<p>How about if we get accepted.
Do you guys think the workload was worse than you expected or vice versa?</p>
<p>Do you think the professors are too smart, I mean do they exptect you to know a lot, or are they too busy for their research to give the extra help, or they prefer smart kids.
How about MIT students, do they compete each other or they cooperate?</p>
<p>I really want to challenge my self and take risks but I just want to know your experiences, and how much to prepare for.</p>
The workload was worse than I expected (mostly because I didn’t know what to expect), but it wasn’t worse than I could handle. Most people take 4 classes per semester, and each class is supposed to take about 12 hours of work a week. So the average student is taking about a 48-hour-per-week courseload – a lot, but not too much to handle. </p>
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The professors certainly expect you to know a lot, but they’ll help you get there. Professors hold official office hours for every class they teach, and you can drop by and ask them questions at that time or at other times. Most classes also have TAs who hold office hours and review sessions, and some classes/departments hire student tutors to offer further help. If you need help at MIT (and everybody does at some point), there will be help available to you.</p>
<p>I guess it’s fair to say that professors prefer smart kids, but all the professors I know think that MIT students are pretty smart.</p>
Having grown up as the star student in my little sheltered Texan town, I will assure you that when I arrived at MIT, I found a world far unlike any I had encountered before. A world where students actually took advanced math up until Diff.Eq in high school… a world where high-school students working at institutions like NIH were the norm… a world where double integrals took some students five seconds to solve.</p>
<p>At first, I was horrified. I remember looking at my 18.01 p-set and thinking, “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING?!” (I was definitely blowing it out of proportion, though). I panicked because I couldn’t finish my 5.111 p-set in one night. I suffered a really hard blow when I failed 8.012 by four points my fall semester despite hundreds of hours of studying.</p>
<p>But then you realize that this shock, this “worse-than-expected” workload serves to teach you a lesson. It shows you that college isn’t just fun-and-games. It shows you that this is a serious institution and a collection of some of the brightest minds in the world, and that unless you buckle down and work hard, you’re just going to be another faceless student in the crowd. It’s a very effective wake-up call, and that is why MIT gives you pass/no record during the first semester, so that you can gradually realize that college life is different from what you’ve experienced in the past.</p>
<p>(Granted, this is not the case for everyone - some of my friends found their freshman year a cakewalk. This is rare, though.)</p>
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<p>It would be a lie to say professors don’t prefer smart kids. They do. That’s why they’re willing to help you be that smart kid. There are always office hours, course tutors, and review sessions to attend. Professors usually stick around after class, and if you go up and ask them questions, they are very willing to discuss with you. Prof. Hazel Sive (7.013) even has “questions of the day” in which students can send her questions, and she’ll address them during subsequent lectures. When I was having problems with 8.012 my fall semester, Prof. Saul Rappaport even took time aside to privately tutor me (something for which I am eternally grateful, even if I didn’t ultimately pass the class). I used to walk with Prof. Jeffrey Harris back to his office after 14.01 lecture for office hours to discuss test-taking techniques. Many of the professors also enjoy chatting about non-coursework related items as well - Prof. Rappaport even went out to dinner with a group of me and my friends, and I chatted with Prof. Burgasser (also 8.012) about my research during an undergraduate symposium last spring. The entire faculty is very dedicated to what they do, and naturally they want you to share in their passions as well.</p>
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Ultimately, every MIT student looks out for him or herself first - if they have a midterm tomorrow, you probably won’t see them helping friends with a hard p-set problem. Otherwise, collaboration is what makes p-setting fun! We used to have 8.012 “p-set parties” in which students from four different dorms (Baker, Burton-Conner, Macgregor, and Next) all gathered together to finish the super-hard (at the time) problems. It was a ton of fun, and looking back, that was some of the best times of my freshman fall semester. In fact, many of my closest friends came from those 8.012 p-set parties =)</p>
<p>Thank you molliebatmit and Vivi, that helped a lot.</p>
<p>I am one of those who poeple think that they are less smart or slow, but if given a time can do very interesting things. I mean I can argue all day that The exponential function e^x grows very slow because from negative infinite to x=1.
I always have a hard time showing people what I can do, few people understand it.</p>
<p>I am really happy they give that much help!</p>