how to peel garlic

making spring rolls

taro filled

why cheese dumplings

arguing over math problems

curry noodles

porridge, raw egg

dimsum on Thanksgiving

the government is a conspiracy you know

steamboat on Christmass

snapping off green bean tips

squishing liquid from tofu

tea eggs

food always

until you can’t see

can’t walk

can’t sit up

can’t eat

can’t drink

can’t speak

can’t breath

can’t wake

a name picked with care and precision, oxymoronic, lovely, and meaningful

I really miss you dad.

In January 2016, I decided to spend my IAP (Independent Activities Period) participating in Four Weeks for America, a program offered by MIT’s Public Service Center with Teach for America.

I’m a firm believer in grounding myself in the principles and causes I care about, so seeking the reasons and motivation behind why I do what I do, is equally, if not more, important. I had gotten a bit disillusioned with the tech industry and MIT — I wanted to get away from it all. I felt this constant pressure and expectation to do well — do internships, start businesses, disrupt society, check all the boxes, etc. But what for? Status? Money? Fulfillment? The fact that I was unsure of what my motivation in life scared me. I felt like I was losing touch with reality — the reality of the state of the rest of the country. I felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into a bubble, unaware of anything beyond the scope of my university or industry sector.

Four Weeks for America seemed like the perfect opportunity to escape the tech environment and immediately jump into a completely different environment on short-notice. I’ve always had an interest in education: the process, what works/doesn’t work, the teachers, and the students. Education is such a multi-faceted and inconsistent field — I could read countless articles on education disparity, failures or successes of a school, or surround myself with test score statistics -yet, there is still so much left unsaid. It seemed critical that I immerse myself in the environment to identify and experience, first hand, what factors affect education.

I attended public school from K-12 in suburban Northern Virginia, so my view of education is definitely centered around my experience taking SOLs (Virginia Standards of Learning) and IB exams. As a result, I was excited to have the unique opportunity to be immersed in a completely different part of the United States — the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

Monday:

Thelma R. Salinas STEM Early College High School is a special school in La Joya ISD. This is merely the fourth year of existence, so this year’s seniors will be the first graduating class and really set the bar for their younger peers and new students to come. The big pull for this school is that students interested in pursuing STEM fields have access to better resources, classes and have the opportunity to earn an Associate’s Degree upon graduation. How do kids get into this special high school? Essentially, interested students fill out an application and write a short statement about why they want to attend. The only requirement to apply is that your parents must not have attended college. Afterwards, the acceptances to this school are by pure chance — names are entered into a lottery and randomly drawn.

The typical school day begins with reciting the US Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the Texas Pledge (Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.), and then Period 1. There are eight 50-minute class periods in a day, with 8th period being study hall for the students.

• Students refer to their teachers as “miss” or “sir”, not by Mrs./Ms./Mr. X.
• Thanks to a generous grant, all of the students have iPads. This is particularly important because a good number of the students lack access to a computer at home.

An important fact I learned today was that the population served is 100% at risk — that is, the attendees’ parents did not attend college.

Tuesday:

As with all academic environments, cheating definitely occurs. The attitude here was really uncommon to me, because students were extremely collaborative — some of them would even openly talk about cheating on homework and other nominal assignments. One kid even claimed he only passed middle school by purely cheating on all of his assignments. It was really mind boggling to me — the fact that he bragged about it as if it was no big deal.

Here, if a student is unable to obtain a passing grade (70% or higher) in required classes, they are told to leave and return to their zoned comprehensive high school. The attitude viewed toward the possibility of leaving is more fatalistic than I expected; some students simply said that if they must leave, they will just accept the fact. In a way, it is crushing to see the lack of confidence in some of the kids. They are much more intelligent than they give themselves credit, but lack the belief in self, that they can achieve something more than just a passing grade. Hopefully through my 18 more days in the classroom, I can learn a little bit more about the factors that play into motivation to succeed within the classroom.

Wednesday:

When I first came to the Valley, I noticed that during classwork time, students would call out “Sir” instead of raising their hands. I found this extremely odd because I had never encountered such a situation. As a result, I suggested implementation of a queue, where if my host teacher was working with a student, that anyone who needed help should write their name on the whiteboard in the front of the classroom. I was inspired to make this suggestion because during office hours at MIT, where there is usually one or two TAs, students put their names on a queue, that way students waiting the longest would be helped first. This really helped classwork time be a little less chaotic and prevented students from shouting over each other in an attempt to draw the teacher’s attention first.

Thursday

I spent brainstorming a polyhedra project — I’m hoping that the kids will be able to take the skills they’ve learned so far (e.g. parallel, perpendicular lines and their properties, triangles, polygons) and apply it to an artsy, yet STEM-related project. Geometry is a very visual class, so i think that having the kids create triangles from squares and then using those triangles to construct solids (the tetrahedron building blocks) will reinforce and be a good lead into 3D shapes. Additionally, by using the tetrahedral building blocks to construct larger polyhedrons will expand upon the idea that these basic units make up larger structures, which can be found in nature, such as in crystals and are the basis of arrangements of molecules.

Friday:

I visited an elementary school in McAllen Independent School District. The elementary school was a International Baccalaureate bilingual (English & Spanish) school. There, I spent about 30 minutes in 3 different classrooms and got to see a bunch of different techniques used to keep energy and interest high in the students.
-4th classroom (poetry and drama unit): venn diagrams, recited rhymes and mnemonics, “brain breaks”, partners, “tell your friend what you learned/tell me what your friend wrote, etc.”, sign language, drama flipbooks.
-5th (reading)— context clues, different stations with different types of texts to read and then answer questions in groups, working with guiness record for fun when done with work
-1st (general stations): stations, word wall, collaborative groups/pods

I got to talk to some of the students individually, including one girl who aspired to be an artist. She brought a portfolio filled with artwork, along with an award she received that day from an essay contest.

There was also a teacher panel, where it was very evident that each teacher was 100% invested in the tight knit community. One teacher even created a Folklorico Club, an after-school traditional Mexican cultural dance club focused on integrating culture with education.

Overall, the Spotlight on the Rio Grande Valley session at the elementary school was a really cool experience. I loved the unity and very clear sense of community possessed by each teacher, staff member and students.

Saturday:

My host teacher and I talked about class and how it affects the level of education and predicted income one attains.

• http://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/02/class-differences.aspx
• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/business/economy/a-simple-equation-more-education-more-income.html?_r=0

Sunday:

Today I went to the McAllen Public Library to work. My host met up with 2 other TFA teachers to do lesson planning together. Because it was a Sunday, the library opened at 1pm and there were people lined up at the door. The library had extremely nice facilities and used to be a Wal-Mart!

That day I had dinner with another MIT 4WFA participant and 2 other TFA teachers. We all traded stories about the education we had while growing up. It seems even when we were out of the classroom, education somehow makes its way into everyday life.

I later went to a house party to celebrate another 4WFA participant’s birthday! Again, lots of discussion revolved around differences between my school and their schools. Almost all of the other 4WFA MIT students in the Valley work at IDEA schools, charter schools founded by some TFA alums. According to the IDEA website, college is the expected end goal of every student: “From the first day students set foot on an IDEA Public Schools campus — whether Academy or College Prep — we instill in them the expectation that they will go to college. This expectation is woven in the fabric of everything we say and do.” Additionally, IDEA school model seems to have a lot of emphasis on numbers — test scores, quiz scores. These numbers seem to be the biggest markers of success, for the students and staff.

Finally, we talked about gaps in education. Specifically, what happens when a student lacks knowledge of some basic skill? For instance, a high schooler who cannot identify the difference between greater than (>) and less than (<). I was completely baffled that the student went through 9 years of public education without knowing the difference. How do these gaps form? Education is such a complex system filled with so many variables that it is almost impossible to pinpoint a foolproof strategy that ensures every student has the same level of education. What makes it so difficult to guarantee any base level of education for all students?

All opinions expressed are my own and any identifying names/characteristics of real people featured have been altered. Locations and school names have remained unchanged.

Robotics is more than just coding or building something, it is about creating a product, building a team and learning how to be a problem-solver.

Since robotics started in 2008 in Prince William County, the program has grown tremendously. There is robotics is every elementary, middle and high school. Our alums have gone on to attend prestigious Ivy League and top tier engineering fields and scored jobs with places like Facebook, Google, NASA, Microsoft, and AirBnB. Just last week, the high school and middle school VEX Robotics teams put Prince William County on the map. Amongst 1,075 robotics teams from over 27 different countries in the world, Prince William County teams won 3 out of the 7 Design awards. Additionally, Woodbridge Senior High School’s team 1575A, was the champion for their division, putting them amongst the top 5 of the 500 teams in the high school division.

Here are just some of the few articles that come up when you look up Prince William County and robotics:

• Prince William students compete in national robotics event from the Washington Post
• Speaking the Language of the Future blog post from National Center for Women in IT
• also: on the SeaPerch site, BullRunNow.com and Prince William Living

Why get rid of something that so clearly sets the foundation for our students to be engineers, problem-solvers, business(wo)men and leaders?

The robotics community in Prince William County is like no other community I have ever encountered. It says something truly incredible when it’s winter break, 7am on a weekend, and college students are frantically running around, volunteering at a middle school tournament. Nowhere else do you see a community where the expectation is to constantly share knowledge with everyone around you. It is the norm for high school students to mentor the middle school and elementary school teams, even though the high schooler have competitions and pressing deadlines of their own. The strong sense of community and pay it forward attitude really boils down to the ideals instilled and opportunities provided to our students. Without robotics, I never would have found my passion in engineering or a loving robotics community I can always count on. When I go home, I always know the program is going strong — screws might get stripped, motors will burn out, batteries will always run out of charge, but the kids are definitely learning skills that will last a lifetime.

Prince William County is and should continue to be the place for aspiring engineers to start their journey.

The post above is an edited version of the letter I wrote to representatives on the School Board and Board of County Supervisors for Prince William County. The original letter is linked here. The vote on whether or not robotics gets cut happens this Friday, May 6th, 2016, so if you are a resident of Prince William County, please write to your representatives! If you are a supporter from somewhere else, please share this post on social media with the hashtags: #pwcs #omgrobots

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are my own.

Visa Internship

My ticket to the bay area came from my software dev internship with a financial services company, Visa, Inc. I worked in Clearing and Settlement, a critical team responsible for making sure banks and businesses send and receive the correct amounts of money at the end of the day. My project involved developing a data analytics dashboard that displayed realtime transaction statistics (rate, volume, etc.) and monitored data storage pools. Additionally, I got my first exposure to Big Data while using Apache Kafka for information transmission.

All work and no play makes for a pretty dull summer; thankfully Visa knew how to make this summer unforgettable. From the intern socials at places like Lucky Strike SF and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to the Three Day Intern Summit and AT&T Park Celebration, every week was filled with something new and exciting. Here are some snapshots that give a glimpse into my Visa “everywhere” experience:

San Francisco

Truly an incredibly immersive place with breath-taking views. I made a point to go into the city at least once a week, often to catch up with friends.

Foster City

Probably one of the most charming cities I’ve ever lived in. I loved the beautifully deep blue Lagoon in the center of the city. Thanks to corporate housing from Visa, many things were in walking distance, including a delicious individual hotpot place, Fashion Wok.

Live 105 BFD

No summer is complete without a summer concert series. Thanks 105 BFD for giving me the chance to finally hear & see Panic! At the Disco live!

Mount Tamalpais

One day a group of Bay Area Interns took a trip to Mount Tam. It was a short road trip to a fantastic astronomy night. It got quite dark, so no pictures of the starry dark sky, but I did get a shot of the rolling clouds at sunset. My favorite aspect of the evening was seeing Saturn through a telescope. Completely mind-blowing and humbling to see something so distant with my own eyes. Special thanks to V. Adusumilli for being the fearless driver for an unforgetable night.

❤

Maybe I should have started earlier? Maybe I picked the wrong classes? Maybe I signed up for too many things?

Hosed. Swamped. Overwhelmed. Feelings that I feel because it does not seem like I’m doing enough. Feelings that remind me that I’m not perfect. Feelings that make me question why I’m here.

Last night we lost a member of the MIT community.

While I was worried about all of my assignments, obligations and tasks, someone took their own life.

I will never meet that person.

But what of the people I have met? Of the people I supposedly care about? Will they still be around tomorrow? Next week? Next month? How will I know? How much do I really care? Is my pset or test worth more than the well-being of a fellow student? Is it my fault? Did I do enough?

All of these questions are difficult to answer. There is no right answer. We cannot predict the feelings and actions of other people. All we can do is hope that they talk to us, reach out to us, let us know when something goes wrong.

But what if everyone seems on top of things? Like you’re alone in your struggle? How do you distinguish between your own serious concerns and general complaints? When is it okay to talk to someone? What if you don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone at all?

It’s hard.

No one wants to talk about their weaknesses. No one truly feels comfortable exposing their vulnerabilities. At the same time, is there ever an appropriate time to suddenly talk about depressing things? At MIT, when people do ask each other how they are, both end up listing off their schedules. It becomes a contest, where whoever has the most struggles is awarded brownie points and admiration. Since when did we all become so sadistic? What happened to actually talking about how we feel, rather than what we do?

Sometimes when you do reach out, you’re told to “get over it” — that it’s just a “phase” that everyone goes through. Although that may be the case for some, people tend to err on the side of not seeking help, not the other way around. There is this sense that we should strive to be perfection — this sense of strong pride in never needing a late day that people push themselves hard to avoid being “the one” who is unable to up it up and move on quickly. No one should ever feel that their issues are not severe enough to seek help. You should be encouraged to prevent issues, rather than waiting until you fall off the deep end.

“Still Alive.”

I sit in my room reflecting on this past weekend and how my life is so vastly different, yet so similar to each and every student here. Someone is playing the piano in the lounge below me. There are voices singing along to “Still Alive”. True to MIT spirit, the lyrics references the fact that despite the player “broke” her heart, “tore” her to pieces and “threw every piece into a fire”, GLaDOs is “still alive”.

As a result, I implore you, next time you catch up with someone, don’t just exchange schedules. Learn a little more about the person below the surface. Don’t just greet them, talk to them; and your interaction will likely be more memorable.

As I end this piece, I leave you with one last thought:

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel” — Maya Angelou