second post in a row about this but guys. i think this is my favorite video ever.
comments are saying that it is scientifically inaccurate but the MUSIC. ive had this video on loop in the background for the past several hours. fruitiger aero heaven.
May 29, 2021. Hi everyone, it’s been a long time, almost a year since I last posted I think. Maybe more.
I just came to revisit the blog, and I’m delighted to share with you all that I finally got my bachelor’s from Columbia! Thank you to those of you who have been here since the start for sticking around, you know it’s been a tumultuous undergrad experience for me but I made it through. I hope my blog ultimately served its original purpose of offering some insight into life at an Ivy League institution. I won’t be deleting anything, so feel free to go back and read old posts if you still find them useful, or share them with freshmen that are starting this fall.
To offer an update on what I’ll be doing, I’ll be starting my master’s this fall, not at an Ivy but it’s at a great school where I can do lots of research and where I’ll know no one. I’m happy to start over and grateful to not have to worry about my plans for the next two years. Then I’ll be applying to PhD programs, and we’ll see where that takes me. In between now and the fall, I’m spending the summer TAing and otherwise just chilling at home, and appreciating how absolutely no one will be expecting me anywhere for the next few months!
I know I never really wrote about my junior year, and I definitely haven’t written since senior year. So to offer a brief summary of the past two years, I spent junior year worrying that I was never going to graduate. I got wildly varying grades, in classes of similar difficulties, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t pin down my learning style. But I was pretty happy, I joined my research group that spring and I was dating someone who brought me a lot of joy. We spent about a year together, through the beginning of the pandemic, and we broke up that summer, so I was sad that summer/fall but it was tempered by the fact that I was making TREMENDOUS progress in the group. I spent most of my senior fall doing research and presenting whenever I got the chance, and I really just grew so much as a scientist. I also lived in East Campus and I had my entire suite to myself, which was amazing. I spent the year with incredible views of the city, lots of disposable income while TAing, and just doing whatever I felt like doing with my free time. I ended the year getting an A, two points away from an A+, in physical chemistry, which I was so excited about. It was truly the best way to end my undergrad career.
But now I’m giddy with freedom, and I don’t really care what comes next! I’m hoping to save up money to maybe travel a bit this summer, so if you have any recommendations on where I should go, please let me know somehow. It’s time I stopped giving advice on this blog and started getting some in return :) In the same vein, if you have thoughts on what a recent college grad should do before starting grad school, absolutely hit my line. In the meantime, this blog has come to a peaceful and gratifying end, and thank you for offering an audience to both my pains and joys.
February 15, 2020. It’s been a great start to spring semester on campus; I’m registered for 4 classes as well as research, but I decided today that I’m going to drop one of them. Puts me at barely 13 credits but it’s worth it: the psets for that one class had 10-15 problems each week, and it would take me around 4 hours per problem to finish. And it was only 2 credits! I only stayed in it this long because I love the subject, and it’s half a semester so I thought I could just suffer through it and bullshit my way through. BUT I love the subject, and I would rather take two years to understand it once than fail the class now then relearn it again in grad school.
Anyways, with the absence of this class I suddenly have 5 days of the week off, and it’s Saturday so I’m gonna take a nap then try to get some work done for research. I’m in a new lab again this semester, after the last two labs over two semesters were definitely not the right fit lol. This semester is one I’m hoping to stay in for the rest of undergrad: it’s a baby lab because the PI was just appointed at Columbia last semester. Three grad students and me, potentially a postdoc that I had the honor of sitting in on his interview of! and asking questions along with the other team members (interviews are just an hour-long talk of the postdoc’s research history and what he plans to continue). I love love LOVE this lab because I feel like an actual member of the group, with agency, like I’m going up on the website n all that :) and I can stroll into work whenever I want and the PI is training the grads and I himself, etc. The lab is brand-new, so new that a good portion of it hasn’t been set-up yet and actually a good portion of my research will be creating some of the technology!! Because we’re trying to develop a way to image single electrons, so obviously it doesn’t exist and we’ll be developing microscopes to figure out how.
Anyways, that’s my academic life. Clearly I can talk about research all day so I’m just gonna move on. I will say that I’ve been taking so many math classes that I realized like a week ago I could totally get a math concentration too if I just took like another 4 classes, so I guess I’m chem/math now! Wow a whole STEM bitch y’all could never
I’m otherwise not too involved in campus life anymore, tbh. I can’t tell if that’s the norm, because I don’t think it is but when my sorority was preparing for recruitment and we quickly introduced ourselves to the rest of the chapter a surprising number of people upperclassmen were like yeah I kinda do this and I’m in this club but I don’t rlly go to meetings anymore and ya pretty much the sorority is what i’m most involved in now. And i was like huh. I do, however, still worry about it, and i keep trying to think of ways to get involved so that job or grad school applications are easier. Research takes up most of my time so when I get back from it, I’m pooped. I either go work out or watch Netflix, or cook, or chill w my dog, and I’m honestly happy with this life. I guess I’ve kind of figured out that clubs are pretty culty on campus, and not being involved in a club doesn’t mean you’re not passionate about it. It just means that those people who are just make it their whole life/social scene, the way I make my dog and research my whole life.
On campus, things have settled down since the Tess Majors attack. I don’t think I wrote about it before: just a few days before finals week a Barnard freshman named Tess was stabbed to death in a mugging as she was walking back to campus. It was terrifying not only because she was an unarmed, white, freshman, but also because it happened with no provocation and extremely close to campus. I personally ended up deferring two of my finals to the beginning of this semester, because I was too scared to leave my dorm to study. I also spent a ridiculous amount of money on Postmates and when I had to leave I took a cab even 4 blocks. Since being back on campus, things have quieted down, but I along with a lot of other people downloaded the Citizens app, and that awareness of all the crime going on in the city makes me feel much more vulnerable still.
Also, for some reason a facebook page called Columbia Confessions has blown up; I’ve posted three or so times myself and my most recent one, a shitpost about stealing people’s Canada Gooses at parties, broke a hunnid which I’m proud of! I actually wrote it to specifically target some kid who kept complaining about his lost Valentino, and someone actually tagged him lmao.
Lastly (that I can think of), the housing process has just begun and its a weird time on campus as usual: freshmen breaking down and losing friends over groupings, sophomores just trying to avoid the drama of last year, juniors angling to see if they can get an EC suite or a nice Hogan single. I personally was offered a nice single in my sorority house which i GAVE UP because a good friend of mine we’ll call Omicron wanted to room together and I’m tired of not having friends lol. She’s got ODS accommodations and theoretically so do I, so we’re trying to go for a Watt, EC, or Woodbridge 2-bedroom suite. I don’t know which I want because I’ve never been in any of those dorms, besides an EC townhouse, so I’m feeling really nervous about giving up my brownstone room. But I don’t really fuck w my sorority anymore, and worst comes to worst I’ll live in River because they have some HUGE ass singles, so for now i’ll trust Omicron and hope that we get a Watt 2br because they have lounges.
OH lastly for real, I’m in art hum this semester! so keep ur luscious eyes peeled for a Core Review at the end of this semester~
So I have to write a 5-7 page paper on a topic of how a person or my culture influenced stem or had achievements. It was basically, describe the topic and then say how it identifies with you. I decided on the topic of Chicana's in Stem. And quickly realized there wasn't much to work with. I asked my cousin, who is Chicana or Latina how many were in her class (she studies electrical engineering) and she said she was the only one. She claimed there were only 5 girls in total in the class of 40. I read some articles and in my search I only managed to grab 4 that described the importance to encourage Chicana's. I'm a bit mad but more then anything motivated to do something with my life for the sort of numbers I'm seeing. I don't know what I'm going to do with my paper but I thought I'd mention it. If you have anything to add, own experience or articles and such, please do.
I’ve started this blog because I have so much free time on my hands.
Over the last couple years, a few blogs of scientists have become a part of my routine, even though I lurk on all of them. Reading blogs has been a way for me to learn from others.
Nevertheless, there is a huge disconnect between these scientists and my daily experience. Some of my biggest challenges and triumphs are endemic to…
