<p>Ok I hear a lot that MIT kids "work hard and play hard". But can I hear from an actual student what its like. I'm sure you guys put in tons of time into your schoolwork which I expect, but I wanna know what it's like specifically, and how much time you relaly do have to just relax, or have parties (oh yeah how are the parties?). Don't sugar coat it please, I wanna know the hard truth.</p>
<p>I'm just curious as to what the actual life is like. I can't wait to visit.</p>
<p>^^yea i'm curious too-not that i really have any options-caltech is prbly worse and i don't feel like applying anywhere else lol.</p>
<p>we'll find out in CPW... though i suspect CPW may be too fun-oriented.</p>
<p>When I visited the campus I met with one of the guys on the lacrosse team. He definitely stressed that the work was hard, there's a lot of work. But he also said there was a lot to do, and mentioned BU as a good place too ;) From my encounter with him, I can conclude that students do have time for fun and whatever they wish...once they get the work done. Hope that helps, though I am not a current student</p>
<p>I can address this from the parent perspective, since my daughter is a freshman at MIT this year. She feels that the work is much more intense than the work in her large, Silicon Valley High School. But she also says that the work is "manageable."</p>
<p>Most students take four classes and also cram in all sorts of other things. She is taking six classes: four academic classes plus a photography class plus sailing. On top of that, she works 7 hours a week. </p>
<p>Last week we spoke on the phone and she said, "Mom, I've pulled my first all-nighter!" Because it's finals week now, I thought she meant that she had studied all night. But no. She lives on Conner 4 in Burton-Conner, and her floor had an all-night snow-ball battle with the kids on Conner 2. Hmmmm!</p>
<p>Classes are ungraded in the first semester, but she's doing very well in her classes.</p>
<p>How does that compare to high school? The work is harder. Will it be "manageable" for everyone? I think that depends on your high-school preparation. I can say that everyone in your living group will be very helpful, your TAs will be helpful, and your professor will be helpful also.</p>
<p>She loves it there. She turned down Yale etc. to go. Now if only MIT would give middle-class families a break on the tuition...!!</p>
<p>Back to topic: When you visit the campus, talk to a wide range of people, and ask this question. I believe that CPW is an important time to see what MIT is really like, and to discover whether you'll be happy there.</p>
<p>Most weekdays, I went to class from 9 or 10 until 1 or 2 PM, then went to my UROP until about 6 PM. I would get home, my (now) husband and I would make dinner, and then we would start on homework. Depending on what the work was, we'd either work in our rooms or in the common lounge with our friends and the TV -- obviously it was preferable to work in the lounge, but you got less work done. :) </p>
<p>I usually did homework on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights until pretty late, because I had cheerleading practice on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and I tried not to do multiple-hour tasks on those nights. I always took Friday nights off to do fun things, and I virtually always took Saturday night off too, although there were a few crazy semesters where I had to do homework on Saturdays.</p>
<p>I mostly just partied with my friends in my living group, rather than going to frat parties, and I found that just fabulous.</p>
<p>I'm currently a freshman -- here's how most of my weeks go. on most days I have classes interspersed with a few hour long breaks from 9-4 or from 11-4. I have gymnastics from 5-8 4 days a week on average and by the time I eat, get back to my room etc, its already 10 oclock. I work on most week nights until 1 or 2. on average, every week I had 1 easy-ish problem set, and 2 pretty difficult ones. The two difficult ones would occasionally result in very late nights (more like early morning) on tuesday and thursday nights, and I've pulled a fair number of allnighters this term.</p>
<p>mit generally forces you to get organized and start your psets early, but sometimes, work builds up and you end up having most of a 10 hour pset to do in one night.</p>
<p>oh, and you can expect to do work quite a bit on weekends, especially if you're involved in something as time consuming as a sport or club or whatever it may be. That said, you can work morning to night on saturday or sunday and then still go out and have fun.</p>
<p>in terms of parties and fun, a lot of fun stuff centers around my living group and dorm, but I have friends from all over campus and friends are generally a good group of people to do something fun with, regardless of which college you go to =D. </p>
<p>I've also been to a decent number of good parties (parties vary a lot based on where they are and who throws them obviously, so there's probably something for everyone).</p>
<p>in terms of other fun stuff/stress relief, gymnastics helps a lot to get my mind off studying</p>
<p>this is all great feedback gusy and is pretty reassuring i suppose. anyoen else?</p>
<p>This year? </p>
<p>Mondays were 8.286 psets, sometimes that ran into Tuesday during the day.<br>
Those would take maybe 6 hours including all the reading</p>
<p>Tuesday nights were practice for cheerleading (:P)
Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights were 8.05 (toward the end the psets got manageable enough to do in one night)
Alltogether maybe 10 hours were required for the reading and the work.</p>
<p>Thursdays were practice and maybe some lab stuff.</p>
<p>Friday nights were usually my night off, unless I had stuff for lab which was maybe every other week.</p>
<p>Saturdays and Sundays I slept til 3pm and probably either worked on papers, orals, or problem sets or preparation or data analysis for lab. </p>
<p>I would have lots of meeting to go to on the weekends and other miscellaneous stuff. Oh and practice/games.</p>
<p>Lab is kind of a recurring theme here. Maybe altogether I spend 15-17 hours on lab-related homework a week.</p>
<p>Parties? Yeah, they're around, did I go to many of them this year? No, I did freshman year, just to see what that's about, but it got old. Also, I found lab. Relaxing? I usually find 2-3 ish hours a day at least to just chill and read or watch tv or play video games or hang out with friends. I don't have as much time to write as I used to.</p>
<p>I tend to go out to dinner sometimes on the weekends, go to Harvard Square, run around outside, stuff like that.</p>
<p>On the weekdays I sleep around 4 or 5am and get up around 11. On days that I have 9:30 am lecture I wouldn't push my schedule ahead, I would just sleep less. Weekends I usually slept for at least 10 hours :P</p>
<p>:P</p>
<p>i'd post a counterpoint but I think it'd be taken as insulting</p>
<p>incidentally to me, work hard play hard means not passing up the opportunity to do fun or interesting things, just because you have work to do. it means not being afraid.</p>
<p>incidentally, that's true, but keep in mind that everyone works a lot harder than they let on :)</p>
<p>
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incidentally, that's true, but keep in mind that everyone works a lot harder than they let on
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</p>
<p>Huh. My experience was that people love to play up how hard they're working. It's a machismo sort of thing.</p>
<p>I <em>made</em> time to relax and do fun stuff, no matter what. Also to sleep...I never pulled more than one all-nighter in a row, no matter how hosed I was, and I don't <em>think</em> I ever pulled more than one all-nighter in a week. I value my sanity and health. Occasionally, there were weeks where relaxing and doing something fun didn't work out, so I did something fun after the week was over.</p>
<p>I went to lots of parties, but the vast majority of them were either my own living group, or the parties of alum friends at their houses. There were tons of parties available elsewhere, but I picked the ones I enjoyed.</p>
<p>ha! i know who you are, tachobg! let me know how the eaps urop meeting goes.</p>
<p>to the original poster - I spent most of my time this term working inefficiently. I hope next semester I can get my **** together.. the format of working all the time while socializing and therefore not actually accomplishing anything really sucks and I want to force myself out of it. That said, I love my roommate, my hall and my dorm and I had the best four-ish months of my life this first semester. Everyone says it gets worse and worse as a sophomore, junior, senior... but right now, while there's a lot of hard work, I am also having far more fun than I ever did in high school.</p>
<p>Haha, you are getting "people complain a lot" all mixed up with my assertion that "people like to look effortlessly smart". Besides, you don't generally see your friends/hallmates when they are working, you see them when they are relaxing, so it's easy to think that holy crap all these people are just playing video games all the time and acing their classes, why am I working so hard</p>
<p>because you are a tool :-P </p>
<p>glad you are doing well!</p>
<p>also i should say that because of pass/no record i've been getting an unheard of amount of sleep compared to high school, but that will probably get me into some really bad habits. I had classes from 9-12 which I would sleep through if i pulled an allnighter, and then classes from 2-4. but after freshman year, from what pebbles said, and from what other people have generally been telling me, its back to 4-6 hours of sleep a night =</p>
<p>Lol, I was gonna say, you guys seem to get MUCH more sleep than I do in HS. But you guys can wake up later.</p>
<p>i average 8 hours of sleep</p>
<p>I actually got more sleep as I progressed through MIT -- the work got harder, but I got a lot better at doing it. Or better at not procrastinating. Or something.</p>
<p>My</a> sleep statistics, because I am a dork and I like data.</p>
<p>@molliemitbat
amazing statistics. I was wondering whether the key to your efficiency is calculating your time in 6 decimal places. @#!?
btw kudos to all you guys for actually coming back to cc and helping ppl like us out.</p>