What can we tell you that will help you make your decision?

molliebatmit · April 12, 2011, 8:29pm

For the past eight million (okay, five) years, I’ve started a thread around this time dedicated to the last-minute questions people need to have answered before they can whether to come to MIT or not.

The first year I started the thread, I said

So what do you need to know? All questions, no matter how big or how small, are welcomed. Just be aware that if you make them too big, they’re hard to answer succinctly – the more directed your question, the more likely we’ll be able to answer it informatively.

k4r3n2 · April 12, 2011, 8:30pm

This thread is my favorite thread! You should ask lots of questions :D

wellthatsokay · April 13, 2011, 2:56pm

this is kind of random, but do you know of any dorms that are particularly hypoallergenic? i don’t know why, but everytime i’ve visited mit, i’ve had problems (and stayed in the same dorm). are there any dorms that known to be good for this type of thing?

UnsureOnLife · April 13, 2011, 3:52pm

This is a weird question, but here goes. Is there rampant stimulant-drug abuse at MIT like at many other schools? I would hope it’d be less simply because of the brilliance it takes to get in, but the pressure is also higher once you’re in. I only ask because I do take a form of this medication prescribed (for memory and processing issues - no comments on the ridiculous over-diagnosis of the condition, please) and in a perfect world I’d like to end up at a school that doesn’t live on the stuff.

m123456m · April 13, 2011, 6:05pm

My question is about the intensity of English/History courses at MIT. If a student is interested in the humanities (particularly writing, literature, and anthropology/sociology), is it possible to take serious courses in these subjects in addition to the regular courses in his/her option? (Is there time?) Compared to liberal arts schools, what’s the quality of humanities education at MIT? How large is the selection of humanities courses?

k4r3n2 · April 13, 2011, 8:05pm

I live in a part of campus that stereotypically enjoys intoxicants more than other parts of campus, and I would say that this is not the case. Very, very few of my friends have ever abused stimulants to do work - I think there’s more social stigma here, as a lot of people view it as the “easy way out” or that you’re not really doing the work yourself.

I concentrated in literature for my HASS requirement and took an excellent literature seminar. My class was capped at 12 people, and one of my classmates submitted her final paper to a literature journal and was published. I thought my professor was awesome, and he was definitely willing to give a lot of additional help / do independent studies with interested students. The larger HASS classes can be a bit slow, but the advanced seminars are awesome - and they love having non-majors take them!

anon89723960 · April 13, 2011, 8:08pm

Hmm. Newer dorms might be less of an issue for you - Simmons? New? McCormick is also a really, really clean dorm.

Caffeine :P

Absolutely! You’re actually required to take a total of 8 HASS (humanities/arts/social science) classes while you’re at MIT. Many people end up expanding their HASS concentration into a minor or double major.

I’m personally a huge anthropology fan :D

It varies from “meh” to “HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME”. YMMV. You can check out our selection here:

[MIT</a> Subject Listing & Schedule Spring 2011](<a href=“http://student.mit.edu/catalog/index.cgi]MIT”>MIT Subject Listing & Schedule IAP/Spring 2024)

You’ll want to look at 21, 24, 14, CMS…

EmpireAnts · April 13, 2011, 9:47pm

Re: Allergies.

As someone who suffers from lots of environmental allergies, I would suggest a building with tile floors in the rooms like Baker or Simmons. Stay away from EC, Senior House, Bexley, BC, and MacG. I’m not familiar with the rooms in Next and New, I want to say Next house rooms are tile as well but I can’t back it up.

molliebatmit · April 17, 2011, 8:12pm

Two weeks until May 1! Get your questions in, and make them good!

Anybody swayed by a visit to the little redbrick school up the river this weekend? Guess what: I’ve been a student at both schools, so I can opine on how much better and sunnier and more wonderful everything is the further south you get in Cambridge. ;)

faraday · April 17, 2011, 9:08pm

To m123456m,

At MIT, there’s only a minimum to your humanities requirement, not a maximum. There is a very large diversity of Humanities classes, some with very very good professors. How much time is left for you to pursue humanities class is highly dependent on personal choice. A lot of people here are overloaded out of self-inflicted desire to overachieve. If you pursue to science/math classes with moderation, you’ll definitely have a fair amount of free time. Because MIT is associated with science and math, people often forget of the many strong humanities classes we have here also.

Mikalye · April 18, 2011, 6:20am

I would just opine off topic, how much I like this thread and its annual question, and how I have personally adopted it as something I always ask at the admitted students events in March.

lilyrose · April 22, 2011, 8:34pm

My question is: How safe is the nuclear reactor at MIT? Sorry if I sound paranoid but given the recent events in Japan, I cannot help but be concerned…

MITChris · April 22, 2011, 9:52pm

this should help: [MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “Finding Your Match”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/finding_your_match.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/finding_your_match.shtml)

molliebatmit · April 22, 2011, 10:22pm

Quoth my husband, who is really interested in nuclear power plants: “Super-safe. It’s just a tiny tank-type research reactor, not intended for power production. It runs at significantly lower temperatures than a typical nuclear power plant.”

Honestly, anything that undergrads are allowed to run has to be safe ten ways to Sunday. Ditto for anything located in a major American city. And Boston’s earthquake record is exemplary.

anon89723960 · April 23, 2011, 12:23am

^ I will note that undergrads still have to take the same training/get the same license any other operator at any reactor gets.

arollingstone · April 24, 2011, 3:14am

@mollie, I want to go to and I love MIT but I was also admitted to Harvard
I need a good reason why I should go to MIT and not Harvard, based on some rationale points, rather than the fact that I feel MIT like home, mostly to convince myself that this is the correct choice for me! (also, Harvard is significantly less expensive than MIT for my family, and this is important, although my parents are trying to tell me that they will find a solution, I know it will be really hard for them) :)

also, how do the orientation examinations work? do we have to study during the summer?

and do students study all the time? I have a friend who goes there and tells me he is studying all the time and sleeps 6hours a day and is not doing anything else. I like studying, but I would love to have some fun as well! So, is that the case?

nadalle · April 24, 2011, 4:59am

Maybe I’m just going through the typical “pre-frosh phase” but lately I’ve been wondering whether I’ve made the right decision (committing to MIT) or not.

I’m planning to major in biology/neuroscience right now but it is also possible that I will wake up one day in the next four years and decide that I’d want a career in, say, archaeology, paleontology or history. Will I be in deep trouble if that happens? Do any of you know people who went into careers in these areas after completing an undergraduate degree at MIT?
(Sorry if I sound too paranoid!)

molliebatmit · April 24, 2011, 8:17am

Well, I mean, to be fair, I do think that feeling happy and at home and feeling like you fit in is a rational reason to choose a place – after all, success at places like MIT and Harvard is largely predicated on your ability to be excited and motivated enough to take advantage of the buffet of opportunities available to you.

I do think the reasons to choose one school over the other are mainly cultural, as the education, though not the same, is excellent at both places. For example, I appreciate that at MIT you can choose your dorm community, while at Harvard you are randomly assigned to a dorm freshman year, then your group of friends is randomly assigned together to a dorm sophomore year. The dorms at MIT have distinct cultures, and for me, the ability to pick my dorm and thereby live with people who were a lot like me was wonderful. I was pretty out of my element and homesick freshman year, and I don’t know that I would have made it through without my living group.

I also happen to prefer the MIT mentality toward academics over the Harvard mentality. Don’t be misled: Harvard students work just as hard as MIT students, and get just as few hours of sleep, and are just as intense. But at MIT, the intensity is focused more carefully on classes and UROPs, while at Harvard the focus is often on extracurriculars, then on academics when there’s an exam coming up. I prefer the former – it seems much more productive to me. I also feel like Harvard students are too focused on grades, while MIT students focus more on learning the material.

If you want to take an exam during orientation, I suppose you would have to study during the summer. But you don’t have to take any exams, and you could always choose not to study.

Everybody’s experience is different, and you should keep in mind that a lot of MIT students choose to push the limits of their capabilities just because they want to. And then they complain about it, because this is an MIT sport.

The modal courseload at MIT is four courses of 12 units each, and one unit is supposed to represent one hour per week. Obviously it’s just an estimate, and not all courses take exactly 12 hours every week, but the typical courseload is supposed to represent 48 hours spent on class/lab/homework/studying each week. Forty-eight hours isn’t chump change, but there are a lot more hours in the week than 48 – plenty of hours to sleep, and hang out with your friends, and do an extracurricular. I didn’t sleep as much freshman year as I did later on, and it was because I wasn’t doing a good job managing my time.

molliebatmit · April 24, 2011, 8:22am

No – for history, you could just switch your major to 21H. For archaeology, you could switch to 3C ([Archaeology</a> and Materials](<a href=“The Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology”>Bachelor of Science in Archaeology and Materials (Course 3-C) – The Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology)). For paleontology, I would strongly assume you’d be okay finishing a biology degree (and maybe taking some ecology/evolution/organismal biology classes at Harvard) and finding some summer jobs with paleontologists.

You won’t really be in deep trouble no matter what you want to do, because you’ll have an outstanding education, which tends to open doors.

arollingstone · April 24, 2011, 10:18am

mollie thanks for the post! how do you learn how to manage your time at MIT? is it more like a trial and error process?
and how easily do people form study groups - do you just walk out of your room and form a study group?
also, where do you study? in your room? in the libraries? with friends?

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