Massachusetts Institute of Technology Top Questions

I'm in the theoretical math subsection of the math department, so the main job that this could possibly be geared toward is a job in academia. I've had a few wonderful professors who explain things well and hold my interest. There have been a few who whiz through material too fast for me to follow it, which is frustrating. There's a bit of student participation in math classes. In lectures, it's mostly just students asking a question or correcting the professor (more often the latter). Students study as much as we need to, which is usually a lot. I tend to study for most of my free hours during the week, and much of the weekend, but that's not actually all that much because I have music rehearsals four evenings per week for several hours each.

Professors will know your name if you make an effort to get to know them. All professors have office hours, so it's easy to get to know professors, but you have to make the effort. MIT students are always talking about intellectual topics outside of class. You're always hearing people talk about they're latest research. The other day I was walking down the hallway explaining to a friend about mapping functions in the complex plane...it's just everyday conversation. Students are competitive if they want to be. No one is going to berate you for having a bad GPA. No one cares how you are doing in school, for the most part, so competition is very much a self-driven thing and not a culture-driven thing. There are usually events where you can spend time with professors outside of class, but it depends on the professors. There are some professors really known for being social and other equally known for being reclusive. MIT's academic requirements are pretty tough. But hey, it's a tough school. You can take whatever you want away from MIT's education. Chances are, you won't learn a lot of the skills you learned at your job, but the way you learn to think about and solve problems is invaluable and applicable to any job. Mechanical engineering is the best major. Obviously.

Some do, most don't. Lecture classes are too big for professors to get to know you, unless you go to office hours frequently. There are smaller classes you can take, or seminars, and recitation classes for lectures are smaller than the lectures, so it is possible to get to know some instructors well. My favorite class this semester is my writing class. There are fifteen of us in the class and we meet twice a week. Every class, three or four students read whatever essay they've written for the week and then we critique them. It's a really good class and I feel like I'm learning a lot. My least favorite class is 8.02, Physics II. It should have Calc II as a pre-req, but since that would put a lot of people behind in majors requirements (what with prereq and coreqs and all that), it's a coreq. So a lot of the math we have to do in 8.02, I haven't learned yet. Students study a LOT. Sunday through Thursday, basically I go back to my dorm after classes end and start doing work, and work until 2 or 3am, stopping only for dinner and short study breaks. Class participation depends on the class. In my writing class, for example, there is a lot of participation due to the class size. In my calc class though, since it's a lecture, there is very little participation, but we have recitation twice a week that gives us more of a chance to speak up and ask questions. Physics has a lot of participation because of TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning), the purpose of which is to create more participation. MIT students have conversations about everything outside of class, and intellectual conversations are definitely part of that. Last semester, some friends and I were talking about which is more socially accepted, rape or murder. Students are definitely not as competitive as in high school. There is a lot of collaboration and interest in helping your classmates succeed. The Electric Engineering and Computer Science Department (Course 6) is the biggest, and arguably the hardest, department at MIT. Almost a quarter of students are Course 6 majors, and even students who aren't frequently take Course 6 classes. There are 3 possible majors in 6, 6-1 (just EE), 6-2 (EECS) and 6-3 (just CS). The curriculum for Course 6 was changed over the summer in 2007, so a lot of the traditional Course 6 classes have been revamped or even cut out completely. Some of the GIR's (General Institute Requirements) I think are a little ridiculous. I understand that they want us to be well rounded and all that, but Course 6 majors taking Chemistry or Bio, just doesn't have any purpose.

Some professors know my name, mostly those in the learning community that I am in, ESG. However, most of the personal interaction that students get is based off of the student's own initiative. Also, there is a lot of undergraduate research and students get to know professors that way instead of through classes. Students study all the time. If you are not studying, you are not taking hard enough classes. Class participation is very common in the smaller classes that you take because they are a class that you want to take. It is not uncommon to just skip classes that you don't particularly enjoy and just study it on your own. There are definitely intellectual conversations outside of class. Sometimes they will range from philosophy to math to economics to religion back to math to string theory to politics and so forth for hours on end until someone realizes that he just spent four hours talking and that means four hours less of his ever valuable sleep. Students are definitely competitive. Not so much in the "I am better than you" kind of way, but all of the classes are graded on a curve (pretty much) and it is difficult to keep up. An MIT education is geared toward whatever the student decides to gear it toward. If a student does not intend to go to grad school, then she will concentrate on the business end of her major, otherwise she will concentrate on the more academic parts ect.

Professors often shock me knowing my name... it is nearly impossible in a lecture of over a hundred, but some professors really make an effort. In particular, I remember Professor Winston, an AI professor who studied a list of names and ID pictures and seemed to know every student's name. Some of the computer science classes are classic, the websites are perfectly set up, the online tutorials are easy to use and helpful, the lecturer is brilliant and funny, the problem sets are interesting, the tests are fair and challenging. 6.001 and 6.004 in particular. My true passion is linguistics and foreign languages, however, so I get most excited in syntax class or during Chinese or Japanese class. Good students probably study a little every day, taking an occasional day off. In HASS classes and in recitations, class participation is common. MIT students banter about all kinds of things on their down time. Most students are not competitive; in fact, it is quite striking when I find someone who is and it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The majority of us are just trying to learn the material and are not concerned with whether we are better than anyone else. In fact, it is normal to help our friends and classmates whenever we can. I think some of MIT's academic requirements are inappropriate or at least inappropriately complicated; everyone meets with frustration sooner or later.

Yes; most of my current professors know my name. My favourite class: Algebra and Symbolic Programming. Class participation is common. Students study a lot of the time. There is a lot of work, and it's hard to get by without studying enough! Yes, I do have intellectual conversations outside of class, both with professors and fellow students. Students are not competitive, which I think is very good. I think MIT's education, at least in the Mathematics Department, is geared towards learning for its own sake.

I only have about 2 or 3 professors that actually know my name. I was not thrilled with that aspect of the school. Many of the professors are cold and too engulfed in their own work. MIT is really individualistic in the sense that your responsibilities are your own and so is your motivation. They dont even take attendance or anything.

As I've said before, MIT's academics are amazing. Since I am a freshman, I have huge classes (~200 people for some of them). Therefore, some of my professors don't know my name. However, My recitation leaders and professors for smaller classes do know my name. It is often easy to find groups of people studying together in the reading room in the student center. Such cooperation is often encouraged by MIT faculty. MIT's education is geared towards getting a job. After all, the point of going through this hell is to (theoretically) affect the world we live in.

Some professors know your name. A lot of introductory classes are large; my biology class last semester was probably like 350 students, so no, my professor didn't know my name, but smaller classes they certainly get to know you. I really don't think the large classes are a problem because you also have recitation in which your TA gets to know your name, and the TAs are very knowledgeable and helpful as well. The classes are all good, I can't name a favorite or least favorite. Students study a lot, they have quite a bit of fun, but I imagine they study more than a lot of colleges; they have to in order to learn the amount of material expected of them. Students here are competitive, especially the ones who are pre-med, but we all sort of commiserate on tests that didn't go so well, and there's a lot of camaraderie among peers. We're competitive with the unnamed student who scores 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} on that really difficult test, but not so much with our friends who do better than us. I suppose the class I've taken which is the most unique in my experience is a computation and logic seminar I'm in this semester; it's a very different way to see math from a logical standpoint. I've taken math classes, and logic classes before, but I'd never really thought of combining the two. There are opportunities to spend time with professors outside of class; there are often dinners sponsored by different groups where they get professors in and eat with the students. There are also advisers who you can go to, and you get to interact with in a one-on-one setting. The requirements at MIT are all good, everyone here needs a basic knowledge of calculus, physics, chemistry, and biology just to understand how to relate at all to their peers. The humanities requirements are also essential, I believe, in helping us learn how to communicate our knowledge with the outside world. This is a big problem at MIT, at least potentially, because the stereotype would be that we're too intellectual to be able to actually communicate our massively complicated thoughts. The education at MIT is geared towards getting a job, but also learning for its own sake; for the sake of learning we gain knowledge of how to get a job? It's both and the same.

Academics are what MIT is known for around the world, and for the most part we deserve it. The first year is full of GIRS (MIT speak for "General Institute Requirements") Many of these classes are large, too large for my comfort. I am in a lecture class of over 600 students. However we have amazing Tas who lead our small recitation sections who know all our names and are willing to help. If you absolutely hate these big classes, there are alternatives. A few freshmen programs allow you to take these requirements in a small setting, one even has classes of 5 students! It's up to you what size class you would like. And after freshmen year, the classes become much more specialized and shrink rapidly. Students study a lot. During the week most students can be guaranteed to be working on something. But that isn't all we do. Many organizations hold study breaks to help us distress and we take breaks. After all, studying is why we're here. But all that work doesn't prevent us from being involved. I have friends in varsity sports, theatre, debate team, and all sorts of activities. We talk about intellectual things outside of class a lot. We do talk about other things, but it is not uncommon at all to discuss the implications of what we learned in class or the newest technology. It's one of the things I love about the people here. We can go from small talk to discussing the launch of the new shuttle in no time at all.