<p>What is the downside of going to MIT? I heard it is really work intensive.</p>
<p>That entirely depends on you.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/pulse/the_match_between_you_and_mit/)</p>
<p>Admissions really emphasizes the Match for a reason. One’s downside might be another’s upside, and this school - like any school - isn’t for everyone. </p>
<p>For example, if someone really can’t stand science, they might be unhappy around MIT. For one, you have to take 6 science core classes, 2 restricted elective science classes, and a lab class. For two, you’re surrounded by people who do like science and will often talk science. This is one of many examples that may make someone unhappy at MIT - on the other hand, it’s one of the many same examples that make others very happy to be at MIT :)</p>
<p>But as you said above, MIT is a lot of work. Certainly exponentially more work than my high school, and more work than the state school I attended for two terms in California (in addition to being more work than what I know of my non-MIT friends’ schools). If you don’t want to do that much work, MIT might make you unhappy.</p>
<p>That said, you said “work intensive” - I want to make sure that the implication here isn’t that MIT students work all the time and don’t have fun. We have a lot of fun here 
There is a reason that “Work Hard, Play Hard” is among our mottos (along with IHTFP).</p>
<p>I am planning to major in aerospace engineering. But HOW work intensive is it? Should it be hard for someone who has a 4.0+ and above 700’s on the SAT?</p>
<p>^ So basically, is it hard for the average MIT student?</p>
<p>Yes :P</p>
<p>I don’t know what your baseline is for what counts as “intensive”. My suggestion is to go to ocw.mit.edu and look at all the classes labeled “Unified”.</p>
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<p>I’m also looking at course 16, and since you mentioned it, I thought I’d throw out that my understanding is that course 16 requires 198 units beyond GIRs. ([MIT</a> Course Catalog: Course 16](<a href=“Welcome! < MIT”>Welcome! < MIT)) And if I’m not mistaken, 198 units is something like 17 classes? So 17 classes + 17 GIRs = 34 classes… so you’re expected to place out of things or take more than 4 classes one term, or take classes over IAP, or something, which may or may not be more than you want to do. I know I love aerospace but I really don’t want to limit myself that much classes-wise. >.></p>
<p>Unless I’m wrong in reading that webpage - someone please correct me if I am.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, some engineering courses (like 6-2) require you to fit in an extra class or two beyond 4/term, and tend to have less elective space than most other courses.</p>
<p>That in itself doesn’t make the course material harder, necessarily, but it is something to consider.</p>
<p>You have no idea; the work load is so high they have a 3 day week end at the end of every month to prevent suicide. Hence “suicide prevention weekend”
But most importantly Harvard is next door, makes mit look like a duck.
That is it, so if you weight the bad and the good of mit, the bad doesn’t have a chance.
So mit all the way :)</p>
<p>“That in itself doesn’t make the course material harder, necessarily, but it is something to consider.”</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder; I think I’d forgotten about that. :)</p>
<p>One way to more easily fulfill the units required beyond GIRs is to take “activities”-type classes, such as music performance classes or UROP for credit.</p>
<p>@creacher - If you look at our academic calendar, we get many holidays off. Maybe there’s a random one thrown in sometimes. While they can be jokingly referred to as “suicide Mondays” or the like, that is not actually the intention. If you want actual information on suicide statistics, please read this entry: </p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “Talking about a difficult subject”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/talking_about_a_difficult_subj.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/talking_about_a_difficult_subj.shtml)</p>
<p>^Just saw that blog post, I’m glad someone finally addressed this issue.</p>
<p>In terms of difficulty, what exactly are you describing? Is it courseload, class difficulty, test difficulty…? Curious to see how it compares to colleges over here.</p>
<p>“All of the above.” :P</p>
<p>I’ll add my $0.02 worth. As PiperXP said, if you don’t like that much work, don’t go to MIT. You choose MIT because you really do want to do science and math. That can be a lot of work, but it should make you HAPPY. If you don’t want to do the work, go down the street (ie. Harvard).</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t necessarily go that far, in that if you want to be in a sciencey environment and like science enough to do the GIRs, you’ll be fine. We have fantastic humanities programs. </p>
<p>Also, I find MIT not only socially amazing, but anthropologically fascinating. Someone looking for that without majoring in science might love it here :P</p>
<p>But isn’t harvard more of a business school? I mean harvard isn’t exactly known for there engineering program.</p>
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Aerospace engineering is a particularly interesting one to pick for the purposes of this discussion, because it’s pretty universally agreed to be difficult even by MIT standards.</p>
<p>Aero/astro has a class, Unified Engineering*, that all aero/astro sophomores take, and which crams most of a normal sophomore and junior aero/astro courseload into two jam-packed semesters. This class is officially 24 units, which means that it’s supposed to require 24 hours of class, lab, and homework each week. Realistically, most students spend 40-50 hours a week on Unified, and sometimes more. There’s a lot of work, and it’s difficult work, and although everybody is doing problem sets together in the aero/astro lounge until the wee hours of the morning, everybody is still doing problem sets. </p>
<p>My husband was aero/astro, and he was the valedictorian of his high school class, blah blah blah, very smart and madly in love with airplanes. He is still madly in love with airplanes, and is an absolutely outstanding aerospace engineer, but there were times during undergrad when we went a full week without having substantive conversations or going to bed at the same time because we were both so busy.** He is very, very smart, and got fairly good grades at MIT, but he had to work to do it.</p>
<p>Importantly, though, there is very little work at MIT that’s busy work, or easy work in large volumes. The point of most MIT problem sets is to teach you how to solve problems, and the problems are neither easy nor pointless. The work is hard, but you will become educated whether you like it or not. If you’re the kind of person who will thrive at MIT, you will like it, even if you pretend not to sometimes.</p>
<p><em>Classes that are referred to by name rather than by number are generally Bad News.
*</em>Spoiler alert: This also happens post-MIT. Unfortunately, smart person careers like engineering and science tend to be life-consuming, and tend to be more like callings than careers.</p>
<p>“If you’re the kind of person who will thrive at MIT, you will like it, even if you pretend not to sometimes.”</p>
<p>hehe. I do that all the time. 
Thanks for elaborating, mollie (I was actually kind of hoping you’d see the aerospace discussion and jump in).</p>
<p>question: do you (or anyone else) know anyone who’s done a double-major in course 16 and something else? I’d like to possibly double in a humanities field… but I’m worried that that may prove rather infeasible.</p>
<p>My husband, who is half-asleep, says he doesn’t remember anybody from his year finishing a double, “except for maybe somebody in course 15.” It was harder when we were there than it is now to double*, so it’s possible there are more people completing doubles now than there were when we were in school.</p>
<p>At any rate, my advice for any doubles is to take the classes you need to take freshman year and first semester sophomore year as if you were going to double, then sitting down sophomore IAP and deciding if you can do it and if it’s worth it to you. You can’t officially declare a second major until you’ve been in your primary major for a year, anyway, so there’s plenty of time to decide if it’s up your alley or not. In some cases, people decide to drop the idea of a double entirely, or to take a bunch of classes in the secondary field without being an explicit major. </p>
<p>*Also, we had to walk uphill both ways to 77 Mass Ave. In the snow. You kids, get off my lawn!</p>
<p>^ I know someone who took Unified for fun. Though he regularly breezed through 7-8 classes at a time. I would not strive for this :)</p>
<p>That said, doubling in a HASS can be made easier because you already have an 8-class HASS requirement (you can probably get 6 of those to count towards your major), and you will have some elective room. If that’s what you want to do, don’t plan on taking much else. (I would also really evaluate why you think double-majoring is a good idea. It can be a very good idea - but often times, people just want to be able to say they double-majored, and this is a less good reason.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, mollie. I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Piper posted while I was posting this. Um, yeah, double-majoring probably isn’t actually what I want to do as of right this second, but I was just wondering if it was possible, I guess.</p>