"We are, we are, we are, we are..." The Engineer's drinking song is being proudly sung by a pack of ever so slightly inebriated beavers. Our Harry Potter friends are looking on in amazement as to what kind of Wizard's Institute of Technology could engender such devotion. The Cambridge-MIT exchange has successfully made this year's land-fall and both universities are trying to learn each other's secrets to success.

Although some of my fellow MIT students view our exchange as Cambridge trying to shake off its 700 year layer of dust and pick up some MIT-brand entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, my exploits in the Mathematics department have led me to a different perspective. It's not all cranky tradition on this side of the pond, and Cambridge has a few tricks of its own to share.

Structurally, Cambridge and MIT couldn't be more different. Learning is divided up into three independent branches, that I will argue provide a superior culture for learning. These three branches are the colleges, which are the home to the supervision system, the lecturers, which are faculty members who must apply to their departments in order to lecture, and the examiners, who are an anonymous group who set the questions to be examined at the end of the year.

The university is made up of some 30 colleges which are all financially, geographically, and socially distinct from each other. Students do not apply directly to the university, but rather to their college of choice. Admissions are tough and Cambridge engineers are sometimes plagued with interview questions that some MIT students won't see until their first interview with Goldman-Sachs. As a member of Churchill College, I am one of 17 math majors (mathmos as the natives say) who is closely watched over by my Director of Studies (DoS). My DoS will then arrange for me to have approximately 4 supervisions per class per term. The supervision system is considered to be the highlight of the Cambridge educational experience. Imagine having a one on one (sometimes two on one) recitation with you and a faculty member or graduate student who knows the subject exceedingly well. In preparation for these supervisions, you are to work out as many problems as possible that are assigned by the lecturers. Whereas the idea of only having 4 problem sets per class may sound like paradise to most MIT students, staring at a 17 question Analysis problem set two days before the supervision, suddenly is a lot more intimidating. The main advantage to the supervisions is that the example sheets are not graded and the supervisors have no connection with lecturers or examiners. When I get stuck on a problem or am unsure about a step in a solution, I openly annotate my own example sheet for discussion in supervision.

Lectures and classes tend to have a better attendance rate compared to my MIT classes. Each college is trying to improve its own exam results, so students from a subject are encouraged, not only by peers, but by the sometimes not-so-friendly college competition to attend as many lectures as possible. One then arranges supervisions in a majority of them, and then picks a subset of those to review for the final examination. As a Cambridge student you have three 8 week terms with lectures concentrated in the first two terms. 8 week terms are certainly intense, but the high burn-out rate during the 13 week semester at MIT is not nearly as evident. Lectures are open and do not necessarily entail painful amounts of work. You can choose how involved you want to be, and no one really minds if you decided to dump a bad class. Although some of my friends at MIT audit courses, too often will people think they are interested in a course, put a lot of effort into it, but then realize too late that their interest does not match their effort. Often MIT students become too willing to compensate their education for their GPA. In comparison, I will attend 12 or so courses for the year, and only supervise and review 10 for the exam. Although some may review anywhere between 6 and 10 for the exam, there is less commitment for attending a lecture, and thus students are more likely to engage in the contract of learning

Of course an 8 week semester may contain a lot of information, but not as much as semester of MIT. I offer the analogy that MIT semesters give large pillars of knowledge and Cambridge builds brick walls. You might reach higher, but your understanding can sometimes be on rocky foundations. In mathematics, Cambridge might ease you into the bath water of abstraction, in contrast to the cannon-ball approach of 18.100B, but there is a lot of context that you learn to motivate and support your understanding.

Furthermore, whereas there is plenty of room at MIT to be intimidated by the freshman taking graduate-level subjects, everyone at Cambridge, from your lowly genius to your Isaac Newton starts the same course of study. Both systems clearly have their own advantage. Although being forced to repeat courses may sound like a hindrance rather than an advantage, one often gains an intuition for things not appreciated on the first encounter. One day this term I sat down to have my 3 hours of lecture spat at me right in a row (which frees up time in the afternoon to work, and thus sleep for the evening) and every lecture talked about a similar concept but in three distinct settings. Redundancy is not a strong feature of any course of study at MIT (with courses 2 and 6 maybe as exceptions), but it reinforces learning and stimulates a strong synthesis of ideas.

Finally, the third consul in our triumvirate is the common enemy of the other two: The Exam. After some of you finish 18.02, 8.01, or 3.091 this term there is little concern for how much you will remember six months from now. It seems to be a general feature of the American education system, that if you have a good enough short-term memory and study hard enough, you can usually soak up enough knowledge and worked examples to spew onto a final exam a few days later and do well. On the contrary, 6 months from now I will begin my final term of Cambridge, audit a course of two and spend the majority of my time reviewing material from the entire year. Results on the exam are divided into five categories: First, Two-One, Two-Two, Third, and Fail. Results from each year become an object of fascination among all the colleges and potential employers. Talk of who is the top-first is hotly discussed and college rivalry reaches its peak. Once exams are over, instead of everyone running home to lick their wounds, they launch into "May Week" filled with dozens of "May Balls" where everyone regales in college life.

The Cambridge-MIT Institute was founded to make two of the world's best universities better. In 1970, Dean of Institute Relations at MIT, Benson R. Snyder, published a book entitled "The Hidden Curriculum." In this book, Snyder provides a sweeping critique of MIT and a culture of bible-compilation, copying of problem sets, and the perceived battle of the student body against the Institute as a whole. Based on my early observations here in Cambridge and my two years at MIT, there is clearly improvements to be made on both sides of the Atlantic. Although the institute will continue to change, Engineers everywhere will keep on singing "We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers!"

Last 8.02 exam.
Last 14.01 pset.
Last 5.111 pset.
One all-nighter.
Wish me luck. ;)

The semester is really coming to an end!

Freshman year is almost finished...wow.

I'll be back tomorrow (after I'm done with the exam and the two psets I have to do after the exam) to update this entry with an account of my academic adventures for this second semester!

Good luck on your AP exams, too! But don't stress out too much about them. ;)

(just stress out about Physics C, Calc, and English - cuz you can pass out of stuff or not take the FEE (woot!) if you do well on those exams =p)

But that's not what this entry is about. It's about my experiences with undergraduate research. I'm sure all of you know by now about MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Click here if you want the official site. But the basic idea behind UROP is to take undergrads and expose them to individual research. You know all those textbooks you read? The information had to come from somewhere. It came from people publishing their original research in peer-reviewed journals. MIT has a program dedicated to giving you the opportunity to put some of your thoughts in a textbook.

I've had the distinct pleasure of having three UROPs during my time as an undergrad here. The first was on the now defunct MIT ChemECar team. ChemECar is a competition to build a car powered by a chemical reaction that can achieve certain standards in speed, accuracy, and precision. Back in IAP 2006 we gave it a shot. Our idea was to power the car using a galvanic cell. To control how far the car went, we'd use an electrically conducting solution as a circuit breaker. When the tank of electrically conducting fluid ran out, the circuit would break and the car would stop. It was a good idea, but we were too hosed to see it to completion. We made good progress during IAP, but once classes started we didn't have time. Nevertheless, it was my first exposure to a wet lab (a lab that makes use of chemical solvents. Examples of dry labs include physics and EE labs) and an opportunity to do something original.

My second UROP I started in Summer 2006, and it was undeniably the best UROP experience I've had here. I worked with Eric Verploegen (soon to be Dr. Verploegen: Congratulations!!) on "thermoelastic liquid crystalline side-chain block copolymers for actuator applications". That's a bunch of big words for a simple idea. 1: Attach liquid crystals (the things that make the digits on your calculator) to a plastic. 2: Make the liquid crystals line up. 3: Apply an electric field to the plastic, move the liquid crystals, and thus turn electric field into macroscopic force. I got the opportunity to learn about polymer synthesis, an entire host of materials analysis techniques (dynamic mechanical analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, polarized optical microscopy, small and wide angle x-ray scattering, nuclear magnetic resonance), and even take a trip to two synchrotrons: The one at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the one at Cornell. Synchrotrons are pretty cool, check out this Wikipedia page to find out more about them. I worked with Eric officially for pay/credit during Summer 06, Fall 06, IAP 07 and volunteered during Spring 2007 to help train my replacement. The UROP culminated in a paper we published (linked here.)

My third and final UROP was at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Plasma physics is a tough branch of physics to study, particularly because a lot of the equations (MHD, for example) are impossible to solve analytically (except in simple, ideal cases that aren't applicable to real systems), and computationally expensive to solve numerically. Nevertheless, I tried to do numerical analysis of the propagation of radio waves in fusion plasmas. In order to achieve magnetically confined nuclear fusion, we need a way to heat a low pressure gas of tritium and deuterium to tens of millions of Kelvins. The best way to do this is by blasting the gas with EM radiation, turning it into a superheated plasma. My job was to make a determination of how much energy would be absorbed by a plasma of certain parameters (density, magnetic confining field, particle orbits), given radiation of certain parameters (intensity, frequency, polarization). Of course, at the time I'd only had up to 8.03 and was attempting graduate level plasma physics. I knew I was over my head and stopped UROPing in Fall 2007. It certainly showed me how much I liked physics, though.

My advice to you is to get involved in the UROP program here. I forget how many students participate each year, but it's on the order of 80%. However, I would also advise you not to limit yourself. A lot of people come here and feel like they need to stick with a single UROP so they can get published. That's what grad school is for. Use your time here to figure out what you like. Save your nobel prize for when you're older.

@ 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!

Just like in high school, a favorite strategy of professors is to assign tests right before finals (to minimize the amount of new material between the last test and the final), meaning I had an 18.03 test a week ago and an 8.02 test this week.

Actually, instead of putting these into paragraph form, let me do a quick rundown of what I'm doing and what stuff is due:

Wednesday
8.02 PSET due (haven't started)
2.001 PSET due (halfway there!)
Powerpoint for Toy Design (haven't started)

Thursday
UROP
Toy Lab (work on presentation/build toys)

Friday
18.03 PSET due (haven't started)
UROP
Meeting

Saturday
Work on Toy Design all day

Sunday
Work on Toy Design all day

Monday
Work on Toy Design all day

Tuesday
Toy Design Presentations

So, let's see, where does that put me? I've got a physics test I haven't studied for, a 2 PSETS I haven't started, a presentation due tomorrow that I haven't touched, and five toys to help build and present in exactly one week (seriously, Toy Design is freaking me out right now). But wait, there's more!

I'll save the full story for later because it's ongoing, but I still haven't taken my pre-employment drug test for Hasbro so I need to find time for that. Oh, and did I mention that last night the hard drive on my computer randomly died. That's right, just went away. I spent 5 hours running diagnostics and talking to tech support this morning trying to figure out what happened before we finally worked it out such that I'll get a new hard drive mailed to me, completely clean. Just one more thing to add to how busy I already am, rebuilding my computer. I'll have to get Microsoft Office and Mathematica shipped to me from home, I'll have to reinstall Dreamweaver, Portal, SecureFX, the MIT VPN, replace all my bookmarks in Firefox, change all of my user settings around, install Matlab and SolidWorks again, get iTunes up and running, and everything else necessary to restore my computer to its original state.

Do I have time for any of this? Right, two weeks before finals, hardly!

IHTFP much? Yes methinks, back to tooling . . .

Around November, a crazy idea nested itself in my head. I was experimenting with large format for the first time--building my own 4x5 pinhole camera out of foam core and playing with the Student Art Association’s Speed Graphic.

I loved the results: The fine tonalities...the fact that you could barely see the film grain under the enlarger.

I fancied seeing what an 8x10 negative would look like, but the thought of buying my own 8x10 view camera burst as soon as I looked up the price range for a field camera with decent movements. The bellows alone would cost me around $500, and I was on a student budget.

But what if I built my own? I could easily make the entire camera (used lens and all) for around the cost of just the bellows.

So I spent the rest of the semester dreaming of how the camera would look like--promising myself to start on the construction after finals week, for fear of not getting anything else done. But, of course, as soon as classes ended I set to work designing the camera in between study sessions using Google SketchUp, and working off of pictures, designs of smaller cameras, and anything else I could find on the Internet.

The (not quite) final design is above--the current working design is a bit messy at the moment. The camera will be made out of cherry and brass, with my homemade, faux leather bellows in the middle.

During the two weeks before IAP, I spent my time at my other home (Seattle, WA) designing and building the bellows for the camera.

A week into IAP, I walked into the MIT Hobby Shop, design in hand, and absolutely no woodworking or metalworking experience.

But that’s the great thing about the Hobby Shop. If you have an idea, you can build it, and someone will be there to help you along the way. Needless to say I had no idea what I was in for--originally thinking the project would take the rest of IAP, I’m now on my fourth month. But I’ve learned a lot.

Ken Stone ’72 (left), the director, and Hayami (right) are in charge of the Hobby Shop. They are the people to go to if you are really stuck and have no clue how to begin (like me). I’m constantly looking for help (as both of them can confirm), but by now I have enough experience (thanks to a lot of instruction) to work a little on my own before something completely new comes up.

One of the best things about working at the Hobby Shop is seeing what other people come up with. During IAP students came in to build their own speakers out of MDF as part of a class. As the spring semester began, class projects and UROPs popped up everywhere. Zach Bjornson ’10 is building a replica of the 1736 Hemsch harpsichord on display at the MFA. Ilan Moyer ’08 is working on his thesis: an inexpensive circuit board milling machine.

Greg Schroll ’08 (above) shows Ken his thesis in progress (which is now finished): a robot ball.

In addition to individual projects, the Hobby Shop holds classes during the semester that you can take for credit.

For example, SP.777: Water Jet Technology teaches students how to use the Hobby Shop’s water jet by creating something for the local community. This year the class is working with The Boston Home, designing a device that makes it easier for people with multiple sclerosis to drink from a cup without fear of dropping it.

As for my camera? Well, it’s come a long way from just a crazy idea. Since I’ve been spending so much time on it, I decided to turn it into a UROP under the Edgerton Center, with Thery Mislick as my supervisor. When I’m done, I’m planning on releasing the plans and other documentation online under a Creative Commons license in case someone out there wants to build their own 8x10. You can follow my progress at I Build a Camera (I’m hoping to make an update for my work in April at the end of the week…things get busy around this time).

See that knob there? I made it out of a solid cylinder of brass, and it makes me happy.

Here you can see the rack and pinion that moves the focusing rack. The brass pieces across the rack will have a slot cut into them so that the front standard (the part that holds the lens) can move from side to side (in addition to twisting, tilting, and moving up and down).

The frames on the left will hold the ground glass and the film holder. Eventually I will put a spring-back in there before it drives me insane.

I can already picture the finished camera. With the toughest part of the camera behind me, all I have left to do is the front standard and attach the back to the focusing rack.

Once my camera is finished, I’ll be exploring all sorts of alternative photography processes with Thery this summer. This of course brings forward another crazy idea: making a Daguerreotype. It’s a method from the very beginnings of photography--an image on a polished piece of silver-plated copper, and probably one of the clearest, life-like pictures I’ve ever seen. However, it has a slight problem. The plate is sensitized with mercury (or iodine) vapor, and developed under liquid mercury. This definitely requires a fume hood and a lab, so I’ll need to work that out somehow. (Also, getting the mercury...)

Before I end my entry, I’ll leave you with a mini-tour of the MIT Hobby Shop.

The Hobby Shop has two sides to it: the metal side and the wood side. This is the wood side. In the picture: a jointer, a thickness planer, and an edge sander.

More of the wood side: a band saw, and a couple drill presses.

This is the metal side. You can find a list of all the tools on the Hobby Shop’s website.

More of the metal side: a couple of milling machines and a drill press.

Countless projects have gone through the Hobby Shop. Anything from chairs and tables to guitars, sailboats, and airplanes--the Hobby Shop has seen it all. Perhaps one day you can add another to the list.

A quick note about the alternative photography gig: The Wiesner Gallery (2nd floor of the Student Center) is having an alternative photography show with gum bichromate and calotype prints starting Tuesday the 6th. If you’re around, go see it!

Steer Roast was this weekend.

If your initial reaction to that was "...um, what?", then I'll fill you in: Steer Roast is Senior House's claim to fame - it's our annual weekend-long party centered around the overnight roasting of a steer in our courtyard and the subsequent feast. The following description is courtesy of a presentation on Senior House and Steer Roast created by Charisse '03:

"I present Steer Roast as an extreme barbeque: instead of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, we roast over 300 pounds of meat over a giant spit for 17 hours; instead of getting a band or two to perform, we hire a dozen bands to play over two nights; instead of general barbeque activities including horseshoes and lawn darts, we provide a 10 by 10 foot mud pit, strippers, and a casino. The festival celebrates Senior House culture by sporting death, because only life can kill you."

Steer Roast has been held in the spring every year since 1964. Legend says it started as a small barbeque in the courtyard, but alums - who return en masse for Roast every year - state otherwise. From Michael Potash '69:

"No, this did not start out as a little barbeque and grow. No. It started out as a big bang, it was a huge thing... it was 1964 in the spring... it was big from the very first day."

That said, I present you with pictures from the pit lighting and mud wrestling from this year's Roast. Captions will appear if I feel like it - that is, not often.

The courtyard Friday afternoon during setup

People filled the courtyard and crowded on balconies for the pit lighting:

A considerable number of alums bring their families to pit lighting and the feast.

Former GRT Foley got Laurie '11 to record this year's lighting:

The pit is traditionally lit by a flaming roll of toilet paper sent from five stories up, hence everyone looking skyward.

I didn't get a shot of the roll on its way down, but I do have these pictures of the flaming pit (which is what you were all waiting for anyway):

SO MUCH MEAT. MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT

The meat is taken off the spit the next morning and served as part of a full meal in the courtyard that afternoon. Upwards of 300 people attend each year - I was one of the people cooking for the Feast, and at one point on Saturday morning I managed to fill all of the ovens in the Haus with massive amounts of baking pie.

Our housemasters kicked off the mud wrestling, as they do every year. (Hey. Prefrosh. You know that Guide to Residences in the NBM? Check out our i3 video in the DVD. Yeah, that's them. Cynthia Jenkins always wins. If you can't take the time to get out the DVD, here's a YouTube video of them wrestling at last year's Roast.)

So yeah, you're looking at Paul in the picture below. Paul does not yet know that this picture exists. Hi, Paul. You can kill me later.

I spent some of Friday night hanging out with Dorota '10 while she was on Meatwatch (what, you think six sides of steer just roast themselves?) and listening to some of the bands.

Of the bands performing, I got to see five; Professor Murder and Oxford Collapse were probably my favorite two.

Roast is also a time for halls and suites to do something art-related, or just something awesome. The residents of 433 ordered thousands of googly eyes and glued them to everything in the suite.

Yes. Everything.

My hall, the 4th HNC, went with an overarching theme, "Things that pop." This involved bubble guns that made their way throughout the Haus during the whole of Friday night, but the highlight was the three hundred balloons stuffed with little packets of Pop Rocks, inflated, and used to fill the entirety of our hall lounge. We started doing this the Sunday before Roast, so the balloons had to be stored someplace during the week.

This place ended up being my room.

Somewhere under those balloons is a couch.

I'm still exhausted from not having slept this weekend. My voice is completely shot, and it doesn't show signs of returning any time soon. It was absolutely, absolutely worth it.

More pictures later. Or you can look for them yourself if you want. I'm not the only one who had a camera, and some people were smart and used digital instead of film.

Burton-Conner had a dinner cruise tonight where we were wined (21+) and dined (everybody!), danced, and generally enjoyed each others' company. Before the buses left for the dock you could see long lines of nicely dressed Burton-Conner residents walking down dorm row, obviously heading somewhere exciting.

As you may or may not know, dances are not my scene. One of the stereotypes at MIT is that we are nerds that are totally socially inept and get all flustered, panicked, and uncomfortable at dances. This stereotype is widely disproven by many students at MIT. . . not by me. However, since it was a dorm trip, free, and a bunch of friends were going, I decided that I could suck it up, step out of my comfort zone, go, and god forbid maybe have a good time.

We arrived at the dock and waited around for a bit before actually getting onto the ship. This is when Jared '10 and Yuki '11 thought it would be a great idea to swap jackets.

While the black jacket with blue shirt looks fine on Jared (although a bit big), Yuki's outfit was an assault on my eyes. Red shirt, purple tie, black pants, blue jacket, and blue (different shade!) beanie. Laughs were had, pictures were taken, and eventually they adjusted their wardrobes so as to prevent me from sobbing (look, sitting in a room with my mother while she watches a cocktail of What Not to Wear, E!, America's Next Top Model, and Entertainment Tonight has taught me to appreciate color pairing and fashion. This is atypical for a guy, I have a skill that many males lack).

Soon we were aboard the ship and putt-putt-putted away from the dock. A bunch of us went to the upper deck to enjoy the view, weather, and more photo opportunities. I tried to take a picture of (from left) Cathy '10, Wesley '10, and Mason '10 but Sauza '11 decided to intervene and provide one of the best pictures of the night.

Next, for the group shot, the obligatory handing out of cameras happened. Let me explain this to you. If you are going to be in a group shot and want the picture you have to hand your camera to somebody so that they can take the picture. After the shot you walk over and retrieve your camera. This normally works quite well, as evidenced by the group shot photo that is now in my possession.

There are only two issues with this picture. The first is that because of the angle you can't see me. I promise I'm there. See the guy on the far right? Does his face look a little long? That's because a sliver of my face appears to be molded into his. Awesome.

The second issue is that after the picture was taken my camera disappeared. This makes camera retrieval difficult. I wandered around the upper deck looking for my camera when I finally spotted it. I commenced with the camera retrieval segment of the group shot and flipped on my camera to see how it had turned out. Instead of seeing the wonderful picture you just saw, I saw this:

Interesting. Not only had my camera been hijacked but it had also been used to take random pictures. I perused them.

I felt a bit like Ashton Kutcher in his new commercial for Axe, except that instead of hot girls running round with my camera taking pictures of other hot girls I ended up with pictures of sailors. : (

Then, the sunset. This was one of the big motivations for coming on the cruise (other than food). The sunset was awesome, especially from the deck of a cruise ship.

Finally it was time for some dancing. That's right I danced. I don't dance. I danced.

Rick '09 also danced, as evidenced by . . .

He even helped Wesley dance.

After mucho dancing, much eating, and mucho view-enjoying our three hour cruise was over and it was time to head back to the dorm. Everybody stripped out of their fancy clothes (replacing them with comfy clothes) and the majority of Conner 2 settled in to enjoy some good ol' fashioned Mario Kart Wii.

Now, after a thrilling day of homework, cruising, and racing, it's time for bed, so I bid you adieu and wish you goodnight.

I must admit, I'm not generally a big comic book superhero fan, and I hadn't even heard of Iron Man until only recently. Most movies like this go by without my notice. But last month, I heard from my friend Wally, via my friend Lisa, about photo stills from the movie that caught my attention:

Hold on, what was that? On his finger in both pictures?

Iron Man with a Brass Rat!

Having Iron Man, a.k.a. Tony Stark, be an MIT alum got me interested in the movie. According to the Wikipedia bio, this is Stark's background:

Anthony Stark was born on Long Island, the son of Howard Stark, a wealthy industrialist and head of Stark Industries, and Maria Stark. Tony is a boy genius, entering MIT at the age of 15, and graduating at the top of his class.

In the movie version, they say that Stark graduated "summa cum laude" from MIT. Of course, MIT doesn't have Latin honors, or a valedictorian, or class rank, or anything like that. The movies really like to give these kind of honors to fictional MIT grads, though. In 2003's The Recruit, Colin Farell's character was said to have been the MIT valedictorian, with a major in "nonlinear cryptography." In the movie version of Carl Sagan's Contact, Ellie Arroway was said to have graduated magna cum laude from MIT.

In an MIT Viewbook-quality quotation, director Jon Favreau said of Stark as a superhero, "He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider, he’s somebody who created a suit using his own intelligence and sweat of his brow. I would love for that to make being an engineer cool, that people might want to go to MIT instead of being on MTV." (Thanks!)

The film, contrary to the web bios I've read, has also made Stark's best friend, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, an MIT graduate. Stark talks about a 1987 spring break trip with Rhodey, implying a college friendship. Even stronger evidence is Rhodey's wearing a brass rat himself in the scenes in the military control room.

Another nice touch is Tony Stark on the cover of MIT's alumni magazine, Technology Review. (I'm trying to track down a copy of the cover)

When you go to see the movie, you should stay through the end of the credits; there's a teaser of a scene that's worth watching. I could tell it meant something to the die-hard fans, but I was clueless, and much more interested in the actor making a cameo (I won't spoil it).

If you do stay through the credits, do me a favor -- watch for the name John Underkoffler, and write down what he is credited as (Google has failed me on this one). It's towards the end of the credits, and it's a long title, something like "science/technology advisor & future visionist." Who is John Underkoffler?

John Underkoffler '88 SM '91 PhD '99 is an MIT alum, inventor, and science/technology consultant to many films, including Minority Report, The Hulk, and Æon Flux. You can read a cool article about his work on Minority Report here. And if you're interested in learning more about the technology of Iron Man, check out this article in NewScientist.

If you saw the movie, what did you think?

We received the invitation in the mail a month or so ago, and I was surprised to see that it was exactly the same stationary that my high school prom committee used.

The last few months of MIT are tough for most seniors – we are torn between our ever-worsening condition of Senioritis and the stress of knowing that we should be writing our Senior Theses and final reports that are prerequisites to graduation. So the time between receiving the invitation and the actually going to the ball went by really quickly, and before I knew it, it was May 3rd.

In addition to the stress of graduation, we also needed to find dates. Luckily for some, the Senior Ball Committee of 2005 created a Survival Guide (http://web.mit.edu/2008/seniorball/survival.htm) with pointers on how to find a date, things to discuss with your date, etc. They even provided a list of nerdy pick-up lines:

Pick Up Lines for Nerds (from http://askthebeaver.blogspot.com/)
--Hey, baby; wanna test the 'k' of my bedsprings?
--Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I am around you.
--How can I know so many hundreds of digits of pi and not the digits of your phone #?
--You are one well-defined function.
--Hey, baby - wanna be sinusoidal functions? We could oscillate horizontally¡K
--Want a hot Euler body massage?
--Oman, I want Djibouti!
--Hey baby, how about I tinker with your software while you turn on my hardware?"
--Hey, you're O positive too? Guess you're my type!
--Remember my species - you'll be classifying it later.
--Why don't you come over later so you can balance my equation?
--Asexual reproduction is for pansies.
--Let's get together later to converge.
--Hey, I'd like to sample your population.
--I think I need to work on the structural formula of your fatty acid.
--I'm just a cute piece of DNA who is still looking for that special transcription factor to help me unwind.
--Hey baby, can I be your DNA helicase? 'Cause I can unzip your genes

(note: I don’t think anyone legitimately uses these lines…don’t assume that we’re crazy nerds. Except, in the spirit of full disclosure, my roommate did buy a t-shirt from the Coop that says “Talk Nerdy To Me.”)

Before heading over the Harvard Bridge (yes, the bridge connecting MIT to Boston is called the Harvard Bridge; it's because it was built before MIT moved to its current location) to the Sheraton Back Bay hotel, most people picked up their dates and met up with a group of friends to take pictures. Here’s a picture of my group:

At 6 pm, hors hors d'oeuvres were served- bread, crackers, cheese, deli meat. Since most seniors are over 21, there was also a cash bar (but they checked IDs and gave wristbands at the door. For some reason they thought it would be a great idea to use blue and white striped plastic bands that made just about everyone’s outfit look tacky.) It was great to see almost the entire class in one place, I even ran into some people that I hadn’t seen since freshman year. I should also note that there were many non-senior present, both younger and older (for example, I had gone to the Senior Ball of 2006 as a sophomore.)

Here’s a picture of some of my Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters. Gwen, on the left, made her own dress! She’s very artistic, clearly, and I don’t see how she finds the time to sew dresses when she’s on the Varsity Crew team and a Civil Engineering major…

At 7:30, dinner was served and a nice jazz band played in the background. You were allowed to send in the names of people that you wanted to sit with at dinner, and the Senior Ball committee did their best to make everyone happy.

After dinner, there was a dancing… lots of dancing. The music selection was pretty interesting, usually we’re overwhelmed with a continuous stream of hip-hop songs that direct us to get low and throw our hands in the air. But for some reason, the songs alternated between Latin and 80s music. It was great at first, but we quickly exhausted our small cache of dance moves.

At about 11, everyone started to go their separate ways. A few of us decided to go to Top of the Hub for a plate of freshly baked cookies. They’re delicious and I’d highly recommend them, as well as the view from the 52nd floor of the Prudential Building. The weather wasn’t fantastic, but this was the view from a previous visit:

Alas, I am happy to report that Senior Ball was fabulous and I hope you’re all looking forward to going.

Hi everyone. I went on the exchange for 06-07 (so I'm senior now heading off to math grad school next fall).

I really appreciate Kathy's post (A Day in the Life...), but I should also point out that the Exchange offers a wide range of experiences and can depend significantly on what subject you are studying. I went through Course 18, to study the second year Mathematical Tripos (Part IB):

http://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/course/

It should first be said that I worked nearly as hard if not harder there at Cambridge in my junior year than during my time here at MIT. The learning style is definitely different at Cambridge and requires a great deal of individual motivation and tenacity to make it through the year successfully, i.e. earning first-degree class marks on the exams.

In particular, although the only evaluation for Cambridge occurs at the end of the year in the form of four 3-hour exams (the tripos), these exams require a great deal of preparation and are significantly harder than most exams at MIT. Of course, what makes MIT difficult is that you are faced with continual assessment, and are given maybe a few days to prepare for tests, and thus the pace is certainly more intense for a given semester at MIT. Cambridge, on the other hand, might be more akin to the experience you might have preparing for quals in grad school -- your knowledge needs to be integrated and synthesized and then demonstrated in only a few hours of blazing glory.

I have to say that I also feel like I learned and retained more in a single year at Cambridge, than in my first two years at MIT. This is because under Cambridge's year-long system, subjects from each semester are meant to build on top of each other, and you continually need to revise and internalize information throughout the entire year. I think that many MIT students go through MIT learning to survive semesters, and then promptly forget a great deal of the material they supposedly absorbed. At Cambridge it is far more likely that people retain material over the entire year, because it is a cognitive fact that memorization (an important component in even problem-solving-driven thinking) requires repetition over a long period of time to be properly encoded in long-term memory.

I should say that research definitely is not the focus of the undergraduate education at Cambridge, but it also isn't totally impossible (Actually, as a result of the Exchange, Cambridge is creating it's own "UROP" system). The idea is that students in England come out of high school (or Sixth Form as they call it) having already done some portion of what American students do in their first year of college. Prospective Cambridge undergraduates apply to study a specific subject, and there is only a little lateral mobility once they've matriculated. Many undergraduate degrees then consist of only three years of intense study, where an average student will take 10+ courses in their subject in a year (contrast this with MIT's 6 technical subjects a year and 2 required humanities). After 3 years, many will enter a fourth year and do the equivalent of a one year Master's or MPhil. At least in mathematics, after this fourth year, many enter a research-only PhD, which they complete in 3 years. Often the reason PhD's in the States take 4-7 years, is that coursework is required to get American students "up to speed," which many international students, including Cambridge ones, will have done as part of their undergraduate degree, or one-year MPhil. So basically research is not the focus early on because instead you are expected to master the fundamentals for serious research as an undergraduate.

I could go on to address some of the subtleties and differences in funding that mathematicians, scientists, and engineers might face on the other side of the Atlantic. I could also talk about my own great travel experiences, and the wonderful friends and social life I had during my year, but I'll save that for anyone who is interested. As a concluding thought, let it be noted that Cambridge is about to celebrate it's 800th anniversary as an educational institute that has produced the likes of Newton, Maxwell, Green, Stokes, Kelvin, Rutherford, Watson and Crick, Stephen Hawking and so many other intellectual giants. The Cambridge-MIT Exchange thus represents a wonderful addition to any MIT student's education and is certainly not a year wasted.

I’m mildly obsessed with the internet. Actually, mildly is putting it mildly. I’m overwhelmingly obsessed with the internet. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that for almost my entire life I’ve had to deal with dial-up internet. That’s the issue with living in the country, slow internet. Things changed when I got to MIT. Instead of being plugged into the wall in order to get slow internet, all I have to do is turn on my computer in order to get blazing fast internet. As such I was very rapidly acquainted with such gems as Homestar Runner, XKCD, Leeroy Jenkins, and Fark. The Internet became my playground, providing me with an endless array of useless time wasting goodies.

On February 28th I got an e-mail inviting me to something called ROFLCON. ROFLCON? What's a ROFLCON? I read on:

A conference/convention about internet culture. Come celebrate and mingle with your favorite internet memes and engage in academic discussion about the past and future of internet culture. We'll have academic panels, artist workshops, unmoderated talks, a Concert of the Internet (ft. Group X, Lemon Demon, Trocadero, OCRemix, and Leslie and the LY's), and a huge party with all your favorite internet celebs rocking out.

Starring:
*The Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestar Runner
*Randall Munroe, creator of XKCD
*Ryan North, creator of Dinosaur Comics
(a lot of other comic artists. A LOT.)
*Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com
*moot from 4chan
*LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYY
*I Can Has Cheezburger
*MC Frontalot
*Rooster Teeth, the creators of Red vs. Blue

Oh. My. God. The internet is coming! To Boston! Like, like 10 minutes from where I live! Let's just say that I was officially registered within 3 minutes of reading that e-mail. Who was obnoxious for the next month waiting for ROFLCON? I was!

"Hey guys, did you hear, the guy who invented the lolcat is coming!"
"Yes, we heard Snively"
"Did you hear that Leeroy Jenkins is going to be there!?"
"Yes, Snively, we know"
"But, but so are the Brothers Chaps!"
"WE KNOW!"

My month of waiting finally ended last Friday. I woke up for physics and then after emerging from an hour's worth of pure science mind-bogglingness in some random MIT basement I headed to the Student Center for what was going to be the beginning to the two best days of my life.

Even registration at something like ROFLCON is amazing. I walked up to the registration desk, edging past dozens of people who could be internet celebrities, the beauty of it all being that even if they were famous on the internet, I wouldn't recognize them at all in person. I grabbed my badge, bought a t-shirt and lunch box (that's right, we got thermos brand lunch boxes, what now!?) and started grabbing free goodies. This is when I saw my first internet celebrity. I would have felt bad if I hadn't seen him, he was kind of hard to miss.

Working his way through the crowd was Tron Guy in full costume. He stopped nearby me and started chatting with a bunch of us. We asked the typical questions that he probably answers all the times, but the one thing we made sure to ask was why he wasn't lit up? I mean, half the reason his costume is so cool is because it lights up. This is when he started revealing hidden battery backs and switches all over the costume, lighting up the entire thing (including the Frisbee on his back). We were then faced with a full-blown Tron Guy. Photo Opp!

Unfortunately after registration I had to go take a math test. I should take this opportunity to say that my entire goal during ROFLCON was to find Leeroy Jenkins and meet him. The issue with doing that is Leeroy Jenkins is only a voice, I had no idea what he looked like. Well, during my math test they had the opening ceremonies and who was the MC? Leeroy Jenkins. Of course, why wouldn't they make me miss it? Now everybody had seen him and heard him do the yell, everybody but me. *shakes the hand of cruel irony*

After my math test and during lunch I glanced out the window and saw G4 interviewing some random guy.

Curious as to why this random guy was so special and deserved an interview I went outside to get a better view and perhaps overhear a part of the interview. All of a sudden this guy started dancing wildly, the reporter too! What's going on!?

I didn't figure it out by the time the interview was over and both had left so I just chalked it up to some weird random event and went on my way. After a presentation in another class I hustled to my first event of ROFLCON: "Before the LOL" with Jason Scott (creator of TextFiles)

I won't bore you with everything he said because most of it probably comes off much better in person than in type, but I will show you some pictures of slides.

I apologize to those who find this offensive, but seriously, funny

The emoticons that were around back in 1989

The guy who invented the smiley emoticon

My computer, watching the live stream and the real thing at the same time

Jason Scott finished his presentation and it was time for the next one: "Surviving Internet Fame with Tron Guy and Matt Harding"

Seated at the table were two guys, both of whom I recognized:

Hey! It's that weird dancing guy!

After realizing that this strange dancing character was somebody of note, I dug around on the internet and found this video:

Ah! So he wasn't just doing a weird dance, he was doing the "I go to a bunch of countries just to do this dance" dance.

Both the Tron Guy and Matt had a great panel, discussing just what it was like to all of a sudden show up on thousands of websites and be thrust into the limelight. At the end of it Tron Guy dazzled us with a light show.

Ooh! Shiny!

The next day I woke up bright and early for the first panel of the day, featuring some of the coolest internet people ever! Who was on the panel?

Rooster Teeth (Red vs. Blue), Brad Neely (Superdeluxe.com), The Brothers Chaps (Homestar Runner), Rob, Kris, Matt, Dave (Cyanide and Happiness)

From right: Brad Neely, Rooster Teeth, Rob, Kris, Matt, Brothers Chaps

SO MUCH INTERNET AT ONE TABLE! Their discussion was great, lots of talk about how they run their websites, how they got started, what the future holds, but through the whole thing I couldn't help myself from thinking "I need to get ALL of their signatures!" When the panel ended I ran up with my red lunch box and started collecting signatures. This is when I got my favorite picture of the entire weekend.

One of the Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestar Runner, signing my lunchbox with his Homestar Runner puppet talking into the microphone

The day continued with free pizza for lunch and a session that involved watching nothing but undiscovered YouTube videos (the list can be found here. That was AWESOME! The guys from JibJab were sitting right in front of me throughout, laughing just as hard as anybody else. They even premiered some brand new videos they made, not yet on the internet (so you don't get to see them yet, neener neener). I snagged more signatures for my lunch box before I headed out to the next panel which was being hosted by Anonymous.

Anonymous are the people in V masks that protest the Church of Scientology. I'm against the Church of Scientology as well, but Anonymous is a terrible organization that should just go away. Just trust me, don't think they're cool, they showed their true colors at ROFLCON and they aren't good people.

Moving on, the last big panel of the conference was one that featured moot (4chan), Randall Monroe (XKCD), and Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics). Since the anticipated audience was bigger than the lecture hall could hold, security made everybody come outside and then counted people as they filed single file into the lecture hall. Ben Peters and I, being the MIT students we are, realized there was a better solution than this: The secret ninja entrance. We escaped the crowd and went into the tunnels, winding around a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, before arriving at a door. This door just so happened to be the stage entrance to the lecture hall we needed into. We just walked through the door and sat down in the front row while throngs of people fought tooth and nail in line, probably willing to trample as many people as necessary to get the seats that Ben and I had just taken. MIT students FTW! What was our view of the panel like?

Front row center, w00t!

This panel was insane! Several things of note happened:

1) I saw Kyle MacDonald sitting in the audience.

2) The entire audience hissed at moot for starting 4chan (we then proceeded to be completely fascinated, completely forget our prior misgivings, and ask him all sorts of questions). Among them were "Do you take responsibility for the RickRoll?

"No."

"Do you take responsibility for lolCats?"

"No."

"Do you take responsibility for anything that comes from your website!?"

"Um. No."

3) The jerks at Anonymous decided to storm the stage with a stereo and interrupt the panel. They were met with booing and yelling. They refused to get off the stage, even when ROFLCON security tried to get them off.

Nobody likes you, go away!

Randall and moot eventually decided to express their opinion on the matter.

Note the XKCD stick figure with mask and moot writing "That sucked" in the speech bubble.

4) Randall looks over at moot and says "This may be completely out of line, but will you do a barrel roll?"

Don't get it? Here's the wikipedia excerpt:

[Do a Barrel Roll] often cited on websites such as 4chan, GameFAQs and YTMND. The meme generally involves offering the advice, "Do a barrel roll!" to anyone asking for any sort of advice. The term was commonly used by callers to Tom Green's online show to heckle him prior to the implementation of a call screener.

moot: "Sure!" *stands up, does a barrel roll, audience cheers wildly*

5) An audience member says to Randall Monroe "Randall, it's probably safe to say that this audience is obsessed with you so much so as to be willing to do anything for you. Is there anything you want us to do?"

Randall got this wonderful look of "That is so SAD!" on his face, but then realized he actually had to answer the question. He thought for a little bit, and then remarked "Well, I already used my barrel roll request, but I guess I could use it again. Do a Barrel Roll!"

The entire audience proceeded to set down their laptops, stand up, and do a barrel roll.

Look at how AWESOME we are!

Sadly, it all had to come to an end and we were soon made to leave. We all headed over to the Media Lab for a reception with free pizza. The issue? There was no pizza. Instead there was just a bag.

with stuff in it

Ben and I went to Dominoes instead, cashing in on the 5-5-5 deal. While there we went over all of the autographs on our lunch boxes. Here's my lunch box:

Front

Back

Sides

Bottom

Can you find all of the following signatures?

Jib Jab guys
The Brothers Chaps
Brad Neely
Dinosaur Comics guy
Leeroy Jenkins
Cyanide and Happiness writers
Tron Guy
LOLTrek creator
Red vs. Blue Creator
Guy who made the Chuck Norris joke famous
Randall Monroe (XKCD author)
Jason Scott
Drew Curtis

After Dominoes we decided we were done. ROFLCON was over and we had seen everybody we wanted. Well, almost. I never saw Leeroy Jenkins and Ben really wanted to meet Randall Monroe. We agreed that we'd walk back by the lecture hall where the last panel had taken place to see if either were around. We walked up and who did we see? LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOYYYYYYYYYY JENKINS! YES! Finally, it took two days but we got Leeroy alone. Photo Opp!

That guy in the middle? That's Leeroy Jenkins!

I got his signature on my lunch box (which you may have already seen because due to timeline and organizational issues I kind of had to blog it before I blogged the actual encounter) and then Ben and I went our separate ways.

Unfortunately we didn't see Randall Monroe there but on my way back to my dorm, walking down the Infinite, I saw Randall chatting with the Cyanide and Happiness guys, which is when I snagged my final signature of the conference. My lunch box was full, I was happy, and ROFLCON was over. Saturday? It was a good day.

(For more info on ROFLCON check out http://www.roflcon.org. They're thinking of making it annual!)

I am a member of LSC, the Lecture Series Committee. It's one of the larger student groups at MIT bringing films and presenters to the MIT community in the large lecture hall 26-100. We show movies that were in theaters recently and charge four dollars, but every now and then there will be a free showing of a movie that is either in theaters or hasn't been released yet nationally. Recently, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was shown for free. Occasionally they show classics, like Martin Scorcese's "Taxi Driver." I'm a member of LSC because I love movies, and I get to see them for free. I only have to work one evening each month, and did I say I get to see movies for free? Who wouldn’t want to join?

I work for the Night Committee as an usher. I collect movie tickets at the door for one show, and I help sell tickets at the other show. On a normal week, we show 2 movies each weekend. One movie will show twice on Friday night. The other movie will show twice on Saturday night. Both shows are shown once Sunday night. The format is A-A-B-B-A-B. Two weekends ago, "Atonement" and "Charlie Wilson's War" showed, both movies that I had been dying to see. I saw Charlie Wilson’s War on Friday and Atonement on Saturday. About the former, I forgot that Tom Hanks still acts. I don't think I have seen anything with him in it since "Road to Perdition" in 2002. It was pretty good. It maintained my interest in a topic I knew very little about, and Philip Seymour Hoffman ("The Big Lebowski," "Almost Famous") stole the show as Gust Avrakotos, one of the few American men trying to help the Afganis defend themselves from the Soviets before Wilson got involved. At this point, fighting the war was him "and three other guys."

"Atonement" is a lovestory set in WW2 London, where a young writer, 13-year-old Briony Tallis, accuses her sister's lover of a heinous crime that he did not commit. I was a little skeptical of Keira Knightley, although she is in some very good movies, she hadn't quite convinced me that she was worthy of A-list status. "Atonement" convinced me. It has a strong script, cast, director, and clearly a great crew. I was most impressed by how three actresses played Briony, young girl, adult, and elder, but their voices sounded as if they could have been the same, as if she had aged 70 years in only a couple of hours. That is great planning and a damn good voice coach.
Not only are there movies, most of which excellent, but also there are great speakers. Often, they are involved with a movie that is being shown for free, e.g. the director or one of the main actors. We were supposed to show "21," the movie about the MIT blackjack team, but alas we could not, so some of the blackjack team members did a presentation; this event was free, as are most if not all of the presenters.

Long story short, go to LSC, enjoy free or cheap art. If you like movies a lot, join; we can always use members, and you can yell during the coming attractions. For some reason, we feel the need to yell that the movies are "coming soon, in stereo." I think we should play a silent movie and yell, "Coming soon, stereo broken." We also yell, "LSC sucks," every time there's a projection error, just to show how much we care. Join, I tell you.

Give a listen!

A video of the team's IGEM presentation can be found here (warning, the sound and the image are off sync!).

The pdf of the team's presentation is here.

9am - 10am
Hit the snooze button 5 times. Hit the snooze button one more time after deciding to skip breakfast for those 10 extra precious minutes of sleep. Get ready for class in record time. Still arrive late (had to grab some coffee).

10am - 11am
First lecture is thermo & kinetics (5.60). This's actually a really interesting class (the lecturers are especially good Spring semester). Manage to stay awake because of content.

11am - noon
Next is biochem II (5.08). It's co-taught by the amazing Prof. Stubbe (who, in addition to being a brilliant scientist and an engaging lecturer, sprays dozing students with water from a squirt bottle, and has a dog named McEnzyme) and the amazing Prof. Ting (who is very hardcore, and also my previous UROP advisor).

Noon - 1pm
Decide to skip molecular bio (7.28) recitation. Tempted by the prospect of lunch, but also decide to skip lunch to go to UROP (such dedication). Set up some experiments, let the ones that need to run for awhile incubate while I go off to my next class (multi-tasking and finding things to do during the long waits experiments inevitably require are the keys to having time for a UROP).

1pm - 2:30pm
Off to cellular neurobio (7.29). Hunger and tiredness finally catch up with me. Nap, embarrassingly, because the class is quite small (and my mouth is usually hanging open).

2:30pm - 3pm
Finally some free time--it's one of those annoying/convenient half-hour blocks. Annoying if you live far from campus, convenient if you've got a UROP! Run back to lab to check on that experiment from earlier. Grab some food from the Bio-Cafe before they close or from the food trucks before they drive off.

3pm - 6pm
Take food to next class, a 3 hour graduate seminar about RNA (7.77). Co-taught by Profs. Tom RajBhandary (a living, walking encyclopedia) and Dave Bartel (my current UROP advisor, whose lab I would definitely do my PhD in, if I were to come to MIT for grad school). Happy because I finally get to eat, and because it's my favorite class. It's always sad to emerge from class to find that the sun's already set, though.

6pm - about 10pm
Finish up things for the day at lab. On good days: get out by 8pm, on bad days: stay past midnight.

Whenever lab ends - midnight
Head back to dorm. Eat dinner and shower (personal hygiene is really important! especially for whoever happens to sit behind you in lecture). Hang out/do some work with friends.

Midnight - 2am
Work closing shift at front desk of dorm. People hardly come by during this time, so get to get some work done. Desk is such a great job--basically getting paid to do homework!

2am - about 4am
Stay up to finish p-sets/essays/projects, if due next day. Sometimes stay up to grade p-sets for intro bio and intro physics (grading = another great way to make money). It's best to work in someone else's room, then you can keep each other company, keep each other awake, and commiserate (ah, what a common form of MIT bonding).

Whenever work ends
Yes! Can still sleep for X hours (+ extra 10 minutes if I skip breakfast tomorrow morning)!

Now compare this to:

TYPICAL DAY AT CAMBRIDGE (MICHAELMAS 2007)

8am - 9am
Spring awake and out of bed before the alarm goes off. Getting enough sleep makes for a happy morning. Get ready leisurely, eat breakfast while catching up on email/blogs/news.

9am - 10am
First lecture. Topic and lecturer changes every two days. If interesting_topic && good_lecturer, then pay_attention(); else gossip_and_doodle(on_printout); (Okay, so I'm not Course 6, but you get the picture).

10am - 10:30am
Tea break. Enjoy refreshing cuppa with other Biochemists in department tea room. Sometimes indulge in a buttered scone.

10:30am - 11:30am
Second lecture. Also the last lecture for the day! I know, amazing.

11:30am - 12:30pm
Grab lunch with friends. Usually at Pembroke Cafe (closest to the biochem dept, very tasty, and cheap).

12:30pm - about 3pm
Head over to lab. Usually stay anywhere between half hour to 4 hours at the longest. This is much less time than I was spending at UROP at MIT. This's because research in Cambridge feels a lot more relaxed, and also because I consciously made the decision to take it easy at lab this year.

3pm onwards
Complete freedom for the rest of the day! Theoretically, and ideally, this should include studying, but we get assigned absolutely no work, so studying usually doesn't happen (I know, I'm such a dedicated student). Also, if it happens to be Friday, and my bank balance isn't zero, and I feel particularly energetic, a weekend trip (e.g. to Stonehenge, London, France, Belgium, Germany, etc.) is probably in the works.

The schedules pretty much speak for themselves. There's a lot more freedom at Cambridge, and time feels like it passes slower. Nevertheless, I will add:

Despite being much busier at MIT, I personally preferred the hustle and bustle of MIT to the idyllic peace at Cambridge. At MIT, there was more of a sense of personal accomplishment. I challenged my mind, I tried to contribute to scientific findings, I was ambitious, and I enjoyed the precious moments of free time I had. At Cambridge, I relaxed, slowed down, and enjoyed life. I floated down the River Cam in a punt on a sunny day, drinking Pimm's and eating strawberries. Both lives are really nice, and I know the Cambridge life sounds way better. Honestly, the choice between staying up till 4am with a p-set and eating strawberries on the river seems pretty clear, right? Surprisingly, this year abroad has taught me that I'm one of those annoying people who have to be busy to be happy. I feel happy knowing that I'm working towards my goals through hard work, and I savour my free time. At Cambridge, I have so many swaths of free time that I didn't propery appreciate them. Outside the happy indulgent moments, I became bored, fell into a comas by ODing on YouTube, and then got unmotivated from the slow pace.

Nevertheless, Cambridge is a wonderfully refreshing break from the hectic MIT. I mostly enjoyed my year here, but I'll be happy to be back, too.