No love [sonnets] for differential equations

By Harriet Staff

On MIT’s Admissions blog, one student shows her true devotion to higher learning by writing a sonnet for each of her classes (except differential equations, with whom she’s currently embroiled in a lovers’ quarrel). Working off of five hours of sleep, the poet known only as Anna ’14 emerges from back to back lectures on organic chemistry and the aforementioned unsonnetable diff eq with “a powerful urge to write some poetry.” Along the way, she helpfully explains sonnet structure and iambic pentameter. You’re on your own for figuring out all the references in her Ode to 8.022 Physics II (Electricity and Magnetism), though. And no, you won’t find P-Set in the Anthology of Rap. But it’s her Ode to 5.12: Organic Chemistry where her love for the (sometimes self-) discoveries of learning shine through most:

I signed up for you at the last minute
Because I thought I might become pre-med
I did not think we’d mesh well, I admit
But now I know this was too early said.

I find that now you fit me like a glove
As time went on, I found my strengths and grew
To understand hybridization, love
I have a gift for spatial work; who knew?

Tags: Chemistry, Math, MIT, Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 by Harriet Staff.