For MIT basketball student-athlete Alice Hall, it's about the people.
Whether it's her roommate who introduced her to sustainability, her peers she serves as student body president or her favorite people on campus, her teammates, Hall said her relationships have been some of her best education on campus.
"The beauty of MIT is that I've interacted with so many different types of people," she said. "I was not only able to find people I really trust and agree with, but also people that I don't agree with who have made me change the way I look at things."
For Hall, this looked like working for eight hours on a single chemical engineering problem one day and singing with her teammates on a pregame bus ride the next. It was physical therapy for her shoulder injury in the morning and meeting with student government councils in the afternoon.
Hall used her chemical engineering coursework and Spanish minor to develop solutions to the climate crisis and sustainability. (Photo courtesy of Alice Hall)
The range of Hall's opportunities, a characteristic of the Division III experience, laid the foundation to the chemical engineering major's future.
"Being at MIT and meeting so many different people in the world have made me realize how many different problems we face globally and different ways that we could solve them," she said. "Chemical engineering was versatile with how I could apply it later once I found the right problem to solve."
In the fall, Hall will expand her network as one of 32 American Rhodes Scholars. As she pursues her doctorate in engineering science at the University of Oxford in England, Hall will look to solve some of the work she started at MIT.
"In the United States, we are so excited to invent things, but we are less excited to finish the job," she said. "In my time at Oxford, I want to actually hone in on one project. MIT taught me really well how to solve technical problems, but it also made me realize that I need to be more capable of solving problems holistically, looking at cultural and social factors that impact whether or not these projects are successful.
"Being somewhere like Oxford will help me get that well roundedness to how I think about these problems."
Hall's journey to Oxford and through MIT started on the basketball court.
"Every MIT athlete would say the same thing," she said. "Sports shaped the way I make all of my life decisions."
As a freshman, Hall worried about getting good grades while balancing basketball.
"I was just super afraid of failure. I didn't really branch out as much as I would have," she said.
But by sophomore year, she felt like something was missing. As a recruit, she admired the MIT players' balance of basketball and extracurricular pursuits. She wanted a similar college experience.
She joined the MIT Undergraduate Association Government's Committee on Education. That spring, she ran for chair, earning the spot. During that time, Hall noticed the student government, which mainly focused on policy, seemed disconnected from MIT's students.
Last May, she was elected student body president. In that role, Hall works with cabinets, committees and councils across campus, building relationships and finding ways to make change.
"I thought we could improve by focusing more on student engagement and initiatives impacting students today rather than pushing policy that will impact us in a decade, which is also definitely important," she said. "That's why I ran."
When canvassing issues students cared about, the answers always circled back to food — poor quality and bad access to it. Hall and her team created grab-and-go lunches at the dining halls, giving students more value to their meal plans. When the president of the United States issued an order on higher education, Hall led eight other universities to write a collective petition to send back to the White House.
Hall was a leader in the MIT D-Lab, where she collaborated with a women's collective in Ghana to design sustainably powered tools for shea nut processing. This year, she worked with the Olivetti Group to evaluate the scalability of different solutions to the clean energy crisis. She is also a member of the Black Students' Union and MIT's chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.
"As a freshman, I came in just wanting to survive, just afraid and hoping I could do it," she said. "Leaving, I'm a lot more confident. I'm a better global citizen now, and I have a better grasp of how much I can achieve.
"As a freshman, I wanted to get a good job so I can support my family," she added. "Now I'm like, what can I do to make the world a better place?"
For Hall, this growth started on the basketball court.
"Even when it feels like it is too much, you realize you can push yourself farther, do more and go further."
