<p>People have asked me countless times (and I'm sure every "potential student" here), why I want to go to MIT.</p>
<p>This brings me to my problem: How would you describe the pure "MIT-ness" of the place? What is it about MIT that it's so different (and alluring) compared everywhere else?</p>
<p>top 10 reasons to attend MIT:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>More sports, music groups, theater groups, political groups, academic groups, journalism groups, and other activities than you can even imagine. - Any activity you can think of can be found at MIT. Also, just being next to Harvard and Boston leave a lot of off-campus activities easily available. The Boston Pops! Go to the Museum of Art! Try any number of restaurants in Boston or Cambridge! They're all just a T ride away. Yup, the opportunities are endless.</p></li>
<li><p>Any type of living environment I could want - You could live in a small dorm that allows people to paint glow in the dark murals or write poetry on the wall. There is a big dorm that rarely play any loud music and there are party-style frat houses. Yet others lived in homes by Fenway park. Any atmosphere you want you can find, whether its small or large, quiet and sedate or loud and boisterous, vanilla or completely eccentric. </p></li>
<li><p>Interesting, intelligent, fun students that will be friends for life. - You already know people who graduate froM MIT and are starting their own companies or working in Japan. Sometimes theyre giving up their technical field to pursue acting. Sometimes they're doing amazing research on the AIDS virus or helping design the next PDA drug. Regardless of what theyre doing, theyre all interesting, intelligent, and fantastic people and so are all of the people I met at MIT. Plus, rickoids will be there. How can I not be around the rickoids?! My group of already established friends is irreplaceable. </p></li>
<li><p>Professors that are geniuses teaching you amazing classes. - Yes, there are some not-so-amazing classes, but the amazing ones make up for it. One of classes is a biology class that is taught by a man who has discoveries in genetics and cancer research that make him known the world-over: Eric Lander. And this guy goes around teaching freshman classes? Amazing. In fact most of the professors are interesting people who had done some amazing research. I know that when I learn at MIT, I learn from the best. Also, even though I do have to take some classes that dont interest me, by the time I get to my junior and senior year, I really start to delve into the area that interests me. And thats when I really get to have fun. Learning and working and enjoying it! What a mind-boggling concept!</p></li>
<li><p>The opportunity to do academic research as an undergraduate. - MIT has one of the best undergraduate research programs. In it, you can work part-time (during the school year) or full-time (during the summer) in any of the research labs in any area of specialty. This can give you opportunities to work with those genius professors or graduate students one-on-one. There are folks who submitted academic papers and patents as undergraduates because of this program. Its a great asset.</p></li>
<li><p>The network of alumni when you get out. They have directories of companies with MIT grads and most of them will welcome an email asking about their company.</p></li>
<li><p>The job opportunities available to MIT grads. The truth is that MIT does open doors. By itself its not a reason to go, but it is a perk.</p></li>
<li><p>The weird and wonderful traditions that are virtually unexplainable. - The Hack culture; the Nerd/Tool atmosphere; the pressured and collaborative enviroment
this is one of the few places where it's okay to be a nerd because almost everyone else is!</p></li>
<li><p>The liberal arts classes - Not only are there great engineering and science classes (and they are incredible), there are also incredible opportunities in liberal arts like music, history, media studies, and many others taught by Pulitzer winners.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And my top reason why an education at MIT is the best you can get:
1. What you leave with is not a collection of facts, it's a thought-process. You will learn how to analyze and solve problems to come up with great solutions. This is what makes the doors open, and this is what makes 40% of MIT grads start their own companies at some point, and this is what makes people get a promotion after 9 months. The fact that any problem tossed at you is something you know you can solve is worth the weight of the great dome in gold.</p>
<p>Wow! great post staticsoliloquy. what I read on an early postcard from MIT that stays with me, was percentages that go on to graduate school, Phds, start their own business, etc. (all very high). the last sentence was, "change the world 100%". I think that is what it is for my daughter. She is so much more concerned with "the world" than either I had been or my parents had been. I saw another post on cc from a student who noted MIT will be very hard, but she ended with with your MIT education you will have obtained skills to get you through the most difficult life situations. I simply adore the mindset of the MIT people.</p>
<p>"3. The weird and wonderful traditions that are virtually unexplainable. - The Hack culture; the Nerd/Tool atmosphere; the pressured and collaborative enviroment this is one of the few places where it's okay to be a nerd because almost everyone else is!"</p>
<p>This is most nearly the answer to what I meant. this "Nerd/Tool atmosphere". How would you describe this (succintly) to someone unfamiliar with MIT?</p>
<p>my own answer to that would be the people: not just that incredibly unique people exist, b/c interesting folks can be found anywhere, but the concentration and manifestation. there's just so many, everywhere you look. i'll admit that i would be a somewhat different person, doing rather different things, if i'd gone to school elsewhere. i'll second the rest of staticsoliliquy's points, really, altho i don't know that all of them are particularly MIT-unique (other schools have pretty good alumni networks too, frinstance).</p>
<p>this "Nerd/Tool atmosphere". How would you describe this (succintly)
i wouldn't, really, i'd tell you to come and live it yourself ;) but here goes: work here is tough, but that's ok, b/c you're a nerd, but so is everyone you know, so there's no shame in it. so everyone gets together and collectively takes on those psets, and in the process you get unforgettable memories, irreplaceable friends, <em>and</em> your homework's done. we're good at working hard and playing harder, which comes out in many non-standard directions (hacking, notably, but others too) which i find the truly best part of MIT.</p>
<p>i love MIT! but many of the great things I hear about MIT, like the great selection of classes, research availability, brilliant and accessible professor...... are also boasted by other univerisities. Like right now I'm torn between MIT and Yale.....which would provide a better undergrad education? If I am a strongly science or liberal arts oriented person I wouldn't have such a hard time deciding..... Please offer advice or thoughts! Is it safe to assume that the academics at Yale would be less challenging and stressful than MIT?</p>
<p>....it isn't necessarily safe to assume the academics would be less challenging and stressful, as a lot of that depends on your specific strengths and weaknesses. the emphasis is necessarily different in each place, of course. you'll need to define what makes a "better" undergraduate education before any of us can really answer further. or at least tell us about the sort of person you'd like to become, the things you'd like to study, and what you'd like to do with them.</p>
<p>fwiw, tho, if it's at all important to you, boston >> new haven. no contest. also, a lot of schools may boast of such things, but looking at hard statistics may give you a better idea of the truth, if you can find them.</p>