Does it feel like the graduate budget doesn’t offer that extra expendable income with which to travel? Well… it doesn’t in the traditional sense, but while graduate school demands that we develop skills of rigor, perseverance and creativity to push the limits of research; many of those very lessons can be applied to our personal lives to make the most of our precious free time.  I don’t have all of the answers, but I’ve discovered a gem that certainly deserves to be shared, and that is the world of Couchsurfing.com.

Couchsurfing.com is a website that brings together people willing to open up their apartments to a wandering traveler for a few days in the hopes that someone will do the same for them in the future.  It doesn’t mean that you can only stay with people planning to travel to Cambridge in the next few years.  In fact, with a roommate and a stream of Psets, right now might not be the time for you to be the greatest host.  But that’s ok.  There exist options to simply act as a tour guide for a day or just meet up for a coffee and a quick dose of local culture… So if work forces you to stay in Cambridge, a bright-eyed traveler touring campus and grabbing lunch with you might be a great way to get the starry perspective of a tourist and set up connections for the future.

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Prince Oluguwefola Naragaraska and I am writing to inform you that you have been designated as heir to a fortune in the amount of $380,000,000.00 from the late Dr. Karlasto Morenara.

Just kidding! But you did get a chunk of cash for your graduate student community-building initiative! Congratulations!

If only we were lucky enough to have funding for student events materialize from nowhere. Unfortunately, no deceased foreign millionaires seem to want to fund MIT grad student events. So, instead, the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education (ODGE) does a large part of it. Dean for Graduate Education Steven Lerman maintains a funding opportunity, called the Graduate Student Life Grants (GSLGs), which can be used to support graduate student community-building initiatives. All you need is a good idea and a plan. Past grants have run the gamut of community-building activities, from very visible events to ones focused on small groups. Ever been to a brunch at Sidney-Pacific or Ashdown?

When you come to Boston this Fall don’t make the same mistake I made five years ago on October 20, 2004.  I was coming back from a date to my dorm when a wild group of delirious students beat through the doors, all yelling like in an improvised chant that suddenly everyone knew by heart:

“The Red Sox beat the Yankees!”

“The Red Sox beat THE Yankeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!”

“World Series, BABY!!!!!!!!”

“World Series, ALL THE WAY!”

I stood there, amused, but… I couldn’t care less.  After all, I was from a country where soccer was king, where the name Babe Ruth didn’t ring even the tiniest of bells, and where baseball was seen as America’s deliberate, almost evil, self-imposed seclusion from world culture.

This month, 40 years after “the eagle” landed successfully on the moon, MIT as an institution and it’s alumni as heroes, are once again nourishing our history. Thus, this issue of The Graduate wants to commemorate the work of an incredible group of people during a historic moment.

It is well known that generating positive changes in the world and achieving dreams fueled by passion, commitment, teamwork, and organized efforts are parts of MIT’s DNA. The University’s relationship with space missions isn’t something new either. As official data from it’s website states:

“ More than one-third of the nation's space flights have included MIT-educated astronauts, who have logged a total of more than 15,000 hours in space. NASA has chosen more MIT graduates to become astronauts than graduates of any other private educational institution. Only the US Air Force Academy, the US Naval Academy and the US Naval Postgraduate School have had more graduates selected for the astronaut program. Four of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon during the Apollo program were MIT alumni. They logged a total of 51 hours exploring the lunar surface from 1969-72”.

But MIT’s impact on the world’s space-flights and particularly on the Apollo 11 mission was even deeper. “Landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth” was one of those few events in history that made all the countries be united as one, that made every frontier vanish, that combined different languages into a unique message of hope that flooded everyone’s hearts, and that made the whole world look up at a same objective at the same time. July 20, 1969 was when it happened, and MIT was a major player in that historic crusade.