I’m nearing the end of my first week at RSI 2025, and it has been an incredibly busy — but rewarding — start. I finally found a bit of time to share some of what’s been happening.

I arrived at Maseeh Hall, where both the RSI staff and the participants — called “Rickoids” (a name derived from the program’s founder, Admiral H.G. Rickover) — are housed. Like most international students, I moved in on Saturday. The first weekend was all about settling in, meeting the other students, going on a few shopping trips, and exploring the MIT campus. We also had the chance to visit Harvard, which was a nice way to kick off the experience.

On Sunday evening, we gathered in formal attire in the lobby of the Rogers Building for the official start of RSI. One of the long-standing traditions is forming the RSI logo together — a surprisingly fun and symbolic moment. Afterwards, we had dinner and attended the opening ceremony, where several speeches were given about RSI’s history, its mission, and its impact. The staff introduced themselves, and every Rickoid stood up to say a few words about themselves.

I’ve been genuinely impressed by how many traditions RSI has developed over the years. You can really feel the history behind this program as you participate in these events — made even more special by the fact that most of the staff are RSI alumni who went through the same experience in previous years.

The week itself has been packed. Mornings are filled with classes, and afternoons are dedicated to lectures, workshops, and various activities. One of the highlights was the humanities class, where we finally discussed The Great Gatsby and Citizen Kane. Hearing everyone’s interpretations, alongside the context provided by the instructor, made for really engaging conversations.

We also had a class called Athena, which introduced us to computer tools that will help with our research — especially for writing our final papers. A big focus was learning LaTeX, a document preparation system widely used for scientific writing. It’s definitely less intuitive than standard word processors, but I’m starting to see its power. I think my prior experience with Python made it easier to pick up.

In addition, we had classes in two scientific fields of our choice — I chose math and physics. The material was significantly more advanced than anything I’ve encountered in school so far. While I didn’t understand everything, it was still incredibly interesting and I learned a lot.

The afternoon lectures were diverse and often entertaining. We had one on statistics, which was surprisingly fun; another on public speaking, which was even funnier; and an incredible lecture on quantum mechanics given by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist — a surreal experience.

Another task was writing a mini research paper related to art on campus. I won’t reveal my topic (just in case any future RSI applicants are reading), but I will say this: don’t stress too much about it. It’s only a few pages and a short slide presentation, meant more for practice than anything else — mainly to get comfortable using LaTeX.

On a more personal note, I’ve been glad to find time for exercise. I usually go for a morning run and squeeze in a quick workout during lunch. While it’s less than what I do back home, it’s still enough to feel balanced. I’m also slowly figuring out where to eat. There aren’t that many amazing options that accept TechCash (MIT’s internal currency for meals), but it’s perfectly manageable.

If I had to name one real challenge so far, it would be sleep. I’m averaging about two hours less than I’d like, which isn’t ideal. The days are packed, and I don’t want to sacrifice too much time spent socializing — after all, these are the people I’ll be living and working with for the next five weeks. I could sleep in, but that would mean skipping my morning run, which isn’t a trade-off I’m ready to make. Hopefully, once my mentorship starts tomorrow, the schedule will settle down a bit and I’ll be able to recover some rest.

In the next post, I’ll finally be able to share more about my mentorship and research project — the core of the RSI experience.

More soon,

Aliocha Faurisson