<p>OK, so is everybody (particularly incoming '09s) straight with the numbers of various majors? Can you recite them, 1-24... or at least recognize what someone's talking about when they say "course 8" rather than "course 18"? </p>
<p>Because I hate it every year at Orientation when I have to revert to telling people that I'm "brain and cognitive sciences and biology" rather than "7 and 9". I'm not good at remembering to do it, and then it's a mouthful, so I end up saying it really fast, and then the person doesn't understand me, so I have to say it again... </p>
<p>So let's all make a commitment to learn the lingo before showing up on campus, yes? Extra credit is given for knowing building numbers, but it's easier to learn building numbers along with physical locations, so I'll let that one slide.</p>
<p><em>snort</em> for some reason, lots of people only know the course numbers of their major and (probably) the courses that offer GIRs...they know the others exist, but not which is which. myself, i <em>think</em> i know them all, except that i get tripped up on the courses that don't exist, like, um, course 20, and i start fabricating majors for them.</p>
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Extra credit is given for knowing building numbers
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<p>Jeez, that's tough, especially for anything on main campus, because all the buildings basically blend into each other, to the point that it's hard to tell when you've changed buildings.</p>
Jeez, that's tough, especially for anything on main campus, because all the buildings basically blend into each other, to the point that it's hard to tell when you've changed buildings.
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<p>This is very true. Even after being here for 3 years, I have to stop and ponder before mentally locating buildings. </p>
<p>A rule that is good to know: On main campus (anything between Mass Ave, Vassar St, Main St, and Ames St), odd buildings are west of building 10, and even buildings are east of building 10. Generally, small numbers are closer to the river, and numbers get larger as you go north -- although not in a perfectly predictable way. Any building with an "N" appended before the number is north of Vassar/Main. Any building with a "W" before the number is west of Mass Ave. Any building with an "E" before the number is east of Ames St.</p>
<p>Switching to course numbers -- it drives me nuts that the site goddess linked to is alphabetical. Sometimes I have to sit and read through all the names because I can only think of the number.</p>
<p>bldgs on main campus are easy, except maybe 11 and 12, the little punks. figuring the best/quickest way to get to a particular one in the 3X cluster, frinstance, now that's hard. and giving directions in that direction to people who don't know campus, so you then have to optimize for disambiguity...i'm not a fan.</p>
<p>I've been known to walk with people who stop and ask me for directions. It's easier than trying to explain "ok, so follow this hallway until you see a staircase -- not the first staircase, the second staircase..."</p>
<p>molliebatmit said, "Switching to course numbers -- it drives me nuts that the site goddess linked to is alphabetical. Sometimes I have to sit and read through all the names because I can only think of the number."</p>
<p>Well, I'm an incoming frehsman, and while I don't have all the numbers down, I have a good idea about most of them. But when I went to fill out my info for the freshman picture book, I was like "OK, course 2, should be right at the top...no...damn..ok wait...alphabetical?" It was way too much thinking. =)</p>
<p>What kills people are those rare majors. For example, even a lot of MIT old-time veterans have a hard time remembering, say, the course number for Planning. Or EAPS (Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences). Or Ocean Engineering. </p>
<p>Then of course there are the defunct course numbers. For example, course 24 is Linguistics/Philosophy. But what's course 23? Answer, nothing, at least, not anymore (I think course 23 used to be foreign languages or something like that and is now basically 21F). What's course 19 and 20? Now, nothing. Before, 19 used to be Meteorology ( I know a guy who graduated in course 19 from the old days), and that's now part of EAPS. 20 used to be Applied Biological Science or something like that. 11 is Planning now, but it used to be Sanitary Engineering.</p>
<p>at CPW someone said that they are numbered in the order they became majors, so the low numbers are more standard tech subjects and the high numbers are more mixed-bag and recent majors, if that helps anyone.</p>
<p>Some of the current and common majors also had interesting old histories of archaic fields of science. From 1868 to 1936 Course 3 used to be Mining Engineering. From 1868 to about 1970 9A through 9C used to be General Science, General Engineering, and Math and Science Teaching. From 1903 to 1940, Course 14 used to be Electrochemical Engineering. And the earliest date of anything having to do with Computer Science was 1969. </p>
<p>As cutting-edge science and technology changes, so change the MIT course numbers.</p>
<p>(This history of MIT course numbers is online, but I think it's only accessable to those with passwords to the alumni association pages.)</p>
<p>If anyone happens to be interested in the course number history of any other specific course number, let me know and I'll be glad to look it up!</p>
<p>It's possible that the numbering was originally chronological, but at the moment I think it's pretty artifactual -- when departments are removed, their numbers are recycled for new departments.</p>
<p>For instance, brain and cognitive sciences is course 9, but the department was only created in 1994.</p>