Dorms

Colleges & Universities Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>I went to CPW pretty much convinced that I would be going to MIT in the fall, But then I saw the dorms. I checked almost all of them out, and they were very disappointing. Here’s what I saw:

  1. Tiny rooms – some (MacGregor) the size of coffins.
  2. Bunk beds in doubles, triples, and quads.
  3. Co-ed bathrooms (why?)
  4. Squalor. Dirt was commonplace. Mess was everywhere. I am not a neat freak.
  5. Most dorms just seemed rundown, poorly cared for.</p>

<p>This concerns me because I wonder if the sub par quality of accommodation is a reflection of the administration’s general lack of interest/care in/about undergraduate education. Why did New House have to choose between having air conditioning or elevators? Does MIT honestly lack funds for both?
Also, as MIT’s CPW hosted more students than ever, does this mean that their yield will be higher this year, leading to more over-crowding?
I know the fact that small, dirty dorms should not deter me from an MIT education, but quality of life is a bit important to me, and other places seem to have cleaner and more user-friendly dorms.
Are current students so stressed or in love with their work that they don’t care about where they live?<br>
Sorry if I sound unreasonable. It’s just that I had not given much thought to dorms until this past weekend.</p>

2

<ol>
<li>They’re building new housing, so don’t worry about overcrowding.</li>
<li>I live in MacGregor, my room is fine for me. All I use it for is a) eating, b) sleeping, c) studying when I need to be alone, and d) some punting. The vast majority of my time is spent outside my room.</li>
<li>What’s wrong with bunkbeds? They optimize space. Plus, they’re fun!</li>
<li>What’s wrong with coed bathrooms?</li>
<li>My room is pretty spick-and-span. I clean fairly regularly. It’s an individual thing.</li>
<li>Have you checked out Simmons? I know that’s a pretty new, ‘stylish’ dorm. I understand Baker looks pretty good too.</li>
</ol>

3

<p>“1. Tiny rooms – some (MacGregor) the size of coffins.”</p>

<p>Size of coffins? Thats a bit of an overstatement doncha think? :-)</p>

4

<p>Harvard and many other schools have the option of hiring a cleaning service and sending out laundry doesnt MIT offer that? I think a student at Harvard started that.</p>

5

<p>you can send out your laundry at MIT, but it’s just easier to do it yourself :P</p>

<p>and also, bathrooms are there so you can do what you gotta do. what does it matter if boys (girls) use it, too?</p>

6

<p>Some of the rooms are tiny, and some are not. I happen to have a huge room, and besides, I spend very little time in it. My room is for sleeping and changing mostly. I think most MIT students would agree- we spend much more time in dorm common space (suite, entry, floor lounges) than individual rooms.</p>

<p>Triples and quads are common in Baker, where the rooms are designed to house that many people. Triples in other dorms are rarer examples of crowding, which are usually de-crowded within a couple of months. If you’re afraid of heights, get the bottom bunk. Other than that, I don’t understand the problem with bunk beds.</p>

<p>Also, if the rooms are dirty, it’s because the people that live in them don’t clean them. If you don’t like a dirty room, you can keep it clean.</p>

<p>As for the “run-down” factor, believe it or not, most students in the older dorms love them that way- they let us do things like paint and drill into the walls, and we love that freedom. If you like newer stuff, check out New, Next, Simmons and Baker- they’re all pretty well taken care of.</p>

<p>As for the bathrooms, I’d be pretty willing to bet that your bathroom at home is co-ed. When you need to use it, you close the door. Does it bother you that your opposite sex siblings use the bathroom when you’re not in it?</p>

7

<p>Son reported that windows in Random are stuck, and that the shower stall was so small that it was hard to scrub. We parents were a bit disappointed in the general level of cleanliness, especially since we expect/hope things were cleaned up for CPW. But I think he liked it anyway.</p>

8

<p>Honestly, I agree. I was looking forward to MacGregor but it felt old and decrepit. East Campus was disgusting, and so was random hall. On the other hand, I loved New House and the cultural dorms (one guy was organizing one of the four(!) refridgerators while I was there because it was his turn to do the chores-i.e. the dorm was really clean) and every night a different group cooked dinner. Now I’m leaning toward that dorm instead.</p>

9

<p>

People care plenty where they live. They just happen to care more about the people they live with than about the dorm’s amenities.</p>

<p>Honestly, no matter how awful you think the dorms look right now, you should use people as your dorm choice criterion – after a few weeks, the dorms will just start to look like home, and you won’t notice what they actually look like anymore. (Think about your hometown, or even your house. Could it be featured in Better Homes and Gardens? Odds are there’s someplace you love that’s really ugly, but you just don’t notice because you love it already.)</p>

<p>I lived in MacGregor for four years, and I found my single to be plenty big enough for what it’s intended to be – a sleeping room. I spent most of my waking at-home hours out in the lounge with my friends anyway, so my room only needed to be big enough to hold a bed and a desk. </p>

<p>I’m also one of the people who sees no issue with co-ed bathrooms. I mean, they’re really not all that exciting, and you don’t ever see anybody naked.</p>

10

<p>A weakness of CPW IMO was lack of information about the different dorms, and a lack of time to visit the dorms coupled with overly long and infrequent dorm tours. It was not possible to see them all or understand the differences.</p>

<p>So a C-C dorm discussion is welcomed.</p>

<p>For the above posters looking for a dorm in good condition and kept clean, I would suggest Next House. The building is fine, the dining hall is very nice. The negatives we heard were that it’s too far away (I didn’t think so) and that it is the only dorm that you cannot move out of after orientation because of advisors assignments there.</p>

<p>We were told that MacGregor was all singles, and that Freshman have almost no chance of getting in there.</p>

11

<p>Thanks for the responses. To explain a couple of my concerns:

  1. Bunkbeds. Why don’t I like them? I guess it’s because I’m not an 8 year old any more. The idea of being on the top bunk isn’t appealing because who wants to have to scale down to the floor in the middle of the night for a bathroom visit? And the bottom bunk = claustrophobia and having to listen to the creaking of the top bunk, plus bunk-mate climbing down at all hours. And what if either bunk mate has an overnight guest?
  2. Coed bathrooms. The family analogy doesn’t work in my house, because two different sexes don’t use a particular bathroom at the same time. Taking a dump next to someone of the opposite sex doesn’t quite appeal to me.
  3. Next House was the cleanest I visited, but the lack of an elevator would be tough for a 6th floor resident. In many cities, it’s against the law to build a 6 floor building without an elevator!
  4. I understand that many students only use their rooms for sleeping and that most time is spent in communal areas, but is this a result of preference or necessity given the size of the rooms?</p>

<p>I come back to the main concern: what do the dorms say about the Administration? How much does the Administration CARE about the undergraduates? Is MIT just a big business?</p>

12

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<p>The purpose of CPW wasn’t to introduce you to the dorms. You get a whole week to just go around dorms and pick one during orientation. CPW was to give you a feel for the other aspects of MIT, which is why it didn’t focus so much on dorm community. Almost all of the dorms held events, as well, that you could have participated in.</p>

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<p>A lot of people (in fact, the majority of people) in doubles do not have bunkbeds, but rather two beds, typically on opposite sides of the room. Doubles are big enough to accommodate this. Your roommate should be courteous about overnight guests, and if they’re not, there’s an opportunity for you to develop your social/interpersonal skills. Most roommates agree on an overnight-guest policy before rooming with each other. </p>

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<p>I suggest looking into McCormick, if you’re female. If you’re male, I don’t know if you have the option of non-coed bathrooms. I still can’t quite understand what the dilemma is, but then again, I live in a dorm where people have sex in the showers, and I don’t mind at all. </p>

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<p>Cleanliness is not only a function of dorm, but the precise hall/floor of the dorm, as well. Some entries of Macgregor are neurotically clean, others disgustingly filthy. The same applies in most dormitories. As far as elevators go, Next House had to pick between air conditioning and elevators, and they went with the former. There is no dorm that has both air conditioning and elevators. </p>

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<p>I imagine preference. Most MIT students don’t fall into the socially-isolated stereotype, etc. I enjoy hanging out in the lounge and discussing great topics with my friends. Plus it’s easier to motivate yourself to work when others are working.</p>

13

<p>Posters are confused because Next House and New House are next to each other. Next House is farther west and has RBA (Residence Based Advising). Next year students will be able to move out of Next during Rex. Next House does have elevators. New House has air conditioning.</p>

14

<p>

Oh, that’s definitely not true – just like any other dorm, MacGregor graduates a quarter of its residents every year. :slight_smile: I want to say that we had 90 freshmen last year? Something like that.</p>

<p>About 75% of freshmen get their first choice in the housing lottery over the summer. Last year, MacGregor was the second most popular dorm in the summer housing lottery, but students are always able to move in during the readjustment lottery. </p>

<p>

Some MacGregor suites are all-male or all-female, and therefore have single-sex bathrooms. You can request to be put into a single-sex suite during in-house rush. I imagine there are probably single-sex Burton-Conner suites as well (Laura?).</p>

<p>

Does taking a dump next to someone of the same sex appeal to you? I mean, I think the problem, if there is one, lies in community bathrooms in general rather than coed bathrooms specifically. And you’ll be able to define a set of rules for your suite or floor – in my suite, for example, the bathroom door was always open, except when someone wanted privacy, so you knew not to enter the bathroom if the door was closed. Mostly, though, you just learn to be okay with having other people hear you pee. It’s not that big a deal.</p>

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Honestly, I think a big reason many dorms haven’t been renovated is that renovation requires closing the dorm for a year, and when the administration says they want to close a dorm for a year, the residents pitch a fit. I don’t think it has anything to do with money, it’s just that students would rather live in a dorm that’s not totally picture-perfect than be housed in some random place for a year. </p>

<p>As for the size issue, really, this is the real world. My MacGregor room was more than half the size of my current studio apartment – so when my (now) fiance and I lived in two MacGregor rooms my senior year, we had more room than we do in an apartment designed for two people.</p>

15

<p>When you do decide to go (IF you decide to go) the dorm situation will be clarified a lot more in the i3 DVD they send out and in the information booklet that is included. I know that at least half of the freshmen on my floor used the i3 specifically to decide on the dorm they chose to live in, so it clearly is a useful piece of information.</p>

<p>And yeah, renovation is a big deal here. They’ve wanted to renovate East Campus for years but are waiting a bit because they know there will be a huge sit in by the residents there who love the place despite the fact that is old and falling apart. We’ll see if they even manage to get it taken down. Burton Conner is also due for a renovation. Those two are probably the oldest of the dorms, from the 60s at least.</p>

16

<p>Bunkbeds: You don’t have to bunk the beds if you don’t want to. My roommate and I bunked our beds so we could put a futon in our room. On that note, if you’re really against the idea of bunkbeds, have fun eliminating all of the colleges with dorm rooms so small that bunkbeds are practically required for enough space. I don’t understand the overnight guest issue. How does bunking beds affect the ease of housing vistors?</p>

<p>Bathrooms: You totally missed my point. While this isn’t true for all bathrooms, there’s a good number that don’t even have multiple stalls. Residents agree on bathroom use rules in the beginning of the year, and there are rarely problems. In most bathrooms in my dorm, for example, whoever is using the bathroom shuts the door. If the door is shut, everyone else knocks on it before entering. It’s a pretty simple concept. Guys and girls come in and out of the bathroom while I’m in the shower, because honestly, who the hell cares? But if it bothers you, tell your suitemates and keep the door closed until you get out. I suppose it sounds like a big deal, but seriously, it’s something that barely affects your life at all. And yes, there are single-sex suites in Burton Conner which you can request to live in if it freaks you out. I’m also relatively certain that there are single-sex floors in Random.</p>

<p>Elevators: You’re missing the point of housing here. Make your decision based on the people, as Mollie said. Honestly, few MIT students care much about the facilities in their dorm. If you live with awesome people who become your family away from home, will not having an elevator really make you unhappy?</p>

<p>Small rooms: First of all, the rooms aren’t all that small. Some are, some aren’t. It’s really not as big of an issue as you seem to think. Also, I definitely think that people spend time outside their rooms by preference. I have one of the largest rooms in the dorm, and I’m never in it. I’m constantly running between my room and one of the lounges for something, since I spend most of my time with my floormates.</p>

<p>I don’t understand where this argument about MIT not caring about undergraduates is coming from. Because students don’t keep their own rooms clean? Because the dorms aren’t renovated every six months? Seriously, I meant it when I said that those of us in older dorms generally like it that way. When Senior House was renovated all of the murals were obviously destroyed, and it generally sucked.</p>

<p>I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you become an MIT student, the question of what the administration thinks of us and if they really care is certainly discussed often enough, but when it comes to housing, we mostly want them to leave us alone. It’s a cultural thing, and I guess you’ll just have to take my word on that one.</p>

17

<h2>Small rooms: First of all, the rooms aren’t all that small. Some are, some aren’t. It’s really not as big of an issue as you seem to think. Also, I definitely think that people spend time outside their rooms by preference. I have one of the largest rooms in the dorm, and I’m never in it. I’m constantly running between my room and one of the lounges for something, since I spend most of my time with my floormates.</h2>

<p>Well, the rooms at MacGregor are really small. If you are uncomfortable in that sort of room and have trouble studying there, then you should pick another place to live. They have the smallest rooms on campus, though. The only reason why people try to get MacGregor is because it is the only place you can get a single your first year at MIT. I would really suggest <em>not</em> doing this. I thought New House was clean and nice-looking. Some people like East Campus/Bexley but I personally wouldn’t want to live there because it seems like a mess. Random Hall looked like a shack to me, too. Obviously, the OP wouldn’t want to live there, either.</p>

<p>If you come to MIT, try to live in New House or Next House. If you want to get a single in New House, I think you can get into one after a year of living there. I don’t think there is a big difference in the type of person that lives there vs. MacGregor, anyway. You might try to look at Simmons Hall, if you don’t mind living in a place that looks like a gigantic sponge lol.
I hear they spent a lot of money on making it look nice (furniture imported from Europe, etc.) I’ve never seen the inside of the new dorms, since they weren’t there when I was there.</p>

<p>Aesthetics have never been a big priority at MIT. For about 60 years, half of the classes/research groups worked in these little shanties strewn about campus that were built in WW2. Only recently did they tear these down. The budget has historically been geared toward research. If how the campus looks or the urban look in general really bothers you (and it sounds like it bothers the OP), then you should carefully consider your other options. Unless you want to major in engineering, there is no difference in post-graduate opportunities between MIT and other top 5 schools. You can get a great education in math/science at other top places, too.</p>

18

<p>To reiterate:</p>

<p>New House = Air Conditioning
Next House = Elevators</p>

19

<p>simmons hall=giant sponge</p>

20

<p>

Uh, not the only reason…? Some people, shockingly, try to get in because they like the people in the dorm.</p>

<p>I would concur in saying that someone shouldn’t choose MacGregor in the summer lottery just because the dorm is all singles. The people who live in MacGregor are interested in people who are going to come hang out with them, not people who are just there for the single room.</p>