Imposter syndrome, final projects, proofs

End of week 1 and start of week 2

My quals for the PhD program in nuclear science and engineering at MIT are going to happen in the first or second week of February 2026, so I’m blogging my progress on my work (master’s thesis, qual practice problems, research, classes) to keep me on track and motivated.

Sunday, start of the week, did not go smoothly. I had a terrible spiral of anxiety—mostly born out of imposter syndrome—about my final presentation for 22.QTD and the final PSET for that class which were due on Tuesday and that I had yet to make any significant progress on. I spent most of the day waffling about which topic to present on and thinking that I was just so behind on all the content for the class and therefore quals and therefore my whole life. I briefly worked at the Harvard Smith campus center (which is Harvard’s student center and one of the most beautiful student centers I’ve ever seen) with my friend who is also a woman of color doing a physics Phd but at Harvard in high energy theory. And we spent some time discussing how imposter syndrome sometimes led us down a path of sadness and feelings of inadequacy and avoidance of work, and we talked about the strategies we each used to pull ourselves out of the spiral. Because, honestly, doing PhDs at Harvard and MIT doesn’t really give you the time to spend that much time wallowing. The pace of work is unforgiving, so we have each had to develop coping strategies that are fast and effective. Some coping strategies for me include working out, chatting with my loved ones, and sticking to a routine (especially in the mornings).

I ended up finally choosing a topic (superconducting qubits and graphene gatemons) to present on at 10 pm on Sunday, and I worked until 2 am to finish the presentation. On Monday, I got up semi-early because I had to finish the PSET due on Tuesday amongst other things. In the morning, I worked on reading through the proofs of one of our papers that was accepted to American Chemical Society’s Nano Letters, went to a meeting for our National Science Foundation grant and had a brief chat with my advisor, and then attended one of group member’s master’s thesis defense. There was HeyTea boba at the defense! Then finally, I worked on my PSET for a couple hours.

Around 7 pm on Monday, I finally started practicing my presentation, and I timed myself for three dry runs. I found I needed to cut slides and add some and rearrange things. I fell asleep around midnight and woke up at 6:30 am so that I had time to practice my presentation one last time before I gave it that morning. If I say so myself (*wink*), I ended up giving great presentation, and I was able to answer all the audiences questions which included: why does graphene have a constant electron velocity?, why is it important to tune the Fermi level in the Dirac cones of graphene?, do you think graphene gatemons are the future of superconducting qubits?

After the presentations, I ordered a pollo tinga burrito from Ole, and I worked on my PSET until I finished around 4:30 pm.

At 7 pm, I had house meeting over dinner where we discussed things like a maple syrup quarterly budget, people not signing up to cook dinner, and the re-signing of our lease. Meeting ended around 8:30 pm, and then I started getting ready for bed.

To start my morning of right, I came to my favorite bagel place and coffee shop to work for a couple hours before heading to MIT’s campus. Today, I’ve got to go to group meeting, read through a patent disclosure application we are submitting to MIT, update my lab’s chemical inventory, be present for a safety inspection of my lab, and do a 15 minute oral defense of the final paper that I submitted to 22.103 during a one-on-one meeting with my professor. Then once I get home, I will continue practice for quals and writing my master’s thesis.