To say my parent’s divorce was bitter and drawn-out would be an understatement. This ordeal lasted three years, and warped the concept of a “regular day” to me. I would come home from school anticipating someone screaming, slamming doors, or breaking things. When my mom, sisters and I fled our house, we thought it would get better. As it turns out, my father’s abusive tendencies only got worse. A court ruled, despite the pleading of me and my...

When people ask me about computer science, I never fail to speak with what I call the “nerd accent,” characterized by fast talking and the occasional jumping up and down in excitement. The topic which makes me most excited in computer science is machine learning, the idea that computers can learn and refine their output based on gathering more examples and data. Machine learning is currently being used in many tasks, two of which are composing music and writing poems....

When I ended up on Brown’s Computer Science department page, I was convinced to apply. To begin, the department encourages interdisciplinary work. Because of my interests in algorithmic complexity and design (which relate closely to math) the fact that I could work easily within these departments is comforting. Additionally, I read the course offerings, and realized how many interesting classes I want to take such as Algorithmic Game Theory and Machine Learning. The most appealing aspect of the department,...

My last two summers were extremely productive. I logged onto my Tumblr at the beginning of summer of 2012 and read, “What is the sum of the even Fibonacci numbers below four million?” I tried to do it by hand, until a friend said I needed to program a solution. So I picked up Python, and have been programming ever since. For me, that summer sparked a new (and lasting) love. In 2013, I had the opportunity to go to the Pennsylvania...

I applied to most of my colleges through a program called QuestBridge, specifically for low-income students who want to go to top colleges. In my essay, I was trying to highlight the difficulties that I faced growing up, and how I intended to overcome them in the future. By doing this, I hoped to draw a parallel between that experience growing up and how I would treat my coursework in college. Through the rest of my applications I emphasized passion...

I find it best to just be open and honest with the interviewer. The best interview I had was at Harvard (waitlisted, sigh) where I just talked to the interviewer, a professor, like he was another person. We opened up and he even asked me to work on a startup with him. Additionally, you shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that everything needs to go perfectly. For my MIT interview, I...

Really get to know the school. Ask students about the quirky things they...

MIT is a cultural experience like no other. I am constantly surrounded by interesting, brilliant people. And there's a...

Currently at MIT I am an intern at Hillel, affiliated with Alpha Epsilon Phi, and participate in Tech Squares (modern square dancing). All of these things kind of happened by accident, to be completely honest. For Hillel, I would like to point out that I was not born, raised, or taught Judaism during childhood. I am not Jewish by birth. But during our event called the Activities Midway, I was walking around, and ended up talking to the people representing Hillel, the Israeli club, and Birthright. Instead of turning me away, Rabbi G (best rabbi imo) invited me to come...

Cambridge, MA is a beautiful place. Great food, good shows across the river, and a nice college town. Overall the climate suits me,...