<p>It is a hellhole it terms of academics and campus location/scenery, but I have found my first year to be relatively enjoyable (found good friends, joined a sport club, and regularly going to the crc).</p>
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<p>One thing that bothers me about GT is that its location isn’t as good as it seems. Before coming here I thought that being a large city and a past Olympic host, Atlanta was going to be a busy city (some tourism, night life, etc.) However, I have found it to be somewhat bland. There are not many pedestrians, no real historical locations to be visited and enjoyed, not much green besides the parks. Furthermore, GT isn’t really at the “heart” of Atlanta.</p>
<p>The campus itself is fairly bland (Most of the the buildings are made from redish bricks and are fairly old, with the exception of a few). I remember from somewhere that GT won an award for being a “green” campus. Don’t be fooled, it does not mean picturesque green areas like other campuses, but flat green space dispersed throughout the campus. Pictures found online of GT make it seem much nicer than it is.</p>
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<p>The only real complaint I have is the campus.</p>
<p>I kind of like the area GSU is in. They’ve done some of that area up really well, but there are things to like about the Tech area as well, but downtown is just busier. However, I don’t know if I want such an urban campus. And normally “green” has to do with sustainability, not actual forestry/canopy. Tech can’t do but so much in that area. If you’ve been over here before, you’ll realize that we are in a location that permits both ideals of “green”. And I don’t believe I am saying this, but it’s so hot in Atlanta right now, that I wish we had more trees. For Tech’s location, it does a decent job.</p>
<p>Dude, seriously. Are you joking? I’m going to guess that the school that does pass/fail for first years is tougher. Caltech is on a whole different level. Its required curriculum even differs from MIT’s by quite a bit (in that it actually seems tougher). MIT’s curriculum is almost exactly like Tech’s. I know people will get on here and negate what I just said, but a person in their right mind should just admit that the private school is indeed harder in this case.</p>
<p>One thing is that Caltech (and MIT) has a much more selective and stronger student body than a public school like Tech, so the school can be more demanding and expect more.
The disparity in difficulty is pretty obvious if you look at the OCW material, at least for the natural sciences - those schools’ tests are not just based on multiple choice (like gen chem or gen bio at Tech), but are mainly free response, which I believe requires more creativity and better understanding.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that it’s harder because of the test format because even all of our gen. chem sections are predominantly free response, and we normally have 1 section per semester in gen. biology that does it. Usually it’s the one that has to curve a little. But sometimes the multiple choice profs. can be from hell too and have to curve some. </p>
<p>Point is, if that is one reason, then you would even have to admit that some classes here are even harder than a similar course at Tech. No one at Tech wants to admit anything over here being more difficult from what I can tell (again, I think people at Tech just assume all things science there are harder and try convincing themselves that people outside of Tech have it easy, when in reality many would perform about the same if they were here. I’ve actually seen such cases).
Anyway, I believe that differences in test format actually has to do with the size of the section. Given that GT has very large sections for gen. bio and chem., multiple choice is perhaps most feasible in terms of grading. Thus, these classes can’t get but so hard. Perhaps the only reason that gen. chem there may have a lower average than say ours (normally 2.7-2.8) is b/c of the pitfall of no partial credit on MC exams (which means, if you think you are prepared, you must exercise more caution b/c it’s all or nothing) . However, this doesn’t mean the class is harder. It actually makes sense for larger classes to have lower gpas when you think about it. If we have 80-90 per section, and y’all have 150+, and the classes cover similar material, who would you expect to have the lower gpa? Caltech has even smaller sections than we do I’d imagine, so while the tests are more difficult, it is still possible that Caltech students can pull off a higher distribution than the comparable class at Tech. Grade distributions don’t tell much when you are comparing a smaller, extremely selective private engineering to a much larger public counterpart. One should just expect the actual work to be more difficult.</p>
<p>I graduated from Georgia Tech and I have no qualms in saying that Caltech and MIT are almost certainly harder than us by a large margin.</p>
<p>I know from OCW that “intro” microecon at MIT actually uses an “intermediate” textbook (Pindyck & Rubinfeld), and “intermediate” microecon uses a Masters-level textbook (Varian).</p>
<p>That is why many of the largest financial institutions have started questioning the legitimacy of Ivy League degrees (they’re all ran by Ivy grads, but we see in our economy that they sucked big time). Many schools hand out grades like Florida Licenses and are damaging the worth of their degrees.</p>
<p>I think the poster meant things to do in Atlanta that you can’t do anywhere else. Things on Tech campus like sports, video games, and the clubs can be done anywhere else. I somewhat agree with the poster, because the City of Atlanta sucks at marketing itself (I’m not blaming Tech for this one). Always has and always uses comparisons to other cities. There is plenty to do here that isn’t in other cities, but you’ll never know it because of the marketing and design of the city(no grid and car driving necessary many times). You really have to get natives(and not just transplants that moved here) to show you the things the city has to offer that peak interest and can’t be found other places. I had to show my roommates and people in my residence hall where everything unique was. A lot of things that are advertised here are big box stores found anywhere; they seem to neglect the little places that help bring character to the city. You always hear the Varsity touted (it sucks, IMO, and I’m a native). No one on my hall, though, knew about The Vortex in Little 5. They had a blast that night! Or Starlight drive-in cinema (you don’t see many drive-ins anymore). Or when I mentioned the “Big Chicken” in Cobb, they were like “***?!” and we ended up taking a road trip to Cobb Pkwy because they wanted to see it. Riding to the top of Stone Mtn to see the entire city from up high. World of Coke which is advertised but not as much as that damn aquarium(more fun than the aquarium, IMO). I wish it weren’t like that, and it’s starting to improve, but I recommend to anyone coming to Tech: get to know a REAL Atlanta native if you’re bored. We will show you where everything worthwhile is (restaurants, sites, etc…).</p>
<p>If you’re talking only about economics, then yes, MIT is definitely harder almost always. It varies with subject, really. I’ve had friends at MIT say that our classes were easier in one department, and harder in another (and even varied by professor). A blanket statement can’t really be made about it because of the variables involved, and since both are in the Top 5, it would be nitpicky to say which one is harder since really you get a sometimes is, sometimes isn’t type answer. For example, I though intro CS coursework at MIT was easier than at GT. Similar with Calc I. Really, it is a big depends.</p>
Well, you did read your history textbook for the Civil War, right? You saw what happened to our “historical areas”? Actually, a big reason of why Tech was made was because of post-civil war efforts to make it more like the industrial north. The introduction of Tech and flourishing industries helped race relations here (and made it into a black mecca), the building of the busy airport, and the Olympics choosing us, etc… Most of our preserved history is more modern. Unfortunately, the city does a bad job at advertising things like this.</p>
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<p>There are too many trees. They tear down parking decks and such just to put in greenspace and trees. I’m sick of it to be honest. Atlanta has too many trees as it is (anyone will see the yellow caked cars in spring with pollen counts of 1000+ while the national average is 100). And, the green award refers to the way we use resources, not trees or greenspace. I’d be fine with more concrete.</p>
<p>Interesting because most Atlanta natives don’t like the downtown (GSU) area that much. Oh, for everyone, GT is NOT in downtown Atlanta (I always hear people say “enjoy downtown” when I go back to GT). It is in MIDTOWN. This isn’t for the OP personally but just a general thing. It bugs me when people say GT is in downtown (OTPers).</p>
<p>Your right about that pollen. As beautiful as Emory turned in spring. It would basically rain pollen all day. The air was full of green/yellow haze, and everyone started getting allergies and sour throats. The change over to Spring was brutal this year. However, trees are awesome, don’t put down trees lol (this is a reason Atlanta maintains its beauty. As a Georgian, I like this contrast with the general urbanity of the city). However, the destruction of complete parking decks for green space is a ludicrous concept. Hopefully you are exaggerating about such a practice. We’ve recently gotten clever, and started putting green space on top of new parking decks, basically turning the top of the deck into a courtyard. But then again, this is because we seem to be attaching a parking deck to every new building when there is room. Evidently this has become a popular practice over the last decade here. Prime example is Clairmont Campus, where a the parking decks are integrated into the structure of the apartments .</p>
<p>Yes, the trees are beautiful in Atlanta. But, I wasn’t exaggerating about tearing down parking decks for green space. They want to tear down Peters parking deck and put in “green space.” That was the original intention of the place (supposedly, in a contract, the benefactor said he wanted “green space,” so Tech put in a parking deck and painted the top green, LOL). IDK if that was an urban myth, but I have heard among admin about wanting to get rid of Peters for green space.</p>
<p>This is true, and I only wish I had known it sooner than the day before graduation. I went out to dinner with some friends, and on the way back, the driver volunteered to give us passengers a brief tour of some residential areas near Georgia Tech that I had never been to.</p>
<p>We went to Inman Park and some areas closeby and all I can say is WOW. I was graduating the next day but I had never seen that side of Atlanta before. It was so idyllic, almost like it was straight out of a movie. I was very thankful to the driver for the tour.</p>
<p>Have you been over hear before out of curiousity? I am just always amazed at the number of people at Tech, GSU, and UGA I guess that have never been to Emory or the druid hills, little five area.</p>
<p>I visited Emory in high school and volunteered for Science Olympiad. The area is very nice, but it is different from Inman Park. At night, IP has a quaint, residential feel to it that simply wowed me.</p>
<p>Look guys here is the key to GaTech. It is a great school and the name will carry you far. Yes it is very hard in my opinion. The reason for this is because it has a 70% acceptance rate (mostly because they reserve 2/3 of seats for in state applicants by mandate) meaning that they have to have tough classes to weed out the unqualified. To do well at GT you have to go to your classes and pay attention and do well in your first 2 semesters. Do not make the mistake and load up with 17 credits for your first two semesters. The course difficulty is a big adjustment for most high school students. Take 12 credits and don’t take all your hard core courses the first year. This will ensure you have a high GPA your first year and are not play catch up the subsequent years at Tech. One last piece of advice is take all of your electives there as it will boost your GPA.</p>
Actually, a big reason of why Tech was made was because of post-civil war efforts to make it more like the industrial north. The introduction of Tech and flourishing industries helped race relations here (and made it into a black mecca), the building of the busy airport, and the Olympics choosing us, etc… Most of our preserved history is more modern. Unfortunately, the city does a bad job at advertising things like this.</p>