Anneke Schwob

I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I tell people that I studied literature at MIT. For a lot of people, the mere existence of a literature department – let alone a good Literature department –doesn’t fit with their idea of MIT. For me, though, the Lit department was one of the few places at MIT where I fit. I spent a lot of my early time at MIT feeling lost: lost in my classes, lost among my peers. At times, the school seemed too big and too full of people who seemed to be coping much better than I was, or hiding it better, at least. The Lit department helped me find a place in the school where I felt like my voice was valued but also challenged, both by the students who continued to engage outside of class and who became friends, and by the professors who wanted me not only to have opinions and be unafraid of sharing them, but to defend them as well.