DELIA: My advice would be – to anyone who’s kind of facing similar issues – to seek out help and look for the conversations with people who you feel are a little bit ahead of you in whatever way. It can be a coach, a mentor, just a friend who you really look up to and check in and say, hey, how are you doing, but also, hey, how am I doing? Because having those longer conversations, usually pretty informal, have been some of the most valuable things about my MIT experience, kind of learning that other people are seeing value in me that I didn’t even see in myself.
They’ve pointed out some really interesting strengths that I just didn’t– I had no idea about, because I was focusing so much on like trying to make myself like them, when in reality maybe at some points they were trying to make themselves like me. And we were both learning a lot from each other, but really getting out there and clearing the air has kind of helped me see my strengths and myself through a different lens. In terms of finding those conversations, I would highly recommend joining any sort of group club, team, whatever at MIT. I cannot stress highly enough how valuable I found like casual exercise to be. And that also gives you a chance to interact with human beings who are like either older than you, or a little more experienced, or like they’re grad students, or they come from some other world that you think is interesting and just getting to talk to them, hear their experiences, and have those like slightly more difficult in-depth conversations about you and your life are really valuable.