In general, what’s the college life at MIT like for undergrads?
Honestly, that is a difficult question to answer since everyone has different circumstances.
Your college life experience can differ depending on what dorm you live in, what major you choose, if you have a part-time job, how many classes you take, if you join a fraternity/sorority/sport/club. etc… yet alone what your own personality and financial situation is like.
What I can say is that MIT can provide you with various opportunities to shape what sort of college life you want to lead, but it is up to you to choose which opportunities to take while trying to balance your personal and academic life.
If you want to learn how to figure skate, you can do that at MIT. Want to learn to dance? You can do that too. Work on the year book? Row in the Charles River? Attend frat parties? The opportunities are there, you just have to pursue them
Now, which dorm or frat you live in will also impact your college life. Maybe you want to live in a single. Maybe you want 3 roommates. Some dorms are very open, with opportunities to meet hundreds of other students in a hallway or lounge. Some dorms are very sectioned off, so that you only get to know a few people in your suite. Each dorm or living group may have its own social events, including BBQs, intramural ice hockey teams, and parties. And each dorm or living group may have its own culture (though some may argue that places like former undergrad dorm Senior House possibly had too much culture). Quite a number of students will switch dorms, because they realize where they live does not vibe with them.
MIT’s proximity to Boston can also impact your college life. You can visit a variety of parks, museums, cinemas, theaters, dance clubs, restaurants, and stores that, depending on where you came from, may not have been accessible to you before. I came from a small rural town in the middle of nowhere, so I loved all the shopping and night life that Boston had to offer. The Boston area also has the largest concentration of college students, so you might make friends or find that special someone from MIT or from BU, BC, Tufts, Harvard, UMass, Emerson, Northeastern, Berklee, just to name a few of the 52 institutions of higher learning in the metropolitan Boston area.
My point is that MIT affords you many opportunities to shape your college life. But it is ultimately up to you to decide to go after said opportunities, because they won’t necessarily be just handed to you on a silver platter. I believe that some students who feel their college life was uneventful regret not being a bit more assertive and a bit less recluse. Try not to have any regrets about the college life you decide to make for yourself.
I loved my time at MIT. I took an Orange Tour every year. I learned how to figure skate, which became my favorite hobby. I joined a few clubs, became an officer in 2 of them, and made friends with several members, whom I am still friends and keep in contact with many years after graduating. I loved shopping and going on dates in Boston. I watched many Broadway musicals at the Boston Opera House. Oh yeah, and I enjoyed most of the classes I took… except for 6.045J. That class sucked hard!