Sofia Serafina Riskin

Along with many others, my life changed during COVID-19. I took a gap year after finishing my first year at Smith College. Although I created many plans detailing how I wanted to redefine myself during this unprecedented time in my life (learn how to play the cello, for example), my year unfolded in an unexpected and lovely way. Soon, I yearned to be in class again and continue learning! My dad suggested I enroll in a class or two as a listener at MIT. Although I grew up in Cambridge and had a lot of fun running through the infinite corridor at age three, I never thought MIT could be an academic fit. This was the time, however, to begin challenging the belief that I couldn’t be as successful in math and the hard sciences as I was in the humanities.

Thanks to Laura’s kindness, I joined her fall course, 9.85 (Infant and Early Childhood Cognition) which was unlike any learning experience I had encountered. Each topic and discussion built on the core belief that studying the development of children can provide crucial insight into the human experience and thus inform an array of fields from artificial intelligence to philosophy. 9.85 and my time in the lab have taught me to see that children are scientists, engineers, poets, philosophers, and artists, to name a few identities. In addition to learning content in this course, I learned to believe in — and advocate for — children in a meaningful and conscious way. 

I began to reflect on my childhood and how aspects of my beliefs, values, and personality have changed as well as remained constant. One of the salient themes throughout my life is my relationship with my younger sister, Delphi. The ways I interacted with her when I was six years old and she was two (wanting to help take care of her, for example) are the same fourteen years later. In the picture of the two of us when we were six and two, I lay my head against hers. Funnily enough, we accidentally make the same pose in current pictures!

I have always been intensely curious about childhoods –– my own, that of my younger sister, and those of others –– I didn’t know, however, how to approach this interest before listening in on 9.85. Growing up, I explored childhood by talking with my classmates and friends about their lives as well as from the perspectives of children’s books and music, medicine, psychoanalysis, and global children’s health. I viewed all of these interests, however, as tangential to my learning as a student. 9.85 introduced me to a network of people, ideas, disciplines, and questions that resonated with who I am at this stage, who I want to be, and how I want to contribute to humanity. Toward the end of the fall in 2020, I joined the lab as an undergraduate research assistant working with Junyi (who has been an incredibly dedicated, thoughtful, kind, and supportive mentor).

I am so looking forward to asking new questions, learning about pioneering studies in the field, honing in on the phenomena that most fascinate me, and continuing to be inspired and have fun while working with children!