SAMIR: I think here at MIT, you have so many different opportunities to explore any passion that you might have. The first thing that comes to mind is just UROPing. People use UROPs to gain research experience. And that’s totally valid, but I definitely advocate using UROPs as a vehicle to go explore different areas that might not be related to your primary field of study in the slightest. It’s a great way to go work with a professor, build that relationship.
And then talk to that professor. Talk to that grad student. There are so many people here around campus who have been working in their fields and can tell you what it’s like to be in those fields. They can tell you whether or not you’ll enjoy it, whether or not you wouldn’t enjoy it, what kind of background you need.
And also, there are a lot of alums here that want to help students. I actually ended up reaching out to an alum who was in a very similar situation to mine. He was an aerospace engineering graduate, who ended up working on Capitol Hill. And I reached out to him, and we talked. And he told me about his experience. And that was incredibly useful for me.
There are a lot of people here who can provide valuable advice to you, and they want to give it. And so definitely reach out to them. And then the last thing, which isn’t always an option, but to just go give it a very serious try. If you have the opportunity to spend an IAP or spend a summer working full time in that field, that will probably give you all the information you need to know whether or not you can see yourself doing that or not.