oasis

I think I can really sum it up simply by saying that you pick your own poison while you're at MIT. Here, we have this culture of hardcoreness which unofficially dictates that taking you should not be taking anything less than 60 units in one semester (the official average load is 48). I've taken 57, 60, 60, 54 credits over my last four semesters, and I can tell you that the amount of sleep that I get is proportional to how many units I take (this isn't exactly rocket science). If sleep is a high priority, then you should just choose what you do so you get enough of it. I think it's fair to say that you'll make decisions like this at any other college, and it's not just at MIT where students make the sacrifice between work and sleep.

I don't see why this is a problem. I'm double majoring now in biology and history, and I've taken a semester where I took just ONE science class and four humanities. Is this too shocking for you?

I do feel like you should LOVE science.

To be completely honest here, I think a lot of people applied to MIT thinking, "oh yeah, I did well in science in high school and I'd like some challenges - what's so hard about it?" and get a bucket of ice water dumped on their head after they start taking classes.

I quite honestly feel that there's no point wooing you to come to MIT purely on a "we have a greats art program alongside science" argument. You need to get it clear in your head - are you willing to commit to science enough to come here? Because, not gonna lie to you, you will have to put in a lot of effort towards science before you can graduate. Unless you're a pure humanities students here, I feel even the more "well-balanced" students here who take a 50/50 mix of science and humanities feel like they're still doused in a rigorous science training. Personally, this is definitely something that I came to MIT for (even though it does feel a bit overwhelming at times), but I wouldn't say the same to any humanities-centric student exploring colleges. MIT science coursework may hurt, but it instills in you the ability to look at the humanities through the lens of science and analytical thinking, which is something I feel like I've never seen at the curriculum at any other university. Science at MIT is all about teaching you to be a critical, analytical, and innovative thinker, and is very different from the "work" mentality that I've been personally reading between the lines in your posts, and probably something that you're used to expecting from science.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Once you get in, there's CPW, there's the Overnight Program, there's local admitted students gatherings. I think that will serve to more realistically address many more of your concerns rather than a bunch of text on an internet forum.

kemcab

Because what someone says on the internet should affect major life decisions.

k4r3n2

At least she listened to *something* I said? </snark>

differential

Lol if you're gonna break this easily (from a bunch of anonymous internet posters), I can't imagine how fast you're gonna break at MIT. People on this forum are giving what they consider good advice. Very few of us actually care much at all whether you end up coming to MIT since there are more than enough awesome applicants to take your spot. Stop complaining.

sujinpark8

I think you have to look at it this way.
You like science and math (I'm also taking multivarible, diff eq and vector calc - awesome stuff don't you think? ) and you thought about applying to MIT because it has your dream research lab etc etc.
So I understand you are worried about social interaction and the arts but why not apply first and if you get in then decide after looking and comparing MIT against the other choices you have?
We all have doubts but I think you shouldn't decide NOT to apply somewhere because of your doubts. Deal with your doubts after you get in.
As a hs senior applying to colleges I'm in the same boat as you are so I hope this helped somewhat.

kemcab

Even someone who hasn't taken a college statistics course should realize that one person is not a very reliable sample size. The OP shouldn't be prone to harsh judgments about that person, let alone the school he represents, simply because of a brief correspondence and meeting.

jessiehl

Oddly enough, the term in which I took the fewest units was also my most hosing.

(It was the term that I took the old 6.170, which explains a lot.)

The culture of hardcoreness is to a large degree self-imposed. I knew an awful lot of people, including some extremely smart and successful ones, who rarely or never took more than 48 units/term. I never heard anyone give them crap about it (and nobody ever gave me crap during the ~half of terms when I took 48 units). On the other hand, I've seen plenty of people beating *themselves* up over not taking more units.

mathboy98

^^ The above I think holds in most math/science-focused schools, though somehow that self-imposed image gets around and influences others too. The bottom line, as some professors have made clear to me, is that a class is a class (deep observation, I hear the applause coming), and what you get out of it is up to you. Usually any upper level class teaches something that one could spend all one's time on during the semester very easily.

My general view has come to be that one is at a great school of learning, so it's possibly a great idea to sit in on many classes where people who know what they're doing are talking, given they've already figured things out for you and you just have to absorb it (in some senses, although of course doing this is hard too). But enrolling in a million classes for image is really rather silly, because it's no guarantee one is actually legitimately getting more done, depending on what (hopefully useful) barometer is used.

And also, seriously I don't think it's possible at any school for the number of credits to accurately reflect the workload unless classes have crazily varying credit-counts attached.

oasis

To be honest with you, there's only a handful of people I know that's taking less than 60 units this term.

Despite what I wrote, I think judging someone by the number of credits they take is just silly. Last semester, I took a 18-credit lab class that honestly felt more like 24, and this semester I'm taking a 12-unit class that feels like it's 18. Conversely, Spanish 3 was 12 credits but it felt like 3.

I feel like there's a disparity between engineering courses and other courses too, and also the amount of science/humanities classes. I don't know if it's just me, but if I had the choice to do all humanities I could probably handle 6-7 humanities courses in one semester. However, I have to spend a significantly more amount of time on science so I try to go for a 50/50 mix with 4-5 classes.

The grades that you get in the class also matters. People take less classes than what they can handle at times because they want to get straight As.

The fact of the matter is, the # of units doesn't matter quite that much and I'm only pointing out a phenomenon. I'm definitely satisfied with the amount of credits I take.

mathboy98

Right, in a sense I guess I can easily imagine several scenarios where it would be "bad" to have less than very good grades, and signing up for fewer courses and doing the ones you want to focus on very thoroughly can be best (i.e. one can always audit other classes one is interested in). It's only a problem if one knows one won't do the work for the course without having signed up for it officially.