<p>i just want to warn all of you californians and southerners and general warm climate people: the north east is a barren wasteland. nothing grows here. the winters are cold. it gets down to negative numbers and its windy as all hell (so it feels much colder than it actually is). it snows and the snow gets gross and dirty and slushy in just a few days. also, MIT has an ugly campus. the river is nice, but thats about it, and it is dirty so its not like you can swim in it. its so dirty that in the past, if you fell in an ambulance would be waiting for you when you come out to check your blood for contaminants. This place is truely disgusting.
You might think that weather isnt very important, but from a course 9 point of view, sunlight increases your serotonin levels. in winter, when people dont get much sun, they get depressed and mopier. i miss my serotonin.
With that said, im learning a lot here and the people are nice and nerdy and cool and im having fun. im glad i went here even though i dont understand why anyone would want to live in this dump.
Oh, also, for you california girls- the boys here dont flirt...at all. people dont check eachother out in passing. no staring and smiling style flirting. i dont understand why their genes are still in the gene pool. i think that its mostly a northeast thing though. MIT just exaggerates it.
the food- we have food? oh... you mean the combonation of proteins lipids and carbs that we consume to regenerate our ATP reserves. yeah. that stuff tastes like crap. NOTHING GROWS HERE (because its a barren wasteland) and so fruits and veggis must be shipped. this means that for the most part they were picked before they were ripe and have artificially been made to look edible.
anyways, in my opinion, MIT is a great place to learn things. not a good place to enjoy life. you will still have fun and learn a lot, but if you get a lot of satasfaction out of the simple things in life- like food and flirting and sunshine, you must be willing to FULLY give these things up for 4 years. Again, im happy i went here. you cant get this experience anywhere else. my professors are sited in all the papers i read. its awesome. you can make nerdy science jokes and everyone gets it.... but im deffinetly moving back to california when i graduate. good luck with your college decision!</p>
<p>California people are so overdramatic.</p>
<p>I mean, seriously. It's weather. You can wear a heavy coat and take the Tech Shuttle and turn up your heater. What's the big deal?</p>
<p>haha. its worse than you think- i live at EC (closest dorm to classes). technically all i have to do is cross the street and i can be inside all day. i admitt im being overdramatic, but thats because of the huge difference between this and what i grew up in. plus, i dont like being inside all day for half of the year. its depressing. snow is only fun to play in like 2 days of the year. the rest of the time its dirty or frozen.</p>
<p>It does seem to be a pervasive attitude among transplanted southern Californians. I just think it's a little odd, because I grew up in Ohio, where it gets even colder than it does here. Boston is somewhat mild compared to my hometown.</p>
<p>I lived in MacGregor, so I had a nice 10-minute walk in the cold every morning and every afternoon when I was an undergrad. Still, once you get to 77 Mass Ave, you probably don't have to go outside again.</p>
<p>I like the cold</p>
<p>
[quote]
Oh, also, for you california girls- the boys here dont flirt...at all. people dont check eachother out in passing. no staring and smiling style flirting.
[/quote]
I have a counterexample</p>
<p>He does.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>one? in my book, this stuff should be happening at least 3 times/week. in my experience, strangers dont check eachother out while walking down the infinite. in LA, however, they do</p>
<p>You're exaggerating. I'm from Southern California, and I have no problem with the weather. It takes a few days to adjust, but it's not a big deal. You can't expect the entire world to experience to same weather. And the people I know at Harvard, which is close enough to MIT that I may use this example, don't seem to have a problem with it either.</p>
<p>Also, in regards to a few previous posts, I don't think it is fair to say that California people are so overdramatic. This is the post of one person, one opinion. It certainly does not reflect the opinion of all Californians, only some.</p>
<p>
[quote]
one? in my book, this stuff should be happening at least 3 times/week. in my experience, strangers dont check eachother out while walking down the infinite. in LA, however, they do
[/quote]
</p>
<p>you should go into construction.</p>
<p>
[quote]
California people are so overdramatic.</p>
<p>I mean, seriously. It's weather. You can wear a heavy coat and take the Tech Shuttle and turn up your heater. What's the big deal?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Weather plays an undeniably huge role in people's moods/activities. Why do you think Stanford has one of the happiest student bodies, whereas schools like Harvard and MIT have some of the highest suicide rates?</p>
<p>Harvard and MIT don't have suicide rates higher than what you would expect for their student body composition.</p>
<p>I just think it's absurd to choose a school based on the weather. If you had to live in a tent for four years and go to school in a field, perhaps. But MIT does have buildings, and they are heated and air-conditioned.</p>
<p>
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Harvard and MIT don't have suicide rates higher than what you would expect for their student body composition.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I've heard the arguments before, about how the MIT student body population is 55% male (with a relative deficit of girls, I'd find myself more likely to kill myself too), about how MIT students are predominantly engineering-focused (at an institution that devotes itself to technology, you would think that the students there would be more comfortable with their engineering-related undertakings as opposed to students at other institutions not solely devoted to sciences/engineering). But the fact of the matter is, as indicated by various reputable sources, Stanford students just appear to be happier than students at academically comparable institutions on the east coast, like Harvard and MIT.</p>
<p>Are the academic pressures between schools like Stanford and Harvard and MIT really that different? Probably not. The only significant difference I see is, you called it, location.</p>
<p>
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I just think it's absurd to choose a school based on the weather. If you had to live in a tent for four years and go to school in a field, perhaps. But MIT does have buildings, and they are heated and air-conditioned.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's like saying it's absurd to choose a college based on its location. Because the college itself has its own buildings and stuff to do, the surroundings shouldn't matter at all.</p>
<p>How is it absurd? Because some people care and are aware of the environment they live in, and about how their community is affected by that environment and about how they themselves are (consciously or unconsciously) affected? Because pleasurable weather feels oh-so-nice and can make the difference between a good day and a bad one? You should visit Stanford some time. When I went to visit the campus (I live in Palo Alto), I could see groups of friends playing football or soccer in the plethora of green fields, or a group of freshman girls wrapped in towels, walking to the pool for an afternoon respite from work, or a couple cuddling together under the shade of an oak tree, or a trio of friends sunbathing on their dorm balcony. </p>
<p>I'm not exaggerating when I say this: sunlight is the first and foremost ingredient in creating a paradise.</p>
<p>Good weather is very conducive to community-building, conducive to physical health and, most importantly, conducive to your mood. It's just a much healthier lifestyle, actually going OUTSIDE and not staying cooped up in a hole all day. Coming from California and having to live with my brother in New York for two weeks in the winter was enough to make me go crazy. I had to rush from block to block with my head hidden in my coat, my limbs got numb as I sat sedentary in my hotel room for hours on end, and I began to develop the sneezes and an irritated, runny nose.</p>
<p>Make no mistake. Weather is everything.</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_%28Brave_New_World%29%5Dsoma%5B/url">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_%28Brave_New_World%29]soma[/url</a>] makes you happier too. Empirically, I rather prefer the kinds of people from places where the sun and snow come and go.</p>
<p>Good weather is the opiate of the masses</p>
<p>Oh. Yeah, you're right. Happiness is a bad thing.</p>
<p>Now excuse me while I go kill myself. Life is the opiate of the masses!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Oh. Yeah, you're right. Happiness is a bad thing.
[/quote]
Well soma is a bad thing (but this is a digression)</p>
<p>Good book, though.</p>
<p>I chose MIT because of the weather. I don't like warm weather all year, I like seasons. Call me crazy but I didn't mind the weird 40 degree temperature swing Boston had last week culminating in a vicious snowstorm, as a matter of fact I wandered across the bridge during the worst of the storm.</p>
<p>Now, I do NOT recommend this, but this is a distinct advantage to the weather at MIT. A couple of weeks ago the Charles River froze over, a couple of my friends know how to test ice to see if it's safe (it involves throwing a rock onto it, and then you can venture out and shine light on a crack to see how think it was), so we barbequed on the river, and skated back and forth a couple of times. Awesome experience.</p>
<p>Again, would not recommend it, probably one of my worse decisions of my life.</p>
<p>In regards to the girl/guy deficiency in regards to suicide - I find this just odd. 55% vs 45% is a big deal? That seems a bit ridiculous. Doesn't caltech have like 70/30 split and harvey mudd a 60/40? I've never heard of suicide issues at those schools</p>
<p>No, no. My goodness, no. I wasn't saying people kill themselves at MIT because of the ratio. I was simply bringing it up because some people claim that MIT's prevalence of males and the fact that teenage males are more likely to kill themselves than teenage females cause MIT's suicide rate to be so high.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I chose MIT because of the weather. I don't like warm weather all year, I like seasons. Call me crazy but I didn't mind the weird 40 degree temperature swing Boston had last week culminating in a vicious snowstorm, as a matter of fact I wandered across the bridge during the worst of the storm.</p>
<p>Now, I do NOT recommend this, but this is a distinct advantage to the weather at MIT. A couple of weeks ago the Charles River froze over, a couple of my friends know how to test ice to see if it's safe (it involves throwing a rock onto it, and then you can venture out and shine light on a crack to see how think it was), so we barbequed on the river, and skated back and forth a couple of times. Awesome experience.</p>
<p>Again, would not recommend it, probably one of my worse decisions of my life.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Far from a "distinct" advantage, especially if you don't recommend it.</p>
<p>And California weather isn't just warm all year. At all. It just has less severe and more tolerable fluctuations seasonally.</p>