Claudia Chen ’20 was building automata at MIT long before she even submitted her application for admission. As a rising senior in high school, she participated in MIT’s Women’s Technology Program (WTP) and used her time in the Pappalardo lab in part to build a laser-cut kinetic sculpture. That project, which mingled the artistic and the technical, foreshadowed the wide range of studies she would explore as an undergraduate student at the Institute. As a creative writing enthusiast and lifelong dancer, Chen wasn’t sure what type of degree she wanted…
