The Blog

Welcome to the OUTSHINE, a collection of knowledge gathered from four years at the “Masochist’s Institute of Technology”, where we devour thermodynamic equations for breakfast and fry biochemistry test papers for dinner.

Better known by its official, government-approved name, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (colloquially MIT) is a little tech school that sits on the northern banks of the Charles River, directly opposite Boston in a city called Cambridge. This strategic placement is an excellent opportunity for the undergraduates to gaze out of their windows at the sprawling urban world right beyond their grasp, across the muddy waters of the Charles. Harvard University, ever the pretentious Ivy League institution, lies further north – only a subway stop or two away.

Despite the preconception that only geniuses with IQ’s of 250 manage to gain admission into MIT, in fall of 2008 an overeager freshman named Vivian Lee (c’est moi!) entered the great doors of the institution. As her first semester started, MIT found it fitting to start hurling metaphorical lemons in her direction – from impossible problem sets to living at the furthest dorm from campus to extremely hard physics tests (they don’t call it “Mechanics for Masochists” for nothing, you know). With not-so-stellar SAT scores and rudimentary (at best) calculus knowledge, the Texas-born girl eventually found herself slipping and falling, overwhelmed by the knowledge of her peers. Even though she was well known as being one of the most ambitious students back home, at MIT she found an entirely new world that was faster, snappier, smarter, and far more prestigious than anything she had ever imagined.

So as the saying goes, when life throws you lemons, you throw them back.

Almost instantly, this feeble freshmen decided that in order to succeed, she needed to be different. She needed to excel, to aspire, to accomplish, and to constantly embark on the journey for self-improvement. This blog, then, is an endeavour by our determined protagonist to document the trials and tribulations of college life, both at MIT and elsewhere. It focuses on productivity, study habits, and career objectives as they pertain to current undergraduate college students. This blog hopes to deliver life lessons that can be easily transferred from the author’s experiences to the readers’ lives; one that will provide both entertainment and education for those who are currently going through or about to go through these same experiences. Topics covered include everything from the latest marketing research, to study tips for calculus, to pop culture fads and their sociological impact. Join us as we take you on a real-time ride through the undergraduate and (hopefully?) graduate life of a not-so-simple pre-law student as she survives everything from differential equations to bad bouts of the flu.

It’s all here, firsthand and uncensored:

  • Advice and tips for getting the most out of your studying time
  • Anecdotes of my journey through classes from physics to psychology and everything in-between
  • Personal productivity and self-rectification activities that I believe truly help
  • Interesting reports of daily student and socialite life, literally a 10-minute walk from Boston
  • Methods for excelling beyond your peers and achieving greatness.