The Masochist's Institute of Technologyanecdotes of an ambitious MIT student

Subject – RE: 14.05 – Final paper draft
Hi Vivian,
Your grade on this assignment is 98 (A+).
Best regards,
14.05 TA

Sometimes, it’s completely permissible to be giddy with pride.

Well, almost.

Along Melos’s road… up until the goal, even though it’s far away…
Don’t complain! Don’t give up!
Keep running for as long as you live.
~ メロスの道 (Melos’s Road), AKB48 Team K

It is once again finals week at MIT, and I’m busting out all of my favourite inspirational tunes, including the often-quoted “明日は明日の君が生まれる (A New You is Born Tomorrow)” and “花と散れ! (Go Down Gloriously!)”. I just spent the entire night cleaning my room while reading 15.401 lectures on my laptop screen, and pausing every 20 minutes to dance around. I’ve probably burned 500 Calories from just that alone.

Starting tomorrow, I am beginning my full-fledged studying program, in which I study the entire day, only pause to eat and sleep. This week I have been sporadically studying (in the meantime, I cleaned my room and stocked up on sleep), but once I wake up tomorrow, it will be full throttle until the end.

However, this post really isn’t about my studies. I don’t think I’ve gained a lot of knowledge this semester, with the exception of 14.05 and 18.440, but I do believe that I have personally developed, both in ways of career ambitions, friendships, and discovering what really matters to me. A few highlights from the semester:

• Super-successful spring 2010 showcase by the MIT Asian Dance Team!! (complete with 6-hour-long rehearsals during production week…)
• Joining Dance Revelasian (our expo is coming up in June; buy tickets from me!)
• IHOP run during IAP with Nexties and friends!
• Taking Portuguese I during IAP and realizing that I had quite a knack for the language after all
• Networking cocktail party, the first successful large-scale SEBC Marketing event of the year!
• Performing at Emperor’s Garden for ITASA 2010
• Finding out that the class I most dreaded (14.05 – Intermediate Applied Macroeconomics) ended up being my easiest one
• It is possible to write a 15-page essay in a day and get an A… but I shouldn’t be promoting procrastination, should I? ;)
• Joining the Chinese Choral Society… and having our conductor quit on us so that I’ve only gone to three rehearsals total, eep!
• Twisting my foot the day before a performance; sitting in the audience to watch my fellow dancers rehearse brought tears to my eyes. I told myself I could recover quickly, though, and I was fully better after two weeks.
• AXO Lipsync with ADT and my pledge class (choreographing and teaching Bye Bye Bye was a new experience for me)
• Late-night discussions with Chris Luna and Anton
• Putting together a successful SEBC Marketing panel in a mere two days
• Scraping up my left elbow so badly that I still have a very nasty scar (that probably won’t go away for five years)
• Figuring out what I wanted to do with my career and post-undergrad studies
• Spending waaaaay too much money on books…
• Fighting over the pettiest things with some of my closest friends…
• Participating in a ton of case studies for 15.818 – Pricing, and placing fifth in the class pricing competition
• Receiving three anonymous roses… mysterious sender, please let me know who you are!
• Getting our Brass Rats at the 2012 Ring Delivery!
• … and much more =)

On the day that the next semester’s schedule is publicly released, everyone anticipates partitioning 1-2 hours of their time to figure out what they want to take and when. Fortunately, I already had my four-year plan laid out and knew exactly what classes I needed to take, so on the morning of April 26th, I made a beeline for MIT’s online subject listing and compiled my fall 2010 semester schedule.

There were a few modifications to the original plan, of course. I was dejected to find that my original plan contained 15.501 – Corporate Financial Accounting, which is scheduled for the exact same time as 14.04 – Intermediate Microeconomic Theory. In addition, 18.443 – Statistics for Applications clashed with 24.900 – Introduction to Linguistics. However, before long I was able to strategically arrange a fairly suitable schedule. In the case that my lottery into 24.900 fails, I will simply substitute 18.443 into that timeslot instead.

For those who are too lazy to search through MIT’s subject listing:

• 14.04 – Intermediate Microeconomic Theory
• 14.12 – Economic Applications of Game Theory
• 14.32 – Econometrics
• 15.402 – Finance Theory II
• 15.433 – Investments
• 24.900 – Introduction to Linguistics