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

molliebatmit
Fri, 14 May 2010 21:21:36 +0000

I don’t know how much any of the current students will be able to chime in – it’s finals week, and many of them are probably finishing up finals, moving out, and heading home for a week and/or somewhere for the summer.



I’ve never visited campus (probably bad choice on my part) - do I still have time to do this, and perhaps shadow a student, or is this too late? I’m a big believer in the “vibes” a campus gives off.

I totally agree, and I would hesistate to encourage somebody to pick MIT sight unseen. Summer is a tough time to get a handle on the vibe of the MIT campus, though – only about 15-25% of students stay on campus for the summer, so student life is a lot less vibrant over the summer. If you’re able to visit, though, I would really encourage you to do so, with the warning that MIT is much more alive during the school year.



I really liked how the people at Dartmouth did not openly flaunt their achievements - are people at MIT generally humble or are they somewhat arrogant?

As a broad generalization, MIT students are almost never arrogant. At MIT, you may find out over time that your next-door neighbor or pset buddy or club president is ridiculously brilliant and accomplished, but these people will almost never lead with that information. MIT has a very deeply-ingrained culture of collaboration and cooperation between students, and arrogance and bragging don’t fit well into that culture.

In perhaps a more practical sense, everybody is getting their asses kicked by MIT at some point, so what is there to be arrogant about?



Also, Dartmouth’s undergrad focus is a huge draw, and I’ve heard some negative things about MIT’s class sizes and freshman experience - for example, some profs that are brilliant but are not very good teachers and are more focused on their own research. Do you have any negative experiences with this? Anything to contradict this?

I had classes with great professors and classes with mediocre professors. Overall, I valued the ability to interact with these fabulously smart people who cared about my intellectual development and who wanted to mentor me so I could become a junior member of their field.

It’s absolutely true that professors at MIT care about their research – they’re the best in the world at their research, which is why they were hired at MIT. But, for one thing, they’ll encourage you to care about their research, too, and are thrilled to engage undergraduates deeply in cutting-edge research. And they’re also hard-working, fast-thinking people – they’re capable of caring about both their research and their teaching loads at the same time.



Also, I’m a very social person - and this will sound really bad - but are there normal people at MIT?

There are all kinds of people at MIT, and the beauty of the choice inherent in the undergraduate experience is that you have a wide variety of ways to choose the portions of MIT society with which you interact. As a freshman, you’ll get to pick your dorm, and the dorms are all very different. You’ll also get to decide whether you want to pledge a fraternity, sorority, or independent living group, which could further shape your social group. There are all kinds of sports, clubs, and other activities in which you can participate with other like-minded students.

Just keep in mind that, the way you’re using it here, “normal” sounds a lot like an epithet to many MIT students. Of course you can come to MIT and party wildly every weekend and fall in love and out of love and learn how to cook and deal with roommates and watch lots of bad TV and do all kinds of things that “normal” people do. I did all of that in college, and I still wouldn’t describe myself as “normal”. I do a pretty passable impression of “normal” when I need to, though.