<p>SalikSyed brings me to a somewhat-off-topic question. Will we have the resources and facilities to experiment? I mean, if I'm learning about a concept in physics and want to re-perform a demo from class will I be allowed to? If I want to design interesting electrical circuits or build cool mechanisms, will I have the equipment and supplies I need? Will I be allowed to use a Van De Graaff from one of the labs to experiment with electrostatics? Or do I have to purchase the supplies and do them in my dorm? :D </p>
<p>I ask this because I'm a really hands-on person. I love learning new material and applying it.</p>
but guess what everyone! When we go into MIT, we'll all start from ground zero. We all have equal footings, equal opportunities. Make the best out of it, and even if you're intimidated (like i am) by MIT's prowess, you have the ability to get on ahead of everyone.
Yes yes. Don't forget that's why first term is pass/no record -- it's to put everybody on the same playing field, whether they went to Bronx Science or never took a physics class in high school. It actually doesn't matter what grades you get first term.</p>
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And it's not about competition anyway, it's about learning!...right?
It's definitely not about competition. At MIT, you compete with yourself, not with other people.</p>
<p>And SalikSyed, my boyfriend is just like you with the ADD when things get boring. It's okay, you can always go build a robot. :)</p>
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[quote]
SalikSyed brings me to a somewhat-off-topic question. Will we have the resources and facilities to experiment? I mean, if I'm learning about a concept in physics and want to re-perform a demo from class will I be allowed to? If I want to design interesting electrical circuits or build cool mechanisms, will I have the equipment and supplies I need? Will I be allowed to use a Van De Graaff from one of the labs to experiment with electrostatics? Or do I have to purchase the supplies and do them in my dorm?</p>
<p>I ask this because I'm a really hands-on person. I love learning new material and applying it.
<p>Okay. Gonna try to answer this one, even though I foresee it getting a little hand-wavy.</p>
<p>Getting your hands on stuff to build circuits would probably be inordinately easy -- there's physical lab space for most of the course 6 classes, and to my knowledge they're open quite a bit. (And you could probably go in and bum stuff.) Lots of classes will give out a box with fun toys, so you could save up stuff from various boxes. </p>
<p>My boyfriend is a major airplane nerd, and he uses the course 16 labs all the time for building space and materials for his R/C planes. No problem.</p>
<p>Haha, it gets a little hairier with the Van de Graff generators. I have no idea where you would find such a thing, other than going to the physics faculty and asking to borrow their demonstration generators (that they use for demos in class). I would imagine they'd be pretty cool about it, but I really have no clue.</p>
<p>You might consider taking classes through the</a> Experimental Study Group, which is an integrated freshman program which is much smaller than the mainstream freshman classes, and really emphasizes independent work. I suspect they'd be very excited at the idea of independently building random stuff. If you're possibly interested, you could email a current student or go to the info session they'll definitely have during Orientation.</p>
<p>Take the right classes and get permanent access to a lot of kickass facilities. For example, 4.301 gives me permanent access to very nice digital/film photography labs (darkrooms, beautiful mac-lab with thousands and thousands of dollars of software and equipment, with the means to print pictures as big as your bedroom wall, well, almost... along with the encouragement to check out $3000 dollar digital video cameras, film cameras, video editing equipment... and MORE!). I mean, you can still go in and use all these things without being in the class, you'll just have to find the guy in charge and get his permission/key. It's better when you can just swipe in ;)</p>
<p>oh my goodness, what a coincidence. I do all my R/C plane making in my basement, and i was wondering if I could continue that @ MIT!<br>
This is such great news. Wow, another admit-student who's into R/C, too? That's totally awesome.<br>
The optional essay (what have u built) was on my R/C plane that i made into a Aerial Photography unit.<br>
I'm so glad this hobby can continue @ MIT. (sorry for the off-topic-ness)</p>
<p>Oh god, I can't tell him that I've found more R/C people... he'll die of happiness. He and his course 16 buddies would love to have more people go fly with them -- they have a couple of faculty members who come too. </p>
<p>Adam put a bunch of his plane videos and pictures in his Public</a> folder; his friend Carl (also from WI, danielsjang :)) has a</a> bunch too. If you're interested in gabbing with them, I'm sure they would be more than happy.</p>
<p>Add me to the list! I'm into R/C cars and planes. Though I've only had one airplane, I have had three cars.</p>
<p>On that note, is there a local R/C airway? Where do you store the plane (dorms are small, right?)?</p>
<p>Also, thanks for all the information. I thought I might have to give up some of my somewhat-unconventional hobbies. It seems, I'll be encouraged to pursue them!</p>
<p>When Adam and Carl have to fly for their UROP, they go to a local airfield that's accessible by car (they get to take the aero/astro department van!).</p>
<p>When they're just flying for fun, they usually just go out to Briggs Field, the field next to the west campus dorms. If it's nasty out, they'll go to the indoor track in the athletic center. </p>
<p>I'm not sure what the situation is in other dorms, but in Macgregor there's a common room in every suite, which is what Adam and Carl have taken over in their respective suites to build planes. [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/blog/suite%20lounge.jpg%5DThis%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/blog/suite%20lounge.jpg]This[/url</a>] is our suite lounge; most of Adam's planes are stored on the table just to the right of the photo or on top of the cabinets just to the left of the photo. There's also room in the aero/astro department labs, but then you have to worry about other people touching your planes and stuff.</p>
<p>You can use the indoor track to fly your plane!!! It's exciting to hear just how much MIT's campus has to offer. I just hope I have the time to enjoy all the perks!</p>
<p>Also, I was wondering what you were refering to when you mentioned a "suite". Are suites single or double occupancy, are they groups of singles/doubles, or are they floors? Excuse my inexperience.</p>
<p>The suites in Macgregor are a hallway or six or eight singles, and they share a common bathroom, kitchen, and suite lounge.</p>
<p>Burton-Conner and Senior House are also organized in suites. I think the Senior House suites are singles or mostly singles, and the Burton Conner ones are doubles with a few singles sprinkled in. Those are the only other dorms I know of which have suites.</p>
<p>As for other places to fly on MIT's campus... Adam's currently cooking up a plan to go flying in the atrium</a> of my new building. <em>eyeroll</em></p>
<p>If you can fly R/C pretty well and end up coming here, keep in touch with me -- Adam might very well have a UROP for you. :)</p>
<p>^as for UROPing, does your future major have to do anything with UROP? I won't be getting into aeroscience, but I'd still love to be able to have a UROP dealing with my hobbies.</p>
<p>Nope, you can UROP in anything, even after you've declared a major. My friend Mark is course 6, but he helped Adam out with the airplanes last summer just because he wanted to work with airplanes for the summer.</p>
<p>While the Physics department isn't terrible at Bronx Science, it is by no means fantastic. I've had a teacher who was great at teaching to the curriculum, but couldn't answer any reasonable questions like "so I see why in classical physics the mathematics is reversible, but is that also the case in a quantum mechanical setting?". I've also had a teacher who has a fairly advanced knowledge of the subject matter, but quite honestly can't really teach very well.</p>
<p>Don't MIT kids go there thinking they are the smartest students at MIT since they were valedictorians and had perfect sats, only to realize they suck in comparison to the supergeniuses in the class?</p>
<p>does MIT rank students? if so, that's bad...because i will be ranked in the LAST 1%; i still don't get it how stupid science-and-math people like me got into MIT:p?!</p>
![http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/blog/suite%20lounge.jpg%5DThis%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/blog/suite%20lounge.jpg]This[/url</a>](http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/blog/suite%20lounge.jpg%5DThis%5B/url%22>http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/blog/suite%20lounge.jpg%5DThis%5B/url</a>){kind=link}