E-Mail at MIT

At MIT, time is precious. Each class has a certain number of "credits" assigned to it, with the typical number of credits to a class being 12. Most people take about four classes, but then.... there's e-mail! Before college, I got a few e-mails here and there from friends and family and a lot of college spam.

Now, checking and responding to my e-mails requires the amount of time of a 12 credit class! I get e-mails from my sorority, classes, clubs and activities, job, class officers, etc. Probably my biggest flux (18.02A vocab!) of messages comes from being a member of the UA Student Committee for Educational Policy (aka SCEP). I joined the committee to become more involved and because I like all the things they do for the student body. Once on it, I was delegated the role of managing all of the student-faculty dinners.

What is a student-faculty dinner? Well, it's a dinner (or lunch!) between a professor and 3-6 students that the UA pays for! Over IAP, I went out to lunch with my 18.02A (multivariable calc) professor, John Bush. I didn't know too much about him before the lunch, but I'm so glad I got to know him better! The night before our dinner, Professor Bush had made this extreme scientific advancement- he somehow related quantum mechanics to fluid mechanics. We're talkin' Noble Prize worthy research. I was shocked. He was having lunch with me and my fellow freshmen friends? What a cool guy! I was very impressed by how down to earth and friendly he was given his academic status. We even all posed for a picture after the lunch :

After the lunch with Professor Bush, I joined SCEP. Everyday now I respond to dozens of e-mails from students who want to go on student-faculty dinners who have questions about the process of registering, reimbursement, or changing locations. It's a time-consuming task, but knowing that I'm helping fellow MIT students to get to know extraordinary faculty makes it all worth it.