<p>I was just wondering how life is at MIT as a grad vs life as an undergrad</p>
<p>I have been wondering the same thing. Any insight would be appreciated.</p>
<p>There's no general "grad student" anything at MIT or elsewhere, because your life as a graduate student depends on your specific program and on your thesis advisor/lab, and not largely on the university itself. </p>
<p>I'm a grad student at Harvard, and my life as a graduate student is nothing like undergrad student life at Harvard. The fact that my lab happens to be affiliated with Harvard has very little effect on my life in general.</p>
<p>I don't want to sound too much like a cranky third-year PhD student, but here goes: life at MIT is a lot more fun as an undergrad than as a grad student, because life as a grad student is not really all that fun.</p>
<p>Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess that kinda sucks for those who didn't get into awesome undergrad schools. Thanks for the reply Mollie!</p>
<p>"I don't want to sound too much like a cranky third-year PhD student, but here goes: life at MIT is a lot more fun as an undergrad than as a grad student, because life as a grad student is not really all that fun."</p>
<p>=[ Mollie, could you please elaborate on why it isn't? I have always looked forward to graduate school, and while I understand there's the concern that things are a bit more <em>real</em>, and that the academic world is not easy to get around in [I am a math undergraduate], I always thought that postdocing was the rough part, not being a grad student so much...though one must produce good work to have a shot at postdoc positions.</p>
<p>I appreciate your wisdom.</p>
<p>At least in my field (biomedical sciences, and developmental neuroscience specifically), there's really no difference between being a grad student and being a postdoc, other than a few pretty superficial differences. My goals as a grad student are not much different from the goals of postdocs in my lab: I want to work on projects that ask and answer interesting questions, and end up publishing my work in good journals. I'm obviously aiming for postdoc positions after I finish, rather than the faculty positions the postdocs are aiming for, but the means to achieve those goals are basically the same.</p>
<p>I'm working pretty hard, long hours every day, and my work is often frustrating and perplexing. I mean, I love what I do, and I find the science fun by itself, but grad school is not fun in the same way that undergrad is -- I have to work pretty hard to carve out some time for things I enjoy (spending time with my husband, moderating CC, knitting, coaching the MIT cheerleading squad) in a way that I didn't as an undergrad. My husband (who's a working aerospace engineer) and I come home exhausted at the end of each day -- thinking for a living is hard work.</p>
<p>I should probably admit, though, that I'm working in an outstanding lab doing cutting-edge science. If I were in a lower-profile lab, I could probably have more time to myself, but I wouldn't publish in top journals and get a top postdoc, either. That's a choice I've made quite consciously -- others wouldn't necessarily make the same choices.</p>
<p>Unless you attend a graduate school that is significantly below your intellectual level, such attendance will not involve fun in the sense an undergraduate course of study involves fun.</p>
<p>After the bachlor's, fun is over. My concern about top-ranked universities for undergraduate education is that many undergraduate classes are taught by the most overworked , oppressed, and exploited people in the academic system; graduate students.</p>
<p>A Master's degree, whether in English, P.E.,ChE, History or another field requires "mastery" of the subject at a level compatible with the institutions' standards.</p>
<p>A PhD requires an original contribution to human knowledge as well as mastery of the current "art" in the subject. </p>
<p>Advanced degrees mean money, position, more secure employment and greater credibility with lenders if you want to start an enterprise. These are huge prizes which are not lightly awarded.</p>
<p>Even Yale awards a bachlor's to an occasional doofus. No one gets an advanced degree from any elite institution without very substantial effort, bordering on suffering for one's vocation.</p>
<p>"I come home exhausted at the end of each day -- thinking for a living is hard work."</p>
<p>OK I understand -- I guess this isn't bad in the sense that I completely understand what you're saying, yet at least you're not coming out with some stories on how frustrating the academic world is, and how it's impossible to get tenure-track positions these days...or in your case, the top postdocs. I recently had a somewhat disheartening conversation with a professor [postdoc] at Berkeley -- the guy is 24, fresh out of grad school, and admittedly somewhat bouncy a personality on the outside, yet...I've heard a lot about the difficulty of making it in the academic world, and he seemed to give me no comfort, and said he was somewhat frustrated with the process himself. </p>
<p>I see that in essence, as a particularly top grad student, actually aiming to make it in the academic world, your frustrations seem an early version of those a postdoc aiming for further positions may face. Maybe I'm kind of losing out on the fun of undergraduate education myself by thinking about all this a tad too much =[ but I am right on track for no profession other than an academic one in mathematics.</p>
<p>"I'm obviously aiming for postdoc positions after I finish, rather than the faculty positions the postdocs are aiming for, but the means to achieve those goals are basically the same."</p>
<p>I would've hoped, for instance, that as a grad student you don't have as much of a gun to the head yet to produce. But it seems logical that this wouldn't be the case. </p>
<p>I have no idea, I guess any advice for someone like me? I am very, very certain that academic stuff best suits me at this point, and one would be hard pressed to see me doing anything but thinking for living...but I can't pretend to be affected by the way people make the odds of surviving in the academic world and actually getting tenure sound.</p>
<p>And to Big G, I think I'm fairly aware of the difference between graduate school and the undergrad programs. I know the difference between the math grad students and undergraduates at Berkeley. I already try to put myself into the company of these students, and aim to do so for a majority of my undergrad career, given I realize the seriousness of undertaking graduate study. I also realize that even Ken Ribet [essentially the most insane number theorist at Berkeley] says he would come out after whole days with blank sheets of paper, no ideas coming to him. It's tough stuff, and can be demoralizing, even if you like it...I am wondering, though, if making it career-wise is so dispiriting that even top grad students are miserable. Not challenged + overworked, but just plain unhappy.</p>
<p>Eh, corrections: "but I can't pretend to be affected" -- should read "not to be affected..."</p>
<p>and I meant "I already try to put myself into the company of these students" to refer to the grad students.</p>
<p>A lot of people are very unhappy in graduate school. I think being very unhappy negatively affects what you get out of such an experience. Even if your road through life takes you through grad school as sure as a toll road will take you through a toll booth, I would personally do whatever I can to be mentally ready before such an undertaking. If this means exploring all of my options (and yes, even for an academic there are other options than grad school immediately after college), if this means taking some time off of school, if this means hearing things I dont want to hear (i.e. bad things about grad school), I'd do it, if it means entering graduate school with enough perspective to conquer any doubts therein.</p>
<p>I see a lot of kids rushing through undergrad planning out every move so that they can go to the best grad school. Honestly, I think the best thing you can do for graduate school is to be ready for it.</p>
<p>Good advice there...I am trying to be as disillusioned early on as is possible! I really don't think anything but an academic life is gonna work for me. I was originally going to be an engineer and just get a job, but I was <em>completely</em> miserable doing that, because I really am quite certain that I'm meant to go to grad school in a theoretical subject.</p>
<p>I'm open to all of your wisdom.</p>
<p>I can't speak to MIT, since I didn't go there for grad school. For a significant number of grad students, especially those who are part of doctoral programs, grad school isn't "fun" in the same sense that undegrad was, or might have been. In a sense, as a grad student, you're there to do a job. You're on the way to becoming a professional researcher, and grad school is the place where you start publishing papers, developing ideas for your research area, cultivating peers in your field, and so forth. While this doesn't necessarily have to be odious, it can be wearing at times. Another aspect of grad school is that you're most likely attempting to do something that hasn't been done before, that some people may even say cannot be done. So, in a sense, you are on your own, trying to chart a path to results that will hopefully be integrated into the body of the world's knowledge. At times, this can be very discouraging, especially when you hit roadblocks. IMO, it's very important for grad students to get advisors who can help them become researchers - not do their research for them, but guide them through the pitfalls and roadblocks.</p>
<p>There is a lot more on this subject at</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have no idea, I guess any advice for someone like me? I am very, very certain that academic stuff best suits me at this point, and one would be hard pressed to see me doing anything but thinking for living...but I can't pretend not to be affected by the way people make the odds of surviving in the academic world and actually getting tenure sound.
[/quote]
Take it one day and one step at a time. I'm only starting to think casually about postdocs as a third-year PhD student, and I don't think at all about what I would like to do after that. Maybe a tenure-track position is in my future, but at this point I don't have the information to determine whether I'm good enough for that kind of position, or even whether I want to sacrifice my life to get there. That's not a decision I need to make now.</p>
<p>I agree with pebbles (and she knows this, because we have had this conversation in person in somewhat greater depth) that many or most people are well-served by taking a year or a few years off between undergrad and grad school. Grad school is not an automatic necessity for anyone, and it has to be a deliberate choice. The same goes for further positions in academia.</p>
<p>"one would be hard pressed to see me doing anything but thinking for living.."</p>
<p>I attended graduate school at Berkeley back in the day, and I'm now a tenured professor. I remember the days when my husband pursued a doctorate at Stanford and I was at Berkeley; what a grueling time. We had each other, which helped. I started in history of science, and in that field, once you enter the research phase, you are working alone. I received great mentoring from professors, and the interactions with my four faculty readers were wonderful. But meaningful contact with other students who could fully understand my particular area diminished as my research progressed. In this sense, graduate school is quite different from the undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>What most people don't understand is this: even if you receive a doctorate from a top-notch school like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, etc., there is a very small chance that you will receive a job offer from an institution at this level. Ninety percent or more of the tenure-track positions in the country are at lower-tier institutions. It can take decades to move up.</p>
<p>When I talk with a student about whether or not to pursue an academic life, I make sure to explain that such a life involves far more than sitting in a lovely office with ample time to think. In my field, you absolutely have to love to write. To advance, you must publish papers, peer-reviewed journal articles, and books. You also will spend far more time than you like serving on committees, pursuing grants and other sources of outside funding, and so on. And I don't care how great a researcher you are, for most of the positions out there, if you hate teaching, you'll be miserable.</p>
<p>Having said all this, I love my job. I really can't believe I'm paid to do what I do. And academia needs the next generation of talented faculty. Just make sure that you are passionate about the kinds of things the position requires before you sign up for 4-plus years of grad school.</p>
<p>"Maybe a tenure-track position is in my future, but at this point I don't have the information to determine whether I'm good enough for that kind of position, or even whether I want to sacrifice my life to get there. That's not a decision I need to make now."</p>
<p>I am glad to see someone experienced + accomplished seems to endorse what I've been telling myself [or <em>trying</em> to tell myself]. Nevertheless, hearing this from people who've already made it to top graduate programs [CalAlum, and Mollie] does wonders to make me less complacent. One of my professors did explicitly tell me to make sure math is fun for me at every point, and not to do things just because. Hopefully I'll make it some day and remain passionate about the stuff I like now. </p>
<p>The idea of teaching sounds like a great balance to the research lifestyle, and I'm not averse to it at all for one thing. I think the activities CalAlum mentions are things I would well see myself doing, and it'd be nice to get there -- the tenured professors, especially some of the younger ones, always always always seem to have a smile on their faces, and I think they're a little too broad to be fake ;) </p>
<p>"
What most people don't understand is this: even if you receive a doctorate from a top-notch school like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, etc., there is a very small chance that you will receive a job offer from an institution at this level. Ninety percent or more of the tenure-track positions in the country are at lower-tier institutions. It can take decades to move up."</p>
<p>This is something I was somewhat all too aware of from an early stage. Obviously I will not expect to become tenured at any of these insane schools, though it'd be amazing of course.</p>
<p>Can anyone speak about the graduate student housing at MIT? Do most people live in apartments or in one of the graduate student "dorms"? Is the atmosphere (socially) similar to an undergraduate dorm at these places or more like in an apartment building?</p>
<p>MIT</a> Graduate Admissions - Housing</p>
<p>Make friends with MIT's website.</p>
<p>
[quote]
After the bachlor's, fun is over. My concern about top-ranked universities for undergraduate education is that many undergraduate classes are taught by the most overworked , oppressed, and exploited people in the academic system; graduate students.</p>
<p>A Master's degree, whether in English, P.E.,ChE, History or another field requires "mastery" of the subject at a level compatible with the institutions' standards.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Advanced degrees mean money, position, more secure employment and greater credibility with lenders if you want to start an enterprise. These are huge prizes which are not lightly awarded.</p>
<p>Even Yale awards a bachlor's to an occasional doofus. No one gets an advanced degree from any elite institution without very substantial effort, bordering on suffering for one's vocation.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, let me you give you the one shining counterexample. George Bush has an Master's degree (in Business Administration) from Harvard. Yet he himself has freely admitted that he was a drunk, lazy, ne'er-do-well until he was in his 40's, when he quit alcohol and dedicated himself to Christianity, which was over a decade after his Harvard days. </p>
<p>Nor was Bush particularly unusual. The fact is, MBA students in general - whether at Harvard, MIT, Wharton, Stanford, Kellogg, or wherever - frankly, tend to spend significant amounts of time socializing and partying (a.k.a. drinking heavily), often times more so than they do on their actual studies, to the point that the academics are often times seen as secondary to the socializing and networking building. "Crainer and Dearlove (1999), in their critical overview of business education, described the "Wharton Walk"--a drinking ritual in which the students at the University of Pennsylvania business school visit 10 bars in one night. They concluded, "This is what happens in business schools. Most students simply get drunk." </p>
<p>AMLE</a> - The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye - Vol. 1, No. 1, Sept. 2002</p>
<p>Caitlyn Weaver recounts her days as an MBA student at NYU:</p>
<p>*"Alcohol, the ultimate social lubricant, is present at nearly every event, starting at orientation. My orientation culminated with a open bar boat party where I witnessed the polished, professional woman I had talked to early in the day down several drinks and perform a pole dance routine in the middle of the crowded dance floor. More than one person vomited off the side of the boat. Welcome to the future business leaders of the world.</p>
<p>As classes started and everyone settled in to the breakneck pace of school, I expected the boozing to taper off. But the busier and more stressful things got, the more people partied. Every Thursday (no classes on Friday) the school sponsored four hours of free beer right there in the school caf</p>
<p>
[quote]
Can anyone speak about the graduate student housing at MIT? Do most people live in apartments or in one of the graduate student "dorms"? Is the atmosphere (socially) similar to an undergraduate dorm at these places or more like in an apartment building?
[/quote]
I imagine most graduate students live in apartment buildings -- MIT grad housing is limited. I lived in Westgate (one of the married student dorms) during my first year in grad school, and it was just like a regular apartment building. There were occasional social events, but it was nothing like my undergraduate dorm.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input Mollie. Given that, I'm leaning towards living in an apartment. It's just that as an undergrad I met most of the people I know in the dorms freshman year. It's unfortunate that I won't have something similar starting out as a grad student.</p>
<p>Do you know anyone who has lived in one of the 'singles' dorms?</p>