<p>I just joined in on a post about the dangerous campus at Penn. I was wondering what people thought of the Cambridge area is it safe or dangerous during the day or night?</p>
<p>While Cambridge itself has some sketchy parts, MIT's part of Cambridge is fairly isolated -- non-MIT students/employees don't tend to hang out on campus very frequently.</p>
<p>I never felt unsafe walking on campus at any time of night, particularly because there are always students awake and walking around. (And for context, I'm a very small, fearful-of-cities country girl.) Students who prefer not to walk around at night can take one of MIT's Saferide shuttles, which run around various parts of Boston and Cambridge until 3:30 AM on the weekends and 2:30 on weeknights.</p>
<p>Pretty much everyone walking the part of the streets you'll be on at night is a college student, and its pretty safe during the day. Saferide runs often enough that if you don't feel comfortable walking, you don't have to. I've never felt unsafe around the greater MIT campus.</p>
<p>I got extremely lost recently in Cambridge at midnight. (If you know the area, I started at Harvard Square and ended up by the Lechmere station) It was not fun but luckily I didn't see any sketchy individuals walking around. The whole city was asleep. This isn't safe advice however. Don't walk around anywhere at night alone.</p>
<p>A friend of mine's brother got bike-jacked when as he reached the end of Harvard Bridge on the Boston side. (They tried to push him off the bike to steal it.) For those of you who don't know, Harvard Bridge links the MIT campus in Cambridge to Boston. </p>
<p>Nothing ever happened to me, and I wasn't very careful about not walking alone at weird times of the night. However, my bike did get stolen 3 times at various times on the MIT campus. I had 2 U-locks on them, too. At that point, I just gave up on owning a bike. </p>
<p>If you're a girl, I definitely wouldn't walk alone. Sometimes that's impossible for a student, though, especially an MIT student who does all-nighters occasionally in the computer lab. But definitely avoid walking alone anywhere other than from your dorm to the student center/main building and back. If you're a girl and you anticipate walking alone, this might be a decent reason to live closer to campus (McCormick or East Campus.)</p>
<p>I'll add that much of MIT"s campus wasn't built yet when I was there (Gates Building, etc.), so I never really went to that part of Cambridge. I don't know about safety there now. There really weren't that many places to go on the MIT campus when I was there, basically Student Center->dorm->Dome. And all 3 were very close to each other. There are definitely some scary places in Cambridge. </p>
<p>I wouldn't go out exploring in Cambridge, even if you're with people. Go to Boston if you want to explore.</p>
<p>But Cambridge has become increasingly gentrified, even over the past five years. Parts like Central Square that used to be really sketchy are becoming hot spots for high-rent development, and as a result, some of the sketchier elements are being driven out.</p>
<p>As a female, I never felt unsafe on campus, even by myself, and even at night. (And even when I lived at Westgate, which is the dorm farthest from 77 Mass Ave.) I mean, if you look at the campus crime reports in the Tech, it's all bikes and unattended laptops being stolen (and not terribly frequently, at that). The biggest crime rash that happened when I was an undergrad was that somebody was going around stealing food out of dorm freezers. It sucks to get your frozen broccoli stolen, but that's not exactly on the same level as being afraid to walk to your lab by yourself at night.</p>
<p>Well, physical assault is rare but it does occur. I read about one female student getting mugged. I forgot the name of the street it happened on. It was the first cross-street on Mass Ave after the dome. This is a little bit out of the way, though. They have some engineering buildings over there I guess but I never had to go there at night. </p>
<p>In my time there, I never saw anyone who looked suspicious, but again, I never needed to walk anywhere other than the Dome, Student Center, dorm or across the Harvard Bridge. The area directly behind the Dome seemed pretty safe. </p>
<p>Also, someone I know was robbed at gunpoint in Boston while on a date, although obviously this is not part of the MIT campus. </p>
<p>I'm not trying to scare anyone. I wouldn't say safety is an issue at MIT like it is at U. of Chicago or UPenn. It's just that it is a city so you do need to try to be somewhat careful, especially if you are walking around at night in some out-of-the-way areas of campus.</p>
<p>I think it's a little silly to tell anecdotal stories about what city crimes are like. It's not like any one of us has never heard of a story that "omg someone that someone I know knows once got..." I read once every few months on the bulletins about someone "feeling threatened" or "harassed" late at night, not usually anything that raises any alarm in the community. Bike thefts bike thefts bike thefts.</p>
<p>Can you buy a "reliable" bike lock for the MIT campus? - I had my bright yellow bike stolen right in the heart of the Brown campus in Providence circa 1994 but the bike was on a chain lock.</p>
<h2>I think it's a little silly to tell anecdotal stories about what city crimes are like. It's not like any one of us has never heard of a story that "omg someone that someone I know knows once got..." I read once every few months on the bulletins about someone "feeling threatened" or "harassed" late at night, not usually anything that raises any alarm in the community. Bike thefts bike thefts bike thefts.</h2>
<p>bottom line...would Bam Bam want you to be walking around alone at night?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Can you buy a "reliable" bike lock for the MIT campus?
[/quote]
buy a cheap used bike that noone would want to steal (I'm being serious)</p>
<p>I had a cheap used bike that got stolen at MIT (it was in '88 or '89). It wasn't a big deal, however, because I didn't really even want the bike. It wasn't much fun to ride.</p>
<p>i knew a kid who had his bike stolen on 3 different occasions (3 different bikes too!)</p>
<p>he just eventually gave up and walked everywhere instead</p>
<p>nothing wrong w/ walking</p>
<p>Kryptonite bike locks - unbreakable.</p>
<p>Where I do or do not walk and when is of no business to Bam Bam.</p>
<p>One of my friends had her (crappy) bike stolen near the Sloan School. Another one of my friends had his laptop stolen at the athletic fields.</p>
<p>I heard of a kid who had her laptop stolen and returned in the same day. I also heard of several kids at H, Y and P who had their laptops stolen. Is there a way to lock up your laptop? Is their replacement insurance available?</p>
<p>Laptop locks exist, but none of them are particularly great -- often they can be broken into using a ballpoint pen. The best bet for keeping a laptop safe is to always lock the door to your dorm room, and to always keep the laptop in your possession when in public. It sounds really obvious, but people get lazy about security and do silly things like leaving their doors unlocked all day.</p>
<p>At MIT, the campus police offer an electronic device tagging</a> service as a theft deterrent.</p>
<p>You can get insurance on basically anything you own, you just have to be willing to pay for it. Personally, I think insurance isn't so necessary if you're committed to being vigilant about security.</p>
<p>not quite :(</p>
<p>Last year we had a couple of shady characters going around into people's open rooms on different halls and stealing things. People were told to lock their doors and keep an eye out and it kind of died off after that.</p>