<p>I’m well familiar with how much it can take very intelligent people to reach breaking point, and this is why I didn’t place a hard and fast number. This thread was about when that breaking point does happen, and 6 was just a random number from one of Mollie’s posts. I’m well familiar also that depending on the class, 4 classes of one type can be far more work than 7 of another.</p>
<p>Academic stuborrnness hardly at all needs to involve images of hardcoreness or glory. It can be a very personal thing, and I am quite familiar with it myself. It has to do with some burning desire to learn a certain amount. I believe you seem to be making more of my post than there was. All I meant was to ask why people only speak of taking classes officially. Sure, sure there are lab classes that have an element that can only be done if enrolled, but certainly not every discipline is like this. In particular, the one I’m familiar with requires just pen and paper, and enrolling almost is immaterial – in fact, there can be so few students that sometimes a professor will grade your work if you ask for feedback even if you’re not officially in. It’s not at all uncommon for people I know and myself to audit several classes more than the ones we are actually in, and do the work in accordance with that flexibility. Sometimes this may lead us to studying the material our own way, say if we like a different text better, and want to solve problems from it instead. Merely my thoughts on how stress might be lessened, without losing out on the intellectual goals.</p>
<p>Just to point it out – this is the statement I think indicates that we have a misunderstanding, and no matter where it came from, let it be clear that I meant stubborrnness generally does involve seeking sufficient stimulation. </p>
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<p>Once you understand what I’m saying, I’m pretty sure you’ll actually appreciate it at least to a modest extent. It is hardly a sweeping cure to all stress, but certainly something I don’t think students consider as frequently as they could.</p>
<p>This was definitely not how your argument came off. Anyway, why would I bother taking a class as a listener? I could work on a SIPB project and get hands-on knowledge, or I could get a UROP, or I could talk to my friends about things they’re good at, or I could ask a professor outside of class, or I could watch the lectures on OCW, or I could independently get a book and read it…all of these things are way, way more interesting than going to class. If I’m going to do work on someone else’s schedule, that someone else picks, I’m going to get credit for it.</p>
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<p>I think the disparity in our educational experiences is to blame for this - I understand what you’re saying, but my experience is that I have the opportunity to learn things in so many different ways that auditing a class would never be the best option. We can continue this train of thought if you want, but I think that what you aren’t understanding, and what is one of the best things about MIT, is that there are <em>so many</em> ways to learn things aside from just taking classes, and why would I pick more class if I could do something else instead?</p>
<p>It wasn’t meant to be argumentative at all, and trace back a little and read, and you’ll find the intent clear. The funny thing is that I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said in any post on this thread, and haven’t said otherwise. I’ll explain off this thread. Suffice it to say the little note about disparity in educational experience you had is very right.</p>
<p>I’m kind of with k4r3n2 on this one. Why would I audit a class if I could just get credit and take the class, or do something else entirely? There are many more interesting ways to spend my time. Also, while auditing a class would get you a lot of useful knowledge, I find I don’t really learn material unless I <em>do</em> it, so taking a class in which I don’t do problem sets wouldn’t be practical at all for me, or for a lot of people I know. I guess what’s coming across to me is that the time you might think we’d spend auditing a class for the sake of learning, MIT students more often spend doing a UROP or working on an outside project or otherwise applying their skills for the sake of doing. We are engineers, after all. :)</p>
<p>^^ Yes, and you’re talking to a mathematician, not an engineer I know the exact attitude you mention is prominent among engineers. I’m pretty sure some non-engineers would identify with my philosophy! </p>
<p>Unofficially going to something doesn’t mean not doing any of the dirty work along the way of course. But it does mean potentially not holding oneself to doing every last bit of the assigned work. And also potentially doing things differently from the assigned work. </p>
<p>I’ll have you know that your own MIT folk showing up at my school for later study certainly have been happy to audit plenty of things!</p>
<p>…I think that, after a bunch of current MIT students have informed you that that’s not how we think, you need to be open to the possibility that we may approach things differently due to philosophical differences in our respective undergraduate institutions, or something. You asked why MIT students take classes for credit instead of auditing them, and you have 4 different people saying essentially the same thing - how many more data points do you need before you amend your hypothesis?</p>
<p>For the record, I know a fair amount of course 18-ers, and when they want to learn more about something, they read books, do UROPs, or talk to professors - I don’t honestly know anyone who’s ever audited a class.</p>
<p>There is nothing to amend. I certainly am not going to believe that an entire school’s worth of people is entirely opposed to the idea when I know people from your school who aren’t. Even if they were, it’s not to say the idea is a bad one to consider. Not that everyone has to follow it or something. Plus, this is a data set out of a few people on the internet. We all know how trustworthy that is.</p>
<p>Well, funnily most people at my school do not seem to adopt my philosophy either – a few from mine, a few from MIT, and some from other schools. It’s just not how everyone thinks, and of course, I’d never suggest that it should be hard and fast how they do. </p>
<p>My personal reason to audit – well, why attend lectures at all, and not read books instead? Answer: not every lecture is based off a book, and listening to someone who’s figured things out in a clean and efficient manner can change one’s way of thinking for the better. Further, I may not want to do the projects for a class that is run by someone with research interests different from mine (but the material lectured on may be of more general interest). It’s worked for me, and hopefully someone reading this at some point will find it does for them too. If not, well that’s fine.</p>
<p>I know someone who audited 18.100, due to the freshman credit limit. He might be the only person who has ever done that, though, from the information on this thread.</p>
<p>If you’ve gotten the answer to this question (which I think you have, many times over), it would be fantastic if we could stop derailing the thread. mathboy, if you’re looking to convince MIT students of the value of taking classes as a listener, we understand. At least in my case, I have better, more interesting ways of learning than sitting in on another class.</p>
<p>At first, I was wrong because I didn’t understand your argument, then I was wrong because I’m an engineer (I’m actually not, by the way), and now I’m wrong because you don’t have enough evidence? It would be pretty fantastic if you would stop trying to change my mind, because I’m extraordinarily stubborn and it just isn’t going to happen.</p>
<p>geomom - that was the only reasoning that any of my friends came up with as well - ‘the freshman credit limit?’ We generally agreed that you should be out having fun freshman year, not auditing classes, though. You only get pass/no-record once!</p>
<p>edit: another thought occurred to me - why would you be a listener in a class if you could P/D/F or SEX it instead?</p>
<p>For those of you who don’t know what Karen is talking about…</p>
<p>SEX - Sophomore Exploratory. You can designate one class per term (total of two classes) as sophomore exploratory during your sophomore year. Basically this means that you take the class, get the grade, then decide if that class counted for credit or listener. (Listener doesn’t show up on a transcript.)</p>
<p>P/D/F - Juniors and seniors have the option of designating a total of two classes as Pass/D/Fail. It’s almost like Pass/No Record again! Almost.</p>
<p>During finals week, my dorm actually does host massages and meditation / yoga.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’ve never found MIT itself to be all that stressful - sure, there are periods of time that really, really suck, but you learn to deal with that slowly. It could be that the stressful part is yet to come, but I definitely felt more pressure and panic in high school than I do in college - I’ve already gotten into my university of choice, and I’ll probably have my pick of many job offers, so there’s really no need to beat myself up about getting perfect grades anymore! Being challenged is a very different feeling than being stressed, though - I’m definitely way more challenged at MIT than I was in high school.</p>
<p>The first line represents my intention, and you’ve recognized it. My efforts have been in getting this to happen, and certainly not in proving your knowledge wrong, only in clarifying my message, and giving plausibility as to its potential worth. Now that this is achieved, let me unequivocally state you are not wrong :)</p>
<p>I think it’s a great thing you brought up the Soph. Exploratory reference, because that’s exactly in line with my message.</p>
<p>Oh and sorry I forgot to mention, I agree with you that we should close this discussion off, and let other things take place on this thread. As a closing note – out of curiosity, what do you study? I was curious even earlier, and the engineer I was referring to was another poster who wrote “we’re engineers” – presumably one.</p>
<p>Of note, I consider myself an engineer, although I’m majoring in math. And maybe computer science. But mostly math. I just feel like an engineer at heart. :)</p>
<p>Back to the meaning of this thread, I’ve also not found MIT that stressful. Sure, there are times when you feel kind of overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to do, but where I live (the same dorm as k4r3n2 and PiperXP), at least, living groups are pretty close, and I feel like I have a good support network to help me. But also like k4r3n2 said, there’s much less pressure to get perfect grades (you’re at MIT, for christ’s sake! getting a B or even a C now and again won’t kill you), so punting a problem set is usually an option. There are definitely ways to learn how to manage your time to be less stressed and less busy; the thing is, most MIT students don’t do that. I’m at home now for break and am bored out of my mind because at MIT, I always have something going on, whether it’s psetting with friends or doing something for the theatre group I’m heavily involved in or studying or something social. By dropping my theatre group, I would gain probably another 15-20 hours per week, but I wouldn’t do that for the world. And I think that’s the mentality of a lot of the people here… they could easily be less busy, but that’s… not a priority.</p>
<p>I will note something here that has so far been missing from this thread. From what I observed, stress among MIT students was much more correlated with their family situations than it was with the academic demands on their time. Not a perfect correlation, but a pretty noticeable one. People whose parents were putting a lot of pressure on them, whether for valid reasons, invalid reasons, or a mix of the two, tended to be stressed, as were people who had problematic family situations for other reasons. People whose parents weren’t, tended to roll with the punches somewhat more easily.</p>
I know the exact attitude you mention is prominent among engineers. I’m pretty sure some non-engineers would identify with my philosophy! </p>