<p>Hi alls. I'd want to study EE or CE or something like that. I'm a bit scared about MIT's size though. I really like Olin, but I don't want to make a hasty decision. Convince me to come to MIT.</p>
<p>Size?</p>
<p>MIT has 4000 undergrads (only twice as big as my high school!) and the modal class size is 2-9 students. In large lecture classes (~200 people), there are always smaller recitation sections where 15-20 students can learn in a smaller group.</p>
<p>If you're really psyched about small classes, you could join a learning community like [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/esg/www/%5DESG%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/esg/www/]ESG[/url</a>] or [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/concourse/www/%5DConcourse%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/concourse/www/]Concourse[/url</a>], where first-year classes are taught in a small-group format.</p>
<p>Personally, I think MIT is just the right size -- it's big enough that you'll find an incredibly wide variety of people and be able to participate in a huge number of clubs and activities, but it's small enough that you won't have to compete for those opportunities.</p>
<p>Olin has about 80 students a class. (By class I mean like freshman class). Average class size is in the teens (actual class, not recitations taught by grad students, which Olin doesn't have).
Olin's size gives it almost a 2 million dollar endowment per student. The resources there are amazing. Every class involves hands-on projects, every class. I don't see how this would be possible at MIT.</p>
<p>Well, I understand that Olin is smaller. I just don't think that MIT's larger size is a hindrance -- I think it's a plus.</p>
<p>And MIT's modal class size, excluding recitations, is 2-9. Modal recitation size is also 2-9. (Data at the Common</a> Data Set.)</p>
<p>Thanks Mollie.</p>
<p>I know classes can be that small, but I would major in Course VI, which I understand is the most popular major (around 1000 students) at MIT with huge classes. What are some of the advantages of a larger size? And could you comment on the hands-on project thing?</p>
<p>I find it hard to comment on the hands-on projects, just because every major is different. As a biology major, you don't get much actual hands-on work in regular classes, because you can't do most of the stuff you learn about at home. ;)</p>
<p>I know that course six requires quite a few lab courses, and the sixers I knew were always building something or other. I don't know what that equates to in terms of the number of classes that require hands-on projects. </p>
<p>In some broader sense, I know I always felt like I learned a lot of useful things in class, but my education would absolutely not have been the same without the time I spent at my UROP. I think UROP is the ultimate hands-on class.</p>
<p>Let me see if I can get data on the average course 6 class size, or maybe someone who knows better can speak up.</p>
<p>There is a very similar thread in the engineering forum: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=309641%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=309641</a></p>
<p>Congrats!</p>
<p>People might say a lot of crap about how MIT is focused in grad schools or research, but I find precisely that is what is most valuable about an MIT education. No, we aren't pampered, professors and administrators don't hold our hands, you have to make a bit of an effort some times to get to know professors. But, look! Guess what! The real world is a little like that, too. Things don't just fall into your lap, you have to be proactive to develop the relationships that you want. It's more competitive, but you're treated like an adult all the way through, you're given opportunities that are rarely if ever offered to undergrads elsewhere, like I can't say enough about the research here that is open to even freshmen. It's forced me to come out of my shell in a sense, I find it more natural than ever to clench my fists and go after the things that I want. I don't always get them, no, but things have always worked out. For example I'm in the running for an internship at NASA this summer and if I don't get it, I will just have to settle for helping a professor build a radio telescope in australia. There are a lot of cool things here. Actually, I'd probably take the telescope thing over NASA.</p>
<p>Olin's a small environment, but I've never thrived in a small environment. I know I would find it stifling as hell never to be meeting new people in my classes. But I think even worse than that is the confinement to a single discipline and the inability to branch out and discover new things. Yeah, when I came to college, I, too, thought, at a ripe age of 18, I knew exactly what was best for me and what I wanted to study and consequently do for the rest of my life. I wanted to study Aerospace Engineering and become an engineer. I hadn't really heard of Olin then but I probably would have considered it. Well, some 2 years later, I'm not so sure anymore. I've dropped my engineering courses to focus more on the physics courses that I find more interesting and I have no idea where I'm going to go from here. But that's the amazing thing, I have OPTIONS. I can be architecture or writing or music or chemistry or economics, or... I could go on and on. And each of those departments are still world class. I mean, some people might never change majors in college, but 80% do (or so say some statistics) I thought I was one of those 20% but it turns out I was wrong, you might be wrong too.</p>
<p>That's pretty much exactly why my son made the very difficult decision to turn down Olin two years ago in favor of MIT, much as he loved both schools: he couldn't be completely and totally sure that he'd want to focus on engineering without branching into some other disciplines that he found equally enthralling. Both schools are without peer, but quite different: you've been to Olin's CW, now go to CPW and maybe you'll know in your heart afterwards where you want to spend the next 4 years. And congrats!!</p>
<p>(PS: I second molliebatmit's suggestion of ESG or Concourse. My son joined ESG for his freshman year and had the best of both worlds: some large classes, some tiny, and a really tight community around him. See Jess's</a> recent blog entry about joining ESG for a sense of what it's like. You might find it to be exactly what you're looking for!)</p>
<p>haha oh man, Pebbles, your second paragraph exactly describes what terrifies me about Olin - I visited and loved it, the kids the professors the environment and the PRICE, but the tiny size and disciplinary limitations that go with the size are really scary. Now that I've gotten into both the decision is going to be rough!</p>
<p>Hey! It's an accomplishment getting into both! Though sometimes it could be a curse to get exactly what you want... it makes your life that much harder for the next month and a half. Good luck in your decision!</p>
<p>Some person: Nice problem to have. Will make for some nice contemplating the next month or so. You will do well no matter what you chose.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure I'll do engineering. So options in music or writing or whatever aren't important to me. Why would you recommend MIT over Olin?</p>
<p>^^ but that's silly. they HAVE to be important to you on some level, you can't just do engineering all the time and have no other interests. I spent last semester taking only engineering and physics courses, last semester was hell in a way that was indescribable. I'm a physics (maybe AE) major and my two favorite classes I've taken here were a physics course and a writing course.</p>
<p>someperson, you seem to want to be convinced. Olin is very cool. If I go to multi-school conferences, I find that those kids on the same plane as MIT/Harvard. MIT just has a hugely larger depth of classes, resources, and tradition. You'll certainly find a niche, and you can get all sorts of personal attention. A lot of the course VI classes are large, but they are great classes, and it's cool that lots of people are taking it. I mean, MIT was one of the inventors of CS - would you go to a lecture by Feynman and complain about the class size? I'll say this, MIT professors for the big required classes are definitely doing it because they like teaching - and you can get to know them.</p>
<p>And after the required course VI classes, there's page after page of specialized classes and you can take whatever interests you.</p>
<p>why, I ask, are you trying to get people to convince you to go to MIT? Didn't you enjoy Olin CW?</p>
<p>I am counting the minutes until some high school student jumps on this thread and says something like, "Go to MIT because it's MIT, duh!"</p>
<p>That is not, in my opinion, the reason to go to MIT. If you go to MIT "because it's MIT", you are not likely to be happy. The reason to choose MIT is the people; if you come for CPW and fall in love with the students and the structure and the culture and the way of life the way 80% of students who come to CPW do, then you should come here. If you come here and it doesn't feel like home, then you should go elsewhere.</p>
<p>Outside fit with the school, I think the most important reason to choose MIT is the fact that its graduate programs are spectacular. As pebbles says above,
[quote]
People might say a lot of crap about how MIT is focused in grad schools or research, but I find precisely that is what is most valuable about an MIT education.
[/quote]
There are no resources at MIT that are closed from undergraduates and available only to graduate students. Many of your upper-division classes (and even some sophomore-level classes) will be with graduate students; the graduate and the undergraduate versions of many classes are the same. If you get bored with the undergraduate curriculum, you can take a graduate course that isn't explicitly listed for undergraduates -- nobody's going to keep you out if you can do the work. (I took a grad-only class as a sophomore; I believe texas137's son took one or more grad-only courses during his first term freshman year.) There is no limit to the amount that you can challenge yourself.</p>
<p>You can also begin research with a world-famous professor as early as you'd like. My fiance has been working directly with a big name in his field since two weeks into freshman year, and indirectly with an even bigger name since sophomore year. You can do great research at a school without a graduate program, but the research you can do at a school with a world-famous research staff is in another league entirely.</p>
<p>You should also consider what you want to do in the future when making your choice. If you think you will want to get a master's degree in an engineering field, you are better off going to MIT for undergrad than to any other school -- a substantial number of spaces in MIT graduate programs are given to MIT undergrads, and several programs (such as the course 6 MEng) are master's degree programs only available to students who went to MIT as undergrads. MIT students get into MIT grad programs in extremely high numbers not only because they are strong students, but because they become close with faculty members via UROP; the faculty members then make sure they are admitted to the graduate program.</p>
<p>someperson, my son was concerned about the non-breadth of mathematics courses at Olin (and has since declared as a math major (18C) at MIT), although the depth of music and art and culture courses at MIT wasn't a negative for him in the least.</p>
<p>SpudmanKA, my son enjoyed Olin's CW tremendously! But he eventually made the difficult decision that MIT was a better fit for him and offered a broader curriculum that gave him more options. Enjoying Olin's CW doesn't guarantee it would be the best place for you, you know. :)</p>
<p>Worried about class size? Join Concourse or ESG! I'm in ESG, and my physics class has 4 people, my 6.001 (intro CS) section & recitation are 4 and 5 people respectively, and so on for the other classes.</p>
<p>The advantage of MIT is that you don't need to choose between small class size and world-class research; you can have the best of both worlds. The biggest problem you'll have coming here is picking which of several equally ideal options you actually want to do.</p>
<p>however, keep in mind that eecs at mit is like a factory and so once you get into your departmental classes, you'll mostly have large lectures (of 40 or more) up until senior year.</p>