I just got accepted to MIT as a transfer student for fall 2022 and I’m thinking of going. I thought of making a thread to get some of us talking, if any of you are here of course. I hear there’s about 20 of us lol.
Any other transfers lurking on here with the same idea as me?
I am not and have never been a transfer student. However I did graduate from MIT many decades ago and can answer questions if you have any. I was course 18 (“Mathematics” for those who are not familiar with MIT-speak). If I were to do it again now, I would be course 18C (“Mathematics with Computer Science”).
MIT is a lot of work. You can learn a lot, but make sure that you are ready to do it and that you want to do it.
Hello!
I’m thinking of going into physics+electrical engineering.
Right now I’m wondering most about the HASS requirements. Are they hard? I generally enjoy a little diversity with humanities classes, but so far at my current school I feel like I haven’t taken any ones that were too hard. Also, do I need to complete 8 HASS subjects, or can it be less, if you happen to know?
By the way, how is social life there? I imagine a lot has changed, but are Frats a really big thing, and are they the stereotypical untolerant/haze you as soon as you wanna join type? I’m a member of the LGBT community so I’m not sure how well I’d fit in because of that. I wouldn’t mind living in one, but we didn’t have any in Amherst so I was wondering. How are parties?
Mostly no. MIT humanities classes are normally not all that difficult. MIT makes up for it with their other classes. I did have trouble with one art history class, but apparently art history is an area where I am personally really not good at all. I took one humanities class every semester, which came to 8 classes. I am almost certain that this is the minimum required.
I expect that things have changed a LOT since I was there. Frats were not very big when I was there, and probably still are not a major part of the school. Most of the frats are in Boston, across the river and at least “364 Smoots and an ear” away.
My understanding is that there are now one or maybe more frats somewhere between MIT and Central Square in Cambridge, but this is still a little bit off campus and does not impact campus life unless you specifically seek out fraternity parties. In my extremely limited experience frat life at MIT may be more responsible than frat life at other universities. There are however a few fairly spectacular hacks that MIT fraternities have pulled off, such as “borrowing” a computer one time back when computers were big, expensive, and not all that reliable, and hard to move.
When I was there the fact that MIT was mostly male had an unfortunate impact on social life. With MIT now being very close to 50/50 this should be quite a bit better for everyone.
I do not think of MIT as a place where you go for parties. They do exist, but I think that MIT is more exceptional in some very different ways.
I might add that I was considering physics as a major until I hit quantum physics. However, MIT made it relatively easy to be “on track” in both mathematics and physics through the end of my sophomore year (I took special relativity and quantum physics in sophomore year), and to then focus on one major for the last two years. I did not check out what would have been needed for a double major.
Thank you for the nice response!
Niche ranked MIT’s party scene as A, though I suppose, how much could a funny college “rankings” website know about what’s actually going on on a campus.
Physics and math seem not to hard to pull off for me too. There’s just so much overlap. That’s not true for Physics and Electric Engineering. So different! I took a closer look and I’ll probably have to take 2 semesters of 5 classes if I want to do both.
When you said some housing was across the river that got me interested. I’m a transfer so I probably won’t have options that are too grand when it comes to housing. Will I be across the river? I’d really like to live on campus, but I have no idea how possible that is.
I thought about moving “across the river” at some point. However, I lived on campus for all four years. I am not sure what they do now for transfer students. I think that you would need to ask admissions at MIT. I did have a good friend who took an apartment near Central Square in Cambridge for his senior year.
Jovan,
Double majoring … as my advisor told me and I saw his wisdom: “Unless you are absolutely sure you want to commit to two majors, you should rather take classes you’d like rather than committing to two majors.” (And sure, the easiest double majors are math+ something else, physics+something else, Course 21/15 + something else. That’s scary for non-MIT people, I know.)
You do have to satisfy the HASS requirement somehow (distribution, concentration, communication-intensives). AP humanities classes and maybe your coursework at Amherst might qualify as some of the HASS electives. The HASS classes are a hidden gem, plus you can always cross-register (to Wellesley, Harvard, MassArt). I thought my literature HASS classes were pretty intense reading-wise (like easily 200, 250 pages per week) but those prepared me for graduate work.
Social life really depends on what you make of it.
Frats, my general take is: around half of MIT men are involved with frats and they vastly vary. TEP is (and historically has been) very LGBT friendly.
There was a frat with International Science Olympiad medalists, which is NOT weird at MIT: Brothers | MIT ADPhi
And notice this is not your typical jock, Caucasian male, beer-guzzling, etc. stereotype.
Run all their names through Google with “olympiad” and you’ll be surprised. Johnny (Jiyang) Gao was even an absolute winner of the International Mathematical Olympiad.
I knew of one fraternity where one of the brothers put together a computer (calculating how to split the signal) and a 5x5 panel of large flat screen televisions and combined it into a mega screen.
The living groups have different vibes, different culture.
There are even living groups when I was there where open relationships were the norm. There are coed fraternities like Number Six Club. http://no6.mit.edu/
No, you won’t be hazed.
People socialize all across the board:
Sometimes through mutual classes,
Sometimes within the major,
Often within your dorm,
Often through clubs/activities and intramurals,
Sometimes in your study group,
etc.
I’m a borderline introvert (which means I’m an extrovert at MIT and my more introverted wife swears I’m extroverted) but I was very sociable and had friends from fraternities and lots of places. I lived at Fred (East Campus). I wasn’t a hacker type.
Parties wildly vary (and your mileage will vary). I’m sure you’ve seen videos of the rollercoasters done by East Campus or other things.
Thank you for the nice reply! I’ll definitely look more into joining a frat now!