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As someone who came from a fairly normal high school rather than a top high school, I find things get easier as time goes on. The GIRs allow frosh to catch up, which can make freshman year very hard. After that, you’ve learned to work, what you need to do, etc, and sophomore year gets easier. There’s also the ability to choose your own major and focus on what interests you, which does a lot to help things along.</p>
<p>I’m glad to hear that, PiperXP. I come from a lower-end high school, and I sometimes get nervous about getting to college and being amongst kids who come from prep schools and super school districts. I am really excited to delve into my major and take interesting, specific classes instead of boring, broad high school classes.</p>
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<p>Personally, I found sophomore year more difficult than freshman year, but lots of MIT students don’t feel that way. MIT admits people who they feel have the potential to do well at MIT, not just people who have already covered the equivalent of an MIT education. So there are people who have various types of trouble during freshman year - and this doesn’t necessarily mean they are flunking out, but they are better served (in MIT’s opinion) by P/NR, ABC/NR, etc. You have to take into account that not everyone has access to extra problems to challenge themselves (in all potential fields of study), the means and opportunity to participate in olympiads, etc. (Although there is more of that information readily available on the web now, one must know what to look for.)</p>
<p>It probably depends on what major you are and your background. If math is not your forte and your majoring in biology, then maybe sophomore year will be easier.</p>
<p>For most engineering majors, sophomore year is harder – a lot harder-- than freshman year. Chem E, EECS, and Aero E are good examples of this. I knew a lot of guys that got straight A’s freshman year and then got straight B’s in their core major classes sophomore year.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe the science majors have it any easier sophomore year. Some of the required classes for bio majors such as genetics and biochem are notoriously tough. Same thing with chem majors with Orgo. You can memorize the entire textbook and miserably fail the final. My D is a Course 9 major and premed. It it is only now as a Junior she is finally able to catch her breath. Any course with lots of psets tends to be a back-breaker. Next semester she is cross-registering at Harvard for Orgo II , one of her premed requirements, in part to give her more time to focus on her Course 9 classes. There is simply no comparison with the amount of work she would have taking the same chemistry class at MIT.</p>
<p>I found my sophomore year significantly easier than freshman year, but not because the material was easier (it wasn’t) – just because I’d figured out how to study and do psets and sleep.</p>
<p>Coming from a very academically non-competitive high school, it’s not trivial to make the transition to MIT. In the first place, you’re not used to actually working hard, and in the second place, you’re not academically prepared and have to learn everything in the GIRs, where people from better high schools are merely reviewing.</p>
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Another of the MIT alums in my lab and I were explaining the concept of Unified Engineering to some of the non-MIT alums the other day, and they were dumbfounded.</p>
<p>Also to clarify on more on the popular idea that biology is “easy” at MIT.</p>
<p>I’m a course 7 and 21H double major with premed, and I can honestly say that biology here is no easier than any of the other majors. We have fewer requirements, yes, but this doesn’t mean that it is “easier” per se. Biology at MIT is heavily focused on critical thinking and analytical problem solving, and as thus this involves virtually no memorization (which is easier than thinking). A typical core biology sequence at MIT involves 7.01 (Intro Bio), 7.02 (Bio Lab), 7.03 (Genetics), 5.12 (Orgo), 7.05 (Biochem), 7.06 (Cell Biology), Project Lab.</p>
<p>Most 7.05 and 7.06 exams are limited open-notes or all open-book (7.06 in the Fall), which testifies to the extent that you are not expected to memorize anything, but rather to think about the nuances in designing experiments and the underlying principles that govern biological thinking. As such, MIT Bio is radically different from any form of biology that I’ve seen taught anywhere so far, and is almost the polar opposite of AP Biology (which I took, and got a 5 on by memorizing CliffNotes). </p>
<p>A typical biology sequence in the sophomore year will include 7.02, 7.03, 5.12, and/or 7.05, and these are all very demanding classes. 7.02 is a 18-unit class (1.5x a normal class) and requires 3 afternoons weekly for lab sessions, not including lecture. 5.12 is notorious amongst the bio, chem, bioeng, and chemeng undergrads. Curves in 7.03 and 7.05 are skewed by the sheer amount of motivated premeds taking these classes. Therefore, I would argue that majoring in bio is not any “easier” than majoring in engineering, with all factors considered. I see bio as a department with few requirements, but you have to be able to think really deeply about everything if you want to do well in the major.</p>
<p>Anyhow, this was a bit excessive, but I just had to jump in when the subject of bio came up again.</p>
<p>As for my own personal experience, I went to a high school that offered 4 AP classes (5 if you include a biyearly AP). Personally, the biggest shock that I had my freshman year was actually how difficult biology was at MIT (: P). The other GIRs I thought were quite manageable - P/NR helps a lot, and the fact that you have so many friends taking the same classes easily leads to study sessions and pset parties, which helps a lot with your grades in the GIRs. </p>
<p>Sophomore year you begin to enter the “weeder classes” of your major (I maintain that there are “weeder classes” in the introductory sequence of each major - these classes test your dedication and commitment in delving into your subject of choice at a great depth). For bio, I would say it’s probably Bio Lab (7.02), Orgo (5.12), and to a limited extent Cell Bio (7.06) (since it’s so far along in the sequence). These classes are hard in a different sense since you’ll start taking classes with people who share similar strengths as you (you can rely on the fact that not everyone taking 8.01 is a physics major, for example) and pose their own challenges when it comes to grading. Also, the classes start to assume greater knowledge of subject content, so I don’t think sophomore year will be any easier than junior year.</p>
<p>Based on my 5 semesters here so far, I would rank them thus in order of difficulty (numbers refer to # of MIT credits):</p>
<p>HARDEST
Sophomore Spring (42 science, 12 HASS)
Junior Fall (42 science, 24 HASS)
Freshman Spring (36 science, 24 HASS)
Sophomore Fall (12 science, 48 HASS)
Freshman Fall (45 science, 12 HASS) - P/NR : P
EASIEST</p>
<p>As you can see, difficulty at MIT varies directly with number of science credits taken. : D</p>
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<p>In what way…?</p>
<p>That it’s basically two years of a typical aerospace engineering curriculum squeezed into one year, that it’s two classes at once so that it’s possible to assign psets and tests in the same week, and that it’s a 24-unit class that takes 40+ hours of each student’s week.</p>
<p>What’s not dumbfounding about Unified? :)</p>
<p>I recently took two MIT physics majors to dinner: one a junior, one a senior. The consensus was that junior year was far more difficult than freshman or sophomore year (Junior Lab, Quantum 2, etc…)</p>
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<p>Well, there’s a difference between a major that is ‘easy’ and one that is ‘easier’, and I think there is little dispute, even amongst bio superstars such as mollieb, that bio is indeed one of the easier majors at MIT, relative to the other majors. Note, that’s substantially different from being ‘easy’, for no major at MIT (heck, not even Sloan management) could be said to be ‘easy’. But if you truly believe that biology truly is comparable to engineering in terms of difficulty, I think you’ll be fighting a lonely battle. Individual classes may be more difficult, one-off semesters may be more difficult, and the proliferation of curve-breaking premeds may make A’s more difficult to obtain, but I doubt that a serious case could be made that biology truly is just as difficult as engineering. You are, however, welcome to try.</p>
<p>But, honestly, who cares? The difficulty of a major has no impact on its worthiness as a course of study or its future as a career. I’ve always held the position that the Sloan management program is perhaps the savviest program that MIT has to offer: a degree that can be earned with relatively less effort that not only carries both the high prestige MIT and Sloan brand names, but can be leveraged to either earn one of the highest starting salaries of any major at MIT - higher than many engineering disciplines - or can be leveraged to earn admission to a PhD program at a business school and a career in business academia, which is not only by far the best paying field within academia, but one of the few that is still expanding. It is far easier to place and be promoted to tenure within business academia than it is in practically any other academic discipline.</p>