantage of the amazing opportunities in clubs and UROPs on campus. Navy ROTC at MIT is the best of both worlds: I have the endless opportunities provided by the MIT community, and I have a professional Navy atmosphere to prepare me for my future as an officer in the fleet. MIDN 3/c Robert Block is a sophomore at MIT in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. Feel free to contact him with questions about MIT or the Navy ROTC program via his email, reblock [at] mit [dot] edu. Post Tagged #ROTC A Day in the Life Given that it’s the day before Campus Preview Weekend and I have two papers to write and a problem set to start, it’s clearly the perfect opportunity to blog! I’ve wanted to write a “Day in the Life” entry for quite a while and today I finally remembered to pack my camera. I’ll preface this entry by saying that I don’t normally do this much networking or eat this much free food, but the opportunities exist (if I only had the time and could be in three places at once!) 7:45 AM: Woke up and immediately checked my email. 8:30 AM-9:10 AM: Walked to McCormick to meet my former pre-frosh and now (sorority) little sister, Minh ’10. The weather was gorgeous and we went to Sunny’s Diner (just up Mass Ave) for a good ole’ artery-clogging breakfast. Yum. 9:15 AM: Grabbed a cup of tea with Minh from the Lobby 7 coffee shop and ran into Ben and Amy. Even though they were running around, trying to get everything ready for you guys, they had time to stop and pose for (several) pictures. By the way, in their free time they model for ATT. 9:30-11 AM: Dynamics and Controls II Lecture. We reviewed a control theory called root locus. Doesn’t that sound exotic? 11 AM-11:05 AM: Stood in Killian Court and played with my camera’s panoramic setting, the result is below. 11:05 AM-11:55 AM: Finished my homework (which was due in two hours…) and checked my email about every five minutes. 12:00 PM-1:00 PM: Ate lunch with Dr. Ray Winquist, the Vice President of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and a few other students. The lunch was organized by a biomedical mentoring program called BioMatrix, which I have been a part of since freshman year. Dr. Winquist talked about his experiences in industry and answered some of our questions about his career. 1:00 PM- 4:30 PM: Experimental Biology recitation and lab. For eight hours a week, about a hundred of us manipulate E. coli DNA, sequence genes, and purify proteins as part of this lab class (which is a requirement for biology majors and pre-meds.) The class also has a scientific writing component. 4:40 PM- 5:00 PM: Met with the writing tutor for my Ancient Rome class. She taught Introduction to Fiction when I took it last Fall, so we have known each other for a while and consequently, we mostly talked about Campus Preview Weekend (since she’s the housemaster of East Campus) =) 5:05 PM- 6:00 PM: Went to my UROP. I work in the BioInstrumentation Lab and I’m trying to write up the results of my research. I made some decent progress on the Discussion section of my paper… maybe the writers block is finally wearing off? 6:00 PM- 7:15 PM: Ate dinner with MIT alums and students at the Society for Women Engineer’s Meet the Professionals dinner. This semiannual event gives us the opportunity to meet alumni who have established careers in a variety of fields. At my table were about six students and an alum who now works at TransForm Pharmaceuticals. 7:25(ish) PM: Ran into Matt, who was just finally heading home, only to return tomorrow morning at 8 AM! CPW doesn’t run itself…and unfortunately I forgot to take his picture! 8:00 PM â€" 1:00AM(ish): Did a combination of things, including checking my email compulsively, psetting, and playing with Photoshop. This will probably continue for the rest of the night… hopefully closing Gmail will boost my productivity. Questions about life? CPW? Root locus? My sweet camera that takes panoramic pictures? Ask away. A Day in the Life Its 2am, Im up reading about plane crashes (more on my classes later), and a cool thing is happening on campus. Technique, MITs yearbook (and, relatedly, the photography/design club) is hosting A Day in the Life.   This is one day where students all over campus grad students working late in lab, people psetting, athletes, artists, awesome people with dart guns, whoever will take pictures as they go about their normal day, and post them on the website. To be honest, Im not sure how old this project is (perhaps someone more enlightened will comment?) but ever since I stumbled upon it two years ago, I thought it was really neat ^_^ The day runs midnight to midnight, so if youd like to see photos from some of the early birds (well, night owls), take a look! And now, back to my regularly scheduled tooling* * except Im usually asleep by midnight A Day in the Life I really enjoyed  Anas recent post about a single day in her life, so I decided to share a day of mine too! Quick disclaimer: I thought it would be interesting to document my Thursday because I usually end up doing a bunch of things even though I dont have any classes. If you wanted a look into classes, I kind of summarized mine at the beginning of the semester  and plan on doing a reflection sometime before finals! November 13th, 2014   8:30am first alarm (turned off) 8:45am second alarm (actually wake up) 9:17am get out of bed 9:27am realize Im probably running late (this is not an uncommon thing) 9:30am out the door, speed walking 9:38am miss the bus at 77 Mass Ave. 9:40am catch the bus at the next stop #nailedit Attempting to take a picture from my seat on the bus without looking too strange. 9:56am arrive in Harvard Square 10:01am arrive at L.A. Burdicks This particular hot chocolate excursion was to meet up and chat with Marjorie Liu (who Chel mentioned previously; Marjories the incredibly awesome instructor for 21W.758 aka. MIT.616). Im usually really bad at talking to professors, whether its in an academic context like office hours or running into them in the hallways. Most of the time its because I genuinely dont know what questions I would ask them, or the omnipresent fear of not being able to find any common ground. But this semester I switched majors into something I love (CMS) and am trying to push myself to do things that scare me, including trying to get to know new people. Marjories super approachable, kind, and down-to-earth and it turns out we have a lot in common, from nerdy interests to growing up near Seattle to being mixed-race. This is one of the first times Ive really felt like someone Ive met at MIT could be a mentor to me, since conversation flows so naturally and she gives such great advice and honest reassuranc e about pursuing a career in writing or the media industry. Im hoping to interview her about her experience teaching at MIT (and overall career/life, of course) for the blogs after the semesters over, so Ill write more about how lovely she is then! 12:30pm leave Burdicks and decide to walk to Central Square 12:35pm decide to take the T instead because its chilly 12:37pm MEET TOBY, A BEAGLE/BASSET HOUND MIX (and ask to pet him)   Creeper picture of Toby (left). I miss my beagle Taffy (right) so much and cant wait until Christmas break. 1:00pm arrive for meeting at Workbar I usually only go to Central for art supplies, so its fun to have another reason to visit. Every Thursday I have a check-in meeting with one of my UROP mentors, Flourish Klink (who Petey has blogged about  because shes amazing). Flourish was my CMS.100 professor during my freshman spring, I reconnected with her by crazy random happenstance (i.e. I wrote a post fangirling about the fact that one of my favorite professors was going to be on a panel at SDCC, which she then found) over Tumblr this summer, and now Im helping her out with the transmedia development plus some social media side projects for Season 3 of East Los High. Its really exciting to be able to participate in some of the behind-the-scenes meetings that go into writing and producing not only the TV show itself but also the online content (vlogs, extended scenes, school newspaper articles, etc.) that are released in tandem with the episodes. Not only am I learning a lot about how production companies operate, but Im also discovering what its like to work across time zones with a team that is mostly based in LA (so many Google Hangouts!) and to have my opinion valued even as an intern. 1:42pm walk back to campus 2:00pm arrive at Rinaldi (theater building) and work on set design homework       Were currently designing for the play Fetes de la Nuit as though it would be performed in Walker Memorial. 4:35pm Internet break! 5:00pm CMS colloquium Paul Levitz, in Conversation with Junot Diaz This was my first time actually going in the Media Lab (beyond the first floor). The rooms are so pretty! As a CMS major, I receive weekly emails about Thursday colloquiums in which the department or MIT invites guest speakers to talk about their research or careers or whatever is relevant. This week was Paul Levitz, best known for his long career with DC comics (ending as President Publisher) and as a current professor at Columbia. He actually came to speak directly to our class (comic script writing, with Marjorie) the next morning, so I got to hear quite a few stories and interesting insights into comics as an evolving art form/medium of communication/thing and his own personal and professional experiences with writing. So rather than going into immense detail and hastily scribbled down quotes now, I plan on writing a separate post just about the two back-to-back experiences. 7:00pm walk to the T 7:21pm arrive at Park street and decide to walk to Panera 7:30pm order and eat broccoli cheddar soup in a breadbowl #goodlifechoices 7:47pm walk to Suffolk University theater 8:05pm watch The Saint Plays We went to these plays as part of my Scenic Design (21M.733) class. They were very surreal. (I hope I was allowed to take this picture) 10:34pm walk to the T and back to MacGregor 11:03pm pick up package from desk 11:05pm discover gooey brownies in main lounge and decide to hang out 12:35am  head upstairs to my room to actually open the package   The poetry zine cover and a poem with some really cute embroidery.   Ive been following Alaska Gold on Tumblr for a while because she writes lovely poetry and prose that I relate to immensely; shes at about the same stage in life (at university, 19-20 years old, thinks way too deeply about the universe, etc.) even though were thousands of miles apart (she grew up in Spain, I believe). Around the beginning of October, she announced that she was going to be making and selling some poetry zines of her work and they looked absolutely beautiful! She hand-draws and embroiders images that reflect the poems you choose for your zine, and mine (like all of them, Im sure) turned out so lovely. Her project inspired me to keep building a portfolio of work that Im proud of until I can (maybe) do something similar! Mostly it was just a very pleasant surprise after a long, tiring day because I always love getting mail. 1:00am  watch Sleepy Hollow, etc. 3:00am  (ish) curl up in a blanket and sleep