Albums I PSet To
April 2025 (845 Words, 5 Minutes)
OMG HI GUYS! A few months into my second semester at MIT, there’s been a lot of psets and assignments to do, and it can get exhausting or even unbearable at times. But, to make the endless psetting and grind a little better, one of my favorite things to do is get through albums that I’ve heard of or been wanting to get through. So with that, here are some of my favorite albums that I’ve recently gone through and what type of work I was doing during them. I’ll have a ranking at the end too, with some potentially hot takes. Let’s go!
The Forever Story by JID
An excellent album by an underrated artist, I love the hood come up story of JID’s life told through the songs, always love to see the “making it out” representation. Some highlight songs for me are Raydar, Surround Sound, Bruddanem, and Just In Time, though all the songs are great! Also, JID’s smooth and moderate delivery make it a great album to listen to while doing something that needs my attention and a huge amount of motivation for me to actually get through. AKA: good to put on during physics psets. No skips whatsoever here.
Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg
I love the G-funk sound of this album, gets me in that mix of contemplative and determined perfect for checking off the to-do list. Also incredible for physics psets for similar reasons as The Forever Story, but didn’t know it would also help me get through work for my statistics class. My guess for this is that psets for the class aren’t exactly hard per se, but tedious due to being graded mainly on explanations. Not that other classes don’t do this too, but having to explain results I can get relatively quickly compared to physics or multivar is the exhausting bit. I don’t like long-winded explanations when the thing itself isn’t long-winded. Some highlights from this one for me are Gin and Juice, The Shiznit, For All My N-words and B-words, and Pump Pump. No skips here either.
Planet Her by Doja Cat
A little more pop-focused than what I usually listen to, but still a great listen. I love putting this on for things I can get through smoothly but not easily. A great example of this is multivar: it’s mentally demanding, but I understand the content pretty well and can finish questions right after the other. It’s a distributed difficulty over time, and not huge blocks of struggle that wreck my brain. I don’t exactly need an intense beat to get me in the mood here, just some relaxed songs are good for me here. Some highlight songs for me are Woman, Payday, You Right, and Options. There are some skips on here though, namely Why Why and Imagine. They’re not bad songs, I just don’t think they fit the vibe given the context which I listen to them in.
I AM MUSIC by Playboi Carti
This is the first album here where I won’t listen to the whole album in succession during a study session or while locking in. Some parts of the album are just too aggressive for a study beat, and not in a way that gets me hyped to continue grinding. Any rage music is, personally, suited for those intense grind sessions for work you either really don’t want to do when in a bad mood or stuff you’ve procrastinated on. But as said earlier, some rage is too much for even this. POP OUT, COCAINE NOSE, and OPM BABI are skips that fall under this category. My favorite songs to play off this project are (but not limited to) RATHER LIE, I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI, BACKD00R, PHILLY, and CRUSH. I can vibe to this while doing any type of psets or even working on (or reading!) papers for my UROP.
Because the Internet by Childish Gambino
Another album I can play while doing almost anything, this is like a lo-fi study beats playlist with some rap over it. And that’s not a bad thing at all, with Gambino adding some extra vibes with the slow but strong flow that he has throughout the entire project. It has vibes of The Forever Story for me, but with the background beat and production coming to play more of a forefront role (not that the lyricism isn’t strong either), which makes it a bit easier to get into a locked-in mood to. 3005, Shadows, and Worldstar are favorites for me on this project. No skips here.
Graduation by Kanye West
I could’ve put any of Kanye’s education-themed albums here, but I had to choose just one for this post. I chose this one, though The College Dropout is probably my favorite of the three. Graduation, in my experience, has the best mix of songs for a study session. Having some chill songs, introspective songs, and hype songs interspersed evenly makes for a listening experience consistent with the stages of studying, as I like to call it. I first have a stage where I’m getting into it, approaching a trance-like state where I’m fully focused on doing the work, and then a point of exhaustion where I need some motivation or rest to keep the flow going. When I put the album on repeat, the types of tracks that come up coincide with these mood changes I go through while getting stuff done. My favorite track of each category on the album are Stronger (hype song), Everything I Am (introspective song), and Flashing Lights (chill song).
Psetting is a necessary evil that all MIT students have to go through, and music has been surprisingly effective at fueling me through, no matter what I put on. The albums I listed here are the best at achieving that, though I love listening to new music too. In some ways, I’m a fan of psets, and not because I like the intellectual exercise (especially for physics). It’s because I can be productive and expand my music palette at the same time. Sounds like a great combo deal to me.