Fall 2024 / The Whole Student Experience

“I Learn Something New in Every Conversation with My Peers”

From student government to academic research, Julia Schneider ’26 has immersed herself in an array of MIT opportunities

Growing up as an expat overseas, Julia Schneider ’26 first heard about MIT when competing in international robotics competitions.

Visiting campus after her admission, she was struck by the immediate potential for research and lab work, even in her first year. “MIT felt like the end of the rainbow,” she says. She credits the Harry and Eunice Nohara Scholarship for providing invaluable support: it “enables me to attend my dream school without putting a financial strain on my ability to pursue the many opportunities available here,” she says.

The value of undergraduate research

MIT is brimming with opportunities. In only my first week on campus I met one of my academic heroes, Professor Sangbae Kim, through the Discover Mechanical Engineering First-Year Pre-Orientation Program. A semester later, I joined his lab as an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) researcher. In the 1.5 years since, I’ve developed reinforcement learning control policies and designed neural network architectures for the MIT Mini Cheetah and Humanoid. My postdoc and PhD mentors’ unparalleled mentorship has made working on a UROP at the Biomimetic Robotics Lab the highlight of my MIT experience.

I feel privileged to be an MIT student because the Institute fosters an academic culture that values underclassmen’s contributions to its research efforts. I also discovered that students of all ages were enrolled in graduate-level courses alongside me, which speaks to how the only limiting factor at MIT is the number of hours in a day. These early “mens et manus” experiences helped prepare me for internships at Lockheed Martin and NVIDIA, where I worked on autonomous navigation and large language models, respectively.

Academic flexibility

When choosing to attend MIT, I was especially excited that I could major in Artificial Intelligence + Decision Making as an undergraduate, rather than having to wait until graduate school to specialize. Coming here, I learned that I also really enjoy math for math’s sake, although I’d previously thought of it as a tool for computer science. At MIT, every time I took a math class, I discovered new models and methods I could apply to solve the challenges I faced in machine learning and robotics. I’m looking forward to declaring a secondary major in math in the fall.

New interests and advisory roles

One of my favorite things about MIT is how I learn something new in every conversation with my peers. This inspired me to pursue new interests in student government as a means of immersing myself in our enriching community. As co-president of MIT IEEE/ ACM, I lead our executive board to hold an array of seminars, tech talks, and socials that connect students, faculty, and industry partners within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). I also serve on the EECS and MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing Undergraduate Advisory Boards, where I advocate for undergraduate experience improvements in regular meetings with department administrators and deans, and they truly listen to our feedback. I didn’t expect to pick up any nonacademic extracurriculars, but now one of my favorite ways to recharge is through the MIT Latin Dance Club, where we hold weekly bachata and salsa lessons and field a performance team.