Skip to main content

Wanting to Crawl into a Cave

Sometimes, I want to just crawl into a metaphorical cave and not leave the cave. A situation like a coma that lasts for a few months and I wake up in a new world. I know that staying inside this cave won't solve anything. I will have the ever-growing pile of problem sets, midterms, and other assignments. I will still have a lot of knowledge hanging over my head like a cloud. I just want to escape from this constant cycle of misery in which everything seems to be out of control. It is hard to understand this situation until one lives through the situation. I mean the situation in which no matter how hard you try to pay attention in lecture and recitation, you still don't get anything that is happening in class. I mean how you stare at the problem set blankly for a long time and still not know what to do. I know that I don't have to struggle alone. There are resources out there like tutoring centers, office hours, and my peers. But I don't ask for help so I don't look too needy or dependent on others, even though I am sure they are happy to help me. 

I know that things will only become harder in the future, not easier. I don't want to associate college with four years of hell. Sometimes, I wonder if the culture of IHTFP is avoidable and a bad thing. We make fun of Stanford by casually joking that it is better to constantly vent our frustrations instead of keeping it to ourselves and having the Stanford duck syndrome. Maybe IHTFP is inevitable no matter which college one attends and it is a matter of how transparent people are at their respective colleges. 

I want to be optimistic, not pessimistic. I read some of the MIT bloggers write about why they chose MIT when I feel sad. Although it is undeniably hard, the rigor will make me a stronger scientist, student, and thinker. It reminds me of the quote, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." They say that the failures you learn here will make you a better person. I have failed a lot here already, but I don't think I have actually become wiser in the process. I am making the same mistakes again and again. 

I wish I could crawl into a hole and give up on these hard classes, even though that isn't the solution. I don't want to be the 50% that Brad Felds, a MIT alumnus, wrote in the banana lounge. He said that from his observations, 10% are extremely smart and they excel. 40% are extremely smart and have some difficulties but they figure out the system and manage to do fine in the end. 50% are extremely smart and struggle and leave thinking that MIT is a daily assault on their self-esteem. I think I am in the gray area and I don't want to become the 50% who hates this place and feels miserable. I want to be the 40%. The 10% is out of the question. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Accepted BU RISE Essays

BU RISE is a 6-week research program at Boston University. In 2019, the acceptance rate was around 16% so it is a selective program. There are two tracks- internship and practicum. The internship is the one I applied to because I wanted to work in a lab. Unfortunately, BU RISE in 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19. If you are applying to BU RISE, these essays may be a source of inspiration.  1.Why you selected your field of interest and what you would like to research (300 words)  First choice: medical laboratory research (biochemistry) Second choice: chemistry  Ever since 2018, I participated in a Science Olympiad event called Protein Modeling that sparked my interest in proteins. When I learned about the anti-CRISPR protein, it alarmed me that the protein stopped CRISPR from working. Wondering how this could happen, I used Jmol to build and visualize the protein model. Over time, I no longer viewed proteins as messy globs. Instead, I appreciated that the protein’s disti...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Funny Thing About Memory

 The more I stay in the U.S., the more I remember my years in Taiwan in a positive light. I feel like my nostalgia for Taiwan caused my memories to become distorted. When I lived in Taiwan, I disliked the humid environment and the gray skies after rainy days. I complained that the buildings had gray walls from the mold that grew on them. In elementary school, I wished that the city planning reflected the U.S. system where all the residential buildings were together instead of having commercial and residential buildings next to each other. After returning to the U.S. five years later, however, I don't really think those aspects of Taiwan were really downsides. Nowadays, I somehow manage to neglect those "downsides" whenever I think of Taiwan.  What I currently think about Taiwan is not what I expected to reflect upon the most as I boarded the plane to San Francisco in 2016. When I saw the green land vanish before my eyes outside my airplane window, I thought about how much...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why I Blog

 For the past two years, I have been blogging every so often, but I never asked myself why I blogged. The main reason I blog is to store and organize my thoughts that I keep hearing in my brain. These thoughts range from past memories to feelings of disappointment or anger. By writing my thoughts, I gain some clarity. Also, blogging serves as a form of self-reflection that I need to do on a regular basis or else my brain still acts fuzzy.  Although I write a lot of posts that aren't positive, I have a pretty good life. The reason that I tend to write a lot of negative things about myself on the blog is that if I don't write about bad things, then they keep bothering me. Worse, I may not learn from my mistakes or lessons. Still, I will try to balance out the negative content with some positive content because I want this blog to be useful for others. I don't want a blog where I all I do is criticize myself for failing to live up to my expectations. Instead, I want this websi...
Post a Comment
Read more