A few suggestions for new MIT students

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

Greetings! I thought I would just share a few pieces of advice for new MIT students… things I wish someone had told me back when I started and had to kind of learn on my own along the way.

*** Your first semester is graded Pass/No Record. ***
Register for classes that you think you will find difficult. Knowing you have this Pass/No Record safety net can really put your mind at ease. Don’t be like me and completely waste Pass/No Record on a bunch of easy classes.

*** Summers are a great time for clearing out math courses. ***
MIT has a list of pre-approved math classes you can take from other Boston-area colleges during the summer (https://math.mit.edu/academics/undergrad/first/transfer/summer-credit.php). This list includes multi-variable calculus, linear algebra, probability and statistics, and more. There are a number of advantages to this…

  1. Cost: I found that taking 4 math classes at other schools all together was half the cost of a semesters tuition at MIT.
  2. Time: I was able to graduate in 3 years, thanks in large part to these transfer credits.
  3. Grading: Transfer credits don't impact your MIT GPA. It is basically like Pass/No Record. If you got a B or better in the other school's math class, you got credit. If you did not do as well in the class, then you don't file a credit transfer form for that class. Hence, there is no risk to your MIT record by taking classes elsewhere.

*** You can take pre-approved transfer math courses during the school year too. ***
I have seen MIT students take evening math classes at Harvard. Some do it because of scheduling conflicts with other classes or work that prevents them from taking the class at MIT. Others do it for the easier grading I mentioned earlier. I have even seen someone do it to skirt past MIT’s freshman year credit limit (he graduated in 2 and a half years).

*** Office hours can be a life-saver ***
You might find yourself struggling in some of your classes. Office hours can really help. Having professors and teaching assistants go over the material, answer your questions, and provide a bit more of a personal touch can really make the difference. I attended office hours religiously, even for classes I felt good in. I know it saved my butt when I was taking 6.042J.

*** Never forget the Sophomore Exploratory Option ***
In your sophomore year, you can designate 1 class each semester as Exploratory. This means that, at the end of the term, when you receive your grade for the class, you can decide to keep the grade, or you can change the class to listener status. So, for example, let’s say you registered for a class you thought might be hard and you liked your grade, you can keep it. But if you did horribly, you can retroactively have it removed from your transcript.

You have to remember to designate a class as Exploratory before the course Add date. This is not something that happens automatically the way freshman Pass/No Record is. Use it or lose it.

I hope someone finds this advise helpful. Good luck on your journey through MIT.

2

Thats great information. I remember how hard 18.03 was to pass and I was lucky to take it pass fail, but it was too rapid for me, and I would have benefited from slower math at Boston U or other schools in the Boston area. I ended up taking 18.075 and 18.076 (Calculus for Engineers, graduate sequence) to learn calculus, because I did not learn it well with 18.01, 18.02 and 18.03 in freshman year. After taking other classes with math, I was able to circle back and get good grades in the graduate sequence which was much easier than the MIT freshman math sequence for me.

3

I should also point out that the undergraduate math classes offered to visiting students at Boston University during the summer is just $2800… which is much cheaper than what the average class at MIT costs, assuming around a 48 - 54 MIT credit load per semester.

Here is the URL for BU’s summer offerings…
https://www.bu.edu/summer/index.shtml

Harvard’s offerings are even cheaper. Their multi-variable calculus course (E-21A) is just $1700. It is also taught by Dr. Robert Winters, who also lectures at MIT… and he is awesome!
https://www.extension.harvard.edu/course-catalog/courses/multivariable-calculus/11648?subjects=Mathematics

Here is the URL to Harvard’s offerings…
https://www.extension.harvard.edu/course-catalog

If you are spending the summer in the Boston area, or if you want an alternative to MIT’s offering, getting transfer credit from local schools like Harvard and BU are a great, economical option.

4

I would assume if you apply for grad school, you still need to show a math course taken at another college even if you didn’t transfer the credit to MIT because of a low grade. Grad schools want ALL your transcripts, and there is a clearinghouse where they can tell if you missed something.

5

Also, one of my former classmates who majored in 18C (Math with Computer Science) took summer classes, not to graduate faster, but so that she could make her fall and spring semesters at MIT less stressful.

Because she took summer courses at BU and Harvard, as well as took classes for credit during IAP, she could afford to take just 3 classes each semester at MIT (rather than the typical 4 - 5 classes most students take) and still graduate in 4 years.

Granted, she spent her summers and IAPs here, but it did afford her a much more leisurely fall and spring semesters.

6

You are correct @intparent that you will generally be expected to have transcripts sent from all the colleges that you got credit from when applying to grad schools.

Fortunately I got A’s in all the classes I transferred from Harvard and BU. In my case, I transferred in 4 math classes (2 from Harvard, 2 from BU).

I also received a semester of MIT credit for the foreign language classes I took at BU, though that was not an automatic process the way the math classes were. For me, this entailed meeting with the head MIT instructor for the language, presenting the BU syllabus, the text books used, the course work I had done, and an interview to evaluate my language proficiency. As it was, I had taken 2 semesters of BU foreign language, but was given only 1 semester of MIT foreign language credit, since the MIT instructor believed that 2 BU classes were about equivalent to 1.5 MIT classes. sigh Anyways…

FYI, transfer credits show up on your MIT transcript with the letter grade of “S”. This is, in effect, equivalent to a passing grade or “P”.

Note that your transcript can also show “S” grades for credits awarded from AP exams.