Volume 145: Year in Review
From the Editor-in-Chief
Reading a university newspaper during a turbulent year creates a strange kind of whiplash. Any headline feels manageable alone: a policy change, a protest, a funding cut, a record-breaking statistic. But taken together, they don’t resolve into a clean narrative. There’s growth alongside contraction. Celebration alongside quiet loss.
We didn’t come to MIT expecting to spend our nights arguing over editorial calls, weighing how to cover stories that would upset people we know, or learning to read between official statements and lived reality. We came to study science and engineering, to leave with technical skills and a clear professional path. Instead, we learned how much goes unseen depending on where you’re looking from. We learned that the most important truths are often the least measurable. Our training tells us to eliminate confounding variables, to separate signal from noise. But Institute life is all confounding variables. The noise is the story.
Our science backgrounds turned out to matter, too. Journalism isn’t so different from research — you start with assumptions, and your job is to test them. If you think you already know the story before you report it, you’re probably wrong.
That became clear when we reported on AI in education and research. I expected broad agreement within departments. Instead, we found sharp disagreement even among people in the same field. The story wasn’t “MIT embraces AI” or “MIT resists AI.” It was uncertain. That only surfaced because we asked people what they actually thought, not what we assumed they would say. Science gave us facts. Journalism gave us context. Both matter.
MIT doesn’t exist in a bubble. Being a student here means moving through overlapping worlds: campus culture and hierarchies, Cambridge’s mix of wealth and precarity, and a Boston shaped by both activism and segregation. This is MIT at the street level — it’s messy, imperfect, and alive. It taught us about scale and solidarity in ways no classroom could.
MIT trains us to believe that any problem can be solved with enough technical expertise, but questions about power, values, and the kind of society we want don’t yield to optimization.
At The Tech, we tried to reflect the full range of student life, even when that meant discomfort. We covered protests because MIT students were there, and they mattered. We covered campus preview weekends and record-breaking yield rates because those mattered too. We reported on federal funding cuts as research grants were terminated and health budgets shrank. All of it belonged in the record.
Years from now, when someone wants to understand what MIT was like in 2025, they won’t turn to glossy reports. They’ll look at the student newspaper. I hope they’ll find a community wrestling honestly with itself. I hope they’ll observe students from hundreds of backgrounds trying to make sense of the Institute they're both part of and trying to change. I hope they’ll see championships and protests, scholarships and visa fears, ambition and uncertainty living side by side.
My science training gave me a deep respect for MIT. But respect gets complicated when you’re responsible for telling the truth. The hardest editorial choices came when accuracy conflicted with institutional comfort.
Our job wasn’t to resolve MIT’s contradictions. It was to document them, to say: this happened, people cared, and it mattered. MIT has enormous power to shape research agendas, to credential future leaders, to anchor regional economies, to influence policy. If we don’t tell our own story, someone else will. They’ll flatten it. They’ll miss the texture.
This year contained multitudes. We tried to bear witness to as many of them as we could. And in a year like this one, that may have been the most important thing we did.
Karie Shen ’27, Volume 145 Editor-in-Chief
News
To say the very least, 2025 has been a tumultuous year. As a result, The Tech’s reporting has often focused on both MIT’s and everyday citizens’ responses to unprecedented political upheaval.
The Trump administration has targeted universities across the U.S. on nakedly ideological bases through a new endowment tax and crackdowns on student protests. The government has also pursued massive funding cuts, including to research agencies like the National Institute of Health or National Science Foundation, that have hampered scientific inquiry.
Our reporting on the MIT administration’s answers to these choices has revealed the challenges of thoughtfully engaging with an executive branch intent on immobilizing basic research and political dissent. Still, in the words of former congressman John Lewis, we saw the Institute make “good trouble” through a courageous response to President Trump’s proposed college compact.
However, and more importantly, this new federal landscape has impacted countless lives far beyond MIT’s corridors. Young children are now separated from their parents because of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainments. Medicaid cuts have caused millions to lose health insurance. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have been laid off. In other words, every resident of the United States — and many outside — has been affected.
We have striven throughout Volume 145 to highlight these individuals. When covering huge protests in Boston, we spoke to many demonstrators whose bravery, hope, and ideological diversity exemplified the ideals of civic engagement — ideals recently threatened by the violence of federal agents in Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
While we are sure that 2026 will present its own challenges, we know that The Tech’s News staff will continue to pursue excellence in all aspects of reporting. We look forward to seeing the ways that Samuel Yuan ’29 and Jada Ogueh ’29, our Volume 146 News Editors, will shape the department.
Vivian Hir ’25, Volume 145 News Editor & Sabine Chu ’26, Volume 145 Associate News Editor
Campus Life
Once again, another year of Campus Life has come to a close. This year, we welcomed a few amazing new staff writers who each brought a range of perspectives to the table. From reflections on freshman life to thoughtful analyses of MIT culture, our Campus Life writers have immortalized the remarkably diverse experiences of MIT students in the pages of The Tech.
One of the most exciting moments in this issue was when we were able to learn and share the story of Kip Clark, also known as the “Free Listening Guy.” The revival and continuation of the Auntie Matter advice column has also offered a unique opportunity not only to share information with the MIT community but also create a space for open dialogue.
With Shelly Yang ’29 as our new editor, I’m excited to see what MIT will bring to Campus Life, and vice versa, in Volume 146. Stay tuned for great things to come!
Susan Hong ’27, Volume 145 Campus Life Editor
Arts
What makes the Arts department special is its diverse coverage of the vibrant arts scene in the Boston area. In 2025, we listened to famous classical soloists like Seong-Jin Cho play Ravel, watched moving musicals like Fun Home, and attended the Boston Ballet’s spectacular performances, just to name a few. On campus, we saw the MIT community shine in all artistic disciplines, from the MIT Gala’s creative fashion showcase to the MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble’s memorable fall collection rendition.
Besides covering countless events on and off campus, the Arts department did an excellent job reviewing various art genres. We wrote nuanced commentaries of films like The Brutalist, reviewed highly anticipated music albums that ranged from amazing (DxS’s Serenade) to abysmal (Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl), and critiqued the fancy food we ate at places like Oleana and MINCE. Overall, I am proud that The Tech’s Arts department exemplifies the breadth and depth in the creative arts.
Although the arts serve as a source of entertainment, they play the important role of connecting people from different backgrounds in society. By being immersed in the arts, we can better understand the shared experiences in the human condition, ultimately leading to greater empathy and self-knowledge. Not only that, the arts also help us learn more about the diverse histories, cultures, and societies around the world.
It has truly been a pleasure and privilege to be part of the Arts section and see the department grow significantly during my time as a student at MIT. The arts have deeply enriched my college life, and my time as writer and editor provided me the opportunity to meet many similarly passionate writers. I warmly welcome Chloe Lee ’29 as the Volume 146 Arts Editor.
Vivian Hir ’25, V145 Interim Arts Editor
Science
Sometimes MIT can come across as larger than life. Where else can the shortest path to class lead you past strangers bonding over an equation, students who stayed up all night building a robot, labs of Nobel prize–winning scientists, and posters advertising events for every topic imaginable?
Here in the science department, we help people meet their heroes, but we’re also showing the world how those heroes are human: not just scientists, but friends, family members, artists, athletes, and so much more. Behind each beautiful idea is a group of individuals just as real and brilliant and inspiring as the science itself. It’s been my honor to bring you stories of some of the incredible people who call MIT home.
When I look back on the year we’ve had, the foremost emotion I feel is pride. I’ve gotten to not only go on my own science writing adventures, but also watch our writers develop, talking through the tricky parts and cheering on their successes. It can take a lot of heart to keep a student newspaper going, and I’m continually inspired by the wisdom, dedication, and collaborative spirit of my fellow editors and the V145 exec.
Thank you for joining us. We have big shoes to fill, and I look forward to all the growing we’ll be doing in V146.
Veronika Moroz ’28, V145 Science Editor
Opinion
2025 saw The Tech’s Editorial Board lift the suspension on the Opinion section while the ramifications of President Donald Trump’s re-election rippled through MIT. Along with its peer institutions, MIT suffered the consequences of capricious budget cuts that seriously threatened class offerings, research, and student admissions. Meanwhile, support for Palestine has not waned, as Israel's genocide in Gaza becomes more and more undeniable. The Trump administration presented several universities with a Faustian bargain, with MIT rejecting its Mephistophelian compact. As the federal government becomes increasingly authoritarian at home and abroad, the only thing we know for sure is that there is more to come.
Our university is a hub for brilliant minds and varied opinions, and we are committed to making the Opinion section reflect those differing viewpoints. As such, we've implemented strategies to prevent excessive, repetitive exchanges that could degrade the section's quality. We strived to consistently enforce these rules, regardless of our agreement with the author’s position, knowing that the section’s integrity is ultimately paramount.
The Opinion Editor position sat vacant during V145, so the other members of the Editorial Board assumed the responsibilities of the position. We faced many challenges — we often found it difficult to distribute tasks equitably or maintain a unified stance when we naturally disagreed. Nonetheless, we‘re proud of the work we’ve put into the Opinion section over the past volume, and we look forward to V146, which will bring our new Opinion Editor and many improvements to come.
Geoffrey Enwere ’26, V145 Managing Editor and Editorial Board Member