Hi everyone! I am applying EA to MIT and am super interested in majoring in history. I like science enough to pass the generals and am competent in it (I’ve done research in labs for 2 years, 800 on SAT chem, and other science extracurriculars). However, I really love history. How will this factor (if at all) into admissions to MIT, a notably STEM-based school?
Why are you applying EA to MIT? What is it about MIT that appeals that strongly to you? Is there a particular area of science or engineering that has been your focus, or that you would consider studying at MIT?
MIT is a “notably STEM-based school”, but it has strong humanities. MIT values the humanities, has a HASS requirement of all students, and many outstanding students have double majored in a HASS field along with a science or engineering field. If you’re looking to combine the two, or to be a scientist/engineering with a strong humanistic background, it could be a great fit. But if you’re looking to be a pure humanities major and just do enough science to pass the GIRs, then I’m not sure MIT is the best place for you.
Looking at your previous threads, you seem well qualified with an interesting and diverse background, but the big challenge is tying your different interests together and presenting a coherent picture of who you are and what you want to do. It’s wonderful to be multi-faceted; it’s not so great to be schizophrenic. It’s all a question of focus and how your different interests tie together.
I don’t expect it to factor negatively at all into admissions. As a history major you will get a lot of attention from your professors because you will be one among very few students who will be doing that. But MIT will probably like that you will bring something different to their school. Since they aren’t looking for 1000 clones… Also they know that you can change your major multiple times until you settle for one, so they don’t accept students based on intended majors. I happen to know students that went into MIT intending to major in STEM but changed to humanities in the end.
You must be ready to handle the heavy stem workload. But you could look into quantitative history, economic history, or cross-pollination between history ad science. MIT is very strong in social sciences but check out research fields.
I saw you were interested in art history and chemistry in another post. Look at MIT’s History offerings to be sure its enough for you. Art history may be too weak at MIT, however:
You can take classes at Wellesley College, if you get into MIT and enroll. There is a bus that goes back and forth and some MIT students take many classes at Wellesley College, an all girls LAC about ten miles west.
MIT’s class offerings:
http://history.mit.edu/subjects
Wellesley College is excellent for art history:
https://www.wellesley.edu/art/majors/arthistory
If you think you may want to double major in chemistry and history, MIT may be a good fit, given MIT student’s access to Wellesley College classes.
But I agree with another poster, Williams College in Western MA, is a stand out for both chemistry and art history.
Its small and isolated but might work well for you to get a more rigorous humanities education, with other like minded students.
To choose the best college, think about your career goals.
But if you plan to become an attorney, history professor, or writer, I would probably pick a school with lots of humanities majors, which is not MIT.
At MIT you will take a year of physics and math, a semester of biology and a semester of chemistry to get any MIT degree, including history. Do you want to take all those subjects?
Honestly, this is just a bad idea. If you’re strong enough to get into MIT, you’re strong enough to get into a place with more humanities and social science majors. You’ll need peers to be your best, and you’ll find few at MIT. Leave the space for someone with a STEM focus.
Thank you for all of your responses so far. In regard to my intended majors, I think I want different things out of them (that I can only find at some select places like MIT). I love meeting new people, and I think the size of MIT’s science classes will be awesome for me to collaborate with them on science-related classes. However, I also love the super small class size (and heavy professorial attention) MIT humanities students receive at MIT. I think this is why I am attracted to MIT–for its course offerings, variable class sizes, and culture.
MIT has some very large class sizes in introductory classes and in large majors like EECS. Chemistry and physics are in the middle, there will be very large lectures ,as they are popular majors,but some upper level classes are smaller. Most freshman science classes are about 200 students. EECS classes can get as big as 500 students at MIT. MIT is not the school for someone who wants small class sizes, probably, unless you major in history. I don’t think art history is strong at MIT, but urban planning, economics, and political science are good, as are world languages. MIT is not really a humanities focused school, its a school for scientists and engineers, many of whom want PhDs after they earn a BS, or go on to earn an MBA, LD or MD degree. Its not a school that offers a lot of discussion or writing classes, its a school for students who want to learn to solve problems and do a lot of theoretical problem sets every week for four years, and work in labs and work on group technical projects or interested in entrepreneurship.
Every freshman at MIT who has not placed out (many do place out) takes a lot of the same requirements in freshman year: biology, chemistry, physics-mechanics, physics–electromagnetism, calculus single variable, calculus multivariable, differential equations. And physical education is required, as well as a swim class and a writing class. Only one writing class is required to graduate, but 8 humanities and/or social science classes are required to graduate. Economics counts as “humanities and social sciences”.
At a liberal arts college, you will learn to read and write and have peers who want to learn to read and write with you. At MIT, you will learn how to solve problems by doing thousands of mathematical problems in any of the science majors, working in a lab, and doing projected based classes.
At MIT you will meet students who are talented in math, engineering, mechanically inclined and some very theoretical students, but most of your peers will have little to no interest in history. I don’t know that I ever heard of an MIT student majoring in history, and I spent a lot of time there, nine years total. Quite a few students major, or double major with a science, in music, theatre, urban planning, architecture, political science, philosophy, or economics and take world languages, or take a focus in Technology and Society, but Art History, its not a common interest at MIT, and there are few classes in that offered.
some MIT students with deep humanities interests, spend a lot of time at Wellesley College though, but if you want such a major as art history find a school that offers that subject like Williams College or Wellesley College etc.
“I don’t know that I ever heard of an MIT student majoring in history”
I knew a student who arrived at MIT intending to major in a STEM field, but switched to history and graduated MIT with a bachelor’s degree in history. The last time I saw him he was the manager at a small retail chain store.
Have you thought about applying to Yale (says the very happy current Junior at Yale)?
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/author/Chris/archives blogged a lot about being a history major at MIT
I would say that history @ MIT makes sense if a) you like STEM topics/culture but want to study history and/or b) you’re particularly interested in history of science/technology as they are where our discipline-specific strengths lie
Bluejay123 I remember you from the TASP thread!!
I’m currently in the same boat, with my interested in STEM being very wise and my hopes are to use the intersection between social sciences and STEM. I love sociology and politics and STEM is just my strong suit. I just click my brain off and boom! I’m cranking through problem set after problem set of calculus. But I like thinking and reading and how you can shift the lines around in the social sciences. That’s why I want to go to MIT- so I can pursue the social sciences in a STEM environment.
So- apply to MIT. Be honest about what you want to major. Hopefully, we will be kicking it together Cpw 2018!
@arinuma and @bluejay123
If you do end up at MIT, check out their Concourse program. It does offer small classes and in depth humanities study (although still with a science focus).
From NCES navigator, MIT awarded the following number of bachelor’s degrees:
2 Visual and Performing Arts
14 Social Sciences (12 Econ)
0 Philosophy
6 Liberal Arts and Sciences
0 History
2 Foreign Languages and Linguistics
2 English
This is out of ~1100 graduates. Put another way, ~2.5% of students major in humanities and social sciences with almost 50% of those in economics. I agree with a previous poster–if you want history as your primary major, go somewhere else as you wouldn’t even have a small cohort of like-minded individuals.
^^ these numbers are somewhat deceptive because many humanities degrees at MIT are joint degrees between the humanities and engineering, with e.g. history as the humanities component of that. I mean, it’s still small, but not as small.
See: http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/yrpts/index.html
(I also reject the premise but here’s the facts if you prefer that frame)
One other factor for MIT and history majors, MIT has a very strong study abroad options. This would be perfect for a history major to get exposed to more history majors, to study in Europe, possibly, and the Wellesley cross registration would also be helpful. An example of going to a school that is small in your major: I have a good friend who studied physics at Rollins College, with only three other physics majors, Rollins is strong in theatre, history, English and biology, but not very strong in physics. He supplemented his education by going to a science semester at Oak Ridge National Labs. He got into MIT, studied materials science, and became an engineer, with a liberal arts degree from Rollins College. He says the reading and writing education at Rollins sets him apart. A history major from MIT is unusual too, and that may pay off down the road. its about fit, for college, does the OP fit at MIT, and wiling to take a year of science to get the degree.