Rallying around graduate student parents

Last month, the MIT Office of Graduate Education celebrated National Student Parent Month with features on four MIT graduate student parents. These students' professional backgrounds, experiences, and years at MIT highlight aspects of diversity in our student parent population.

Diana Grass is one of MIT's most involved graduate student parents. Grass is a third-year PhD student in medical engineering and medical physics in the joint Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, and the mother of two children. As co-founder and co-president of MIT's Graduate First Generation and Low-Income student group (GFLI@MIT), Grass is a strong advocate for first-generation grad students and student parents.

Fifth-year civil and environmental engineering PhD student Fabio Castro is a new father. Prior to MIT, he was an engineer and logistics manager at an energy firm in Brazil, and volunteered with Doctors without Borders in South Sudan. He and his wife, Amanda, welcomed their daughter, Sofia, last fall.

First-year MIT Sloan MBA student Elizabeth Doherty shared her experience as a career changer and mother of two young children. Doherty began her career as a lower elementary school teacher, working in both public and private schools. After switching gears to work as a senior digital learning specialist at Bain & Co., she recognized the importance of company culture, which led her to pursue a master's degree in business administration.

Matthew Webb is working on his second MIT degree as a second-year PhD student in the Center for Transportation and Logistics. He shared the ways in which his grad student experience is different now as a father of three, than when he was a master's student in the Operations Research program without children.

All four student parents came from different professional backgrounds and departments, but one theme was consistent in all their stories: the support of the MIT families community. From pitching in to help new parents to coordinating play dates and sharing information, MIT's student parents are there for one another.

For Doherty, family-friendliness was a top priority when she selected an MBA program. MIT stood out to her because of the family housing, the on-campus childcare, and the opportunities to meet other student families. Doherty felt affirmed in her decision to attend MIT when she enrolled and the MIT Sloan School of Management reached out with a welcoming note and a gift. "It highlighted how thoughtful MIT has been about creating a strong infrastructure for student parents," she says.

Grass points to the importance her family placed on moving into an on-campus residence, as her family lacked community in their previous off-campus home. This move to MIT's campus added convenience to the family's daily routine, and helped them meet other student families.

Before returning to MIT for his PhD, Webb was unaware of the support offered to graduate student families. He was pleasantly surprised to discover the Office of Graduate Education's resources and programming for families through an email his first semester. His wife Rachel and their three children also take advantage of the activities hosted by MIT Spouses and Partners Connect while Webb goes to class. Some favorites have included ice cream and bubble tea outings, "crafternoons," and going on a tour of Fenway Park.

Castro remembers how his family housing neighbors showed up for him and his family when they needed it most. In anticipation of their first child's birth, Castro and his wife, Amanda, arranged for Amanda's parents to come to Cambridge to help them in the early weeks as first-time parents. When these plans unexpectedly fell through, their community in Westgate stepped up. For weeks, other MIT families came by to teach them how to care for their newborn, and dropped off meals at their door.

He was touched by these gestures - the support was a huge benefit of choosing to live on campus, and something that would not have happened had he lived in an off-campus apartment. "It's something I'll never forget," Castro says.