"…I'm working at MIT Admissions."

me with the stata sign in 2014

So, let's recap on where I was last on this blog: hopeful, going into my interview, which went incredibly well last Wednesday. Now, in the interim, my temp agency got me a short-term, data-entry gig at no other place than  MIT Admissions.

me in 2010, pre-graduation from Burlington High School

I feel like I am living in a sitcom right now.

How can I portray HOW ridiculously full circle this opportunity was?

My tenuous, pre-frosh connections to MIT include:

• my dance teacher who worked here for about 6 years
• her kids are alumni ('10. '13) now, and were the accomplished family friends to whom my parents always looked to for inspiration and comparison
• signing up, and never making it to Splash! after CTY every summer… sorry, MIT! 
• MIT SAT prep classes
• performing/practicing at Kresge multiple times
• volunteering for MITHAS 
• OBSESSING over MIT blogs, especially Mollie & Jess Kim circa 2006-2008
• hanging in Central Sq for hip hop and then casually dropping by for Anna's on a few occasions 
• Boston Brain Bees 2008 (3rd place) and 2009 held at MIT Picower Institute of Learning and Memory 

So to say I was an uninvolved pre-freshman student is to not understand how this school consumed my dreams for all of high school. I thought of little else, and my heart felt sick at the thought of giving it all up to go through the Resident Honors Program at USC in Los Angeles, CA. But I had the inkling that I may be back here in Cambridge eventually. That closing the door to an MIT undergraduate education was not slamming it shut forever, but rather leaving it unlocked. I mean, I had plans of Phds and a research career, and while those plans have evolved, my professional and doctoral ambitions have not faltered. 

To be invited to do QuestBridge Data Entry was like being offered a chance to try out my dream job for a week. I know that I don't fancy working in Admissions full time (too many consuming stories, my heart would hurt too much), it's incredibly satisfying to be on the other side of these students' stories, to be able to play a part in their due consideration by MIT staff (who are incredibly kind, talented, and hardworking in their own right). 

From my instagram (@reyisofsunshine). Cookies from donating to Alpha Phi for Red Dress Foundation, 1$ book that I am dying to read, and free noms for contributing to a tree of positivity. x3 #ihtfp: "I have thus found paradise." 

Even at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, I noticed that here, staff cares about each other and cares about the holistic person behind the job title. Lunches are savored for the break in the day, as are rounds of coffee on the regular. The ethos is soooooo satisfying to experience in full after so much dreaming and forward-thinking nostalgia that was my high school connection to this place. The song "Driving Through A Dream" accurately describes how I feel. I'm waiting for someone to pinch me.

So, for the week, I am playing my role. The MIT temporary staff person, who happens to LOVE and embody lots of the character of the school. I feel like even if I never do anything else worthwhile at MIT, this will have been enough. The self-actualization of my high school yearnings come to life so vividly and acutely.

peace, love, sunshine. x

Ray
Maithreyi 'Ray' Shankar
Follow me everywhere: http://raysofsunshine.me 
@reyisofsunshine
reyisofsunshine @icloud.com