CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Just a few months ago, Miguel Paredes from the University of Lima in
Peru thought MIT was an impossible dream. After spending time on campus
during the all-expenses-paid graduate preview weekend called
“Coverage,” Paredes feels his dream is within reach.
“Converge was amazing. Many of the preconceptions I had about MIT were
shattered, and my expectations of MIT were greatly surpassed,” Paredes
said.
This is exactly the reaction Converge aims to get from its student participants.
Converge began as a grass-roots effort in 2004, with participation from
the Graduate Student Council’s Diversity Initiative, administrators in
the schools of engineering and science, the Graduate Students Office
and the Office of the Provost. A similarly composed planning team
organized the event in 2005, and the goal is still to increase the
diversity of MIT’s graduate student population.
The 24 participants were selected from a pool of 65 applicants. All but
Paredes were from various parts of the United States, including Puerto
Rico. Flown to Boston through the program, they spent the weekend
exploring MIT and Cambridge in a series of tours and workshops.
“We want to bring potential students here and show them what MIT is
about,” said instructor Mandana Sassanfar of the biology department.
