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Presentación final en inglés ofrecida por estudiante del MIT en el IES Gran Capitán como despedida tras su estancia de tres semanas compartiendo sus conocimientos con nuestro alumnado. Programa MIT Global Teaching Labs.
Okay. Let's get started. Good morning, everyone. My name is Julius. I gave this talk earlier
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in Castellano, but today I'll do it in English. So just to thank you again for the introduction.
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I'm a student from MIT, as you may have heard. And today I'd like to talk a little bit more
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about MIT and also a little bit more about my experience here and in the U.S. Great.
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So let's start off with what is MIT? So it's the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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founded in 1861. And then we are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And that's in the
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northeast of the U.S. So Cambridge is very close to Boston, and you probably have heard
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of Boston before. And what I think is really special about MIT is that we have some of
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the best programs in research and education in the world, not only in science and engineering,
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but also in the humanities. So that includes, right, your computer science, your engineering,
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your sciences, but also your humanities, like political science, philosophy, linguistics,
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and such. And this is a pretty famous photo of the Great Dome of MIT, probably the most
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iconic photo of the campus. And so here's a map showing where MIT is in relation to Madrid.
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So we can see it's across the Atlantic. We're actually on the same latitude, but it's a
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lot colder in Boston. So of course, I'd like to talk a little bit more about demographics,
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because demographics are a very important part of U.S. institutions. So with that being
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said, these are some statistics that I've grabbed from MIT's official. And so we have
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about 12,000 students total, where about 40% of us are university students, so undergraduate.
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And then the rest are doing their graduate school, so doctorates or masters. And we have
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about 30% of students that are international, so pretty good percentage. And also, what's
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very important is that in the undergraduate program, about half are LGBT and women, and
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the other half are men. So it's very good balance, because I know that there is a stereotype
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that mostly men work in tech, but at MIT, we strive to keep things very more resetted.
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And so I'll talk a little bit more about, from now on, I'll start talking more about
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the university life at MIT. So first of all, of course, there's academics. And so we have
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usually professors, they're pretty famous and well-regarded in their fields, and they'll
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give you the lectures and classes. And after that, we will have these recitations, small
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workshops with an assistant, like a PhD student, usually, or a master's student. And then we'll
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also have office hours with the professor and assistants to answer any questions that
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may arise. And of course, we have homework, as you know. We have to do that every once
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or every one or two weeks, and they're pretty difficult. You do them at home, but you always
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are allowed to work with other people. And that is the big culture at MIT, is collaboration.
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It's not, oh, whoever's genius and can do it by themselves, they can finish it. It's
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work with people who are smarter than you, so you can learn and become smarter as well.
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And of course, we have exams or projects to test our knowledge. And something very
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important and unique about MIT is that in our first semester, we are given a pass or
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no record. So that allows students to adjust to the difficulty or rigor of MIT, but also
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allows them to focus on things like making friends, making a good schedule for working,
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and to also explore more of the Boston area.
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All right, let's talk a little bit more about our research and programs that you can study.
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So here are a bunch of the different things you can study. You can see we have the classics,
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you know, sciences, engineering, for a school of technology, like MIT. But of course, we
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also are very strong in our humanities department. So we include things like economics, linguistics,
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philosophy, political science, and as well as business. We have a very strong business
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school with a big finance program, some very famous professors there. And so one thing
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to note is that in MIT, unlike schools in Spain, you do not have to test into a program.
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When you are accepted into MIT as an undergraduate, you choose your field of study upon entering,
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and you can change it whenever you want to. I have many friends who started off as an
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aerospace engineer, computer science, and then they switched their degrees and are
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studying literature, or they're studying math, or studying physics. Different, you can always
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change it whenever you want to, as long as you graduate in a reasonable amount of time.
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All right, let's talk a little bit more about AI. AI is the big thing these days. It's what's
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in fashion. We have seen a lot about chat GBT, and that's what popularized AI with the
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general public. But people at MIT have been doing research in AI forever, for, you know,
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how long it's been around. So we'll see that in the next presentation. So just to give you a
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little list of the programs that we have in AI, if you're interested in studying AI or computer
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science, we have the Department of Electrical Engineering for Science, or also our AI lab.
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We also have a very big focus on interdisciplinary research. So think,
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how do you apply AI to finance or to biology? How can you help doctors prescribe certain
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medicines with AI? We have many different interdisciplinary subjects of study.
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Great. Okay, so now the big question, why am I here, right? Shouldn't I be in school right now?
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So what's going on right now is we have our winter vacation. And you can do anything from
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chill at home, or you can travel around with your family or take some classes or do research at MIT.
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But I think the most special opportunity that we have is to do things like going abroad and
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teaching very talented groups of high school students, and also learning more about the
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culture of those countries. So I have friends who have gone to Spain, like Barcelona or Madrid,
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Germany, Chile, I went there last year, India, South Korea, and just the list goes on and on.
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And so our goal here is to teach various topics. So I personally teach Python programming,
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but I have friends who have taught robotics, math, physics, chemistry, everything you can think of.
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And our goal is to emphasize tangible activities that really stick with the
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students and they can remember what we have brought. And so we also talk a lot more about
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our experiences at MIT, like now, and more about what education in the US is like for people who
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are interested in studying international. So here's a little bit more about myself.
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I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, in the southeast of the United States. I specialize in
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informatics, so computer science, but I have a minor in math. And so I have a couple of
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pictures from some of my favorite memories and my hobbies.
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Great. So Atlanta's here in the southeast, not too far from MIT, but definitely need a fly.
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Great. So I'd like to talk a little bit more about my personal journey. So my family is from China.
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They immigrated to the US when they were back in the 90s. And so
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I studied always in the public schools. I didn't go to any private school or anything like that.
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I think I had a very good education in my public schools. I participated in a lot of
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extracurriculars, including things like math competitions, science competitions,
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and music and orchestra and other things. And I also had the privilege of taking extra classes
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at the nearby Georgia Tech. It's kind of like MIT, but it's just like in the south instead.
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And I took some advanced math classes there, and it was a very good opportunity for me.
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All right, great. Let's talk a little bit more about MIT and also just college in general and
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what's required. So of course, MIT requires that you take classes. Every university in the US
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requires that. But our specialty is that we actually require some core science classes.
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So two math, two physics, biology, chemistry. So everyone has that foundation. And we also require,
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very interestingly, as a STEM school, we require humanities classes, eight of them,
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actually, because at MIT, we believe that you should have a well-rounded education.
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And so I think the emphasis here is that even if you are an engineer, you should be well-rounded
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and also have interest in music, art, literature, or philosophy and whatever humanities subjects
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that you enjoy. And also, you can't be sitting on the couch all day. So we have some education,
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physical education. So you can do things like play soccer, tennis, or even you can sail,
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you can fence. You can also do archery. I've done all of those. It's pretty awesome. I highly
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recommend it. Great. So of course, we also have required classes in your major. So about nine or
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ten of the basics, fundamentals. Then we have advanced classes and two technical communication
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classes for each major, where you have to write papers or give talks. And of course, like all
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universities, MIT has plenty of extracurricular activities, such as sports. You can do,
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you play an orchestra, you can do ballroom dance, a cappella. This is just a small sample of the
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hundreds of activities that you can do. And I personally have participated in things like
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orchestra, a cappella, and also some robotics. Great. Let's talk a little bit about how you can
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do research with some of the best professors in the world as an undergraduate. So we have a program
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called UROP. It's a project that supports hundreds, actually thousands of projects every year.
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And what you can do here is you can work with professors or doctorate students, whoever,
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to conduct research in various topics of your interest. So I've taken advantage of this program
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and done research from all kinds of subjects that I'll show in a little bit. And many have been
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done such good work that they've published or presented into these exhibitions or conferences,
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such as this student here. And so what is the great fact is we have 94 percent, like
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overwhelming majority, of students from MIT. They have done such research, which is
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wonderful for undergraduates to be conducting really cutting-edge research.
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Great. So let me talk a little bit more about my personal classes and research that I've done.
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I'd like to emphasize that I have done, you know, the classics of programming, statistics, AI,
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algorithms, but also I've paired that with many classes in art, music, philosophy,
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anthropology, religion, pretty much everything. And the goal here is you want to do both so that
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you get a well-rounded education and you learn more about all parts of the human experience.
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So maybe I could talk a little bit about some of the best classes I took.
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I think algorithms was the best class I've taken at MIT in terms of technical material.
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I realized that this is why I wanted to study computer science, because
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it blended math and programming in just the perfect way. And I took it freshman year,
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and I never looked back since then. And I also really enjoyed my music theory class,
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because we were able to write small, short string quartets, and then a string quartet orchestra came
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in and actually played our pieces for us in front of us, which was a wonderful experience.
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Okay. Maybe I'll talk a little bit about the worst ones I've taken. Statistics,
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that was the worst class I've taken. And also compilers. That was bad. But that's okay.
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The content was interesting. They just weren't well taught, right? It's not always a good day,
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but as long as you're learning, at the end of the day, even if the instructor is bad,
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that's still a win. And so, yeah, the irony is that I'm going to work in, like, statistics,
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so, like, I need to restudy this statistics stuff before I start my job next August.
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All right. Cool. Let me talk a little bit more about my research now.
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So, as I said earlier, we have a UROP program that allows you to be paid for your research,
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and so I've taken great advantage of that and done research every single year I've been at MIT.
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So, my first year, I made a software platform to help cancer researchers. Essentially,
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it was a tool for them to be able to use bigger computers. And so, my second year, I was able to
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look at some robot arms in simulation and train them to do specific tasks, and that was pretty
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fun as well. And I also was able to help some cognitive scientists detect some of the signs
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of autism in babies, which was also a cool project. And so, my third year was probably
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my biggest project. I looked into how randomness affects training in neural networks. Quite a
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difficult project, but still learned a lot from that and a really great experience.
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And fourth year was more an easier project. This was just working with some code of a robot dog.
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So, I think the third year project was still the best because it was the hardest one. I learned
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the most from it. And what am I doing now? So, I'm in my master's. I'm now working on
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correction, gaze correction in video conferences like Zoom.
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So, this is a picture from my second year research of the robot arm. That's the robot
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dog that I worked with in my fourth year, and this is some of the pictures from my
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current research in gaze correction in video conferences. Cool. And now, you know,
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I've talked a lot about how MIT is great, but now I want to talk more about how can you attend
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such a university or any university in the U.S. that you are interested in.
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So, here's some pictures from just various scenes from MIT. And so, one thing to take
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care of is that the process of applying in the U.S. is very different from Spain. Spain,
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I believe, is you take a test, and if you get a high enough score on that test,
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you can choose a school and choose a program that you want to study. Not in the U.S. In the U.S.,
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you need good grades, and we do have standardized tests like the SAT or the ACT,
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but those are not sufficient to actually get into MIT. What you really need to do is show
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your ability as a person. So, to be a leader, to be proactive, friendly, and just a good person
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overall and very accomplished and has a lot of potential. And so, we need to write these essays
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that show that we are this kind of person. So, sometimes you'll see a lot of very smart kids,
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smartest kids in my school, none of them got into MIT because they were not able to express
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themselves and their personality. That's very important. And so, we'll share this
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presentation afterwards. You can click on this link and read my favorite blog about how to
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apply and how to approach the college application process in the U.S.
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And so, let's talk a little more about these pictures, right? So, on the left, this is like
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the classic, you know, MIT stereotype of like a nerd, right? Doing math in a math competition.
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But, you know, we have we're all nerds, right? But we also like to do crazy things like, oh,
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on the middle picture, we in East Campus, we build a roller coaster every single year out of wood
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from scratch for the freshmen to come in and to ride the roller coaster and realize how awesome
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MIT is. And finally, this is an old picture from 1983, I believe, where it's a famous example of a
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hack. MIT is famous for hacking, not computer hacking, but pranks. So, jokes that we play on
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the school. And in this case, in the middle of the night, a police car from MIT just appeared on top
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of the Great Dome that we saw earlier. And so, they had to get a helicopter to take it off.
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And so, what happened was some students in the middle of the night, they disassembled a car
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and brought up all the pieces to the roof and assembled the car on the roof. And that's how
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they got it up there. They did it 10 years later with a fire truck. So, pretty awesome stuff.
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Cool. All right. So, now let's talk about the elephant in the room. So, how do you pay for
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such an education, right? All right. So, the stereotype is that US education costs a lot of
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money. Well, that may be true for some people. For the vast majority of people, MIT is actually
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quite affordable. So, I'm putting everything in dollars here, but this is the dollar to euro
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conversion rate. So, you can do the math. Okay. So, we have scholarships at MIT.
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Need-based. So, financial aid. So, if your family makes below a certain income level, you will get
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a lot more money from MIT. So, you can attend for basically free. So, this is the median scholarship.
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It's $63,000, which is a lot of scholarship. And that's just you not doing anything. You just
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submit your income and then that's it. Most students whose families make below this much
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money, they pay nothing. You pay zero tuition. And the vast majority of students from MIT,
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they graduate without debt. Debt-free. And finally, the average salary of a starting
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new graduate at MIT is about 126K, which is bigger, which is the highest in the US
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by a large margin. Okay? Basically, what I'm trying to say is MIT is worth the money. Okay?
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So, my personal story is that I had the choice between going to MIT and a couple other schools,
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including Georgia Tech. And for me, I chose MIT or Georgia Tech because it was only twice as
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expensive as Georgia Tech. So, it was definitely worth the money for me to go to MIT. Cool.
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All right. Let's talk about some of my advice that I wish I knew when I started at MIT.
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I think the most important one here is if you're ever stuck on something, you don't know what to
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do, don't be scared to ask for help. You're not going to look stupid if you ask for help. In fact,
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the people who are the stupid ones are the ones who don't ask for help and are stuck for two hours
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while you ask for help and you already figured it out. Right? Of course, you still need to try,
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but after a certain time, you should just ask for a little bit of help, a hint, so you can solve
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the problem. And also, make sure to work with people who you trust and can help you become
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better. Another important thing is please make new friends whenever you can, because MIT and
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college is not just about learning. You also are going to meet some really cool people who can
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become friends for the next 10, 20, the rest of your life. Right?
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And of course, this is one that was very important to me, is try to do things that are not easy and
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make you uncomfortable, because that's the best way you can grow. Right? So, I could have just
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stayed at home and just watched YouTube or anime all day, but instead, I came here to experience
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a new culture and to interact and get better at Spanish. And that was very a lot of like,
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it was a lot of work and exhausting, but it was such an amazing experience compared to me
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just sitting at home for four weeks. Also, before helping others, make sure that you're doing okay.
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Right? And finally, if you are the smartest person in the room, you're not in the right place,
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because you are essentially the average of all your friends, and if you make friends with people
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who are better than you, you will also become better as well. And if you make people make
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friends with people who bring you down, then you will also come down. Okay, great. That was a little
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bit more about MIT and myself. Thank you again for listening and inviting me, and please feel
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free to ask me any questions, and my email is here, if you would like. Thank you.
00:22:06
- Idioma/s:
- Autor/es:
- Rafael M
- Subido por:
- Rafael M.
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial
- Visualizaciones:
- 88
- Fecha:
- 31 de enero de 2024 - 20:11
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Centro:
- IES GRAN CAPITAN
- Duración:
- 22′ 24″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 1.78:1
- Resolución:
- 1280x720 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 638.80 MBytes