<p>Hi everyone!
I'm seriously considering an EA to MIT. I'm very interested in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program, and MIT is better in this field than most of the other schools I'm considering.
However, I'm also very interested in philosophy - and although BCS would be my prospective major, it's important to me that the school I attend have high-quality and broad-ranging philosophy programs, as I'm considering a philosophy minor.
I took a quick look at the philosophy department, and it looks high-quality (as I'm sure everything at MIT is! ;) ) but the number of courses offered per semester and the different topics offered wasn't really comparable to other places I'm looking at, like Brown or Yale. (This is I guess to be expected, as there are only 5 undergrads currently in the linguistics/philosophy major!)
So my question is this: How is the undergrad experience for philosophy at MIT, and can one cross-register with Harvard's philosophy courses (and if so, how common is this)?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Yeah, MIT’s philosophy courses are really great, and as a philosophy minor / double major, you’d get a lot of attention as there are so few students majoring in philosophy. </p>
<p>As for taking classes at Harvard, that’s totally acceptable. A lot of people do cross-register, especially for humanities classes (mostly languages, I think) that MIT doesn’t have. It does make scheduling a little harder (you need time to get there and back), and exam dates might not match up perfectly, but besides that its fairly convenient - Harvard is just 2 short stops away on the T, and MIT has a cross-register program with Harvard meaning that the credits will almost certainly transfer.</p>
<p>I can’t speak at all for the classroom experience, but MIT has one of the best philosophy departments in the country. It is usually right behind Harvard at #7. Yale was farther behind, but is now right behind MIT. You’d have to drop another 10 slots to find Brown. Of course, those are graduate rankings, but still.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the graduate courses would also be available to you at MIT – undergraduates can and frequently do take graduate-level courses.</p>
<p>One of the MITAdmissions bloggers wrote about taking classes at Harvard. Here’s the link if you want to check it out: [MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “Half Harvard, Half MIT”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/learning/coursework/half_harvard_half_mit.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/learning/coursework/half_harvard_half_mit.shtml)</p>