<p>MIT is a wonderful place. Absolutely, no questions asked, it's a good place. But it leaves me feeling like something's missing.</p>
<p>I've said often that I want to be around humanities people in college. I'm a math/science nut, and a nerd, don't get me wrong -- but I want to be around people who aren't math/science nuts.</p>
<p>Can I do that at MIT? I know, well, humanities make up 4% of the majors there, but is that socially representative? (I've been admitted, btw.)</p>
<p>There are a lot of people who are interested in the humanities -- people who write, people who make films, people who debate politics until they're blue in the face -- it's just that most people don't choose to major in a HASS field.</p>
<p>Statistically speaking, I think far more people choose to major in humanities fields than science fields. Which is to say, that you've spent most of your life so far with hum people and will spend the majority of the rest of your life with these people, too. Whenever I come home from school, I'm surrounded by old friends who don't know the first thing about what I study but can talk up a storm about political figures and currents events. I love my friends, and have a grand old time, but eventually, though, I always start to crave the MIT environment and the company of people who do what i do and I can relate to.</p>
<p>pebbles, I'm in a program where I'm around primarily math/sci people. That's part of why I want to expand so badly.</p>
<p>Have you visited MIT? Even if you have, I would encourage you to come to Campus Preview Weekend in the spring -- you'll be able to go around to different living groups and extracurricular groups and survey the environment in different pockets of campus.</p>
<p>There are definitely people at MIT who are passionate about the humanities. Ultimately, though, you have to be comfortable with the fact that the majority of people at MIT are focused primarily on science and engineering.</p>
<p>If you don't want to be around primarily math/science nuts, go somewhere else. No seriously. Not that there aren't humanities nuts here, there most certainly are plenty, but there'll be just as many if not more math/science nuts.</p>
<p>That said, you're not limited to your college. You can still make friends anywhere else in the Boston/Cambridge area, cross-register and/or party at schools that will probably have a higher proportion of humanities nuts, study abroad, etc. And then there ARE all those people in that 4% which make up our wonderful humanities majors. Many more MIT students take humanities classes for fun or pursue research in the humanities. There will be room for expansion. </p>
<p>By the way, I'm a class of '10 architecture major.</p>
<p>Think long and hard about whether you really want to be the odd science nerd in a sea of humanities majors. It can be pretty lonely. When or D visited colleges she was always turned off when the guide pointed out the one "science building" on campus. It was either the ugliest or most decrepit building (i.e. Harvard) or a mile away from the center of campus (i.e. Yale). Our D loves literature, excels at languages and painting but at heart she is a science nerd. She finally realized it the day the tour guide at Brown asked why the chemistry building had 14 floors. As nobody answered, she instinctively blurted out pH. When she saw the blank stares on the other kids faces, she felt embarrassed. From then on, she decided she was not going to a college where she would stand out as a nerd. At MIT she has found a very exciting community of people with a shared passion for science and wide interests in other fields. She laughs at jokes nobody else would understand outside of MIT, has made many new friends and even joined a sorority, something she did not really consider before enrolling. She is also definitely not feeling shortchanged in the humanities. She took a poetry class first semester and loved it. Now at the prodding of her professor she may well minor in literature.</p>
<p>If you don't want to be around math/science nuts, don't go to MIT.</p>
<p>That's not the same thing as wanting to be around humanities nuts. Being a math/science nut and being a humanities nut aren't mutually exclusive. People at MIT range from hating and being disdainful of the humanities to putting your average humanities major to shame with their passion for one or more humanities fields.</p>
<p>cellardweller, the same is true at Princeton, which is actually one of the stronger Ivys for engineering. The engineering quad is an entirely separate quad from main campus, and I hated the feeling of isolation.</p>