<p>I would also just make the point that “niceness” of the facilities aside, MIT dorm rooms (or doubles, anyway) are enormous compared to dorm rooms I’ve seen in plenty of other colleges.</p>
<p>^And to add to that point, you can have a single as a sophomore in many dorms, and as a freshman in a few. That’s unheard of at most other schools.</p>
<p>(By the way, Laura, I was saying in #13 that grad students do have it worse than undergrads in virtually every respect, including the housing system – I’m not sure if we misunderstood each other?)</p>
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<p>Too broad a brush. There’s pretty wide variety <em>within</em> most dorms. Also, of course, there’s the FSILGs, and it does indeed suck that frosh can’t live in them, and I think that blight on the housing system should be repealed, but you still get three years of living in your FSILG, and FSILGs are part of the housing system that you are maligning.</p>
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<p>Of course! But there is a difference between having some friends in your living group, and being part of a tight-knit community in which you are emotionally vested. You’re in a sorority, right? You said that in another thread? Do you not get this kind of experience, this sort of anchoring, emotional security, belonging, from your sorority? I mean, at many schools that have randomized housing or something similar, going Greek <em>is</em> the way, the <em>only</em> way, to get that sort of experience in the place where you live - that’s one of the big draws of the Greek system at many schools.</p>
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<p>If I had been thrown into Next House or Baker, I sure as heck would not have ended up living the same lifestyle as I did as an undergrad, and probably not the same lifestyle that I’m living as an alum (if I had ended up in Random or Senior Haus, it would be quite a bit closer).</p>
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<p>Despite being a first-semester frosh, eisensteinprime is wise. 
I couldn’t have put it better myself. I will just add the point that it’s not a one-way process - you’re contributing to the gestalt of your living group, culture- and personality-wise, as well as taking from it.</p>
<p>We have lecture for 5.12 in 10-250 now…sorry for the late response haha…I must say, the chairs there are quite comfortable</p>
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<p>Well, first of all, fraternities and sororities are totally different. There would be nothing wrong with freshman girls living in sororities.</p>
<p>However, the problem with freshman living in frats is that they are pledges. They aren’t there as equals, and the brothers basically monopolize their time and try to give you orders. It’s sort of like if your parents were alcoholics and were trying to discipline you in order to become like them. If they shortened the pledge period to a couple of weeks like other schools, it would be ok. And again, there are a ton of rules restricting the control sororities have over pledges but almost no rules for pledging at frats.</p>
<p>I totally support the freshman on campus rule.</p>
<p>Not to get too far off the original topic, but the freshmen on campus rule does not, in fact, keep freshman fraternity pledges on campus. They may have a residence in a dormitory where MIT sends their mail, but many of them “hang out for long periods of time” at their fraternities. If there’s a purpose to FOC, it defeats it.</p>
<p>(I met, by the way, a current freshman – class of '13 – who didn’t know that freshmen were not always required to live on campus, and who had never heard of Scott Kreuger. My mind was boggled.)</p>
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<p>Then MIT could create more restrictions (or enforce existing ones), which would be very different from FOC. And it’s not like FOC only stops frosh from (technically) living in frats, it also stops them from living in sororities and ILGs. Plus, as Mollie said, it’s </p>
<p>I think FOC is destructive to both dorms and FSILGs, not to mention individual students. It makes it harder for FSILGs to stay afloat (which actually can lead to harder sells on their parts because they need warm bodies), and it fills dorms with frosh who don’t really want to be there, damaging their community and creating hostility both from and toward FSILG frosh. FSILG frosh who belong to FSILGs with meal plans and are living in dorms with dining halls get screwed and forced to double-pay if they want to eat at their FSILG. All frosh are given less control over their living situation.</p>
<p>FOC was a mistake that various admins had wanted for a long time, and Krueger was an excuse to put it in (there’s a reason why some people talk about the “post-Krueger world” with the same sarcasm that civil libertarians will talk about the “post-9/11 world”).</p>
<p>Okay, now that I have said my piece on that, I will get back on topic:</p>
<p>The Athena clusters (computer rooms) vary a bit, but most of them are pretty good, and there are a lot of them, all over campus. Having been a student at other universities, it’s amazing how much easier it is at MIT to go use a computer, to which <em>all</em> students (and not just the ones in, say, engineering) have access, on the spur of the moment, without going much out of your way.</p>
<p>Some of the classrooms are much more comfortable than others. Some are more technologically advanced than others. The classrooms come in a wide variety of sizes.</p>
<p>Every lab that I ever went in, that I can recall, was pretty nice.</p>
<p>Mollie: I think I somehow misread what you said to be a comment about MIT students in general having it worse than students at other universities in general. Rereading it now it’s completely obvious that you said something completely different. My brain has been a little fried lately. In any case I found the article I posted funny. =P</p>
<p>I think it was still funny and relevant. :)</p>
<p>And my extended stay at the school up Mass Ave has convinced me that, at least for things that matter to me, MIT students definitely have it much better than students at several peer schools. Did you know that, at Harvard, they don’t have any rules about when professors can schedule classes? The undergrad who works with me in lab has a recitation on Saturday and another that’s held during the only time his dorm serves dinner.</p>
<p>^ Yup. My friend had two options for her bio lab last year: starting at 6 am, or ending at 11 pm.</p>