Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

I've been serving on grad admissions committees at MIT for 5 years - in EECS and Media Lab If you want to get into a PhD at a place like MIT, here's a thread with some advice based on my observations 1/13

1. Grades do matter, especially in courses that are important for your chosen field 2. Research matters, even more than grades 3. Publications matter, but letters of recommendation matter even more 4. Your statement of purpose should be the cherry on top of the cake 2/13

It seems like most academics come very similar backgrounds. Would love to hear your advise for people from non-traditional or under-represented backgrounds. Is there much consideration for context or any drive by academics to improve representation at all?

Academics come from various sorts of backgrounds! Here's my group as an example:https://twitter.com/MIT_SK_Lab/status/1334906756858830848?s=20 …

It’s great to see how ethnically diverse your group is. But I think you may have misunderstood how there is a lack of diversity in academia. I was referring to social backgrounds. People for underprivileged and marginalised communities.

I would leave it to saying that I am proud of the *difficult* & *inspiring* trajectory that brought each of my team members to MIT As our new Media Lab director @DavaExplorer says, we embrace & aspire for our "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations"!

Coming from a working-class background and growing up in state-housing. Though I went to Cambridge, I was disappointed that I never met a single academic with roots to myself. There was a real-class divide within British academics.