<p>fogfog, why doesn’t your son come online and ask us questions? We’re pretty friendly, and I think that we’d be better able to address his concerns directly rather than you having to relay the information. If he doesn’t want to post on the board, I have a link to my AIM screen name in my sidebar if he wants to IM me sometime.</p>
<p>If MIT is your son’s first choice, I don’t think you’re going to be able to dissuade him - my parents certainly couldn’t convince me otherwise, and no amount of information from CC could have done so But I definitely felt like I really knew what I was getting into after I personally talked to MIT students.</p>
<p>Hi
These are helpful.
Our student thinks MIT is his first choice and we think thats terrific. Not trying to find reasons to discourage that at all–promise ;o)</p>
<p>As far as him having time to be here–perhaps–
But right now he has a very heavy academic load, a varsity sport 6 days a week yr round, and a couple ECs etc…so he hardly has time for FB!</p>
<p>Two of my four kids are in college- a senior at the University of Florida and a sophomore at MIT. I’ve been to both campuses several times. There is ZERO comparison between the two in terms of drinking. At UF Homecoming a few weeks ago, one drunk student got up off the ground and asked my (52 year-old) wife what her major “is”! The entire campus seemed sloshed (Bernie Machen, I hope you read this!). Except for the (relatively infrequent)weekend fraternity party at MIT, I have never seen anything like public drunkenness or rowdiness. The kids at MIT are way too busy to be “pregaming” for three days each week</p>
<p>What a mix of colleges for those two siblings!</p>
<p>Yeah as an interested applicant, I figure there will be partying/drinking at every school and that there probably isn’t as much of it at schools like MIT as there is at schools like Florida. Such an interesting cross of schools though.</p>
<p>neuron39 - As a student, I disagree with your impression of MIT. My dorm has a party almost every weekend. There are lots of other dorms and many fraternities. You can do the math. If you want to party every weekend, you won’t have a problem here. That said, I’d imagine an environment like you described at UF would be full of pressure (or having nothing better to do while your friends are getting sloshed). Here, it’s to each one’s own.</p>
<p>Though I definitely agree with being “too busy to be ‘pregaming’ for three days each week”.</p>
<p>I interpreted neuron39’s comment to be that she had never seen any students publicly drunk besides at MIT frat parties, and that this happened relatively infrequently (the public drunkenness, not the parties) - which I feel like is probably a fair assessment.</p>
<p>Also, Piper, we’re throwing <em>three</em> parties this term. What about you guys?</p>
<p>floorpi already threw one, and that’s about it. We got a crappy weekend, unfortunately, but had to change when Deli Haus was scheduled. (It seems Tetazoo just realized they planned their party during Deli Haus too…)</p>
<p>All of these are fair comments. Obviously, every student is an individual; I know kids at UF who are studious nondrinkers, and a couple at MIT who “party hearty”. I know there are lots of parties at MIT; I was referring to public intoxication. To all applicants: alcohol and drugs are on EVERY campus. As a generalization, though, MIT students are more serious students than at most other places.</p>
<p>So would it be a bonus if I can cook Burmese food, classic American, Italian (a little), baked goods, and improvise recipes? Mom, you have no idea how much you have helped me prepare for life…</p>
<p>I’m surprised no one has mentioned the winters, which can be long and cold in that part of New England. I remember one winter the daytime temperature was -4F, -60F with the wind chill factor. This can be a problem if you find yourself having to walk to the main buildings from a remote part of campus or the Boston side of the Charles.</p>
<p>Of course, almost all of the main academic buildings are connected, so there’s really no reason to ever go outside between Kendall Square and 77 Mass Ave. And there are campus shuttles that will get you the rest of the way.</p>
<p>I had to invest in much better winter gear after I graduated and moved away from campus.</p>
<p>Yes, winter weather back East tends to be cold, damp, and dreary. I grew up in NY and remember it well. We have winter here, but it is drier with respites of good weather (300 days of sunshine a year). It was easy for me to make the adjustment from NY to CO. My son was raised in Colorado… not sure he can really picture a Boston winter. </p>
<p>Can anyone add a success story for adjusting from a milder climate to Boston? Maybe you were so enthralled with classes that you didn’t mind the weather?</p>
<p>When I was there 30+ years ago, MIT was very bad for the freshman ego. Not only were most of the classes very large (due to the many requirements (2 terms of physics, 2 terms of calculus, etc.) that freshmen wanted to get out of the way during the first year (which was entirely pass/fail), but the tests (and many of the problem sets) were demoralizing. Although almost everyone in the class was used to getting 90+% on all work in high school, the class average grade on anything at MIT in the first year was usually more like 50 to 60% (and that was on a good day!). I still recall one of the first problems on my first physics (8.01) problem set handed out at the first class: How much material comes off of a car’s tire in each revolution? No other information was provided. I think no one in the entire class of 250+ students got it correct. (Do take into account that there was no internet then, and computer access was limited to those taking a course.)</p>
<p>FYI, based on my monitoring of MIT’s news over the years, I believe that MIT has the long term plan of phasing out the entire fraternity system, not necessarily a negative, though I was in a frat for all 4 years.</p>
<p>^^^ We still have those sorts of questions, they call them ‘Fermi problems’. You probably could have made a reasonable estimate as to the coefficient of friction between the tire and the ground, and then estimated the amount of material that would have been lost based on its rubbing on the street, or something. Professors give a little speech about the importance of Fermi problems at the beginning of each term, and we do some examples and such, though.</p>
<p>Since a lot of technical interviews will have questions like this (requiring you to make a reasonable estimate given limited information), I think this is pretty good prep for the Real World…</p>
<p>You would have been one of the incorrect answerers. Try again.</p>
<p>Piper:</p>
<p>MIT and its “Interfraternity (or Independent Living Group) Conference Committee”, or whatever it is called, has been very strict on enforcement of various rules, which, from afar, seem somewhat arbitrary, both in substance and in enforcement. A number of fraternities have been closed over the past few years, and others have been “warned” for incidents which no one would have batted an eyelash at when I attended in the 1970’s. Frats are closed for infractions, dorms live on. Source: The (student-authored) Tech. – news of such things does not make it into MIT’s official Technology Review. Frats are not fashionable, now a days. My daughter, who’s now applying to colleges as I write, pretty much refuses even to consider a college with a fraternity system. Most Northeastern colleges have terminated their fraternity systems. Others, have reduced the number of frats on campus. MIT, like other college administrations fearing lawsuits and bad publicity, seem to believe that only frat boys drink alcohol, while dorm kids prefer Pepsi.</p>
<p>Uhh, but there needs to be enough housing on campus if they phase out fraternities, and they’re thinking about increasing enrollment by 300. And SAE is in the process of becoming reestablished as a fraternity.</p>
But I definitely felt like I really knew what I was getting into after I personally talked to MIT students.</p>
Mom, you have no idea how much you have helped me prepare for life…</p>