Digits. A few tones of digits we got ourselves surrounded with just outside of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Monument in a shape of a thinking man contains lots of dear to a technology student’s heart characters. With one of those students we have met today.
Stefanos Nikolaidis finds us in the lobby of main MIT building. He is taking us behind the scenes, deep into the core of research labs center. This is where our hero working on his PhD. It focuses mainly on robot’s programming. The room where Stefanos spends 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, is full of light, detecting cameras, computers, real and paper folded robots. He says it is significant how many leading companies are involved into students’ education and research here. Everyone benefits from such close collaboration: ones get loads of a hands-on experience and the others fresh solutions and a promise of valuable specialists.
“Filling the MIT application for my PhD took some time, but after that it wasn’t that hard to get here” - says Stefanos. Once here, it is only one thing asked – work on your topic. In the Institute they pay you enough money to stay in the dorm in your own room (costs about $1000 a month), eat well and even travel home to Athens, Greece twice a year. Not counting all the possibilities for students as free gym, swimming pool, dance classes, whole variety of group of interests such as: Bulgarian folk dance club, organic food club, kayak rowing and singing club. For sure, here your student life will be as colored as you want it to be.
After our little excursion we ended up in a secret MIT student’s place called “Magic of Science”. It is a bar full of a very special atmosphere. For example the menu was presented as a big board coded in periodic table of Mendeleev: ” Br” for dessert brownie, “Vb” for vegetable burger, “Tc” for turkey chipotle. Creative minds, wonderful feeling of new discoveries to come is in the air accompanied with a remarkable food makes you want to come back again not only as a customer, but also as a student.
Will see!