Times Report on the Earthquake

When I describe Sichuan to people I always mention the food, and the mountains, the humidity sometimes, and I always explain that Sichuan translates literally into the four rivers that cut through it. The people there speak with a flattened dialect, like this, I say. And I say I'll take them one day to this place.

If you feel compelled to help, I've been looking around. Here are some relief organizations that have already begun their operations:

American Red Cross International Relief Fund

World Vision

**or you can donate directly to the China Relief Fund, here.

I hope everything is alright with your family, your friends, you, out in this beautiful region of the world.

@ AXO Lip Sync this year: (I dunno, this was like a week and a half ago)
I'M IN IT FIND ME (you won't be able to, so here, I'll just tell you: I'm in the second group stunt and the partner stunt and the top of the pyramid at the end)

Last year at Lip Sync: (you may have seen this from Molly)

Yeah our squad is smaller this year. Anyways, end of term, hey!

Pictures and backlogged entries are piling up like crazy over here. But so is work on my 8.06 term paper and analysis for the 3rd 8.14 lab (Zeeman effect in Hg). My oral presentation is friday for this lab, but with the 8.06 deadlines this week I'm not sure I'll make it. I'm writing my paper on the dynamical (SO(4) rotational group) symmetries of the hydrogen atom, using just symmetry and algebra of groups to derive the energy eigenvalues for a hydrogenic atom. Pretty kickass, right? Well, I'm not doing this fabulous topic justice in the least. I brought Schiff's solemn-as-hell-looking Quantum Mechanics book to the Virgin Islands with me during spring break. Opened it on the beach a few times and during long walks down winding island roads. Succeeded in reading but not quite understanding two section, getting it crinkly from salt water (too close to the waves that time) and sand all between its pages.

Aside from that I read about 100 pages in my Roman History text book, not quite caught up but happy about my progress. But went on to forget entirely about a 10-page term paper on Julius Caesar due this past Monday (the sort of Sunday-night realization you dont want). I was clearly expected to get a lot more done over spring break in all my classes. Consequently, I handed in the drop form for Rome this morning. Now on 42 units, though not light, is definitely by far the fewest number of units I've stood to complete in any semester. Taking a break from work at MIT has its angry side, but losing spring break productivity to vacation in the Virgin Islands isn't really losing at all, is it?

At least that's how I think of it.

I have pictures from my vacation for a future entry. For now, I have more pictures from Junior Lab. The telescope pictures that I promised so many moons ago are here. I meant to post them before spring break but I had a midterm, go figure.

Let me just start off by saying MIT roofs are a pretty cool place to hang out. Especially in february.

What you're seeing here is the Small Radio Telescope developed by MIT's Haystack Observatories used in the 21-cm Astrophysics experiment in Junior lab (8.14). This was definitely my favorite experiment all year. I guess the ultimate objective was to use the doppler shift of the ultra-sharp 21cm hydrogen line emitted by gases in distant parts of the galaxy to derive a rotation curve for the Milky Way, and use that information to map out some of its spiral arms.

The control room is in this little hut on the roof.

check out the little hole:

Lifeline:

VideoLink to the outside world in the telescope vicinity (walkie talkies if you wanna chat):

A little bit of asbestos (at least they warn you):

And a reminder of what you're after:

But yeah what really makes this lab is not the walkie-talkies, not even the asbestos. It's not anywhere in that nasty control room. It's out here:

Doing this lab forces you to be up on the roof all hours of the day and night (sorry, science doesn't care about your sleeping habits), so you see a lot of this:

and this:

this:

and even this:

Watch out for the edge, though:

This lab took us through February and into March. Unfortunately, I hear the telescope is having some trouble with its preamp, so it won't be open for business for the last experiment, for those guys who would really be rocking out up there with the nice weather it's no go. In case you're wondering what the experiment is actually about here's my paper with our results.

I also have some gnarly optical spectroscopy pictures from the Zeeman experiment but that's for next time.

Man, you really don't realize how huge a role some things play in your life until it's time to blog and all you can write about is physics.

Every class day (which is Mondays and Wednesdays- that's today), we read a new poem and write a short essay response, which we read aloud in a class discussion. It usually takes me about 20 minutes to digest the poem, and between 45 min and an hour to write the response, usually, in writing out my thoughts on the poem, I'm able to make connections that I couldn't make just in my head, and I find the poem unusually compelling. Well, I just read and responded to my favorite poem this semester so far. Just about 20 minutes ago, so I thought I'd share it. It's by Robert Creeley. I keep calling him John Creeley because of "I Know a Man".

A Wicker Basket

Comes the time when it's later
and onto your table the headwaiter
puts the bill, and very soon after
rings out the sound of lively laughter--

Picking up change, hands like a walrus,
and a face like a barndoor's,
and a head without any apparent size,
nothing but two eyes--

So that's you, man,
or me. I make it as I can,
I pick up, I go
faster than they know--

Out the door, the street like a night,
any night, and no one in sight,
but then, well, there she is,
old friend Liz--

And she opens the door of her cadillac,
I step in back,
and we're gone.
She turns me on--

There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,
and from somewhere very far off someone hands me a slice of apple pie,
with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,
and I eat it--

Slowly. And while certainly
they are laughing at me, and all around me is racket
of these cats not making it, I make it

in my wicker basket.

- Robert Creeley

We've also read, so far, Alan Ginsberg, and James Schuyler. Here's my response:

Perhaps it is the message of the poem. That, there will come a time, yes, when it's later, and when the game is up, and all your distractions, perhaps your youth, is gone; when the streets outside are dark like night yet you must walk them. But even as you do, while the world is mocking you for your clumsiness, you will retain your dignity, as he does, and you will be safe, as he is.

Anyways, I like poems. I'm going on vacation. I promise pictures of the telescope. Later.

What luck! My many questions were all answered.

THANKS, CONAN!

-luvlulu

Hang on.

Chris, my new Junior Lab (and cheerleading stunting) partner, w/ a little girl we met while cheering at a basketball game. Photo courtesy of Rita and her cell phone.

To say that I've been busy would be pretty false. I've been doing next to nothing. The IAP tide has crept ashore and I've been simply floating happily around campus, letting wave after wave of indolence wash over me. My days are filled with tennis, swimming, gymnastics, cheerleading, road trips, and guitar hero III. I learned how to ski; I beat a song on hard; I nailed a back handspring first time since high school; I can flip underwater; I've been helping my friend edit his personal statements for grad schools; and in the process I've completely forgotten what was supposed to go into this entry.

Since then, I've hooked up with the TESS satellite folks again this time to do some research on the payload (science instruments) side of things. I just finished drafting a proposal, and since I've got all this writing momentum, I pulled up this particular work in progress. We expect that this will turn into a senior thesis (in physics) for me, exactly how, we're still a little muddy on, but there's certainly no shortage of work on the team. An excerpt from the proposal:

The search for transiting exoplanets pushes CCD instrumentation to its photometric limit. The crossing of an earth-sized planet in front of its parent star sometimes results in an imperceptible but measurable reduction in brightness of the star. The mission's goals rely on the ability of our instruments to positively identify and record these occasional tiny dips in photon flux by one-tenth or one-hundredth of a percent. Determining the sensitivity of our instruments ultimately requires us to establish a noise floor given the parameters of the mission. Contributions include dark currents, CCD pixel-to-pixel variation, readout noise, spacecraft jitter, and pointing error, among other randomly or pseudo-randomly occuring disturbances. My job, at least initially, will be to experimentally characterize this noise, and in doing so calculate the photometric precision or resolution achievable with our current assembly. Familiarity with all spacecraft instruments and a detailed understanding of the CCD system will be key to successful completion of this portion of the project. Once this important figure has been found to a high degree of accuracy, the question then remains concerning the expected scientific turnout: what types of exoplanets are we sensitive enough to discover? And in what quantities?

More and more I have found, in research nowadays, there are no quick and significant projects. Quick, sexy, independent projects usually don't result in much, and the really cutting-edge, the really world-changing stuff, like LIGO, like at the Yale lab the search for WIMPs (whose facilities we toured), like JWST (the descendant of Hubble Space Telescope), like the Mileura Widefield Array (though they changed their name to something uglier), anyways, stuff like that, they take a long time. And as an undergraduate, you will ever only really touch a tiny piece of it. I have to admit my attraction to the latter types of projects, I really prefer to be a small part of something big than a big part of something small. Personal preference, of course. Eventually, maybe you and I will find ourselves a big part of something big, and of course that will come with its own rewards. :P

Undergraduate years, it's all about building up. IAP freshman year I had no clue what I was doing but somehow I found myself working on Artificial Gravity at the Man-Vehicle Laboratory. Back then, I still wanted to be a Course 16 (Aero-Astro) major. Not much came of it, of course, since besides 8.012, I didn't know much. But it was definitely good experience, and as you will find, early UROPs serve primarily as stepping stones onto internships, other UROPs, more independent work, more interaction with the research team, more contribution on your part. By the end of freshman year I'd taken more foundational courses, I had 6.001 (the old scheme intro to programming), 18.03, 8.022 under my belt, and over the summer I worked for LIGO, with the Burst Team. Summer after Sophomore year, this past summer, I joined the TESS satellite team (a mission still in its proposal stages) as an intern. By then I had a much more complete set of skills and conducted mostly independent analyses which I then squeezed into three separate white papers. While I was doing all this, I also got to be in California.

Classes prepare you for all the research (that you will eventually conduct) in a tangential but crucial way. A good researcher is a knowledge-skill dualBot. Able to couple an impressive skillset with years of comprehensive study of a subject. Classes usually give you the latter, (Save your notes.) but sometimes, they can offer a little of both.

Junior lab I (8.13), as I've started talking about in this entry, for example, consists of a total of 6 experiments- 2 introductory experiments so that you familiarize yourself with the usual mess of wires, the format of the whole thing, and what is expected of you, and 4 full-length experiments. On average we have about 2 weeks per full-length experiment. A lab guide is provided (the example shown is for a muons experiment- considered one of the easier 8.13 experiments) and gives you, to varying degrees and uncertain levels of detail, an overview of the lab and some basic experimental procedures and techniques. The rest is up to you. "A" grades are supposely given to those who somehow show aptitude beyond that required by the lab guide.

We pick from the class a partner (and you will spend a lot of time with this partner) and pick from a hat a number that determines our experimental lines. This is less a way of looking fancy than a necessity due to the limited number of each experimental set-up (in most cases just one) and the need to stagger the 8-9 groups per lab period that will be fighting for counter space.

Lab days are either Mondays and Wednesdays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays, where on each day we have a chunk of 3 uninterrupted hours in the lab. Fridays are open lab days: opportunity for groups to sign up and work on an experiment they have yet to finish (collect better data, fix errors, in some cases redo the whole thing). As you can imagine, Fridays are quite busy.

For the introductory experiments, we are allowed one lab day each. My partner, Pablo, and I wound up doing the Photoelectric Effect and Poisson Statistics. If you find us on the experimental lines page, you'll see the full-length experiments we performed and their order. I would say the hardest part about the whole class is the timeline overlap between experiments. Even ideally, you wind up writing your paper and preparing your oral and sometimes even finishing up analysis for the last experiment a week into the next. Also, it's killer to get behind.

On the first day, we're handed a formidable looking volume:

We're told to respect the volume (they cost $40 on special order) and fill the vessel with our acquired knowledge and wisdom. We're told that it will be collected periodically and we will be evaluated on how well we have used it. We're given a pat on the back by seasoned physicists and sent on our way. At first, for me, this did not go very well. The first notebook check at the end of September I got a 60/100. But I learned. By the next I got an 80/100 and eventually worked my way up to a 90.

Here's a look inside my 8.13 notebook- which I filled cover-to-cover (150 pages):

Some Graphs from Poisson Lab

Notes from Alpha Decay Lab

Calculations from Cosmic-Ray Muons Lab

Our first official lab was X-Ray Physics- the 15 part experiment. Unfortunately for my partner and me, we didn't realize that some parts were optional until we'd gone into 3 extra Friday sessions in a desperate attempt to finish the lab. Extra time was given to our first lab to account for equipment familiarization and just general intimidation.

Our germanium solid-state detector. The ionization chamber is kept at a chilly ~80K to reduce noise- underneath it there you see the nitrogen tank.

Row of Geiger-Counters :P... sitting on a lead box full of radioactive isotopes. We go into this box a lot for the X-Rays experiment.

This is my graded first paper: Experiments in X-Ray Physics. It was way too long. It could have been better-- a lot of work went into this though. The most rewarding thing about this whole course is really the improvement. Mostly through repetition and the sense of urgency, you feel yourself becoming a more fluent experimentalist with every lab you complete. I've uploaded three papers into the same folder linked above. Take a look if you are interested in the kind of written product we churn out, but by no means feel obligated :) The other two aren't graded, I'm not sure where I put their graded counterparts. (Note: I did not upload the Rutherford Scattering lab. Because I hate it.)

Here, take a look around:

Foreground: really ghetto way of shielding the Rutherford set-up from photon noise. Background: The saddest tree on earth.

An experiment I did not perform. I have no idea. Maybe Frank-Hertz? Maybe second semester.

Lots of cables with alligator mouths :)

Our quantum computer. I hear the concept is awesome but the lab totally blows. Grapevine.

Relativistic Dynamics experiment is the big wire ball with the fan blowing at it. We wanted to do this one but we did not get it, we wanted muons more.

Speaking of muons... muons are great. Here's me standing next to the plastic scintillator for muon lifetime experiment. Muons are flying through my body, and I'm lovin' it. Thanks Scott for the picture :D Scott is fun. Scott will save your life multiple times, I guarantee it.

Compton Scattering! It's okay, I hear.

Uh, bookcase? Look closer.

Pulsed NMR setup.

The magnets for it.

Alpha decay, the final lab we did. The set-up looks so weak but it's considered one of the hardest experiments.

Table of nuclides. We had to memorize this. No, I'm kidding.

Optical Pumping next semester. I hear this one is temperamental. Will do my best to avoid.

Oral presentations are a pretty big part of Junior Lab. With every paper is an accompanying 15 minute PowerPoint presentation (here, I'm giving the example of my slides from Alpha Decay, which I ended up choosing for my public oral as well) given to the professor and TA of your section. These are videotaped for review with a communications instructor. In total, 5 are taped in these settings and the last is a public oral given to the class and all the instructors and all your friends and are supposedly taped and put on the internet-- I haven't been able to find it thusfar, but I'll put my public oral up if I do. Mine was well-attended seeing as I invited my hall.

The public orals are held in succession and in these big end-of-term parties with pizza and drinks and victory speeches given by professors like football coaches after a big game. You're encouraged to come back for another semester: which the eventual 8 majors do, but some don't. We lose friends, partners. I'm sad to report that my partner will not be joining me in 8.14. Likewise, my new lab partner, Chris, is also newly orphaned.

All in all, a busy semester behind me and an equally busy semester ahead, I'm going into the last week of IAP feeling not quite as bored and relaxed as I would have hoped, knowing once semester starts it's another marathon to the finish. Spring semester has been historically more manageable for me, I like the days getting longer the breeze getting warmer, the flowers and the leaves on trees and just the whole outlook really agrees with me. On my plate is 8.14, 8.06 (Quantum III, communication intensive, with a paper at the end), a writing class yet to be decided, and perhaps a history class. I'm leaving some time to do work for the non-profit I'm a part of, to be a cheerleader, to publish our lit/art magazine, and start research for my senior thesis. A new terms is nigh; there's no time to waste. 4 years go by pretty quickly.

-Lulu

If I can help it I try not to walk around New Haven with an expensive camera slinging from my shoulders. I left it in my dorm room while I was away. I figured I'll just borrow my parents' point-and-shoot for the weekend while I'm in the area. It turns out that using a new camera, for me, was a little like being fitted with a new pair of arms. The flash went off constantly and I found myself apologizing every few seconds and more to myself than anyone else.

In the pictures that follow, I've forsaken the higher resolution links (for the most part) as those are pretty unpleasant to look at. A lot of color adjustment makes for crappy close-ups, and the white balance of the camera was all whack.

I'd lived in the shadow of Yale University for 7 years before going up to Boston for college but this was my first time there as a tourist. The difference being it was vastly more fun.

The conference was well organized, and reimbursements provided for travel and hotel accommodations. Friday evening a group of about 10 of us from MIT caught the 6:45pm Amtrack Regional to Washington D.C. and arrived in New Haven about 9:10. Three taxis took us to the Courtyard Marriot on Whalley Avenue.

After settling down in our hotel rooms we went out for some ice cream and stopped on our way back at a party going on in some suite in Branford College (a residential college of Yale). The place was very 18th-century, carved stone passageways and wrought iron gates. The party was mediocre and we retired to our rooms.

We were each granted a double room which we then shared with a roommate. Two big beds, two people. I, too, had a roommate but she did not show up for the conference. I had neighbors on the same floor. 419 to my 421. And quickly we discovered that our rooms were connected by a set of inconspicuous doors and soon we had a pretty hoppin' one-floor multiroom complex. A regular women in physics party pad. We used all this space to watch TV vigorously and type on our computers.

Watching TV in my hotel room.

Chillin'.

Lectures on the first day included a talk about protein folding in the interdisciplinary area of BioPhysics and why you should not to enter grad school in an interdisciplinary area such as BioPhysics. At least if you're not prepared to deal with being an orphan of sorts. Howard Georgi from Harvard came to discuss a certain Larry Summers Syndrome, and the future of the Harvard Science and Engineering departments after Larry's retirement. He argued for a multidimensional "aptitude scale", where good scientists lie at the extreme of two or more independent axes and criticized the one-dimensional fixation on IQ.

At lunch, we met with Yale faculty members in physics and discussed, among other topics, the need for positive academic role models with whom children of all races and genders could identify. I met physics majors from NYU, Sarah Lawrence, Yale, Connecticut College at my table. A careers panel in the afternoon offered professional options for women physics undergraduates, advice for grad schools, and, of course, addressed the family vs. career concern. "How many, if you had to choose, would choose family over a career in physics?" Maybe 25-30 out of the 100 girls in the hall raised their hands. "How many would choose their career?" Slightly more. "How many can't decide?" A whole lot. If you're wondering I raised my hand pretty quickly for the first option. A really demanding career with no family to come home to seems like a surefire way to get yourself deeply depressed. "But how about both?" Conclusions? Sure, with a supportive husband. Success stories were told. It's possible, we're told.

The lectures were held in the Linsly-Chittenden Hall on Yale's Old Campus, in Room 101. Lunch and dinner were held in different locations depending on what the schedule permitted. Here are some pictures I took this weekend of the dismally cold Yale Campus.

Old Campus where the conference was held:

Freshman dorm in the background.

And the inside of Linsly-Chittenden Hall:

Yale is very proud of its seal. It was on absolutely everything we touched this weekend.

Lecture Room 101 where we spent most of our time.

Another room where we sometimes had lunch.

Our conference days began promptly at 8:45am. Bagels and pastries and coffee and tea were among the complimentary breakfast items (served on napkins, cups, plates, all emblazoned with the yale crest). Now, I'm no morning person and IAP is no time of year for morning people. Here's the big cup of coffee I made myself each morning in the hotel room:

That's my MIT class ring on the side. Which I found at home where I went for dinner Saturday night. I thought I'd lost it; my mom found it in my little baby blue room. This isn't the good one anyways. But I guess that's why I wear this one around and not the gold.

I took some time off in the middle of the day to go shopping on Broadway. New Haven is very much a college town- Broadway and the area around the New Haven Green are not only the best, most downtown parts of New Haven, but are also central to the Yale campus. Walking up Elm Street several blocks from Old Campus there are shops (Yale Bookstore, J.Crew, Urban Outfitters, Thom Brown...) and eateries (Au Bon Pain, Asian Noodles place, Burger joint-- called the Educated Burger, ha, and Starbucks, if it counts.). I grabbed some soup at ABP, tried on some Yale class rings at the Bookstore ("Oh, the design is the same for every year?", "Hm, well I'll have to think about it."), got a nosebleed while reading a book on a puffy couch in Urban Outfitters, bought a little stuffed roommate for myself at the Yale Gift Store (the first Yale paraphernalia that I own).

Here he is getting ready for bed:

Here he is in the morning all excited for another great conference day:

Broadway Avenue and its stores (our hotel was right off Broadway):

A little further down we get into the Residential Colleges. I sometimes try to envision seeing Yale the same way that I see MIT, the way Yale students must see Yale. I try to imagine coming home to Saybrook College after a long day in the Quad like I do to East Campus. I can't do it. I think I've been going with my mom to the biology labs for too long.

I think this was Trumbull College.

Saturday night, getting back to the hotel room after chilling with my parents for a few hours (my dad had encouraged me to stay at the hotel, "meet people"), we spent a few hours more or less deciding on what movie to see and finally went to the Cinema on Temple Street.

Sunday was windy like a hurricane and frigid as hell, too, as a cold front swept over New Haven. This was the day of lab tours. And we marched, like soldiers to a war, heads bowed to the wind, determinedly, dutifully, to Yale's Physics and Chemistry laboratories on the infamous Science Hill. It felt like more walking outside than I'd done in 3 years. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Science Hill isn't far. Back when I was applying to colleges Yale buttered me up and insisted "Science Hill isn't that far it's totally on campus", and I believed them. Well, we walked for half an hour each way. Even when we finally got to this "Science Hill", it was this sprawling campus of all these similar-looking but disconnected buildings and to go from one to another we had to walk around buildings and through lots, all while my face froze and fell off my head.

Their facilities were quite impressive, but the number of resulting pictures on my camera is limited as I didn't quite get my motor functions back until I was on the train ride home.

Here's their (huuuge) central library that we passed (along with most of New Haven) on our way to Science Hill:

By contrast, MIT has 13 (?) separate libraries scattered all around campus, the largest of which maybe measures up to 1/5 of this one.

One of the first labs, I think. I don't remember much I was so cold.

Yale's particle accelerator. It's very impressive, and takes up quite a few large rooms. The physicist giving the tour was under the impression that it was the largest accelerator owned by any college in the country. I was pretty sure that accelerator was at Stanford, but I did not bring that up. As souvenirs we each got a couple frames of negatives from a bubble chamber experiment. Bubble chambers use superheated liquid and tiny trails of bubbles to detect the existence and path of very small things inside the chamber, and are particularly useful in particle physics experiments in which a whole host of particles are created.

At some point, there was a poster presentation by those who wanted to bring a poster of their research and present it. I went to see this and stayed a while, but I passed on the opportunity myself.

The train back was delayed by 25 minutes and we got home around 10pm sunday. Looks like it's back to IAP as usual for me, I can't say I didn't appreciate the break from break though. There are tons of opportunities like this around campus, to connect with other institutions, their faculty, their students-- if you're interested in this sort of thing, just keep your eyes open, and get on some mailing lists. :)

Til next time,
lulu

Is Physics major popular at MIT or not?

Yes? No? What do you think of when you think "popular"? There are about 50 physics (full 8) majors each year (judging by junior lab roster), and perhaps 20 more 8-B majors. Add that all up and it makes up ~7% of the class each year. Is that a lot? That's hard to say, there are 22 majors. it's not as popular as say, course 6, which is home to maybe 20-25% of the students in each year. But it's big enough that you'll need to share resources.

Fun Fact!
There are 92 physics faculty at MIT- and 5 of them are women. Luckily, the ratio of men to women physics majors is slightly more reasonable. I'm thinking, just by looking around, maybe 13 out of 50 for the course 8 folks. I don't have any idea of 8-B.

I can't believe you do all of this?!?! How do sleep? Do you sleep at all?

I don't sleep much: maybe 5-7 hrs on weekdays and 7-9 on weekends (I have been occasionally known to sleep some 14 or 15 hours though)? But keep in mind those classes I listed weren't like taken all during the same term or something. I'm not on speed. This semester is the only semester that I've taken more than 2 8-classes a term. And let me tell you this is too many 8-classes.

Hi Lulu.I have a small question to ask.In Part 2,section 3 of the application,there is a question asking students to list any scholastic distinctions won since entering high school.Can this include,for example,honors won in oratory in the annual English-Day competition when in grade 8 or 9?

I'm unfamiliar with your system, but I probably wouldn't list that, personally.

How much do you have to study to get really good marks in Physics (Maj.)

Depends on how smart you are. Really.

Which brings me to my main point: You hear it a lot. Do what you love. F*** the rest. (Little miss sunshine?) It's very good advice for most things but I'd be careful when applying this to choice of major. I know, like, what? Am I crazy? Why am I allowed on here? But there's a very good reason for this. Reasons, even.

Reason number 1: There are many paths to the same destination. So you love space technology, the natural choice might then be a major in course 16- do what you love, right? Well, maybe. But you should explore your options first, and here, you have quite a few. Sure, course 16 might get you what you want, but so might course 2 (mech e), or 2-A, or 8 (physics), or 8-B, or 6-1 (ee), or even 3 (material sci) or 12 (earth/planetary), depending on the specifics. There are a lot of options. You should look through them all! Take some intro classes, talk to upperclassmen, there's a lot of valuable information out there. Narrow your field of major choices down to only subjects that really have potential or you have not tried. Never eliminate something because it is unfamiliar. High schools don't teach Chemical Engineering or Nuclear Engineering as a rule. Find out about them. Ask questions.

Reason number 2: All majors are not created equal. Maybe you've already heard from person A that asking about relative difficulty of majors is shallow and there's no such thing as hard majors and easy majors, it just depends on what you're into. Well, that's very interesting and all, person A, but you are very wrong and you are doing freshmen a disservice by preaching that. While there is no value in trying to determine an absolute hardest major, you HAVE to have a sense of what you're capable of and what you're getting yourself into. I know quite a few people who have either not graduated or not graduated on time as a result of failing classes within their major and/or changing majors too many times or some combination thereof.

Some majors have a lot of requirements. Take course 16 for example. 198 units of credit are required OUTSIDE of GIRs in order to graduate. Take a look at this page, that's about 16 classes. On top of the 17 classes everyone has to take. You have 8 semesters here, and the average classload is 4/semester. 33 classes in 8 semesters doesn't allow for too many electives. That's hard in its own right.

Bad at memorizing things? Maybe chemistry or brain and cog sci isn't for you. Impatient? Hate doing grunt work? Maybe cross off some of the engineering majors.

Some majors may be too easy for you and bore you to death. Some majors cover some really difficult material. Some of the abstract math classes here are among the hardest in the world. You should love a challenge, you're an MIT student, but you should also love yourself. A major that is too difficult for you will only make you miserable and insecure. You won't enjoy the course material and you won't enjoy the work, you won't sleep, and worst of all, you won't learn. What's the point of taking classes to get them over with? So what if you're not smart enough to enjoy that stuff (I'm not smart enough to enjoy that stuff), your talents may lie elsewhere. Pick a field in which you will really be able to participate and positively contribute.

I say this because at MIT there is a real hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) pressure to do things just because they are hard. Or, the inverse, to not pick things just because they are by and large considered easy. Kids here are on the whole pretty smart, but that doesn't mean they don't need validation. Some kids try to earn the respect of others by taking on way more than ever reasonable, don't be like that, because these kids are often the same who will, in a couple of years, feel superior to their classmates just because their major is considered "harder". And you just don't want to be like that. Nobody wants to be friends with that.

I said to a freshman tonight, who was trying to find a suitable second major in the sciences to her course 15 (management) intended major, "Why?" Because some people had informed her that "15 was a slacker major" and she wanted to prove she wasn't. This made me very sad and I told her that if someone picked one major that was right for them and did it well, learned it inside out, was really excited about it, no matter what the major, I would respect him orders of magnitude more than someone else who sacrificed a deeper education in something they were really interested in just for the sake of adding the name of a second subject to their diploma. I'm really bored of the people who gave her this advice. Don't take it. It's dumb.

(me)

I've been through two majors myself, I started off in 16 (while taking classes in 8) and switched to 8. I wrote an entry a year ago about my switch into 8 halfway through sophomore year. Watch out, it's a little dramatic. But, I ended up not at all behind in the coursework since I'd kept both options open as a "tentative double major" and taken all the usual physics classes up until that point. That's something you might want to consider, prefrosh/freshmen- taking classes in 2+ subjects first semester sophomore year (and/or spring semester freshman year) so you can really get a feel for the different departments. And they are very different. And yes, this matters.

Reason #3, 4, n: why really it's not only about what you love:

Departments. Curriculum. Staff. Resources. Career options. Size. Flexibility to do what you want.

What's more important to you? Having a tried and true certified-damn-good education from MIT in a subject matter (in my case, physics)? Or, having the freedom to design your own curriculum and indulge in your fancies? This isn't rhetorical- it matters. This is what I'm deciding between now with 8 and 8-B. To be quite honest I was 2 weeks ago leaning toward 8-B for the option of taking General Relativity or Astrophysics next term, however, I had this thought a few days ago that was big enough, at least in Lulu-world, to have actually tipped the scale toward 8. The thought was that I wanted a physics education from MIT, the way that they've been training physicists for years, and though I may feel like I know better at times, I probably don't, and I could do well to finish what I started and trust in their judgment. Anyways, that's just me.

Teaching styles vary wildly between departments. Yes, let that affect your choice. A clash of learning and teaching styles is one of the most disastrous things that could happen to a student in college. It will make you lose interest, and fast. Higher level math classes don't have recitations: you are expected to either understand the lecture material or visit the professor privately with questions. Are you comfortable in that kind of a setting for 4 years? Engineering classes have a lot of repetition and hand-holding, this can get annoying if you're normally independent. Course 6 is impersonally large and they compensate by having 4-5 person mandatory tutoring sections once a week, these are all things that you should know.

To make things easier later on, before you pick a major, reflect a little on what you'd like to do. If you don't have any idea (don't worry, I don't either), an important feature of your degree track should be later flexibility. Will it allow you to attend medical school if you decide? Grad school? Work on wall street? Babysit? There are lots of majors (8, 18, 6, 2, ... ) that are really good for branching out later on into all kinds of fields.

Your interests may change, especially as you get deeper into a field, you may find it not at all what you were expecting (this happens all the time, I can't even stress that enough), you can develop interests in things you never thought possible: sometimes this is out of necessity, sometimes just because every subject in its own right is interesting (or else you wouldn't have organic chemists) and you just needed some time to really get into it. I see this happen all the time. Your interests may change, but with some thought put into your choice of major, this doesn't have to mean extra semesters or no diploma.

Alllll this talking aside, undergraduate majors by name are not a big deal. Graduate schools, still a faraway thought for you guys, but looming ever nearer for me, don't give two hoots about the name of your major, they care about what's in your head, your coursework, your research... In fact, I've been told quite a few times that taking Grad-level courses and having more than one major will actually hurt your chances at grad schools- they like to see that you have built a solid foundation in their subject and view anything else as a distraction.

Anyways, I made up a really crappy but maybe useful timeline for when you should be doing what with regard to your major/choice of major. And it starts NOW! (only if you're a freshman, NEXTYEAR! if you're a prefrosh).

• Fall Semester Freshman Year: Talk to people! Research! Ask Questions.
• IAP Freshman Year: Decide what major(s) you may be interested in/want to try out. Plan some spring semester classes that explore these options.


• Spring Freshman Year: Take these classes. Reevaluate.


• End of Spring Freshman Year: Pick a major. It doesn't have to be permanent, but you'll make it easier on yourself to do some exploring before you pick, since, though switching majors is easy, catching up in classes, isn't.


• Summer after Freshman Year: You are assigned your department advisor! This is fun, because you'll come back and meet them probably with food or canoeing involved (the latter may just pertain to my advisor may not be an actual rule).


• End of Sophomore Year: Deadline for deciding to stick with your major unless you are considering a 5th year or a 9th semester or you have already been taking cohesive classes in the major that you want to switch into. This is because most degree tracks are designed to take 2-3 years. If you haven't started on that after the end of sophomore year, you may need to only consider "flexible" options for fewer requirements.

For an outdated (but still interesting) overview of some departments published in 2002 by the Tech, take a look at this: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N5/5majbr.5n.html.

Anyways, I'm doing this because my freshman friend Larisa is having a major crisis (that is, a crisis regarding her major, though it also appears to be quite troubling for her). Please feel free to ask questions about specific majors and I will try my best to answer them or find a satisfactory answer from someone who knows. I like feeling helpful.

Sorry there aren't any pictures in this one... I took pictures of junior lab, so I'll put that together soon.

-lulu