This page includes more details on ongoing gradvocate activities, and past activities that could easily be revived. If you are interested in getting involved in with any of these, please check the Members and Alumni page to determine the appropriate contact, or just email bcs-gradvocates@mit.edu.
Policy and advocacy
We work together with department leaders and administrators to advocate for policies that benefit graduate students. This includes:
- Monthly meeting with the current grad officer: Discuss ongoing department happenings, propose new policies and clarifying existing procedures
- Yearly meetings with current department and associate department head: Highlight current primary concerns from the student perspective
- Bianual Visiting Committee, where we discussed what could be improved and what we enjoyed about BCS with the MIT Visiting Committee (that recommends policies directly to the MIT Corporation)
- As needed: Organize a Town Hall, where we discussed the current needs of the graduate students with BCS Department Heads, resulting in inclusion of student voices on policies for BCS. Normally used to address specific major issues that have not been resolved from the regular ongoing efforts.
Record-keeping and tools for navigating grad school
We also keep track of the institutional knowledge among graduate students to help future generations navigate grad school This record-keeping includes:
- BCS Grad Wiki
- Recurring panels for program milestones (now handled partially by the grad affairs comittee)
- Orientations for every year of grad school (now handled by the department)
Socials and community
We organize socials to bring the community together, and connect with other departments, including:
- Orientation BBQ to welcome the first years
- Recurring socials throughout the school year
- Joint socials with EECS, EAPS, Biology, and Harvard Neuroscience
We also help fund and advertise for other student groups/efforts:
- BCS Computational Tutorial
- Peer Lectures (deprecated)
- BCS Philosophy Circle (deprecated)
Diversity and inclusion
We organize initiatives for racial / ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ, and other groups. Here are some of the departmental and institutional efforts represented by BCS Grad students currently or historically.
- BCS Application Assistance: program to help prospective students navigate the BCS grad program application.
- BCS REFS: Resources for Easing Friction and Stress; departmental.
- GSC Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee– institutional student advocacy groups with representatives for each department + various communities.
- GW@MIT: student organization of graduate women across MIT.
- LGBT Grad: student social organization of the graduate (and postdoc) LGBT community across MIT.
- CommUNITY lunch: biweekly lunches for grad students/postdocs/staff of color at BCS. (deprecated)
Teaching and outreach
There are many opportunities to teach local students about neuroscience in general, and about education and career opportunities broadly. BCS students has been less involved in this recently but are always looking for someone to revitalize the effort.
- Many students have taught neuroscience classes through MIT ESP, which bring local middle and high school students to MIT campus to learn about all sorts of fun topics!
- Cambridge Science Fair
- MIT Museum Girls’ Day
- BoSTEM Scholars
Career development
Please see Career for career resources.