<p>1) What major do most robotics types choose? EE? </p>
<p>2) What skill lvl is necessary to become involved with robotics at MIT? Obviously there are going to be geniuses in every field, but could someone with little experience choose to pursue an area and succeed without having to play "catch up"?</p>
<p>It’s possible to be any major at MIT even if you come in with no experience. After all, even people with experience only rarely have experience with MIT-level work.</p>
<p>The EECS department in particular has a class, 6.00, specifically designed to introduce students with little or no EECS background to the basics of EECS, and prepare them for further work in the department.</p>
<p>In my experience, students who come to MIT poorly prepared by their high schools generally catch up with the better-prepared students after freshman year. The freshman GIRs are intended to give everybody the same grounding in basic technical subjects.</p>
<p>6.00 is not designed to introduce you to EECS. It’s designed to teach you how to code. 6.01 is the first course 6 class that combines both EE and CS sides. I wouldn’t recommend taking 6.00 if you want to be course 6; it’s possible to just take courses over IAP and go into 6.01 and do just as well as the other students in the course, even those with a lot more programming experience. (This is what I did, and I got a very solid A in 6.01.)</p>
<p>A lot of people I know who do things with robotics choose to be course 2A (the flexible mechanical engineering major) with robotics (which basically means 6-1, ish) as their ‘concentration’ with their major (since 2A needs a concentration). </p>
<p>I agree with Mollie that you can come into MIT and be any major you want to be regardless of prior experience.</p>
<p>Ack, sorry. You can tell I’m not course 6.</p>
<p>Depends on what you want to do with robotics. 2, 2-A, any track of 6, and 16 are all obvious possibilities for people who want to do robotics (though certainly not the only ones you can do). A side background in 9 wouldn’t hurt either. But to some extent it depends on what you want to do <em>with</em> robotics. Someone who wants to write the code has different needs than someone who wants to design the chassis.</p>
<p>Once upon a time, when I was in a very different place in my life, I was a 2A-Robotics major. I was definitely more interested in the mechanical side, which is why I didn’t choose Course 6. That said, only about half of the classes in my concentration were actually Course 2, the rest were actually in Course 6 (even though they counted towards my Course 2 degree).</p>
<p>Also, ditto what everyone else said about anyone being able to study any major at MIT.</p>