Social life at MIT [Repost]

CalAlum
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:47:37 +0000

Okay, I’ll have a go at these questions.

“Does the environment affect the social life of the individual? Does social life get better in college? At MIT?”

Yes and no.

Yes, because the individual may have different opportunities in different sorts of environments. You seem to be looking for what my daughter used to call “nerdly ilk”: like-minded math-and-science nerds. Attending a school like MIT or CalTech will bring you into an environment in which many people share your interests and can challenge you intellectually. You can change for the better, or you can change for the worse. You can change for the better if you encounter other math-science folk who are also passionate about the arts, politics, literature, sports, and other things. Perhaps in such an environment you could begin to develop your own skills outside of math and science. At MIT for instance, you could take up sailing. Or crew. Or theater. Or poetry…etc. You can also change for the worse in an environment that is almost exclusively focused on math and science. You can forget how to converse with “regular people”. You can develop a deeper, but also a more narrow range of interests, and while this might be fine in the intense academic research environment, it will be a real drawback when you graduate and seek work in a different kind of setting.

Sometimes the answer is “no.” No, sometimes the environment has nothing to do with one’s social life, or very little to do with it. Wherever you go, you take yourself and all your baggage with you. You may land in an environment with new opportunities and new potential, but if you like solitary down-time and spend hours alone in your room, you will still be alone.

Start working on your social skills now. When I was a young introvert, my grandmother used to say, “Shyness is no excuse! Find the loneliest person in the room, go up to that person, introduce yourself, smile, and be a good listener!” That may sound ridiculous, but it actually works. If you ever decide to found a start-up technology company someday, you are really going to need those social skills.