Sabine Chu

What have you most enjoyed about studying literature? Was there a particular discovery, new skill or way of thinking, or insight that you found especially valuable? Please share an example from your favorite class or experience.

Studying literature at MIT has allowed me to clarify my moral judgments, sharpen my communication skills, and develop my own creative writing practice. It’s also been a compounding source of intellectual pleasure. For instance, I’ve felt very lucky to deepen my reading of T.S. Eliot’s major works in Fall 2025’s 21L.487 (Modern Poetry) through intensive study of his corpus in Spring 2026’s 21L.512 (American Authors).

How does the knowledge from this field, or your interest in it, combine with your other major or minor studies at MIT?

My training in math, where you need to ground your claims of salient big-picture patterns in exact details, has made me a more thorough, skeptical reader. In addition, my methods of literary analysis are highly graphical. I hope that my Literature thesis, which attempts to apply metaphors from math, physics, and urban planning to Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666, will benefit from an interdisciplinary perspective.

An MIT education includes study in the scientific, technical, social science, arts, and humanities fields. How do you think that the wide range of knowledge and perspectives will be valuable to you – for your career success and for your enjoyment of life?

Much of life, including work, consists of conversation. I’m glad that MIT has given me so many different ways to communicate and so varied a list of topics to discuss. Even more, I’m grateful that I’ve learned how to sit down and listen (or read, as the case may be) with an open but critical mind.

What are your plans for the future? 

Immediately after graduation, I plan to return to New York City to teach high school math through the two-year Teach For America program. I’m excited to see what comes after that.