<p>I thought this might be a fun thread for the current students and alums to put on for the prefrosh.</p>
<p>For those who don’t know (namely, some of the prefrosh and parents), part of your humanities requirement is a “concentration” - a mini-minor (3-4 classes forming a cohesive study program) in a subject from the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Some departments will let you do your concentration in that department in general, some make you specialize in a subfield.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of focus here, and understandably so, on MIT’s science and engineering aspects, but this seems like a nice way to focus a bit on the humanities offerings and show the wide range of humanities interests among MIT students.</p>
<p>If you’re a current student or alum, state your HASS concentration, and, if you can remember, what classes you took for it. I’ll go first:</p>
<p>International Politics/Security Studies</p>
<p>17.40 US Foreign Policy
17.433 International Relations of East Asia
17.405 Politics and Conflict in the Middle East</p>
<p>I concentrated in anthropology (21A).
21A.100 Introduction to Anthropology
21A.216 Dilemmas in Biomedical Ethics
21A.260 Culture, Embodiment, and the Senses</p>
<p>I had originally planned to concentrate in Spanish, but language classes meet 4 times a week, and often conflicted with my departmental labs. I am really happy with my switch to anthropology, though – I’m a molecular biologist, so I tend to see things only in terms of molecules, but taking the 21A classes forced me to see the effects society can have on the human experience.</p>
<p>My husband wants me to add that he concentrated in STS (Science, Technology, and Society).
STS.002 Toward the Scientific Revolution
STS.003 The Rise of Modern Science
STS.014 Principles and Practice of Science Communication (his favorite – it was taught by the guy who runs the MIT Museum, and the final project was to design a science- or engineering-related demonstration for the public)</p>
<p>My concentration was Writing and Humanistic Studies (21W). I loved the fact that the classes were so different than my Course VI classes and used a very different part of my brain. The value of being able to write even passably well is also overlooked by a lot of engineers.</p>
<p>I don’t remember which of these were for my concentration, but I took:</p>
<p>21W.731 Writing and Experience
21W.732 Introduction to Scientific and Technical Communication
21W.735 Writing and Reading the Essay
21W.747 Rhetoric
21W.780 Communicating in Technical Organizations </p>
<p>My husband also concentrated in STS, but I can’t remember which classes he took.</p>
<p>If I concentrate in Music Composition (MC), can I still participate in MITSO (orchestra) all four years? What specific courses are suggested for MC? Thanks.</p>
<p>Can one go DEEP in humanities? How hard is it to pick up a full minor? DS has asked about this a couple of times when visiting MIT, only to be told, “Oh, you can go to Harvard for that.” Not the answer he wants to hear! Are there people around who are as passionate about the humanities as math/science/engineering?</p>
<p>Counting, you can go as deep into the humanities as you like. I considered minoring in writing, but ultimately decided that the sixth writing class was not as interesting as being able to go part-time my final semester. I know someone who minored in music because he needed to take four classes for his concentration and liked it enough to take two more.</p>
<p>I also knew one person who ultimately majored in writing after deciding that her real love was writing about technology rather than inventing it. Majoring in the humanities is not the norm, but the few who do get the advantage of being in a small department where you can build strong relationships with your professors.</p>
So you may participate in MITSO all four years, but you will only get credit for one concentration subject from it.</p>
<p>And CountingDown, just to say something explicitly that vtardif implies, a concentration is three to four subjects, while a minor is six subjects. So a minor generally requires only two to three more classes outside what is required anyway.</p>
<p>There are definitely people at MIT who are passionate about the humanities – I had friends who were into music, theatre, the visual arts, poetry, and filmmaking (that last one is now in film school). For most of them, though, the humanities were enjoyable avocations, but they were scientists and engineers at heart.</p>
<p>I don’t know who told your D at MIT but it certainly wasn’t somebody from the humanities faculty. Our D is freshman and she is just as interested in the humanities as she is in science. She took a poetry class with an Irish professor who also taught at Harvard and loved it. Now she plans to take a minor in english literarture rather than a science double major. Class sizes are small and the teachers very accessible. There are no “psets” and the readings and discussions provide a welcome break from the intensity of the MIT education. For a so-called “tech” school, MIT has humanities offerings many liberal arts colleges would envy. In many ways, because of the technical focus of most students, the humanities resources are underutilized. But they are certainly there for the students to take advantage of if they wish. There is no need to trek to Harvard.</p>
<p>My concentration is Theater Arts. So far I’ve taken:</p>
<p>21M.600 Intro to Acting
21M.605 Voice and Speech for the Actor</p>
<p>And I’m going to take:
21M.604 Playwriting
21M.705 The Actor and the Text
and maybe
21M.606 Introduction to Stagecraft</p>
<p>Also, this is completely anecdotal (as in I don’t have actual numbers this is based just off of people I know), but I think music is one of the most popular second majors that people tend to pick up.</p>
<p>Econ is popular among those narrow-minded scientists and engineers who don’t think that humanities are worth their time. ;-)</p>
<p>Of course, there are some who take the econ concentration because they actually like it, but for the science snobs, econ lets them pretend to concentrate in a humanities subject while still letting them do math. <em>shudder</em></p>
<p>I am exceedingly grateful that they only homework I’ve had so far in my concentration has been keeping a journal of my progress and occasionally memorizing a few lines. =)</p>