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Originally Posted by polarisking That endowment you're referring to (Mollie, Jes, Laura, et. al. please weigh in here) funds some spectacular,and massively expensive, research labs/work done on campus. That's why D decided on MIT - she can sleep/eat at "nicer" accommodations later. |
That's what I was thinking -- as an alum, I would very much prefer that my donations go to UROP than to a purely cosmetic dorm upgrade.
When I got to my temp room my first year at MIT, I opened the door all excited, and my mother almost died of horror -- she thought the room looked like a prison cell. Of course, she didn't think that when she came back for Parents' Weekend and I had moved all my stuff into my permanent room and decorated it and made it home. And that's the important thing -- after a few weeks, any dorm room you live will look like home and you will lose most of the ability to see whether or not it is ugly. My dorm was my home, and it looks beautiful to me.
I do resist the characterization of MIT students not demanding prettier dorms as "passivity." MIT students have fought exceedingly hard in the past, and continue to fight in the present, for the right to keep the housing system in the basic form it has today.
That is what we find to be worth fighting for.