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I am very impressed with the amenities and potential close-knit community that NW35 has to offer but I have a few concerns.

There are only 50 undergrads, will this mean limited friendships/study opportunities?
It is kind of far from campus, is this a big deal?

Basically, is it more worth it to go to another dorm just because meeting tons of people is so important freshman year, or would I be OK with 50 other undergrads at NW35.

LauraN

Okay wait, I'm confused. Are you talking about the "Starter Community" for the new Ashdown? I think that's what you're referring to, because there are no undergrads in any NW buildings. (Unless Simmons is an NW, which is probably is, but I know for a fact that it has more than 50 people, so that can't be what you're talking about.) Basically it would only be a small community far away from campus for one year, and then you'd move into the newest undergrad dorm with lots of people. So maybe you'd have a suboptimal living arrangement for a year, but with the opportunity to shape a brand new dorm culture. Like most things in life, it's a tradeoff.

I'm not super familiar with how they're handling this now anyway. Is it one of the options on the summer housing lottery preference sheet?

Crash_Blair

to Laura: yea, this is the starter. The group in NW35 will be moving to Ashdown/W1 in fall 2010.

Given that this is such a new thing, it can't be said for sure whether this would be a good idea. I have a friend my year (2010) living in this new community, and have heard about a couple of other people in it, and I'll tell you this -- the founders group living in NW35 seem to come from a variety of locations/cultures around campus, so in a way I think it can help expose you to lots of different opportunities and aspects of MIT despite its small size.

Also, I find that after a couple months/years, people tend to settle in their own niche within their living group, no matter what size the dorm is. Most people end up with 30ish undergrads in their hall, or however many in their suite, or however many on their team, in their fraternity, etc, so it can perhaps be argued that people naturally end up in tiny groups regardless.

As for distance, I wouldn't know. Maybe someone living at Random Hall or off-campus FSILGs or elsewhere can weigh in. They seem to be happy enough though.

iostream

I live at Random Hall, and I love it. I don't know anything about Ashdown, but I feel the size of our community here at Random is a huge plus. Certainly not for everyone, but I think it's cool.

River Phoenix

isn't random NW? anyway i live at a NW building (warehouse)!!!

PiperXP

So choosing between the two - do you want to be part of an existing culture, or develop a new one? I think that's the most important question..

WendyMouse

I don't know. I'm going to be living in NW35 next year as a first year grad student. I picked it because the old Ashdown had a reputation for community and I wanted that in my grad student housing. Because even the seniors and juniors will be "new".

I wish N35 was closer to campus, but it doesn't seem too bad. Honestly, in two years, you would move to W1, which is in the center of campus more or less.

The rooms are going to be nice. Whatever they do on the inside of W1 probably won't top what you'll be getting in NW35. In fact you guys are getting full apartments minus a stove as far as I know, living in the more private apts grads don't want (because we can't afford them :-()

LazyBum201

My son has lived at Ashdown for the past two years and has been on most every (if not every) committee pertaining to NW35 since he first started graduate school. I can share with you what *I* find to be a bummer for NW35 that you might not yet be aware of - it will have no hard wired phones in the dorm rooms, so if your cell phone bombs on you, you're not even going to be able to make a local call without borrowing a phone. Other than for that, I suspect the technology in that dorm will be good.

It is a bit of a trek to campus (our son's walk to his lab will more than double in length and no longer be mostly indoors through tunnels but out in the hot/cold/snow/rain/whatever), but on the plus side, residents there might get a bit more exercise (not that the dorm won't have an exercise room, as it will, but lots of people never use it) and there is a really good ice cream place with quite unusual flavors a short walk away (Toscanini's) and some other decent restaurants nearby (rather than just having the student union Anna's burritos and Subway subs and such, though those are likely cheaper).

Oh, and I am pretty sure there will be a shuttle from NW35 to campus, though I am not sure how often it will pick up or where the drop-off points will be or how crowded it will be or such. I suspect it will also be on the safe ride route (either it or SP, but maybe you'll have to transfer buses at the student union to get certain places where if you were close the student union, you might not have to transfer buses).

As for community, I think small groups might be better than large groups as far as the closeness of the relationships you'll make, so being at NW35 could be an advantage there. And since you'll all be taking mostly the same courses first semester as the other undergraduates living there, I think you'll have no problem finding study opportunities. Our son was taking a graduate course his first semester and happened to have a classmate in the very apartment just across from his apartment and they got together to discuss some of the problem sets, and neither of them were in that course's particular field nor are they in the same field outside of that course's field. It's a very small world at MIT.

The house manager Denise is also fantastic - kind as can be and very competent at her job (for example, she knows all the apartment numbers for the graduate residents at Ashdown off the top of her head, despite people moving in and out every semester and also changing apartments within the dorm from time to time). When I heard the dorm was moving location, I feared she would stick with the W1 location and was delighted when I heard she was moving with the students to NW35. The housemasters for Ashdown (Terry and Ann) are also incredible people, but they will only be housemasters for the graduate students and I have no knowledge about the undergraduate housemasters for NW35, but I suspect if an undergraduate was really needing assistance, the graduate housemasters would help if the undergraduate housemasters for some reason weren't able to help (but I can't say for certain as perhaps there are rules about one not going into the other's group).

And wherever you live won't the only place you will meet MIT people. Our son about two weeks after moving to MIT attended a party at an undergraduate dorm near his graduate dorm, then a BBQ at his dorm, and then a party at a frat house across the Mass Ave bridge all in the same day. He goes once a week to a living community to visit friends he met from a campus group he's active in and attends parties at various undergraduate dorms despite living in graduate housing (though this could also be due to his being closer in age to the undergrads that the grads that he floats around from one group to the next as far as hitting faculty, grad student parties, frat parties, living community parties, and undergrad dorm parties...rather than feeling like he fits nowhere, he gets invited to all sorts of functions and feels at home everywhere).

And a possible advantage of moving to NW35 as an undergraduate is you'll have tons of graduate students to turn to if your fellow undergrads are stumped with a problem or to hear about their graduate experiences up close and in person and learn about what labs might be fun to be a UROP in, etc. You're also likely to get a stronger exposure to different cultures around the globe as I think only around 10% of undergraduates at MIT come from outside the USA where 37% of all graduate students at MIT (last I read) are from outside the USA and at Ashdown, close to 57% (again, last I read) are from outside of the USA. This makes things like a “Sevens Seas Dessert” (our son's suggestion for a social event at Ashdown) more interesting as people who are native to the areas the food is coming from can bring the food (or know where is good to purchase it), and it also makes things like watching the World Cup, Olympics, etc. more interesting.

Good luck to you in your decision!

molliebatmit

Eh, MIT dorm room phones are really only good as paperweights anyway. I think I got fewer than 10 phone calls on my dorm phone during four years at MIT.

iostream

my dorm phone is disconnected and in the closet to save desk space.

red remote

thanks lazybum!