<p>I have a question about MIT undergrad, so any undergrads and alums (Mollie! :D) please answer the best you can!</p>
<li> How good are the sports facilities at MIT?</li>
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<p>By “good”, I mean are they frequently accessible? Is there an indoor track? Are the sports facilities often crowded? Is there a indoor swimming pool? How secure is it (for example, will sb notice you if you swim and cramp up and start drowning?)?</p>
<li>How bad is the bureaucracy at MIT?</li>
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<p>I have heard some horror stories about how MIT academics are as awesome as the bureaucracy is bad. By “bad” I’m looking for the following faults:</p>
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<li>Is it easy to switch around and shop courses?</li>
<li>Is it easy to drop out of a course?</li>
<li>Is it easy to get good advising on a certain career, intership, job opportunity, grad school…?</li>
<li>How nice are the administration people? How helpful are they?</li>
</ul>
<p>Yes, just sign up for it. Advisors generally don’t ask questions, even when you take courses out off major. When I was there, you had like 2 weeks to add a course and 9 weeks to drop it (14 weeks in a semester.) Often the department administrator/secretary signs the form, and they don’t ask questions.</p>
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<p>You’d have to work for it to figure out where to get info. However, the MIT goes pretty far in getting competitive internships. All you really need to worry about is your GPA. For example, I was walking through a lobby at MIT and some guy recruiting for a software company was handing out DVD’s of popular movie. I wasn’t even interested in programming but I got one.</p>
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<p>I don’t get the feeling like administration really get what’s ilike to be an undergrad. I feel like they are out-of-touch. Avoid them if possible.</p>
<p>well, I had toured the sports facility, called the Z-center. I even took a lot of pictures which I posted on the MIT 2013 facebook group. Go to there to see the pics.</p>
<p>I think the sports facility is awesome! and probably open 24/7 (?)</p>
<p>As to the quality of the advising or the friendliness of the administration, the honest answer is that is varies significantly. For example, all of the admissions office are part of the administration, and I have usually found them to be very friendly. When you are talking about literally thousands of staff, a question as to “How friendly are they?” is basically meaningless.</p>
<p>I think the Z center closes at 11, not sure what time it opens. Individual dorms sometimes have weight rooms, the one in EC at least opens with your hall keys so it’s open 24/7. The Z center is really nice but it’s also really far away from my dorm so I don’t go there all that much.</p>
<p>Stata also has a fitness center, I think that one’s open until 9. It does have big glass windows that open into the actual building, so I’ve never actually used it.</p>
<p>the mit pool is incredible…it appears to be almost new (if you google mit pool under images then you get some great photos) and in great condition</p>
<p>Sorry I have some more questions about MIT lifestyle… Please help!</p>
<ol>
<li>How good is MIT food?</li>
<li>Are you guaranteed 4 yrs of housing?</li>
<li>Is health insurance covered by the tuition+board costs?</li>
<li>Any positive or negatives about MIT lifestyle…</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>I don’t know, how good of a cook are you?</li>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>Yes, but you can waive it if you’re already covered under your parents’ plan</li>
<li>Come to CPW, it is awesome.</li>
</ol>
It opened my freshman year (2002), if I recall correctly.</p>
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As I imagine you can gather from collegealum’s answers to you, there’s a difference between “the administration” as a nebulous force of not-good at MIT and “bureaucracy”. Things that have to do with your day-to-day life, like adding or dropping classes, or changing majors, or taking classes without taking the prereqs, are exceedingly easy – you’re free to do almost whatever you want regarding your academic life. There’s a lot of freedom about most aspects of MIT life, something students tend to prize very highly.</p>
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Again, there’s a lot of freedom regarding dining. As the system stands, you/your parents put money into your TechCash account, which is linked to your ID card. When you want to buy food on campus (or at many places off-campus), you swipe your card, and the cost of the food is debited from your account. There are a variety of options for how to purchase this food – you can buy whole food and cook it yourself (as many dorms have kitchens, and if cooking is important to you, you can pick a dorm with them), you can buy prepared food, or you can have a meal made for you at a dining hall or restaurant. As such, the food is what you choose to buy. If you don’t like the food from a particular restaurant or dining hall, you’re free not to eat there.</p>
<p>I’m not really a picky eater… I’m just a voracious fan of everything that is unhealthy (fries, cheeseburgers, ice-creams, chicken fingers…Yummy!). Is the food rationed, meaning you’ll pay more for eating too much, or is it basically a buffet?</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s what I feared. I mean some schools have buffets, which is basically 6-7 $, and you can eat as much as you want. I usually get an advantage on those because of incredibly extensible walls of my stomach…</p>
<p>There’s been some discussion on campus of implementing an all-you-care-to-eat plan and/or creating a central dining hall for dinner rather than having dorm dining halls.</p>
<p>Current students are generally unenthusiastic about these proposals. Although AYCE plans provide more food, pay-as-you-eat plans often have the advantage of being considerably tastier.</p>
<p>There is also a huge amount of variation on campus. At many of the fraternities, sororities and other independent living groups, there is a some element of AYCE. Basically the houses, as self-governing bodies, set up their own arrangements as to what they are going to make with regard to food, and what impact that has on the house bill.</p>
<p>What kind of advantages can joining a frat give you?
Is socializing possible even if you don’t join a frat?
Does MIT accomodate academic discussions purely for fun?</p>
<p>I’m definitely not interested in drinking and partying (unless your concept of partying is watching a movie with some friends). My concept of socializing can verge somewhat on the nerdy side (for example, trying to create an idealistic physics model of metallic materials… plasmas, etc… and sharing it with others, asking their critics). Does that concept of socializing is accomodated at MIT?</p>
<p>I mean, I’m not an all study person, but I have sometimes burst of nerdiness and would be really happy around if other people shared my enthusiasm for physical theories… That’s one of the reasons why I applied to MIT</p>