omar eduardo’s blog

Two years at MIT are almost over, and I cannot describe how I feel. Oftentimes I’ve questioned if coming to MIT was the right decision. I could have done so many other things, how did I choose my current path? I really don’t know, and I don’t think I’ll ever be sure that this was the right decision. However, at the same time I couldn’t imagine my life being any better than it currently is.

Now that was a pretty strange thing to say. My life usually consists of being sleep deprived and trying to fake a smile in order to get through the day, this definitely wouldn’t be the case had I chosen something other than MIT. The amount of work that has to be done here, just to be disregarded as an average student, is something that I fear at the beginning of each week. The thought that, every minute I spend talking to someone is a minute I’m going to regret having ‘wasted’, later when I’m working on my problem sets… this is another sad thought. But hidden between all these horrible experiences that are enough to make many of us want to quit, there are the good times that makes it all be worth it.

The experiences I’ve had in the past two years are treasures that now I get to keep for the rest of my life. The rate at which I’ve ‘grown up’ in many aspects of my life is something that was catalyzed by my experiences here at MIT. Although I’m reminded constantly, much more often that I would like, that I’m just an average student, my academic growth as an individual is evident. At least to me it is. The activities that I’ve pursued while being at MIT are completely different to things I would have done in many other places. This is probably due to the people that I’ve connected with and the way they have influenced my life.

My second year at MIT is almost over, all I can say is… ‘THANK GOODNESS’. This is probably going to be my ‘worst’ term because of my course load, and soon I’ll be starting a ‘new’ phase of my education. This summer I’ll be doing research full time for the first time, and I’m quite excited about that. Also, soon I’ll become a junior… which is a scary but thrilling thought.

There is no real purpose to this blog entry, other than to say, I’m enjoying my life, even though it could be much better. I guess I have a very optimistic take on things. Now I’ll go back to work, and hopefully I won’t regret not having done something more… ‘useful’ during this time I just ‘wasted’.

-Omar

Milena wrote a few days ago about how she felt that the only thing she needed right now to compliment her life is a hot boy. She has good grades, she parties, she eats well and even goes shopping. As an 18 years old girl she’s only missing that special person that will give her some love at the end of the day. I was happy to hear that she was doing so well, but a prospective MIT applicant wasn’t. He wrote her the following:

“Well, you applied and got into MIT…as a prospective student, it’s hard for me to see someone who has been accepted have that kind of mentality. If the epitome of success is good friends, good looks, good grades, a good guy and being very well off, living off of a comfortable income and indulging in luxuries, then what is being at MIT all about?”

Let’s call this prospective applicant Y (because X was part of my last blog entry). I just have one thing to say to Y, I think you’ve been overwhelmed by MIT promotion material. Seriously, close your eyes and shake it off for a little while. MIT has ~4000 undergrads, most of them between the ages ~18-22. Do you really think that all these people are constantly thinking about how to save the world? No.

MIT students party, drink, enjoy their lives in many ways. This is, of course, when taking a break from doing homework. What kind of homework? The one that consumes their lives during the days (and nights). The solutions to the problem sets that MIT undergrads work on, are not going to save the world, not at all.

The things that Milena, and most MIT undergrads, want right now, are just normal things. They do not want to throw away the ‘college experience’ so they can save the world… because even if they did, they’ll probably just fail out of the institute after getting depressed. Which is pretty sad. In order to keep themselves sane, MIT students just don’t try to save the world and get good grades at the same time. It would just consume their lives.

I’m not saying that every MIT student wants what Milena wants. Oh no, some of them are just looking forward to Friday night so they can do something they call “LAN Parties” where they sit in a lounge and play starcraft all night. There’s also others that just want to watch a movie, or at least catch up on what has been happening in the world. MIT students barely talk about world issues, because they don’t know shit about what’s going on out there. Most of the people I talked to three days after the California fires began, didn’t even know that it was burning down there!

If you’re a prospective applicant, you can come get your high quality education, and afterwards use it for everyone’s good. But don’t think that after 50 hours of school work in a week you’ll be able to call home and say, I’m making the world a better place… cause you’re not. Not just yet. There’s time for everything, and current undergrads are just expecting that recent graduates are making the world a better place.

I hope my realistic point of view doesn’t go unappreciated.

-Omar

It was on early November that the waiting started for me. I had already sent my application to the best engineering college, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All my dreams were based on receiving an acceptance letter from that university; after all, I had been working for it since I was 12. I didn’t receive much encouragement from the people around me, but I was encouraged by the faith I had in myself and my abilities. The only thing that made me feel uncertain was the fact that I am not the student with perfect SAT scores or a 4.00 GPA. I come from the west part of Puerto Rico, were 99% of the students are encouraged to study a bachelor degree and be proud of themselves, and not going farther than the local public college. Having my target in another way of living I was looking forward to apply to the best colleges in the field I wanted to study, even if it meant moving to another country. That way I first knew about MIT and by visiting its website, reading the Blogs on it, and attending the MIT Information Session in the other side of the island I fell in love with MIT and its culture, people and history. I decided that there is no best combination for me than living in Cambridge and studying at MIT. My motivation kept growing as I read daily about the college. That’s how I decided to fill my application as soon as it was available in early August. I filled the application and without letting anyone criticize and/or read it, I sent the application. By early November the MyMIT website reflected that they had received my whole application, now I had no other choice than wait.

One minute after I knew that MIT had received the application, and that I could make no change to it, questions started popping in my head. Did I give my best filling that application? It was right to send my essay without waiting for someone else to revise it? Is my GPA of no more than 3.8 going to matter more than my schedule? Have I taken the right decision applying early? As the number of doubts inside me started to grow my self-confidence disappeared, I was sure that all of my dreams were going to remain as dreams. I was doomed to do nothing more than studying in the community public college and then working somewhere near my parent’s house. As time approached the EA notification date, I felt emptier and without breath, I refused to have that life many expected from me. What scared me the most wasn’t getting a decline letter from my perfect college; it was the fact that I had no time and/or money to apply to other colleges out of my island. My frustration grew as I was reading the news at the MIT blogs, only 12% of the students who applied EA had been accepted. Knowing that many of those would be the ‘perfect students’ I hated myself for not having read any prep books before taking the standardized tests I took and for not having taken classes with the ‘easy’ teachers, that way getting at least the ‘perfect’ 4.00 GPA. But oh no, my GPA had dropped after taking hard courses and, trying to do good in those courses, there was no time for preparing for some standardized test or taking a course for doing good on them.

The date finally arrived; there were comments on the blogs of students that had been accepted and their profiles. Predictable, students with more than 4.00 GPA (impossible in PR) and with almost perfect scores in the College Board tests had been accepted. Three days had passed and still there was no package for me. I soon knew that if you were accepted you would receive a tube with confetti inside! MIT people are awesome, was the only thing I could think. After almost one week, I had the opportunity of calling MIT to know the admission decision. Knowing that, I decided to call when my mother informed me that there was nothing on the mail. A voice on the other side asked me for my name… then my birth date… and finally said: “you’re calling from Puerto Rico, right?”. “Yes”, I replied as my heart and breathing stopped and waited for the admission decision. After what seemed as an eternity for me (I was about to collapse with nervousness) the kind voice on the other side softly communicated my admission decision: “All I can tell you right now is that your application has been deferred to regular action…” as the man on the other side finished the worst thoughts came into my mind. “Thanks” was all I could say when the soft voiced man finished speaking. As I hang up the phone, I could only imagine myself having the same life that I had been trying to evade since my birth, now I felt unrealistic and foolish, why hadn’t I applied to all of the other great colleges out there? Maybe they could be almost as good as MIT and I could feel as if I had achieved my dream by attending one of them… at least I could go to study out of my country!

Desolation invaded me as I realized that there was no space in such a great college for a person like me. How foolish I was in thinking that I could get in, and worst, in EA!

Soon I went to a friend of mine and informed her about my deferral, and to my surprise, SHE CONGRATULATED ME! I was shocked by her reaction and she knew it, so she hugged me and said: “You weren’t declined, and I trust that you’re going to be accepted in regular action, I trust in you”. I was almost shaking, all the pressure I had been feeling for the past hours for nothing, after all a deferral was not a decline after all! So I started cheering up and doing better. But after a couple of hours I just found myself writing this… and why am I writing this? I’m simply trying to put my thoughts in order and start living my normal life and working hard so I have the opportunity of getting into the college of my dreams, MIT…