Hello readers!
Hope life is treating you well :). As I mentioned last week, I’m beginning my interviews: friends from Wellesley who are kind enough to answer my questions during the summer :). I just talked to Iulia, who is my other roommate for the summer at MIT’s Theta Chi Fraternity House. She laid on the top bunk of our bed, alternating laying on her stomach with rolling onto her back and looking at me upside down, while I sat on the couch and ate frozen blueberries. (Me yesterday: “Emily, am I allowed to spend twenty dollars on blueberries?” “Uh…” “Fine, fine, I’ll only buy sixteen boxes instead…”)
Name: Iulia Tapescu
Year: 2016, rising sophomore
Major: undeclared, since we don’t declare until sophomore year, but biochem, with a minor in psychology
Brief intro to how I met Iulia: Iulia is highly unusual in that she skipped straight into Organic Chemistry first year (in fact, she had already taken orgo in high school, and could have skipped this class as well as introductory chem). This meant that I was in the same orgo class as her first semester. Second semester, we also had class together, though we didn’t know it at the time. I sat near Alice, and Iulia sat near Alice, but apparently we didn’t realize that that meant we sat near each other. Anyway, when we had to choose a roommate to stay in our triple at Theta Chi, Alice and I decided on Iulia because she was familiar, and I remembered she was a runner (I’m a tad athlete-biased.) I’m so glad that we did, because this has been my best roommate experience ever, and I will miss Iulia very much when she transfer to UPenn next year.
Another thing about Iulia: she is from Romania. She’s been teaching us a little bit of Romanian: for example, I can say that I eat food.
How has being a student from Romanian influenced your experience?
It was weird in the beginning, because I was immersed in an English speaking country. Everyone was speaking English all the time… there aren’t many Romanians at Wellesley, and I missed speaking it. I mainly text my family and (Romanian) boyfriend. (A brief discussion followed about whether there are Romanian keyboard, but it turns out the letters are mostly the same. Plus she has a smart phone :)). It was hard to be fluent, especially since I don’t usually like talking, so I didn’t really practice before coming here. I actually felt more comfortable talking to professors than my peers. I’d say I was shocked, first semester. It felt like an identity crisis, because I had to change myself to fit this new culture. But after a month it was all right.
Also, I felt really poor. My roommate just had so much stuff. She wasn’t on financial aid (a majority of Wellesley students – 56% — are on some sort of financial aid. Our aid need-based, and Wellesley’s excellent financial aid packages have been very important in a lot of my friends coming here.) So that was a bit intimidating.
I don’t miss home though. I like it here. I miss the Romanian language, and the transportation system in Romania, but I like how the people here are friendly, without actually needing to be your friend. I’d like to live here for the rest of my life… in Boston, that is. Even though there’s a problem with parking. Because it’s a big city, but not too big or too busy. And there are wide open spaces, without it being too huge.
What are you future plans?
At this point, MD/PhD. (Note that I hang out with a disproportionate amount of MD/PhD students, science students, and serious overachievers. It’s not my fault, really.) The funny thing is, I had never heard about it before I talked to the pre-med advisor here. (Wellesley has one pre-med advisor, and a lot of my friends are pre-med, so despite never having met her I have heard much about Prof. Sheila Brachfeld-Child. She’s apparently very busy, but a great advisor, and everyone who I have talked to enjoys meeting with her.)
Which I did right before finals second semester (laughs). And I thought, that sounds awesome; I like research, that sounds like exactly what I want to be doing.
Why Wellesley?
It was my best option…. both financially and considering where I got in. I applied to around 20 schools, but about fifteen of them were the most competitive in the US, so it’s very hard. Especially as an international student; most of the funds are private, so it’s hard to get financial aid.
Favorite part about Wellesley?
The campus… it is beautiful. I feel incredibly safe. It can be 2 am, and I know I’ll be fine wandering about. I especially like the track field… you can lie down in the grass and look up, and you have nothing. Everything’s so far away. I will miss that.
Worst part about Wellesley?
I hated the science center… that building ruins the beauty of the campus. (Note that I completely disagree with this statement. The center space of the Science Center is one of my favorite places on campus. It’s a hotly contested topic, however, with most students coming down strongly on one side or the other.) Otherwise, people sometimes complain about how hard the grading is. I think people come in with the wrong expectations; they expect that if they work, they will necessarily have high grades. For example, in one of my classes, Prof. LaBonte didn’t test whether we knew the material or not, she tested whether we understood the material or not. And everyone can know the material, but not everyone will really understand.
How do you study?
In my room, even though most people study in the library. Specifically, for chemistry, I would study the day before. I’d read the textbooks and do all of the problems; it was really fast. (Note that I had a completely different experience of organic chemistry. I would study for weeks beforehand, rewrite a good portion of the notes, go to study sessions, and basically become very, very stressed. And my grades didn’t come out nearly as nicely as Iulia’s did :). She not only has more experience, but gets things much faster than most of us. So keep in mind you’re hearing from a very, very smart student.) In bio, I copied the main important things from the book and lecture, since I felt that neither was complete. In psych, I had the study guide, and wrote down what Professor Wilmer said was important for the experiments. In math, I did the homework, and when I only got a 94% on one of the midterms… I did all of the problems I could find. The third midterm, I got 98%. (Note that this is a very good grade. I can’t even express to you how hard it is to get the kind of grades that Iulia does at Wellesley. Seriously, we all have As in high school, but I know only two people here who have 4.0s. Iulia is one of them.) Did the rest of your peers feel this way? I’m not sure. Romanians do a lot of math; 14 hours of math a week in high school. We do combinatorics, geometry, super advanced stuff. It was a lot of fun. But one of my friends from Romania didn’t get a very good grade on one of the tests… I’m not sure. Professor Trenk did tell us that the grades were actually higher than she expected. But it was her first semester teaching, so it’s hard to tell. …For art history I researched like crazy. For Bio lab, we needed 3 citations, but one of mine had 23. I read 50 papers—I would spend so much time on it—I worked a lot. More than was required. Same with art history: I had so many sources.
How many hours did you work per week?
It depended. I’m not sure as compared to other people. I did have time to watch TV, and see my boyfriend (who is at Yale, and went to the same high school as Iulia) some weekends. But I did my homework as soon as I could. I had two labs for both semesters, and first semester the labs were really demanding. I’m very slow writing things as well—a bio paper would take a day and a half to write. (Still inserting caveats—my lab reports for neuro would take 15 hours or so. But I’d expect 8 hours per lab report). I’d read papers one week or two weeks in advance.
Did you have any favorite teachers?
My Bio 112 teacher was awesome: Prof. Michelle LaBonte. (I completely agree. I had Prof. LaBonte for Bio 112 and loved her.) Her problem sets were challenging, her homeworks were so amazing—she made me think. It was my favorite class. My second semester, I had Art History Prof. Patrician Berman. She was wonderful: a really good teacher, very supportive and encouraging. I love art, and learning about how you can see the objective in the subjective.
How many science classes did you take compared to humanities?
Well, three-to-one science first semester, then half second semester. Are you happy with it? Yeah. I love the humanities, and the liberal arts. The subject matter of my art history class was very interesting. I like a bit of everything. It’s a bit hard because it’s easier for me to be good at sciences than humanities, but I’m pretty good at humanities as well. I couldn’t apply to just an engineering college.
What do you do for fun?
I didn’t have too much fun first semester… but I went out some second semester. With my boyfriend, or to Boston. Sometimes I just ran around campus
Is it possible to have a boyfriend? (I ask this because it’s a question I hear frequently from prospies.) It wouldn’t be fair to compare, since I’ve been with my boyfriend since 10th grade. We came from Romania together; I didn’t have to search for him. Girls at Wellesley often go into Boston, go to parties… guys aren’t around much, even at our Wellesley parties. It’s possible if you work in Boston, do internships, or cross-register (at MIT. We can take classes at MIT and receive credit for them; there are free shuttles into Boston every day so that we can take classes). Otherwise it’s hard to have a good relationship. (Which is to say, there are opportunities. You just need to work at it more at Wellesley. Iulia was also not mentioning the nearby schools Babson and Olin, where many Wellesley girls hang out or take classes.)
Did you work on campus?
Yeah, I worked in the chemistry prep room. (Wellesley students prepare all of the science labs for their peers.)
Did you do any clubs?
I did Habitat for Humanity. It was for fun, but it was a bit time consuming. I was on e-board, and it was great because everyone was really committed, and had lots of things to discuss. It was really fun. I think that everyone at Wellesley should do something else besides school. At least one thing. I did yoga too first semester—took a PE class and came in twice a week. It was the best thing ever; very good for de-stressing.
What are you doing this summer? I’m doing an awesome chemistry internship at MIT. I’m behind schedule, but I still enjoy it. I’m doing mainly organic synthesis, and I’m supposed to sample bio assays if I ever catch up.
Do you enjoy it? It’s hard, but I feel like I’m really understanding the synthesis. At some point I thought I might like to do this for grad school. I’d like more biology though.
What have you done this summer outside of work? I went with awesome roommates to dimsum. It’s been a really nice experience, really fun hanging out. I went to visit my boyfriend at Yale twice.
What’s one question I should ask you? Or anyone, or the next person I interview?
How has your perception your future changed since you entered college?
How has your perception your future changed since you entered college?
(Laughs). I still have the same idea about my major, and my future education. As for my perception about American college… it actually meant a lot of work. I was used to that, but not really. I had to be more organized. And I have so many things to learn. It’s impressive to discover how much you don’t know.
…
Iulia Tapescu, readers. Hope you’re enjoying these interviews as much as I am :).
Monica
The view on Friday from the MIT bridge walk home. Aren’t the colors beautiful? it’s like a rainbow from the setting sun.
Dimsum this week! Alice, Olivia, Emily, Galina, Kaitlin, me. I love bringing two groups of friends together :).
Alice, Iulia, and I went out to Legal Seafood tonight :).
