MIT!

Hello everyone! This will be my first ever post on TEMYDEWA. It seems like there are quite a few readers based on the page view counter, so for those who don't know me, I'm Raku, an incoming freshman at MIT. I'm not much of a writer, but I hope you'll enjoy my blog posts as I share my adventures here in Cambridge.

Orientation hasn't even started yet, and I'm already certain that this is my favorite place in the whole world. It is currently the end of my fourth day in Discover Energy: Learn, Think, Apply (DELTA), a Freshman Pre-Orientation Program (FPOP) given by the MIT Energy Initiative. I'm writing now with the hope that I'll finish between now and some of the night activities and still have time to build stuff. (More on that later.)

Tuesday Night:

I left California on a red-eye flight to Logan International with my cello strapped into the seat next to me, a crying child to my left, and a seat that did not recline. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep. (Side note: cellos fit in airport scanners. This was probably the happiest the TSA has ever made me feel.) I arrived at 5:30 AM only to discover that one of my suitcases had been lost in the void. My arrival to MIT was definitely not optimal.

Wednesday:

I'm glad to say that my first hours in Boston were not at all indicative of things to come. For example, I discovered that having only one suitcase made moving in a much easier experience. The fact that the campus was still asleep meant that I could also get a few hours in before my FPOP started. Always look on the bright side of life, yeah?

I believe FPOPs are unique to MIT, or at least very rare, but they are basically a way for students to explore a certain aspect of MIT in depth. Most academic departments host one, but there are also some that deal with topics like leadership or health and fitness. DELTA is an introduction to the Energy Studies department and an overview of all the opportunities here to get involved. Our group of 17 started off the program with an ice-breaking photo scavenger hunt and dinner. (The interesting stuff started the next day. Keep reading!)

Now I have to talk about my dorm. It is the most amazing dorm in the world. In EAsT camPUS, cats rule, ear-splitting music reverberates through the courtyard, and giant wooden structures appear overnight. After dinner on that first night, I came back to find the place alive, filled with the sounds of power tools and electronica blaring from giant speakers. The courtyard was a construction site, filled end to end with the upperclassmen's new projects.

Some walking around in awe and staring awkwardly paid off, and I almost immediately managed to find someone willing to take in a newbie. Nick, an incoming sophomore, needed some help cutting wood. With the new skills I had learned over the gap year, I had no problem lending a hand. And what was he building? A machine I was quite familiar with and had always wanted to see in large scale. A Strandbeest was in the first stages of assembly and I would get to have a hand in building one. How could it get better than this?

A three-story fort legitimately built to safety regulations? They have that too.

(Note: My luggage arrived later that night, at like 1:30 am. I had sheets! And a toothbrush! I could sleep soundly.)

Thursday-Friday:

Thursday was the day of my very first lecture at MIT. Professor Vladimir Bulovic (Electrical Engineering) gave the DELTA students a talk on energy, climate change, and what it takes to be a scientist. I wish I had been more awake because it was unlike anything I had heard before. I was instantly reminded of when I was a little kid and everything was new and I wanted to do impossibly great things. The one point I will always remember from that lecture is that scientists now can no longer just do science. If we are to make a positive difference in this world, we must take into consideration the social aspect. It may be obvious, but I was convinced of how important it really is.

In these two days, I've pretty much decided that I will take the Energy Studies minor. If I can trust the science they've shown us, I'm really worried for the future of humanity. Basically, if the world doesn't stop emitting vast amounts of greenhouse gases today, we are screwed. With the temperature rise, we'll get worse weather, crop failure, doom, etc. I know that I won't be the one to come up with some great idea to save the world, but if I can become a scientist who produces work that will increase the chance of that happening by just a tiny amount, I'll be happy. So there's my dream in a nutshell. Or blog post.

I'll end my post here because something fun (and possibly-not-entirely-legal) is coming up.  Today I learned that there is so much cool stuff going on here that I want to do but will never have the time to. I want a time-turner.

See you next week!

Raku