mit alumni association massachusetts institute of...

MIT Alumni AssociationAnnual Fund Leadership Programs

ph: 617-253-8242f: 617-258-7886

http://alum.mit.edu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology600 Memorial Drive, W98-1st floor

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4822

Dear Class of 1978,

It is with great appreciation that I write to share an update on the Class of 1978 Student Aid Fund. It isnot surprising that the need for significant financial aid remains high for the vast majority of students,and the following pages illustrate the tremendous impact your fund has at MIT today.

As you well know, our students are among the brightest and most talented in the world, and they facemany challenges and pressures during their time on campus. By supporting undergraduatescholarships, you afford students the opportunity to focus on their studies and activities, not thefinancial burden. At the same time, you demonstrate to them the importance of philanthropy.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. On behalf of the Alumni Associationand MIT, I thank the alumni and friends who contributed to this fund, as well as the leadership whomade this endowment a fundraising priority.

Sincerely,

Beth McGonagleDirector of Donor Recognition and Stewardship, MIT Annual Fund

Enclosures

Mr. Roy W. Haygood III711 Krystal Creek CourtFlushing, MI 48433

November 19, 2012

Massachusetts InstItute of technology

CLASS OF 1978 STUDENT AID FUND

Robert J. Bertucci 2014Belleville, IllinoisElectrical Engineering & Computer Science major

Junior Robert Bertucci continues as a Class of 1978 Scholar. Below he shares with you some of his interests and activities.

MIT ACTIVITIES

ARTS

I play piano as a hobby.

ATHLETICS

I am a pitcher on the varsity baseball team.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

I volunteered at the Boston marathon and help tutor for freshman physics.

DORMITORY/FSILGI am alumni relations chair for the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.

ACADEMIC/RESEARCH INTERESTS

I worked in the Center for Sports Innovation designing and testing baseball bats. I also worked for theMarine Robotics Team, developing an Autonomous Underwater Glider for Chevron. I enjoy studyingrobotics.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES

I worked as a TA (teaching assistant) for the MIT Science of Baseball Program. I taught 8th and 9th gradestudents math and science. I also worked on several projects in Baseball Analytics and presented at aSabermetrics seminar.

CAREER PLANS

I would like to work in sports analytics or robotics.

MY TIME AT MITI hope to help develop new statistical models for player evaluation in baseball and work to further thereliability of player projections and scouting in major league baseball. Working for the Marine RoboticsTeam was a great experience. I had the opportunity to design and build the pitch and roll systems for theUnderwater Glider, which was great hands-on work.

2012-2013 SCHOLARSHIP PROFILE



Lauren E. Burke 2014Norwell, MassachusettsPhilosophy major

Junior Lauren Burke continues as a Class of 1978 Scholar. Below she shares with you some of her interests and activities.

MIT ACTIVITIES

ARTS

I am the current president of the MIT Concert Choir and was featured as a soloist in our spring '12 concert.I also performed and sang in an MIT Gilbert and Sullivan Players production in summer '11, The SecretGarden.

It has been an amazing way to channel my creative energy and love of singing into a relaxing and fun outletevery week during the school year. I've challenged myself with solos and now a leadership position as thepresident, and I have greatly enjoyed meeting wonderful people and being a part of that community oncampus.


My first UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) was in the Learning and IntelligenceSystems lab in CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) in spring '11. My secondwas in the Infolab in CSAIL, working in natural language processing in summer and fall '11. My current andthird UROP is in the Speech Communication Group in RLE (The Research Laboratory of Electronics)working in linguistics. I'm interested in natural language processing and/or computational linguistics, as Iam currently a linguistics major but with a background in computer science. I've had a UROP in naturallanguage processing and currently have a UROP using software to acoustically analyze properties ofchildren's speech in relation to the context in which target words are spoken.

OTHER

I am a student leader and active member of MIT's Campus Crusade for Christ.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES

I worked in the Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, NY, where I worked todevelop neuromorphic computing technology.

CAREER PLANS

I'm not sure. My three prospectives are either working in computational linguistics, lexicography, or gettinga Phd in linguistics.

MY TIME AT MITI hope to keep meeting and working with the amazing and intelligent people around me and learning asmuch as I can from them.




Chase G. Lambert 2014Austin, TexasElectrical Engineering & Computer Science major

Junior Chase Lambert continues as a Class of 1978 Scholar. Below he shares with you some of his interests and activities.

MIT ACTIVITIES

ATHLETICS

I play Frisbee frequently. I was on MIT's team my freshman year, but found that I was a bit too busy thefollowing year. I run a couple times a week, generally around the Charles river. I bike every day. I'm apart ofMIT's outdoor club (MITOC), and have been hiking and mountain running a few times with them.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

One of my favorite things to do is fix bikes at a nonprofit bike store called Quadbikes. They have aprogram which finds abandoned bikes, fixes them, and gives them to people who can't afford bikes. It'sabout three hours a week, and I've been doing it since freshman year.

DORMITORY/FSILGI live in Burton Conner, but I also spend a good amount of time at Pika. Just recently, I've been helping outin their work week, building a new set of garage doors, that will be painted with an Avatar mural.Otherwise, throughout the year, I eat there frequently and help clean up in return. I was also a part of ZBT(Zeta Beta Tau) for a year, but sadly I had to deaffiliate because I wanted to stay in my dorm instead ofmoving off campus. I did help out in various ways, through events like the haunted house, where wedecorate the house for Halloween and invite neighborhood kids and parents to come explore.


Second semester of freshman year, I built an android application at the media lab. The idea was to maketwitter audible, and to easily fit in with every day life. Specifically, tweets could be uploaded via voice, andlistened to as well. I haven't done much in this area, but I did take a Systems Visualization course lastsemester. It was pretty interesting; my final project was to help teach a confusing software paradigmthrough mainly visual means.

I'm particularly interested in teaching, because I find that I get an enormous amount of energy when I havestudents that are ready to learn. The summer before last, I was a technical instructor for a group of twenty-seven university students in Accra, Ghana. It's a part of a program called AITI, which teaches mobiletechnologies and entrepreneurship to developing countries. We were given six weeks to get the studentsfrom a general idea of computer science to building full applications.

We had to come up with all of the lesson plans, so the whole course required an immense amount ofeffort, but it was all a phenomenal experience. I'm also interested in telecommunications for the samereason. In Ghana and many other countries in Africa, getting access to an SMS gateway is incredibly hard.Once gained, these gateways would allow people to build applications that could interface with SMS, forexample checking if a flight is delayed or not could be solved here. Services like Twillio would be veryhelpful here, although arguably too expensive. Instead, there is not enough innovation going on in general,just lots of companies competing on prices.

Continued



OTHER

Last year, I was in LTI, which teaches high school students leadership skills. I was one of the activitymentors, so I helped plan and run lots of activities from which the students were able to learn. I'm alsoapart of SaveTFP, which is a general mental and physical health conscious club. Our main purpose is togive people alternative activities to do instead of drinking or other dangerous activities. Also, just this yearI've joined StartLabs, which is a club that helps teach people to build companies from new technologies orideas. It's a nonprofit organization that is funded outside of MIT. I'm currently web marketer for ourupcoming event, Startup Bootcamp.

CAREER PLANS

I'm not totally sure of this yet, but I'm thinking of either working for a small company in California, or goingabroad and starting a company. I'm hoping to solve some tough problems that will help the lives of others.

MY TIME AT MITI'm hoping to continue learning and meeting others as much as possible. Last semester I took probably thebest class I've ever taken (computation photography), and it's given me a new passion for learning.

Besides broadening my engineering knowledge, I hope to get a better idea of how to be a leader. I knowthat in the past, I've had some success in leadership positions, but these were mainly in high school. I'mhoping to be able to bring this skill up to an MIT level, where I can actually get others to trust me and helpme achieve something awesome. This is one of the reasons I've joined the clubs that I have; I think theyare helping, but I still need to put myself up in a higher position of leadership to really flex my muscles.

One class that I particularly enjoyed was robotics. The entire class was a team-based lab, where me andthree others built a robot from scratch. By the end of the class, we had a robot that was able to find andbuild a fairly complex structure out of a set of blocks that were scattered on the floor. I particularly enjoyedthis project because I had such a great team helping me out.

The class also had a communications aspect to it, which I frankly thought was very helpful. Specifically,every week, my team and I had to give a ten-minute presentation about what we had done the weekbefore. I found that I was terrible at this, and I didn't even know it. As a result, I spent a good amount oftime throughout the semester just formally talking in front of a mirror until I was fairly confident at this typeof speaking. Additionally, the communication instructors helped us understand exactly how to handle teamdynamics. There were quite a few things that I thought were obvious to me, but I was actually wrong aboutwhen working in a team. I'm much more confident in working with others as a result of this class, and Iknow much more about robots.

THANK YOU

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I promise you that I try as hard as I can to fill every day withexciting and constructive activities. I take to heart the fact that I only get one chance to study in theintellectual capital of the world. I truly think that engineering will solve most of the world's hardestproblems, and I hope to be one of the people that can help prove this. I love MIT's work ethic to no end;there's this feeling that everyone really does want to change the world. I really couldn't ask for anythingmore. Thank you so very much for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this amazing-beyond-beliefcommunity.




Madeline Salazar 2013Los Angeles, CaliforniaMechanical Engineering major

Senior Madeline Salazar continues as a Class of 1978 Scholar. Madeline is a first generation college student. Below sheshares with you some of her interests and activities.

MIT ACTIVITIES

COMMUNITY SERVICE

I was a member of the MIT Service Leadership Program in Shenzhen, China. Through this program, Itraveled to China with a group of students to hold a 10-day conference for students in China.

DORMITORY/FSILGI am a member and social chair of Spanish House, a cultural house at MIT. As a Spanish House memberand social chair, I have helped to provide opportunities for the MIT community to learn about Latin culture.

OTHER

I have been a member of La Union Chicana por Aztlan and the Latino Cultural Center. In these clubs, I haveheld the positions of academic chair and vice president, respectively.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES

I interned for the US Navy and traveled to China to hold a summer program for students in Shenzhen.

CAREER PLANS

I plan to attend graduate school for a Master's in mechanical engineering.

MY TIME AT MITI will never forget the first exam I had at MIT. Before then, I had never faced something so difficult! My MITexperiences are shaping my future career. The skills and character I am building here are what makes me acandidate for different fields in the workforce, whether it be a researcher or a member of private industry.



SUPPORTING MERITOCRACY: BY THE NUMBERS

As of October 24, 2012

MIT is a true meritocracy, admitting the best and brightest students regardless of their financial circumstances and awarding financial aid solely on the basis of need. The full cost of an MIT education—tuition and fees; room and board; books, supplies, and personal expenses; and average travel allowance—now surpasses $57,000 a year. Resources are needed to ensure that an MIT education remains accessible to all talented young people. Your gifts to scholarships at MIT make dreams possible. Students come here to make an enduring impact on the world. With your support, they will surely succeed.

Class of 2016 Profile

18,109 Applicants1,620 Students admitted8.9% Admission rate1,135 Students enrolled70% Enrollment yield54% Men46% Women10% International students46 States represented52 Countries represented13% First-generation students 65% Students who attended public high school44% Valedictorians* 92% Students in top 5% of their class* 716 Mean SAT I verbal score765 Mean SAT I math score

* Excluding unranked students.

finanCial aid at Mit

$42,050 MIT 2012-2013 tuition and fees89% MIT undergraduates receiving some form of financial aid61% MIT undergraduates awarded an MIT scholarship33% MIT undergraduates whose need is great enough that they rely on financial aid to pay their full tuition$32,917 Average MIT scholarship41% MIT Class of 2012 graduates with student loan debt$20,794 Average student loan debt at graduation for Class of 2012 63% MIT undergraduates who work term-time$2,971 Average term-time earnings

All statistics based on 2011-2012 academic year.

mit alumni association massachusetts institute of...

Documents