<p>How does the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, compare to the humanities in the Ivies. I know their engineering is probably better, and that sloan is very good but i never hear about MIT's other fields.</p>
<p>sloan, as you said, is famous, and the linguistics, from what i've heard, is good. i suspect everything else probably isn't that awesome because it's a tech school. you can always take humanities courses at harvard, though. if i decide to go there next year, i'll probably do that.</p>
<p>Econ is tied for best in country, poli sci is good. History department is supposed to be decent, but I have no experience with that.</p>
<p>well, linguistics and econ are fine undergrad, but their reputation is as a grad major, both are considered among the top in the country in that respect, but the undergrad is not of the same caliber. Both are good undergrad though.</p>
<p>If MIT was as good as the Ivys in the humanities then it would be the hands down best school in the nation. As it stands now MIT is just the top (or among the top depending on the source) engineering and science school in the nation, so it's safe to say the humanities departments won't match up to the ivys.</p>
<p>To put it another way, I've never met or heard of anyone majoring in history or english while at MIT. I'm going out on a limb and saying that's not true for the Ivys.</p>
<p>Economics is top 5 if you consider that a humanities major. Linguistics is outstanding, although I think that may be under the auspices of cognitive science. Political science is top 10 I believe so you don't have to worry about that. The Cognitive Sciences department is unparalleled, although obviously it is slanted toward hard science rather than other subfields of psychology. The music school is also outstanding...</p>
<p>You can take good classes at MIT in other areas, too. I took a great poetry class with a guy who was formerly a prof at Oxford. As you probably know, the requirements for a great undergrad education are different from the graduate school. I mean, the english department at Amherst isn't nationally ranked because publishing papers/books isn't the emphasis of the department--teaching is.</p>
<p>That said, studying literature may feel a little strange in the techy environment at MIT. People do have second majors in humanities (history, literature) but no one majors in it alone except for economics.</p>
<p>^The cog sci department is pretty respectable (particularly in fields that overlap with linguistics, like childhood language acquisition), but of course a degree in cog sci is a science degree at MIT.</p>
<p>To the OP, not many people come to MIT intending to major in a humanities or social science field (except, as others have noted, in economics). Most of the students in those departments are picking up a second major or a minor. All students at MIT are required to complete a core curriculum heavy in the sciences (two semesters physics, two semesters calculus, one semester chemistry, one semester biology, two restricted science electives, and a lab class), and most prospective students interested in the humanities at MIT are not sufficiently interested to put up with all that science on the way.</p>
<p>By and large, the humanities at MIT are excellent. There are areas of particular strength (mostly in the social sciences, as mentioned by other posters) and some areas which are less strong (and for those you can cross-register at Harvard), but overall, they are quite fine.</p>
<p>That being said, as mollie quite clearly pointed out, very few people go to MIT planning to major in the humanities. I know of two friends with MIT humanities degrees, one had gone planning to major in Physics, then changed to literature. The other had planned to double major in Music and ended up single majoring in Music.</p>
<p>This dearth of humanities majors can be a strength and a weakness. The weaknesses are clear. There are fewer folks to bounce ideas off of, fewer people having the same experience, and, of course, you have to take quite a lot of science.</p>
<p>The strengths are less obvious:</p>
<p>Firstly, those who do major in humanities are generally very important within the department, and from what I have seen they can get a great deal of faculty support and guidance, if they want it.</p>
<p>Secondly, for those unsure about a humanities discipline, then the humanities offerings at MIT tend to be more inclusive than those I saw at many of the ivies. For example, I recall spending IAP with the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble on tour (14 venues in 18 days). I learned a heck of a lot about theatre by touring. Does the Yale Theatre program offer more impressive touring possibilities? Well yes they do, but at Yale, they are only for the theatre majors. Someone not sure that they want to do this for their vocation need not apply, regardless of what it might mean to them.</p>
<p>In the end, I got my equity card a few years after leaving MIT (I've subsequently given it up and gone back to technology).</p>
<p>In summary, I think that MIT is a great, great place to study the humanities, but I am not certain that it is a great place to major in them. If you are set on majoring in Folklorethen you need to go to Harvard or another school where that is a recognised discipline, but if you like me, were interested in both sciences and humanities, were planning a technical major and were worried that the humanities at MIT wouldn't be adequate, then your fears are groundless.</p>
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well, linguistics and econ are fine undergrad, but their reputation is as a grad major, both are considered among the top in the country in that respect, but the undergrad is not of the same caliber.
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<p>Well, I don't know about that. At least, I don't know that MIT linguistics and econ are no * more * famous for their graduate programs than the equivalent programs at peer research schools are. For example, just like you might argue that MIT undergrad econ is not of the same caliber as MIT grad econ, the same is almost certainly true of Harvard undergrad econ compared to Harvard grad econ.</p>
<p>I've met a teacher from the MIT Humanities department. Allan Lightman, he gave a lecture at our school. He was originally a math professor, I think, and then began teaching in the Humanities after publishing several books. his most famous is Einsteins Dreams (which I read for my architecture class and really enjoyed). Point is, my interaction with this particular MIT humanities professor was good. He was brilliant and took his view on the humanities first with a mathematical approach. Really nice man, and brilliant.</p>