The Institute of Smashing

The Institute of Smashing Websters dictionary has two entries for the word smashing when used as an adjective: smash ¬?ing Pronunciation: Ààsma-shi˜ãFunction: adjective Date: 18251 : that smashes : crushing; a smashing defeat 2 : extraordinarily impressive or effective; a smashing performance Here at MIT, youll find that both entries are equally applicable. In fact in studying here, no matter what major you choose I can almost guarantee one thing: Youre going to be crushed Now before you start letting sweat bead upon your brow and frantically asking yourself what youve gotten yourself into, let me assure you of another truth: Its good for you You see, in the many conversations Ive had with people from the MIT community, nearly everyone has the same first set of thoughts about coming here. Following CPW, youre positively electric with the thought of classes and schoolwork. You think youll come here and quadruple-major, put your nose to grindstone, and crank out a few As. Youre on top of the world! Youve proven yourself worthy of attending one of the most challenging and respected universities in the world. Youre an elite. You cant help but pat yourself on the back a littleâ€"-and you absolutely should! Getting into MIT is indeed an accomplishment worth being proud of, but thats where step one comes in. Before moving on I think its important to identify roughly two types of people here. There are those who are brilliantly self-discipllined, and there are those who are billiantly talented. Of course thats a generalization but lets only pay attention to the dominant traits. For students who are brilliantly talented, the very asset that got you in will be the biggest and most important change while youre here. Youre used to being right, being able to just switch your brain on for a few minutes and crank out the answer before returning it to idle, listlessly day dream about the future or work through some crazy hypothetical situation and shunt your work until the next time you have to kick your brain on for some project (usually just before its due) and literally sprint through the work to finish with flying colors. Sound familiar? It does to me, because thats how I was in high school. I procrastinated like you wouldnt believe, Id do a weeks worth of BC calc homework less than an hour before turning it in and make better marks than my classmates who diligently plugged away at it every night. Id write essays in marathon non-stop sessions starting with my thesis and not pausing until Id filled 8 pages with my thoughts. I wouldnt even reread or edit my papers, just turn them in and make As. Id stand before a class and wing a 20 minute presentation with no problems. I wasnt lazy, and its not that I didnt care, but I just never had to work that hard. I was getting results I was happy with, and working harder for the sake of it seemed stupid (and I still agree it is). But for those of you rolling your eyes and thinking right now Im some self-absorbed egotist, here comes the crushing and perhaps a sweet sweet feeling of schadenfreude. Two years here have all but ripped my weak academic workflow to pieces. Its a tough blow to absorb to not be able to pull off the kinds of academic feats youre used to. Working full-tilt in brief but insanely focused spurts becomes so common that it becomes taxing. And thats when you start falling apart. You end up exhausted and defeated in a lot of ways. My grades in a lot of classes werent what I wanted, and by the end of it I didnt feel very fulfilled. But the good news is, like I said before, all this destruction is a good thing. Or more accurately, it can be a good thing. It gives you a chance to build something thats better than what used to be there before (which in my case wasnt hard). It gives you a chance to finally get those time-management skills you havent needed up until now. And while keeping your ego in check, you become a lot better at planning and working in teams. You gradually start edging closer to the performance youre accustomed to and expect from yourself. That feeling, that feeling of growth is a new one. And its a thrilling one. Im still putting on the polish, but Im very excited to have a system thats working for me now and impressing myself with the things I can do as a result. It may be a work in progress, but my academic career is leagues better now than it used to be. So when you get here in the fall, dont freak out about freaking out. Its supposed to happen, and thats why there are so many abundant resources at your disposal. Advisors, Office Hours, tutors, upperclassmen, and TONS more tools are waiting to help you remove the weak elements in your life (CAUTION: There may be a lot of them). You should strive to be a completely different person once you get out of MIT, because otherwise whats the point? Make huge mistakes, be bold, be honest, let your ego shatter, get crushed and rebuild yourself into something better than before. Dont be afraid to make huge and sweeping changes to try and find better ways to do things. Smash everything and start over. Youll do it again and again, at times where you think ok, this it the last time FOR SURE, but after a while youll find that all that smashing has left you rather smashing as well. : )