<p>lol pebbles, do you live in EC? You seem to have it in for Next House... :P</p>
<p>Did that guy you mentioned moving from Next House move to your floor in EC?</p>
<p>If so... it's not hard to see why he didn't like it... Next House culture is more traditional and wouldn't have anything equivalent to your "clothing optional" floors</p>
<p>Yeah, he's here. I'm on a non-clothing-optional hall though. And he's not a clothing-optional kind of guy. He just thought Next House was a little dead. He really likes it here, though. Some personalities are just like that. And no hard feelings I don't actually know anything about next house other than it is full of asian people. (is that true?)</p>
<p>Haha, well like other dorms, each wing and hall has a different subculture. 2nd floor east wing has been nicknamed "Chinatown" because the majority of people living there are asian --something that is reinforced in the inter-dorm rush.</p>
<p>Some floors can be pretty quiet, but others are definitely very social. The rush usually gives you a good chance of placing where you want to be. </p>
<p>Nothing as unique as some of the things offered at EC though... like cats! I'd bring my cat if I lived in EC and could get on that floor, haha :P. Though I might be afraid of him being eaten by the other cats!</p>
<p>O.O Wow, pebbles, awesome post.
By the way, Simmons does have its own dining hall.</p>
<p>I had a cousin that had a quad in there.
Family has freudian obsession with L's? I remember this quad, it was near my room, and it was often shrieky (in a good way?)</p>
<p>And you don't set off the boy alarms? I hear they would have to evacuate.
To become invisible in plain view, this is the goal of the ninja.</p>
<hr>
<p>Simmons has a dining hall, Baker's dining hall is the only one that's open on weekends, Simmons' dining is open an hour later, and they have like a juice bar thats open really late; Next house has dining. If you live at any of those three dining halls the current agreement is that you have to sign up for a plan (the plans work like $xxx amount of money for half off membership).</p>
<p>I know people that wish they had lived in Next House.</p>
<p>There are more conservative halls of EC than all that, it takes all types. </p>
<p>Random's really not that far and it's got a great location near Central Square. The rooms there vary wildly. My sister lives at Random, she's got a nice single.</p>
<p>Baker has really cool doubles, and the freshmen who get triples/quads never seem to regret it at the end of the year. You might get a single as a freshman but it will be coffin-like, I lived in a double as a freshman and have had quite nice singles sophomore and junior year. Baker rooms are actually very open, there were once devices to force the doors closed but they all got unscrewed over the years. On the east side (where I live, and where the *46 quads are), it's a lot more quiet... I walk into other people rooms or hang out in the (west side) lounges. We have frequent study breaks.</p>
<p>It's true, but people who come to live in EC (and not accidentally) don't come to be conservative. EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE.</p>
<p>
<p>What are your thoughts on if this kindof thing further 'categorizes' people? Stereotyping?
It's an interesting thing -- when you meet someone at MIT (or after MIT), often the first question you ask is "Where did you live?" (I got into a discussion about dorms with a Stanford professor on a grad school interview. He lived in Burton-Conner.) Generally, though, it's just sort of a framing question.</p>
<p>Ultimately, MIT students are friends with people from other dorms, FSILGs, etc. It's just that your best friends are often the people you live with.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it's a great system -- I don't think I would have been nearly as happy at MIT without the fabulous people with whom I chose to live.</p>
<p>Mollie i'm gonna try out for cheerleading</p>
<p>Do it!</p>
<p>The squad is great. Plus you get to make nerdy cheerleading jokes -- one of next year's captains, Chris, was telling a flyer last night that her pitch and yaw were fine in a stunt, but her roll needed work.</p>
<p>EDIT: The cheerleading squad is doing an act for AXO Lip Sync, in which your favorite local grad student cheerleading alum is participating. Everybody on campus should come see!</p>
<p>I'm currently a freshman living at Simmons so I'll chime in on that.</p>
<p>
Simmons- most people I know who live/lived in simmons hated it. It's built as more of an art project than a home. Completely non-functional. The benches aren't comfortable, the lounges are made of concrete. The way the floors are arranged and how you get around is completely unreasonable and will get really annoying. People have complaints about the lighting, how sleek and modern green backdrop light really does not give any light. It's kind of impersonal and really eerily quiet most of the time, whatever fun to be had generally happens inside the rooms. It's cool to have 9 windows in your room but not cool that they're not much bigger than the size of your face and can only swing open approximately 3 inches to let in absolutely no air at all. Everything is concrete and new and you're not allowed to modify a bit of it (yet, that is, I think it's a time-sensitive contract). The rooms are pretty big though and you do generally get your own bathroom (or shared with a few people only). Dorm room doors are often closed because, um, I think it has a hydraulics thing that forces it to close w/o a door stop. I can't remember...no dining hall, I odn't htink. Also, really goddamn far away.
</p>
<p>A lot of what you've said is accurate. However, you only talked about the negatives.</p>
<p>The positives:</p>
<p>It's very new and clean. Most people I know share a bathroom with one other person. It has its own weightroom which isn't too shabby. We have a skee ball machine, ping pong, pool, and foosball. There's one room with a projector, screen, and stadium seating which you can use to watch movies or TV. The dorm has a large budget, so if you want to get some kinda dorm-wide event started you shouldn't have too much of a problem getting it passed.</p>
<p>Also, it's not really that far away. It's about the same as Random or Next.</p>
<p>Socially, it's a nice dorm for freshmen. In general the freshmen are more social than the upperclassmen. But then the more social freshmen tend to join FSILG's and move out their sophomore year. Simmons is a nice, middle-of-the-road type of dorm.</p>
<p>I want a single room... 'coz it's the first time I'll be living alone I'd like to adjust at my own pace... Soph year onwards, it'll be a different story :)</p>
<p>My top choices are the crazy EC and the cool MacGregor.... and Bexley too (though not for freshman year, obviously)</p>
<p>Bunkbeds: funny! there's no reason not to like 'em!</p>
<p>I don't know that many dorms even have upperclassman doubles; I thought singles were the norm. At least in EC, you're guaranteed a single from sophomore year on, and some of the rooms are huge. On my hall, the biggest single (the party room) is larger than any of the doubles</p>
<p>^Well, I think most of them will let you live in an upperclassman double if you choose to. But I do think it's true that in most of them, you could have a single after freshman or sophomore year if you wanted one.</p>
<p>We met Simmons co-housemaster John Essingman at CPW. He has a joint appoinment in Chemisty and Biological Engineering and is doing interesting-sounding research, and he still manages to spend a lot of time with the students in the house, with a drop-in "smoothie night" once a week. He seems like quite a nice guy and a plus for the house.</p>
<p>I was at the Simmons smoothie mixer during CPW! Simmons, by the way, does have a dining hall, though it is not open on the weekends. I had heard for myself all those negative stories Pebbles shared prior to attending CPW, but once I had a friend from Simmons take me on a tour, I found that it wasn't horrible by any means.</p>
<p>I'm getting closer to making a decision but just have a few more questions.
East Campus most definitely had the best video -- but does it have elevators, and would it be possible to install a/c in a room? I was not quite in the right state to check out this stuff during CPW!</p>
<p>It's possible (and legal? I think?) to install an air conditioner in any of the dorms, although you probably won't need it until next summer anyway.</p>
<p>Question, Don't Dorms have A/C ?</p>
<p>Not in Boston they don't. :) A lot of buildings and homes in Massachusetts don't have air conditioning.</p>
<p>Senior House and New House are the only dorms which have air conditioning, but it generally doesn't matter unless you stay on campus for the summer -- it doesn't get hot enough to require the services of an air conditioner until the first or second week of June each year.</p>
<p>Senior House does not have air conditioning.</p>